Before the battle with the Black Viscount, Zhang Wen’s combat energy had only recovered to about 30-40% of its full capacity. Just now, in order to evade the sudden burst of psychic energy from the Black Viscount’s body, Zhang Wen used the “Ghost Step” multiple times, which consumed a significant portion of the combat energy he had painstakingly stored.
“Exactly!” The Black Viscount slowly floated up from the crater, rising to the same height as Zhang Wen. “No matter how cunning the Ruby Serpent is, they would never have expected me to carry such a weapon that could turn the tide of battle. To be honest, this ancient reagent I found wasn’t originally meant for you; it was intended for another purpose. But, as they say, it’s just your bad luck. Andre Stan, you almost won.”
The Black Viscount smiled, using his fingers to indicate a minuscule distance.
“Hey! If you had such a powerful secret weapon on you, why didn’t you use it earlier with Hector and the others to deal with me? If you had used the ancient reagent back then, combined with the six Saint-level experts, I wouldn’t have had a chance to escape.”
“Haha! You truly are the man who once dominated the Southern Realm, speaking with such confidence! The ancient reagent isn’t like crops in a field, ready to be harvested at will. If Hector and the others could have solved the problem, why would I waste a bottle of ancient reagent? As for now, even without Hector and the others, what difference would it make?” The Black Viscount laughed, then suddenly added with curiosity, “But I am quite curious, how did you manage to find me?”
The effects of the Zero Ancient Reagent could last for three to four days, so the Black Viscount wasn’t in a hurry to finish Zhang Wen. In the face of super-tier power, without a force of the same level to counter it, any strategy would be rendered useless.
“Hey! It was just a coincidence,” Zhang Wen replied, happy to keep the Black Viscount talking. He was fully utilizing the Spring Water Technique to recover his depleted combat energy. Every second he could delay increased his chances of escape. So, Zhang Wen deliberately feigned extreme weakness, slowly explaining to the Black Viscount.
“During my first reconnaissance mission at the Kemal Arena, I ran into your associate, Mr. Sandro. At the time, he was quite unfriendly towards me, and there was a bounty fighter with him who didn’t seem like an ordinary gang enforcer. Out of curiosity, I left a mark on him. Little did I know, Mr. Sandro turned out to be the liaison between the TK Group and you.”
“Oh! Haha! What a coincidence! Andre, if you hadn’t pursued me this time, I might not have been willing to waste that priceless Zero Reagent. I guess it’s just fate. When the heavens decree your death, you have no choice but to accept it!” The Black Viscount laughed heartily, and when he turned his gaze back to Zhang Wen, his eyes were filled with a menacing killing intent.
“Is that so?” Zhang Wen suddenly curled his lips and uttered two words. Then, he leisurely sheathed his sword, his body crouching slightly like a leopard ready to pounce.
“Unfortunately, my principle has always been: my fate is in my hands, not the heavens!”
As Zhang Wen shouted, “My fate is in my hands, not the heavens!” the Black Viscount, with a cold expression, unleashed two full-powered psychic energy blasts towards Zhang Wen. Two red energy spheres, each the size of a basketball, screeched through the air, attacking Zhang Wen from both sides. However, when the two destructive energy blasts reached Zhang Wen’s location, they only hit an afterimage.
Boom!
The spot where the two red energy spheres struck immediately erupted into a dazzling red glow, blasting two massive holes, each over ten meters in diameter, in the steel structure of the building.
Soon, the towering steel structure, over a thousand meters high, could no longer bear the weight of its hollowed center. With a series of agonizing creaks, it collapsed with a thunderous crash.
As for Zhang Wen, who had been attacked by the Black Viscount, he had already activated his Ghost Step to its fullest, darting like a phantom towards the southern part of Babylon City.
“Haha!” The Black Viscount glanced indifferently in the direction Zhang Wen had fled, then transformed into a red lightning bolt, pursuing Zhang Wen with all his might.
If the Black Viscount’s attack on the Kemal Arena had only caused a commotion in a few of Babylon City’s busiest streets, the collapse of the Empire Building this time plunged the entire city into chaos.
The citizens of Babylon City first stared in shock as a red beam of light shot into the sky, a clear sign of a super-tier powerhouse’s arrival. Then, to their horror, they saw the Empire Building, a symbol of Babylon City’s thousand-year glory, sway a few times before collapsing with a deafening crash.
“Ah!” After a brief moment of shock, almost everyone who witnessed the scene screamed in terror.
If this rampaging super-tier powerhouse didn’t even spare the Empire Building, which represented Babylon City, or the arena that symbolized the strongest force on Fira Planet, where in Babylon City could be safe?
Of course, the greatest chaos still occurred on Linwei Street, the closest to the battle between Zhang Wen and the Black Viscount. Once the second busiest street in Babylon City, it was now filled with panicked, screaming crowds.
However, outside a hotel at 137 Linwei Street, two women stood out from the rest.
After losing track of Zhang Wen, Leka and Vicky had searched every street near the TK Group headquarters but found no trace of him. Frustrated, Leka decided to return to the hotel with Vicky to wait for Zhang Wen.
Not long after they settled in the hotel, they saw the red beam of light shooting into the sky not far from their window.
“Damn it, what just happened?” Leka stepped out of the hotel and grabbed a fleeing man by the collar.
“Run! It’s a super-tier powerhouse! They just destroyed the Empire Building! This place is next!” The man cried out in terror.
“Shut up! Did you see what the fighters looked like?” Leka threw the man to the ground, stepping on his head as she asked again.
“N-no!” The man wept even more, realizing he hadn’t escaped the terror of a super-tier battle only to fall into the hands of such a terrifying woman.
“Get lost!” Leka frowned in disgust, kicking the man aside. She had no interest in killing such a coward.
“That psychic energy felt a lot like the Black Viscount,” Vicky whispered in Leka’s ear.
“Yeah, I thought so too. But why would he suddenly use super-tier power? Who could possibly force him to reveal his trump card?” Leka frowned, her gaze piercing through the hotel, looking far to the south.
“Let’s go see for ourselves,” Vicky smiled slyly, a rare expression on her face.
“Right. Let’s go see. Haha!” Leka laughed heartily after a moment of contemplation.
Zhang Wen had no idea how much turmoil his battle with the Black Viscount had caused in Babylon City. He had no time to think about the aftermath. With a super-tier powerhouse in hot pursuit, the only thing on his mind was how to save his own life.
Zhang Wen’s Ghost Step was indeed astonishingly fast. In terms of pure speed, he might even rival an ordinary super-tier powerhouse. However, the complex street layout of Babylon City severely limited his speed, while the Black Viscount, flying in the air, was unaffected by the surrounding buildings.
“Damn it! Today is just not my day!” Feeling the Black Viscount’s presence closing in again, Zhang Wen cursed, using the edge of a building to propel himself sideways into an alley between two skyscrapers.
The Black Viscount’s psychic energy blast once again struck the steel building, creating a gaping hole as if a monster had taken a bite out of it.
In fact, Zhang Wen had been relying on these ubiquitous alleys in Babylon City to keep the Black Viscount at bay. Unfortunately, as he moved away from the city center, the network of alleys became sparser. The further south he went, the fewer gaps between buildings he could use.
Moreover, a closer look would reveal that Zhang Wen’s combat suit was already torn in several places, each tear representing a bleeding wound. The most severe was on his back, a slash that ran diagonally from his right shoulder to his left rib.
This injury was the result of a piece of flying glass that had grazed his back while he was dodging one of the Black Viscount’s attacks.
“Andre, how long are you going to keep running? What good does it do you to prolong your suffering like this?” The Black Viscount, closing the distance again, shouted at Zhang Wen.
“Hey!” Zhang Wen’s lips curled slightly as he continued to dart between the skyscrapers of Babylon City.
“Fine! If you want to keep playing cat and mouse, I don’t mind continuing the game.” The Black Viscount hadn’t expected his words to shake Zhang Wen’s resolve. Seeing Zhang Wen’s movements, he adjusted his direction and launched another psychic energy blast.
Zhang Wen nimbly leaped to the right, dodging the attack. Then, he looked up, his smile widening. After a full thirty minutes of relentless pursuit, he finally saw the fenced-off, heavily guarded restricted zone he had been waiting for.
“Military Restricted Zone, No Entry!”
Huge metal signs on both sides of the barbed wire fence bore the same bright red letters. In the center of the fence, a massive death symbol was painted on the gate.
The Black Viscount quickly noticed the military restricted zone ahead but paid it no mind.
Unlike Casaris, a planet on the empire’s frontier, Fira Planet was located in the heart of the empire’s southern territory, a planet that had been under imperial control for over a thousand years.
In such a core region of the empire, there was no need for a strong military presence. Thus, the strongest member of Babylon City’s imperial garrison, Captain Ryan, was only a tenth-tier powerhouse. In a battle between the Black Viscount and Zhang Wen, they would be of little more use than Sandro.
Bang!
Zhang Wen charged towards the military restricted zone gate marked with the death symbol, ignoring the angry shouts of the imperial garrison soldiers on either side. With a powerful swing of his sword, he blasted a hole in the gate just large enough for him to pass through. Without hesitation, he slipped through the gap.
“Bastard! Do you know where you are? This is the empire’s military restricted zone! You dare cause trouble here? Do you have a death wish?” A thin garrison soldier, under orders from his superior, shouted with false bravado.
Shortly after Zhang Wen passed through the gate, the Black Viscount caught up. Hearing the soldiers’ clamor, he didn’t even consider flying over. Instead, he casually launched a psychic energy blast the size of four basketballs. With a deafening explosion, the entire gate, along with most of the barbed wire fence, was sent flying into the air like a toy.
“I… I… damn it…” Several terrified garrison soldiers were knocked down by the blast, watching as the heavy metal gate soared into the sky, spun a few times, and crashed back to the ground.
In the blink of an eye, Zhang Wen and the Black Viscount had broken through the entrance of the military restricted zone and reached its core. The frightened garrison soldiers finally snapped out of their daze, scrambling to sound the alarm.
As the piercing sirens wailed, countless searchlights lit up, illuminating the entire restricted zone as if it were daytime.
At that moment, Zhang Wen suddenly stopped.
“What? Have you come to your senses and decided to stop running?” The Black Viscount smiled, landing on a water tower-like structure about ten meters away from Zhang Wen.
“Haha… Yeah, I’ve decided to stop running,” Zhang Wen turned around slowly, returning the Black Viscount’s smile.
“That’s right!” Viscount Black’s body slowly floated up from the crater, rising until he hovered at the same height as Zhang Wen. “No matter how clever the Red Diamond Serpent is, he couldn’t possibly have anticipated that I would carry something capable of turning the tide like this, could he? To be honest, this ancient reagent I discovered wasn’t originally meant for dealing with you—it was for another purpose entirely. But, well, I guess it’s just your bad luck. Andrei Stein, you nearly won.”
Viscount Black smiled, using his fingers to indicate a tiny distance.
“Hey! If you had such a handy secret weapon on you, why didn’t you use it earlier in coordination with Hector and the others? If you had used the ancient reagent back then, along with Hector and the other five Saint-level experts, there wouldn’t have been any way for me to escape.”
“Heh! Not bad for a man who once dominated the Southern Border—your bravado is impressive! But ancient reagents aren’t like crops you can just harvest at will. If Hector and his group could have handled things, why would I waste one of these priceless vials? And now, even without Hector and the others, does it really make any difference in the outcome?” Viscount Black chuckled, then added curiously, “But I must admit, I’m quite curious—how exactly did you find me?”
The effects of Zero Formula ancient reagent could last for several days, so Viscount Black wasn’t in any hurry to finish Zhang Wen off. Against the might of an Overlord-level power, no amount of cunning or strategy could make a difference.
“Hey! That was just a coincidence,” Zhang Wen naturally welcomed the chance to chat with Viscount Black a bit longer. He was already fully activating his Spring Water Formula, desperately trying to recover his depleted combat energy. The more time he could buy, the better his chances of escape. Thus, Zhang Wen deliberately feigned weakness, slowly explaining to Viscount Black while appearing visibly exhausted.
“When I first went to Kemer Arena for reconnaissance, I encountered your associate, Mr. Sandor. At the time, he treated me quite rudely, and there was also a bounty fighter with him who didn’t seem like an ordinary gang thug. Out of curiosity, I left a small mark on him. I never expected that Sandor would actually be the liaison between TK Group and you.”
“Oh! Haha! What a coincidence! Andrei, if you hadn’t come chasing after me this time, I might not have even bothered to waste this priceless vial of Zero Formula. It’s just fate’s will. Heaven has decreed your death—you’ll just have to accept it!”
Viscount Black laughed heartily, then, as he turned his gaze back to Zhang Wen, his eyes were already brimming with killing intent.
“Is that so?” Zhang Wen suddenly quirked his lips, uttering just two words. Then, with deliberate calm, he sheathed his sword, while his body coiled like a hunting cheetah ready to spring.
“Unfortunately, I’ve always believed in one principle—my fate is mine to command, not dictated by heaven!”
As Zhang Wen shouted those words—“My fate is mine to command, not dictated by heaven!”—Viscount Black had already unleashed two full-powered mental energy blasts with a cold expression. Two red orbs nearly the size of basketballs screamed through the air, attacking Zhang Wen from both sides. However, when those two destructive energy blasts reached where Zhang Wen had been, they struck only an empty illusion.
Boom!
Where the two red orbs struck, brilliant red mental energy erupted, creating two massive holes over ten meters in diameter in the steel-reinforced building’s center.
Soon, the towering structure—over a thousand meters high—could no longer bear the weight of its hollowed-out center. With a mournful groan of twisting metal, it collapsed in a thunderous crash.
As for Zhang Wen, who had been the target of Viscount Black’s assault, he had already activated his Ghost Steps at full power, darting like a ghost toward the southern part of Babylon City.
“Heh!” Viscount Black glanced indifferently in the direction Zhang Wen had fled, then his body transformed into a red lightning bolt, chasing after him with full force.
If Viscount Black’s earlier attack on Kemer Arena had only caused disturbances in a few of Babylon’s busiest streets, then the collapse of the Empire Tower this time plunged the entire city into chaos.
The citizens of Babylon first stared in shock as a crimson pillar of light shot into the sky. That red pillar was clearly a sign of an Overlord’s descent. Then, even more terrified, they watched as the Empire Tower, the iconic structure representing a thousand years of Babylon’s glory, suddenly wobbled and collapsed with a mighty crash beside that red pillar.
“Ahhh!” After a brief moment of stunned silence, every citizen who witnessed the scene simultaneously screamed in terror.
If the violent Overlord had shown no regard for the Empire Tower, the symbol of Babylon, or the Kemer Arena, representing the strongest power on the planet Filara, then where in Babylon could possibly be safe?
Of course, the greatest chaos still erupted on Linwei Street, the second-busiest street in Babylon, located closest to the battle between Zhang Wen and Viscount Black. On this once-thriving street, all that remained now were crowds of panicked, screaming people.
However, standing outside a small inn at number 137 Linwei Street were two women who remained completely calm amidst the panic.
After losing track of Zhang Wen, Leika had taken Vicky and scoured every street near TK Group’s headquarters, but in the end, she hadn’t even caught a glimpse of him. Furious, Leika had decided to return to the inn to wait like a hunter lying in ambush.
As it turned out, Leika and Vicky hadn’t waited long in the inn before both saw a towering red pillar of light rising in the distance.
“Damn it! What the hell just happened?” Leika stormed out of the inn, grabbing a fleeing man by the collar.
“Run… run! It’s an Overlord! The Empire Tower was just blown apart! It’ll be our turn next!”
“Tch! Who cares about that? Did you see what the fighters looked like?” Leika threw the man to the ground and stepped on his head, asking again.
“I… I didn’t!” The man sobbed, tears and snot streaming down his face. He never imagined that just when he thought he had escaped a terrifying battle involving an Overlord, he would fall into the hands of such a terrifying woman.
“Scram!” Leika wrinkled her nose in disgust, impatiently kicking the man aside. She couldn’t even be bothered to kill someone so pathetic.
“That mental energy just now felt a lot like Viscount Black’s,” Vicky whispered softly into Leika’s ear.
“Mm. I felt the same. But I don’t quite understand why he suddenly used Overlord-level power. Who could it be that forced Black to reveal his final trump card?” Leika frowned, gazing into the distance behind them, her eyes seemingly piercing through the inn toward the south.
“Let’s go check it out,” Vicky said with a faint, rare mischievous glint in her eyes.
“Right! Let’s go check it out. Haha!” Leika thought for a moment, then suddenly burst into laughter.
Zhang Wen had no idea how much chaos his battle with Viscount Black had caused in Babylon. He also had no time to consider the aftermath. With an Overlord-level pursuer hot on his trail, the only thing on his mind was how to survive.
Zhang Wen’s Ghost Steps were indeed incredibly fast. If judged purely by speed and agility, Zhang Wen might even rival an ordinary Overlord. However, the complex urban layout of Babylon severely limited his movement. Meanwhile, Viscount Black, flying through the air in pursuit, was completely unaffected by the surrounding buildings.
“Tch! What a day to be this unlucky!” Feeling Viscount Black’s presence closing in once again, Zhang Wen spat angrily. Using the edge of a building to push off, he twisted his body sideways, darting into a narrow alley between two towers.
Viscount Black’s mental energy blast struck the steel tower once more, carving out a massive chunk near its center, like a monstrous bite.
In fact, it was precisely these narrow alleys, so common in Babylon, that had allowed Zhang Wen to evade Viscount Black for so long. Unfortunately, as he left the city center, Zhang Wen could no longer find alleys as dense and interconnected as those near Linwei Street. Moreover, the further south he ran, the fewer gaps between buildings he could exploit.
Additionally, a brief observation would reveal that Zhang Wen’s combat suit was already torn in several places. Each tear represented a bleeding wound, the worst being a deep gash across his back, nearly stretching from his right shoulder to his left rib.
It had been caused by a shard of flying glass during one of his earlier evasive maneuvers against Viscount Black’s attacks.
“Andrei, how long do you plan to keep running? What’s the point of proving your stubbornness, other than making your suffering worse?” Viscount Black shouted as he closed the distance once more.
“Heh!” Zhang Wen’s lips curled slightly upward as he continued dashing between the towers of Babylon.
“Fine! If you insist on playing this game of cat and mouse, I don’t mind playing along,” Viscount Black said, not really expecting a few words to shake Zhang Wen’s resolve. Seeing Zhang Wen’s movements, Viscount Black adjusted his direction and unleashed another mental energy blast.
Zhang Wen sharply leapt sideways, narrowly dodging the attack. Then, lifting his head, his smile widened slightly. Because after thirty minutes of relentless pursuit, he finally saw in the distance the long-awaited restricted military zone, surrounded by barbed wire and heavy metal gates.
Military Zone—Unauthorized Entry Forbidden!
Giant metal signs hung on both sides of the barbed wire, each displaying the same red warning in bold letters. A large skull and crossbones symbol was painted on the central gate.
Viscount Black soon noticed the military zone ahead, but he paid it no mind.
Unlike Kasares, an administrative planet on the Empire’s frontier, Filara was located deep within the Empire’s Southern Territory, a planet that had been under Imperial control for over a thousand years.
In such a secure heartland, the Empire naturally had no need to station a large military force. Thus, the strongest officer of Babylon’s Imperial Garrison, Captain Raine, was only a Tenth-Level expert—hardly more formidable than Sandor when faced with a battle between Zhang Wen and Viscount Black.
Bang!
Rushing up to the military zone’s gate marked with the death symbol, Zhang Wen ignored the angry shouts of the Imperial guards and swung his sword, blasting a crack just wide enough for him to squeeze through. Without hesitation, he darted through the opening.
“You idiot! Do you even know where you are? This is an Imperial military zone! How dare you cause trouble here? Don’t you want to live?” A thin, frightened soldier shouted, trying to sound threatening under his commander’s orders.
But soon after Zhang Wen passed through the gate, Viscount Black arrived in pursuit. Hearing the annoying shouts of the guards, Viscount Black, who could have easily flown over, didn’t even think twice. He raised his hand and fired a mental energy blast nearly four times the size of a basketball. With a thunderous boom, the entire gate and half the barbed wire fence were sent flying into the air like toys.
“I… I… damn it…” The poor Imperial guards were thrown to the ground by the explosion’s shockwave, watching helplessly as the heavy metal gate spun through the air and slammed back down.
In the blink of an eye, Zhang Wen and Viscount Black had broken through to the heart of the military zone. The terrified guards finally snapped out of their shock and frantically triggered the alarm.
Amid the piercing wail of the sirens, countless floodlights suddenly illuminated the entire military zone, turning night into day.
At that moment, Zhang Wen suddenly came to a halt.
“What? Have you finally come to your senses? No more running?” Viscount Black smiled, landing on a tower-like water structure about ten meters away from Zhang Wen.
“Hehe… Yeah. No more running.” Zhang Wen slowly turned around, returning Viscount Black’s smile with one of his own.
“Oh? You don’t look like someone ready to surrender and await death. What? Are you hoping the local imperial guards can come to your aid?” The black viscount sneered mockingly.
“Haha! Of course not.” Zhang Wen’s lips curved into a very noticeable arc, and he shrugged lightly with an easy smile. “I’d wager no one, except myself, could possibly guess why I’ve come here.”
“Oh? Could it be you’ve got some hidden scheme?” The black viscount asked with growing interest.
“Exactly.” Zhang Wen grinned mysteriously, raising one finger and placing it beside his lips.
Indeed, as Zhang Wen said, no matter how hard the black viscount tried to figure it out, he would never guess why Zhang Wen had risked everything to escape to a place that seemed utterly useless.
However, if someone were to open a map of Babylon City and move their finger to the location where Zhang Wen and the black viscount now stood, they would clearly see a line of small text beneath the words “Military Restricted Zone”—the Phila Planet Psychic Energy Power Center.
The Psychic Energy Power Center, as the name suggests, is the core area of this military restricted zone, controlling the psychic energy of the entire Phila Planet. Every day, countless psychics working on Phila Planet would channel their psychic energy here, and then through the equipment and circuits of the Psychic Energy Power Center, this immense psychic energy, unimaginable to ordinary people, would be distributed to every imperial citizen’s home.
Of course, although the psychic energy gathered at the Psychic Energy Power Center every day was extremely powerful, this energy was only used for civilian purposes and could not be used in combat. However, Zhang Wen’s target wasn’t the massive psychic energy gathered at the center.
Zhang Wen’s target was… raw stones!
His profession back on Earth made Zhang Wen exceptionally cautious. In fact, when Zhang Wen agreed to Melissa’s request and prepared to fight the black viscount to the death, he had already considered this question.
What if he encountered an opponent of higher rank during the battle with the black viscount?
Only someone of equal rank can oppose someone of equal rank—that was a universally accepted truth. Even Zhang Wen, who practiced the Spring Water Technique, did not have the strength to break this rule. Therefore, if he wanted to deal with a higher-ranked enemy, there was only one way—to break through to the higher rank himself!
When Zhang Wen was competing for survival in the jungles of Casares, there was a vein of raw stone beneath his feet. At that time, Zhang Wen could clearly feel his strength greatly enhanced by the raw stone vein! During his battle with the king, he even displayed the power of a higher rank!
Unfortunately, the only raw stone vein on Phila Planet was nearly half a planet’s distance from Babylon City. Any attempt to utilize that vein was clearly impractical. Thus, Zhang Wen eventually set his sights on the Psychic Energy Power Center in the southern suburbs of Babylon City.
In a planetary psychic energy transfer station like the “Phila Planet Psychic Energy Power Center,” the amount of psychic energy gathered and redistributed daily was astronomical. To accommodate and distribute such astronomical levels of psychic energy, the power center must necessarily contain an equally astronomical amount of raw stones.
The total amount of these raw stones might not be as much as the reserves in the vein at Casares, but the purity of the raw stones in the power center was far superior to the raw stone minerals in the vein!
Of course, Zhang Wen didn’t know whether these purified raw stone crystals could produce the same effect on the Spring Water Technique. However, with the black viscount, who had suddenly gained higher-rank power, chasing after him, Zhang Wen had no choice but to take a gamble.
Luckily, Zhang Wen’s luck had always seemed pretty good.
Woo… with a sound like the chirping of insects, the blue battle energy that had surrounded Zhang Wen’s body and had almost faded to invisibility gradually became brighter.
As is well known, the glow surrounding a martial artist’s body, resembling an energy shield, is essentially the uncontrolled energy that leaks out from the body when the martial artist is using battle energy to its fullest. The brightening of the blue glow around Zhang Wen indicated that the battle energy within his body, which had nearly been depleted, was rapidly recovering.
Right under the black viscount’s gaze, the blue glow around Zhang Wen’s body gradually transformed from dim to bright, from bright to dazzling, until it became as blinding as the midday sun, making it impossible to look directly at him.
The blue glow surrounding Zhang Wen did not, like when the black viscount injected the zero serum, suddenly expand out of control and erupt into a towering column of light. However, the black viscount could clearly sense that the Zhang Wen standing before him with a smile was no longer the saint-ranked martial artist he could easily kill. Just a moment ago, Zhang Wen had completed the breakthrough from the saint rank to the higher rank, becoming a genuine higher-ranked expert!
“You… how did you do it?” Even the composed black viscount couldn’t help but widen his eyes in astonishment at this unimaginable sight. Saint-ranked martial artists were not like saint-ranked psychics, who had a convenient drug like the zero serum that could temporarily push them to the higher rank!
Moreover, the black viscount could tell that although Zhang Wen was not yet familiar with higher-ranked energy, he did not experience the energy loss at the moment of breaking through to the higher rank, as he himself had. This was enough to show that Zhang Wen was no stranger to the higher rank!
In contrast, the black viscount himself had lost nearly half of his psychic energy when he first broke through to the higher rank due to not knowing how to control the explosive power.
In an instant, the balance of power between the two once again reversed!
“Do you think I’d tell you?” Zhang Wen smiled at the black viscount, and with a flash of blue light in his hand, a sharp longsword reappeared.
“Tsk! So you set up a trap here beforehand, specifically to lure me into chasing you here?” The black viscount’s gaze gradually sharpened, and the calm smile on his face had long since vanished.
“Hehe… What do you think?”
“Hmph!” The black viscount snorted coldly, tightening his grip on the curved short sword in his hand.
The black viscount had indeed considered fleeing, but in the end, he still dared not. In the previous chase, the black viscount had already experienced Zhang Wen’s astonishing speed. When Zhang Wen was still a saint-ranked, he already had the speed to rival a higher-ranked expert. Now that he had become a higher-ranked, the black viscount had no confidence at all in escaping Zhang Wen’s pursuit.
The killing intent in Zhang Wen’s eyes also made the black viscount shudder. He could feel that the moment he turned his back, Zhang Wen would immediately chase after him at top speed and cut him down.
Zhang Wen and the indecisive black viscount silently faced off. Around them, the alarm bells of the military restricted zone continued to ring deafeningly.
The highest-ranking officer of the Psychic Energy Power Center, General Lane, a ten-rank expert in charge of the defense of the military restricted zone, had also been awakened from his warm bed by his subordinates.
Upon learning that someone had blown the gates of the military restricted zone and stormed inside, the furious General Lane immediately led a large number of imperial guards to surround the area where Zhang Wen and the black viscount were located, layer upon layer, sealing it off completely.
However, when General Lane arrived at the scene and saw the energy flames emanating from the two “terrorists” standing in the center of his military restricted zone, he was stunned.
Turning around immediately, General Lane furiously grabbed his aide’s collar and yanked him forward.
“You idiot! Why did you wake me up? Are you trying to get me killed?”
Anyone with half a brain could see that the two figures locked in confrontation at the center of the military restricted zone were both experts of a higher rank. With such monsters causing chaos in his military restricted zone, General Lane wished he knew nothing about it!
“This… this subordinate… this subordinate doesn’t know either.”
“What do you mean you don’t know? I don’t know either! So what do you suggest we do?” General Lane shook his aide violently from left to right like a rag doll.
“According to this subordinate’s opinion… since it’s a higher-ranked expert attacking the military restricted zone, no matter what happens, the higher-ups won’t blame us. So…”
“Tch! Issue orders, everyone retreat two kilometers… no, three kilometers! Move quickly! Anyone who runs too slowly and gets caught up in the battle between those two monsters, I won’t be responsible for them!” General Lane angrily threw his aide at several guards and shouted loudly, immediately turning and fleeing without looking back in the direction away from Zhang Wen and the black viscount.
Soon, the imperial guards who had been only a few hundred meters away from Zhang Wen and the black viscount also turned around and fled in panic. In no time, there wasn’t a single person left within Zhang Wen and the black viscount’s field of vision.
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