"What in the sam hell kind of ability is this?"
Feeling the surging vitality once again flowing through his body and that unbreakable golden shield, Steve's lips curved into a wild grin.
"Now it's my turn."
Boom.
The twin wings on his back flared, and Steve shot forward like a streak of gold-green light, crossing a hundred meters in an instant to appear right in front of Zeus.
Ice re-condensed around his right fist, now backed by Tier-4 monstrous strength, and he smashed it down.
"Motherfucker."
Zeus, after all, was a fifth-tier powerhouse; after a brief shock he reacted instantly.
Disdaining to tangle with this brute monster, he turned into a bolt of lightning and shot skyward.
"Want to fight in the air? I'll play with you little man."
Steve's wings beat furiously, his huge form hot on the pursuit.
One after the other, the two of them plunged into the sky a kilometer above the ground.
"Domain expansion : Thunderstorm Domain!"
Zeus halted in mid-air, no longer hiding his full power.
He spread his arms, and for several kilometers the lightning elements went berserk.
Rumble—!
Countless thick purple bolts interwove in the sky, forming an airtight storm of lightning that turned the airspace into a forbidden zone of life.
"Below fifth tier, touch it and die."
Zeus stared coldly at Steve as he charged upward, as though looking at a corpse.
Yet, faced with this world-destroying tempest of thunder, Steve didn't slow in the least—he actually accelerated and crashed straight in!
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Terrifying lightning slammed into Steve's body.
Any ordinary fourth-tier creature would already have been charred to coke.
But—
Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!
Behind him, crisp shattering sounds exploded like firecrackers.
The Totems of Undying in his backpack were bursting at an astonishing rate.
Each time a bolt was about to obliterate his flesh, a totem took the fatal blow, granting him new life and a fresh shield.
Under Zeus' shocked gaze—that green monster, with the sky-filling lightning, saw the golden light on his body not fade but blaze ever brighter as the totems kept detonating.
Step by step he advanced, completely unscathed beneath a fifth-tier powerhouse's onslaught.
"Impossible!"
Zeus' composure began to crack.
In the instant he lost focus, Steve had already burst through the lightning storm and arrived right in front of him.
"Nothing is impossible."
Steve's massive fist, wrapped in ice and golden light, ballooned in Zeus' pupils!
"Get down!"
All Zeus could do was hastily gather all his fifth-tier lightning power and punch back.
Dong—!
The two fists collided high in the sky.
Space itself seemed to freeze for a moment.
Then a ring of terrifying shockwaves swept the sky, scattering every cloud.
The clash ended in stalemate—neither side could harm the other.
Fourth-tier strength could not injure fifth-tier Zeus.
Yet Zeus' fifth-tier lightning, enough to insta-kill any fourth-tier, likewise could not touch Steve, who possessed the Totem of Undying.
Crack!
Another totem burst behind Steve, and the golden light reforged his body once more.
Steve looked at Zeus, now barely a meter away with a ghost-seen expression, and grinned.
High above, lightning filled the sky like a prison.
Watching Steve die and revive again and again amid the endless bolts, completely unharmed, even the fifth-tier Zeus couldn't stop the twitch at the corner of his eye.
"What exactly is your ability?"
Shock colored Zeus' voice.
"A way to perfectly block a fatal strike and instantly restore your condition—what kind of monster are you? How many times can you still use that trick?"
Facing the interrogation, the Super zombie controlled by Steve hovered mid-air; on its ferocious face the corners of its mouth lifted in a teasing, mysterious smile.
"How many times?"
He slowly raised a finger and wagged it.
"Countless."
"As long as I wish, you can never kill me."
"Heh, countless?"
Zeus laughed in fury; the dread in his eyes turned into deeper killing intent.
"I don't believe there's a truly immortal monster in this world—your resurrections must carry a huge price."
"Since you won't say, let's test it; I want to see how many more you can endure inside my Thunder Prison!"
Rumble—!
The moment the words left his mouth, Zeus rocketed backward, instantly widening the distance.
He flung his arms wide; the already violent lightning condensed into a gigantic, airtight Thunderstorm Domain.
It sealed off several kilometers of sky, countless purple serpents of lightning writhing within, ready to grind any intruder to dust.
Yet Steve showed no intention of charging in to fight head-on again.
"About time." he thought.
His solo sortie had more than accomplished its goals.
Not only had he gathered live combat data on the Super zombie, verified the use of ice abilities, he'd also bought enough time for the data-theft squad to finish their mission.
A true death-match was not for now.
As a Commander, he preferred to stand on high, directing endless tides of zombies to steamroll everything with overwhelming numbers and quality.
Right now the priority was to bring everything back and wait for the arrival of the Tier 4 zombie army.
"Then—here's a parting gift."
Steve sent the body plummeting to the ground.
He slowly lifted his right hand; in his palm the black energy wave that belonged to a Tier 4 zombie began to gather wildly.
But this time it was different.
As Steve's will poured in, threads of extreme white frost spilled from his palm.
They instantly coiled around the black energy.
The originally pitch-black wave was now sheathed in crystal-clear ice, radiating heart-freezing chill.
Boom!
A terrifying beam of dark-green and ice-blue shot straight toward Zeus in mid-air.
"Petty trick."
Zeus snorted, not even bothering to dodge; with a casual wave he erected a wall of lightning that easily blocked the seemingly fierce attack.
Yet when the smoke cleared, his pupils suddenly contracted.
The green monster that had stood there was now a kilometer away, in front of the motionless Enderman.
The Enderman had already hefted the Teleport-Summoning Device onto its shoulder, while the Bat that had stolen the confidential data perched steadily atop the Enderman's head.
Steve's huge hand reached out, grabbing both Enderman and device in one grip; then he turned, looked up at Zeus in the sky, and waved his other hand in farewell.
"Goodbye, Zeus."
"Till we meet again—next time, don't be too surprised."