31: Chapter 31 Fierce Battle Against the Centipede

Zhang Wen stared at the hideous Hundred-Foot Centipede before him, his expression as grave as iron, his spiritual power quietly circulating throughout his body, not daring to relax in the slightest.

"Indestructible Thunder Body, activate!" he roared. Instantly, purple Lightning Radiance surged around him, his clothes rustled without any wind, and the faint sound of thunder rumbled within his bones and muscles.

Almost simultaneously, the head of the Hundred-Foot Centipede, covered in dark armor, lunged forward, and a puff of dark green poisonous mist erupted from its mouthparts, causing the very air it passed through to ripple with a foul stench.

"Rushing Thunder Delusion Breaking Fist, First Form: 'Startling Thunder Arises'!" Zhang Wen’s fist shot out, accompanied by a sharp sound like tearing silk, and a condensed purple fist-wind exploded outward, forcibly shredding the poisonous mist into scattered fragments.

With the poisonous mist failing, the Hundred-Foot Centipede was clearly enraged. The pair of sickle-like jaw appendages on its head suddenly spun at high speed, creating a shrill buzzing sound as its massive body lunged at Zhang Wen like an arrow released from a bowstring.

Zhang Wen tilted his body slightly and grasped his right hand in the air. A long spear wreathed in electric light appeared out of nowhere—it was the divine resonance piercing thunder spear. He flicked the spear tip upward, striking the spinning jaw appendages with precision and sending sparks flying, effortlessly parrying the ferocious attack.

Repeated setbacks drove the Hundred-Foot Centipede into a frenzy. It let out a shrill hiss, twisted its body, and burrowed into the ground like a loach, disappearing in an instant.

Zhang Wen frowned slightly. Just as he was about to withdraw his spiritual power, the ground beneath his feet began to tremble violently, and cracks spread like a spiderweb.

"Watch out! It's its 'Abyssal Descent'!" Ding Siyi shouted from a distance, her voice filled with obvious anxiety.

Zhang Wen’s heart jolted, and the violent spiritual power of the Nine Heavens Tribulation Thunder instantly exploded within his body. He stomped hard on the ground, using the recoil to launch himself into the sky, his robes flapping loudly in the harsh wind.

The moment he left the ground, the earth below shattered, and the Hundred-Foot Centipede burst forth from the ground, shrouded in flying dirt and rocks. Its jaw appendages aimed directly at where Zhang Wen had just been, but it struck nothing but air.

Looking up at Zhang Wen in mid-air, it let out another angry hiss, appearing even more frantic.

"Heh heh, little crawler, do you know how powerful your Grandpa Zhang is now?" Zhang Wen laughed loudly while suspended in mid-air, his voice full of high spirits. Purple-gold Lightning Radiance grew wildly in his palm, as if he were holding a pulsing thunderstorm. "Rushing Thunder Delusion Breaking Fist, Second Form—Thunder Net Locking Truth!"

Before he finished speaking, he pressed the condensed Lightning Radiance downward. Countless bolts of lightning, as thick as an arm, erupted and wove into an airtight electric net in the air, descending upon the Hundred-Foot Centipede on the ground with crackling explosions.

The centipede clearly hadn't expected such a swift attack. Its massive body paused in the electric light, and just as it tried to twist and dodge, it was tightly bound by the electric net.

The purple electricity snaked into the gaps of its carapace, causing its whole body to convulse with every movement. Its originally hard limbs began to tremble with paralysis, and it couldn't help but let out a stifled hiss that sounded somewhat pained.

"Now is the time!" A fierce light erupted in Zhang Wen's eyes.

He could clearly feel the struggle within the electric net weakening. He immediately unleashed his spiritual power like a volcanic eruption, the purple Lightning Radiance almost solidifying, wrapping him into a pillar of lightning—his Indestructible Thunder Body had been pushed to its limit.

"Startling Thunder Arises!"

It was this same fist technique, yet now it was a hundred times more violent than before. The purple fist-wind tore through the air, carrying the power to shake mountains, and smashed into the Hundred-Foot Centipede bound by the electric net.

After the loud crash, dust and smoke rose like a mushroom cloud, blasting a deep pit a zhang wide into the ground, with gravel and broken vines scattering in all directions.

Zhang Wen landed by the edge of the pit. Feeling the rapidly weakening aura within the dust, a smile curled on his lips. Just as he turned his head to call out to Ding Siyi in the distance to claim his victory, a sharp sound of wind breaking suddenly came from behind him!

"Watch out!" Ding Siyi’s exclamation erupted almost simultaneously with the sharp sound.

Zhang Wen felt a massive force slam into his back, as if he had been struck hard by a battering ram. A sweet taste rose in his throat, and blood uncontrollably sprayed out. He flew backward like a kite with a broken string, slamming heavily into the rock wall and kicking up a cloud of dust.

"Zhang Wen!" Ding Siyi's voice carried a sob, and her feet instinctively rushed forward.

"Don't come over!" Zhang Wen clutched his chest and struggled to his feet, coughing up blood as he roared. He knew that approaching now would only put both of them in danger.

Just then, the dust slowly dissipated. In the center of the pit, a figure slowly stood up—it was actually the Hundred-Foot Centipede!

Although the carapace on its body was damaged, its aura was several times stronger than before. The areas previously scorched by the electric net were now covered with a new, glossy, light-brown shell.

Zhang Wen’s pupils constricted, and he instantly understood. That strike just now had been the beast's life-saving ultimate technique!

At the moment the fist-wind struck, it had sacrificed its outer old shell to forcibly withstand the fatal blow. Not only did it remove the paralysis from the lightning, but it also restored its vitality through the power of molting—sacrificing ten percent of its current vitality to gain instant escape and a fifteen percent recovery of its maximum vitality. What a vicious "Molting Regeneration"!

The Hundred-Foot Centipede shook its head, now encased in a new shell, and stared fixedly at Zhang Wen with its compound eyes, emitting a hiss filled with mockery; it was clearly quite proud of that counterattack.

Zhang Wen wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, his eyes becoming sharp as knives once more. He sighed inwardly: A Vicious Beast of the Forming Realm is indeed not so easily dealt with.

Zhang Wen stomped hard, crushing the gravel beneath his feet, and forcibly steadied his staggering body. He wiped the blood from his lips, terrifying crimson surging in the depths of his eyes. Violent spiritual power surged within his body, nearly tearing his Meridians apart, and even the air was violently shaken by this power.

"Very good, crawler." His voice was low and hoarse, yet carried a chill like ice shards. "You have successfully made me angry."

The Hundred-Foot Centipede seemed to understand these murderously intent words. It coiled its massive body, its newly molted carapace gleaming with a cold, hard luster in the sunlight. Dozens of pairs of walking legs pawed the ground uneasily, carving deep gouges into the rock.

It could feel the terrifying aura suddenly rising from Zhang Wen, like a Lightning Tribulation that had been accumulating for a thousand years about to erupt. It made it feel fear instinctively, yet it was driven by its vicious nature to refuse to retreat, and the vicious power within its body was condensing at an unprecedented speed.

"The next move will hurt a lot." Zhang Wen slowly raised his right hand, and the deep purple Tribulation Thunder gathered in his palm into a pulsing ball of light. The space around the light ball rippled with slight distortions. "You had better... be able to take it."

Before he finished speaking, he had already made the first move.

"Thunder Wrath: Instant Prison Kill!"

The three words were squeezed out from between his teeth, carrying a world-destroying determination. Zhang Wen suddenly pushed the ball of Tribulation Thunder in his palm forward. In an instant, the deep purple Lightning Radiance surged out like a bursting flood, transforming into a lightning Dragon that blotted out the sky, opening its giant maw to pounce on the Hundred-Foot Centipede.

Wherever it passed, the earth cracked, vegetation turned to charcoal, and even the sky was stained dark purple by this terrifying power. Clouds rolled and dispersed, as if the entire world were about to be swallowed by this single strike.

The Hundred-Foot Centipede let out a shrill hiss; it was clearly also forced into a desperate situation. As a Vicious Beast of the Forming Realm, its ferocity was certainly not just a reputation.

It tensed its massive body, all its walking legs embedding into the ground at once. The pair of sickle-like jaw appendages on its head crossed in front of it, and the vicious power accumulated within its body compressed to the limit in an instant, actually forming a gray-black energy core in front of it.

"Hiss—!"

With a deafening roar, the Hundred-Foot Centipede suddenly spread its jaw appendages. The gray-black core erupted, transforming into a shockwave that spanned the heavens and the earth, carrying the power to tear apart mountains, and met the rushing lightning Dragon.

Wherever the shockwave passed, the air was sucked dry, forming a visible vacuum zone, and even light seemed to be distorted and swallowed.

Two world-destroying forces collided in mid-air with a boom.

There was no earth-shattering roar, but rather an eerie silence. Immediately after, the deep purple Lightning Radiance and the gray-black shockwave viciously entwined, forming a constantly expanding energy vortex. The space at the center of the vortex shattered inch by inch, and gravel, broken wood, and dust were instantly sucked into it and ground into powder.

Zhang Wen stood in place, his clenched fists white at the knuckles from the excessive force. He stared fixedly at the center of the energy storm, the veins on his forehead bulging—this was a collision that would decide life and death.