Chapter 1330: Chaos Itself  

As thousands of black serpents attempted to devour Azathoth, he struggled and squirmed, crushing one serpent after another. However, the serpents could regenerate endlessly from genetic energy.

Azathoth had no access to a wide-ranged attack, and he ultimately perished after suffering from the corrosion of thousands of serpents that had attached themselves to it.

Zhang Lie sheathed his blade as Bu Wentian clapped once more. He looked toward Zhang Lie with glowing light. "Of the six challengers who have passed the sixth trial, I consider you the strongest."

"Thank you."

Zhang Lie turned to Bu Wentian.

When he saw Zhang Lie looking straight at him wordlessly, Bu Wentian asked, "Shall we continue?

Do you want to rest?"

Zhang Lie asked, "Do you remember what you said at the start of the battle?"

"Ah, yes. Azathoth's very interesting wish: to be able to be remade. Yes, you heard me correctly—to be remade."

"Is he related to the king of chaos?"

"I don't know who this king of chaos you refer to is, but you don't seem surprised at all. You've seen how strong Azathoth is; the fact that he could make it through Radiant Sun's ultimate attack is proof of that. Of course, he's a far cry from the present you or the past me, but his accomplishments are ones that could not have been accomplished without overwhelming effort."

Azathoth had chosen to give up on it all and start again from scratch—just how much would he have to suffer in order to do so? It was like getting accepted into a top college, and then having to start high school over!

Zhang Lie didn't seem at all interested. "He had to have his own reasons. Perhaps he felt that he was no longer able to advance, so he chose to restart."

Bu Wentian waved a finger at him. "Well, you've got that part wrong. He didn't do so willingly; he was forced."

"Someone forced him to reincarnate?"

"When I met Azathoth, he was being chased. Perhaps he did it in order to avoid his pursuers."

"Is that so? Did you fulfill his wish?"

"Of course. I had found a pill of nascent chaos along my travels, which would transform a cultivator's physical form into chaotic energy. Forming an infant out of that mess of primordial chaos would satisfy his wish and augment his talent and potential, increasing his limits."

Zhang Lie honed in on the details. "Hold on, what does this pill of nascent chaos have to do with the king of chaos?"

"As I said, I don't know of this king of chaos."

"He was a superior king I saw in the third realm—well, perhaps not a superior king. A strong entity whose entire body was covered in a fog of chaos."

"Tell me more."

Zhang Lie described the king of chaos to Bu Wentian, causing him to clap. "There's no need to guess. It has to be Azathoth."

"How can you be so certain?"

"He asked for the pill of nascent chaos after finishing the first three trials. On finishing the sixth trial, he asked for a stable environment for growth. I gave him a flying ship that would be able to transport him from the fourth realm back into the third, expecting him to do so to free himself from his enemies' pursuit."

Many of Zhang Lie's questions were resolved at this point. Azathoth wasn't the king of chaos' father—he was the king of chaos himself!

Zhang Lie had been very curious just why the king of chaos wanted to forcibly bring the entire halls of chaos into the fourth realm. With his current strength, it would be trivial for him to ascend alone.

Ordinary lifeforms from the dimensional world would, after their ascension, be weakened temporarily as they felt the weight of the natural laws of the fourth realm, but the king of chaos was decidedly abnormal.

His strength was equivalent to Zhang Lie's strength when he had maxed out all his peak gene fragments, and he had evolved to become a peak-grade lifeform. He would be able to do whatever he wanted in the fourth realm.

Zhang Lie had initially guessed that the king of chaos was trying to bring his retinue up to the fourth realm with him because he didn't want to search for talents from scratch there, but now, it seemed that that wasn't the case. The king of chaos had done so in order to confront his enemies.

When the king of chaos was still Azathoth, he had managed to survive against Radiant Sun's assault. The only entities in the fourth realm that would be able to go against Azathoth had to be from the two largest organizations of the fourth realm—in other words, Azathoth was bitter rivals with at least one of the organizations. The king of chaos had ascended with the entirety of the halls of chaos in tow in order to combat them.

Essentially all the lifeforms in the fourth realm were aware of how frightening the two largest organizations were, and they would never assist the king of chaos with his impossible goal. In order to challenge the two organizations, not only had the king of chaos suppressed his strength in the third realm to delay his ascension as he accumulated more and more power, he had also tried to identify as many talents as he could in order to resist the two major organizations of the fourth realm after ascending.

His return to the third realm from the fourth was exactly when the former will of the third realm had shattered. The king of chaos had steadily been growing stronger since.

Zhang Lie said, "Although I am shocked by that information, that's not what I'm looking for."

"What is it that you want, then?" Bu Wentian asked curiously.

"The letter."

Bu Wentian blinked. "Ah, I had almost forgotten! I'll do it once you defeat the two remaining challengers on the stone tablet. It won't be too late then." magic

Zhang Lie frowned. "That's not what you promised."

As long as Zhang Lie obtained a golden chest, Bu Wentian would hand him the letter his parents had left him.

"I said that I'd do so as soon as you obtained a golden chest, but you haven't obtained a single chest yet, have you?"

"I've already defeated three of the eidola."

Bu Wentian shrugged. "Don't worry, I'll hand you the letter, along with the other rewards, once you defeat the remaining two eidola."

"You won't back out of your promise, will you?"

Bu Wentian grumbled, "Why would I? What good does the letter do me in my possession?"

"Let's hurry up, then. I'd like to read the letter as soon as possible."

"You aren't going to rest?" Bu Wentian asked.

"The first three eidola weren't difficult to deal with, and I still have plenty of stamina. Let's continue."

On the stone tablet, his mother's name lit up. A pillar of light shone on stage, and a glowing projection of his mother appeared.

She was a beautiful woman, as exquisite as the snow, as eye-catching as a gemstone. It was impossible to tell that she was a mother of two.

Upon seeing his mother appear on stage, Zhang Lie couldn't help but tear up. He hadn't seen his parents for over a decade, and he couldn't help but be moved upon seeing his mother once more.

His mother channeled bitter cold. Cold air froze everything around her. A layer of frost covered the ground, and snow began to drift down from the heavens. Frost surged forward like the tide.

A frosty wind drifted toward him, with flecks of snow like icy blades.

Zhang Lie was no longer a child that would let his emotions control him. He reined in his emotions and mentally prepared himself for the upcoming fight.

"[Ninecarp Transformation: Golden Tiger]!" f(r)ee

The image of a golden tiger appeared behind Zhang Lie's back, and its roar echoed through the air. A golden aura suffused Zhang Lie. A mountain of blades rested atop the tiger's back, and Zhang Lie's body itself underwent a transformation. His hair turned silvery-white, until they became akin to silver needles.

His genetic energy likewise became more honed. Silvery-white genetic energy gathered over his body, and tigers' stripes appeared on his arms. His eyes became those of a tiger's, and steely sharpness erupted from every pore.

The image of the golden tiger behind him roared as his water-attuned genetic energy transformed into gold-attuned energy. The energy thrummed and rippled, hard as steel. As the tiger roared, the chilly air was repulsed. The frost on the ground shattered, and icy shards filled the air.

What lay before him was nothing more than a remnant. He needed to defeat that remnant in order to obtain the letter his parents had left him.

He breathed in, then breathed out. His heart turned harder than steel.

He flicked his wrists, causing a frightening aura to descend on the world. The skies began to darken, and a fish the size of a whale materialized in the air.

"[Fists of the Silent Sea: Fade]!"

He summoned sharp white crystals that pierced through the blizzard.

Han Lingxin leapt forward, dodging the crystals. Her body floated in the air as over a hundred needles of ice shot toward him like rain. "[Fists of the Silent Sea: Fade]!"

A crystal wall appeared behind Zhang Lie, reflecting light in five colors, so dazzling it dazed any who looked at it, so beautiful it sparked their desire.

As Zhang Lie manipulated space, that crystalline genetic energy shot out of the wall behind him in the form of sharp daggers, in a rain of crystals that were able to penetrate anything thanks to Zhang Lie's mastery of space.

The daggers tore through space in a storm of silver.

The silver daggers struck the needles and overwhelmed them. However, icy flowers suddenly formed out of nowhere, each a deadly weapon. Within moments, the tides of battle changed again. The silver daggers struck down the needles of frost, only to be struck down by the icy flowers in turn.

Han Lingxin stood at the center of the icy flowers, beautiful and impeccably graceful.

"[Fists of the Silent Sea: Hundred Dragons Soaring]!"

Zhang Lie condensed his genetic energy. Sharp white crystals floated around his body. He cocked his fist, causing dozens of crystalline dragons to form behind his back.

The next moment, they shot out through his fists.

Hundreds of crystal dragons criss-crossed through the air, beautiful and dazzling, radiating multicolored light. The snowflakes struck the crystal dragons with metallic clinks, like bullets striking titanium, to no avail. Even the sharp snowflakes could leave no trace or mark behind on the dragons' bodies.

Han Lingxin transformed the frosty air around her into a hundred giant frost dragons.

They surged forth like the tide, intense and domineering, swallowing up Zhang Lie's crystal dragons.

As Zhang Lie activated his blood ant and dragonwolf soulshards, he transformed into a dragonwolf with russet fur and limbs covered with dragons' scales. His aura became magnified as a hurricane of blood spawned around him. The ice on the ground melted as the temperature rose again.

With his bloody claws, he swiped at the snowscape before him, tearing apart the snow and the heavens.

Han Lingxin's eyes flared with flames of ice. Cold air continuously emanated from her body as her eyes turned into orbs of ice. A tide of ice preceded her. Flowers of ice manifested underneath her feet, spreading out from her as she walked.

Time and karma froze at this moment as everything turned pale white. Fleet covered everything, even Zhang Lie himself.

Compared to Fang Yi, Han Lingxin's mastery over time was clearly superior. Fang Yi only locked time superficially, but Han Lingxin froze it completely. Put simply, what Fang Yi did was akin to locking a box, whereas Han Lingxin did the equivalent of putting it in a safe.

She stepped forward slowly across the frozen land, right up to Zhang Lie. She didn't notice that Zhang Lie's body was vibrating, that his palm had begun to crack.

Han Lingxin pressed her fingers against his forehead and was right about to pierce through it when the frost on Zhang Lie's palm suddenly shattered. Guicang appeared in his hand. With a slash of his sword, Han Lingxin's figure was cut apart at the waist, unsealing the world of frozen time in a shower of icy shards.

Zhang Lie panted as he escaped from the frozen time. The battle hadn't consumed a significant portion of his resources and strength, but it was truly perilous.

If not for the fact that Zhang Lie had some small accomplishment of his own with respect to time, the eidolon of his mother might have killed him for good.

"As expected of Mother..."

The eidola possessed about 30% of their original selves' combat power. Han Lingxin wasn't much stronger than the other three combatants when it came to raw strength, but her understanding of time and ice was immense. Her understanding was essentially on par with his own, and he had almost fallen prey to her.

Zhang Lie was very happy to have been able to exchange blows with his mother.

Seeing how strong she was, he believed that his parents were very unlikely to have been in mortal danger.

Bu Wentian commented, "This couple's understanding and analysis of time is beyond anyone I've seen before. They were the two most impressive among the challengers that passed the sixth trial, as well as the writers of the letter you seek. Will you continue?"

"Of course. I don't want to waste any more time."

Victory was right within sight!

"Her husband is stronger than she is. The only reason he lost to her during this trial is because she countered him completely. If I were to rate them all, Bast would be a one-star challenger, Aforgomon two-star, Azathoth 2.5-star, Han Lingxin 3.5-star, and Zhang Yangyan unabashedly 5-star."

Bu Wentian clearly rated his father very highly.

Zhang Lie sucked in a deep breath to calm himself. "I'm ready. Let's start."

Bu Wentian nodded. "We begin now."

On the stone tablet, Zhang Lie's father's name lit up. Zhang Yangyan's name shone as fiercely as fire, glowing incandescent like the sun. As a pillar of light beamed on stage, the glowing projection of his father appeared.