While a fierce battle raged outside the capital of Anna Country, deep inside Liyang Country…
A hundred kilometres from the capital, in a place so remote only a few trees and brambles grew.
A hundred metres beneath a thorn thicket lay the newly-built base of the Monster Association.
Inside, researchers stared tensely at their screens.
The feed showed a huge vertical shaft. Chains of every metal pinned a two-metre-tall colossus: black-and-white armour sheathed its frame, two forward-curving obsidian horns rose from its brow, and three pairs of black-armoured wings jutted from its back.
Xie Gongming's compound eyes fixed on the creature, his antennae twitching.
A rapturous smile lit his face. "Next, we witness the birth of Blue Star's greatest man-made being!"
Beside him an assistant held a tablet; Dong Guangjie's face filled the screen.
Dong Guangjie grinned. "A Fifth-Level Awakener, Lü Zhengxing—let's see how strong the Monster we craft from his body can be."
This was the first step of their Monster-King Project. A Fifth-Level Awakener already stood at the planet's summit; remoulded as a Monster, they would mine an even more terrifying existence from his flesh.
Beaton stepped behind Xie Gongming. "Supervisor Xie, the new serum is ready, but shouldn't we wait for the President and the others? If this thing goes berserk no one here can stop it."
Before Xie could answer, Dong Guangjie spoke. "Dr. Beaton, relax. Ghost Buddha has already erased Lü Zhengxing's mind. We'll get nothing more than a lobotomised test subject—perfect experimental material, zero surprises."
"Begin," Xie Gongming ordered the room. "Weaver of Illusions genes, Blood Master flesh—let's see what Lü Zhengxing becomes once the tyranny potion takes hold."
A black robotic arm descended; a thick needle stabbed straight beneath the Monster's eye—the only spot soft enough.
Crimson serum pumped in, and Lü Zhengxing's body ballooned.
Crack—crack! The black-and-white armour split as a gory red mass exploded outward.
The hundred-metre shaft filled, then kept filling as the flesh surged higher.
"This—!" Xie Gongming's pupils shrank; nothing matched their projections.
They had expected larger, more fearsome—not a shapeless heap of meat.
Even Dong Guangjie's expression turned grave.
Only because the lab had been built for titan-class monsters—shaft one hundred metres across, five hundred deep—did the flesh not burst it at once.
Growth halted at the three-hundred-metre mark. Beaton stared at the crimson bulk packing the shaft. "No nutrient input, yet it swelled from two metres to this—my God, it's insane!"
Dong Guangjie, calmer now, said, "It's not nutrient-free. Lü Zhengxing was a Fifth-Level Awakener—his body held colossal energy. This size is explainable."
Suddenly a monitor leapt up. "Supervisor Xie, we're reading eleven distinct energy nodes inside the mass!"
Xie Gongming looked silently at Dong Guangjie's image on the screen.
After a moment Dong Guangjie said, "Prepare to cut the flesh open and extract whatever is reacting."
…Anna Country.
After burying Black Gold, Long Zhengqing turned and hurried toward Wan Tianhong.
He refused to believe a seventy-odd-centimetre Monster could shift boulders weighing dozens of tonnes.
BOOM! A thunderous crash behind him made Long Zhengqing skid to a halt, anger flickering across his face.
He spun round. The stones he'd piled over Black Gold now bore a huge hole, and streams of pitch-black, oil-like Black Gold poured out without end.
Long Zhengqing roared, "A trash Monster that only splits apart should stay buried—stop dancing in front of this bureau chief!"
Hearing this, the swarm of Black Golds turned icy. "Oh? Who are you calling trash?"
Clack-clack-clack! They strode toward him, every face scowling.
Long Zhengqing sneered, slapped the ground with one hand. "A million pieces of trash are still trash—let me show you real strength."
Rumble! The earth quaked; trees and soil for kilometres shook.
Under his control vast rivers of soil soared skyward, condensing into a titanic stone sphere a hundred metres across.
The sphere hung above the Black Gold swarm, blotting out the sun.
"Be buried forever!" Long Zhengqing swung his arm, hurling the sphere to smash Black Gold flat.
BOOM!!!
The colossal ball plummeted, the air screaming around it.
Black Gold looked up, confidence flashing across his face. "I'll show you what strength really is!"
Buzz! A hundred thousand scattered Black Golds answered a silent call, streaking toward the foremost body.
"Haha, kill him!"
"I'm the strongest!"
"Showing off? I'll crush you!"
The swarm jeered as they merged into the leader; in seconds the figure swelled to three metres, every muscle corded, pale faces bulging across the skin.
Each separate Black Gold had been no stronger than a Level Two Awakener; now, ten thousand fused into one, and a cocky grin split his face.
WHOOSH!
The hundred-metre sphere loomed overhead. Black Gold's knotted fists blurred, slamming upward in a storm of black after-images.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM! Impact after impact rang out; the falling megalith froze mid-air. Every punch tore a seven-metre crater into the stone, rubble spraying like shrapnel.
Under Long Zhengqing's disbelieving gaze cracks webbed across the sphere, racing from base to summit.
BANG! The stone could take no more; it detonated, huge blocks arcing skyward before raining down amid clouds of dust.
THOOM—THOOM—THOOM!
Impacts shook the ground; the earth shuddered beneath each fallen chunk.
From the dust at the centre a towering black figure strode out.
Black Gold grinned. "Seems a bureau chief is nothing special—just throwing rocks. Today your Uncle Black Gold will teach you manners."
Long Zhengqing's face darkened. "Split, your clones stay weak; fused, your power skyrockets. Even Awakeneds obey conservation—energy to attack, exhaustion to collapse. How does a freak like you grow strong from nowhere?"
Black Gold stalked forward, head high, pride shining. "Because everything is possible through me—something a useless man could never grasp."
The insult detonated Long Zhengqing's rage. "I'm the chief of Xuanjian Division! A half-human horror dares mock me—die!"
A strange ripple surged through him; the ground beneath flowed like liquid.
Long Zhengqing melted into the earth and vanished before Black Gold's eyes.