Chapter 137: Clash of the Quasi-Kings

The concussive shockwave of the Blackscale Drake’s roar still reverberated through the shattered avenue.

Under the cold morning sun filtering through the thinning mist, the heavy bronze scales plating the colossal beast shimmered with the dull, lethal sheen of tempered armor. Its gargantuan frame cast a suffocating shadow over the four-lane boulevard, and with every deliberate, earth-shaking step it took forward, spiderwebs of fresh fractures spidered through the reinforced concrete.

Ethan stood thirty yards away, his sword gripped so tightly in his right hand that the knuckles turned bloodless white.

His dark eyes never blinked, locked entirely onto the golden, slit-shaped pupils of the apex predator.

Around the entire three-block radius, the atmosphere hummed with a heavy, leaden resonance. The beast had deployed its innate gravitational domain, locking down the surrounding dimensional fabric into an invisible cage. His combat Teleportation was rendered completely inert as long as this localized seal held firm. He had no avenue of instantaneous escape, leaving him to rely entirely on his offensive arsenal: Spatial Cut, Space Fissure, and the newly unlocked emergency sub-skill derived from his spatial-temporal core~Time Stop.

Time Stop was an extreme measure. It could temporarily freeze the molecular and dimensional flow within a tight five-meter radius, but its duration was capped at a single, brutal second.

Against an ordinary mutant beast or an elite evolved zombie, one second was more than enough time to sever a dozen throats.

Against a Quasi-King Rank monstrosity possessing overwhelming physical power, hyper-accelerated cellular regeneration, and unknown elemental mutations, a single second felt perilously fragile.

The Blackscale Drake lowered its armored skull, its serpentine neck dipping low.

"ROAR!"

The coarse mane of dark scales along its spine flared outward like a row of iron blades. The twin recurved horns jutting from its forehead began to pulse with a piercing, glacial cyan luminescence, drawing the ambient air into a violent, localized vortex.

Ethan’s muscles coiled like steel springs.

The air directly before the tips of the creature’s horns twisted into an aggressive spiral.

With a high-frequency whistle that set Ethan’s teeth on edge, a half-meter-long Wind Blade condensed into solid, razor-sharp reality, its translucent edges gleaming under the pale morning rays.

Whoosh!

The gale blade sliced through the distance with supersonic speed.

Ethan drove his boots into the pavement, throwing his torso violently to the right.

The condensed wind passed close enough to shear through the heavy fabric of his tactical jacket, the friction scorching his shoulder blade before the projectile hurtled past him and slammed into the reinforced masonry of the office building behind.

CRACK!

A deep, smoking trench over two meters long gouged straight through the exterior wall. Chunks of shattered concrete and powdered brick exploded outward, showering down across the cracked street.

Ethan rolled smoothly across the asphalt, absorbing the kinetic shock, and planted his left palm firmly against the ground to arrest his slide. He didn’t waste a microsecond before launching his counterstrike.

"Spatial Cut!"

He slashed his fingers forward. Three pale, shimmering crescents of spatial void tore through the air, fanning out in a wide triangular trajectory aimed directly at the softer plates along the Blackscale Drake’s underbelly.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

The spatial crescents struck the bronze scales with the deafening chime of forged hammers hitting anvils.

Instead of shearing through the armor as they had against ordinary beasts, the spatial blades skittered off the dense alloy-like hide, leaving behind nothing more than three shallow, faint white scratches across the gleaming plates.

Ethan’s jaw tightened, his expression sinking into grim focus.

Its defensive density has spiked again.

During their first brutal skirmish outside the city museum, the drake’s hide had certainly been tough, but a concentrated spatial cut had still possessed enough shearing force to bite into its flesh.

He recalled the chilling scene he had witnessed at the children’s amusement park the previous day. After the mutated Tiger King had devoured an apex Core, its baseline aura had undergone an immediate, terrifying surge in power.

The reality was inescapable: Quasi-King Rank mutant beasts actively hunted and consumed other evolved creatures to continuously fuel their evolution. And since their last battle at the museum, the Blackscale Drake had clearly gorged itself on high-tier cores, pushing its physical defense into an entirely new tier.

The colossal reptile cast a contemptuous downward glance toward its abdomen, inspecting the faint chalk-like marks left by the spatial cuts.

Its golden, reptilian pupils narrowed with venomous malice.

Slowly, its jaws unhinged, revealing a cavernous maw lined with serrated, ivory fangs.

Deep within its dark gullet, a concentrated sphere of pitch-black, swirling energy began to condense, crackling with an aura of absolute decay.

Ethan’s heart hammered against his ribs.

Corrosive breath!

He remembered that exact attack from the museum. A single glancing blast had dissolved an entire reinforced marble support pillar into bubbling, smoking slime in seconds. He could not afford to absorb even a fraction of a direct hit.

"Space Fissure!"

Ethan thrust both hands forward, pouring his spiritual pool into the void.

A jagged black rift tore open in the air between them.

Then a second.

A third.

And a fourth.

Ethan activated the high-tier skill four times in rapid succession, stacking four distinct planar fissures into a layered, overlapping spatial barricade directly in the trajectory of the oncoming blast.

Just as the final rift stabilized, the Blackscale Drake discharged its attack.

A roaring torrent of viscous, jet-black corrosive energy erupted across the boulevard, washing over the pavement like a tidal wave of acid.

The two forces slammed together in a violent cataclysm.

An ear-splitting hissing sound filled the avenue, reminiscent of boiling water poured over white-hot iron. The concentrated stream of black decay battered relentlessly against the layered spatial fissures, the sheer volume of corrosive energy actively eating away at the dimensional fabric itself. The edges of the rifts began to distort, fray, and dissolve under the chemical assault.

Ethan watched in disbelief as his spatial defenses eroded at an alarming rate.

The four fissures could not hold the full brunt of a Quasi-King’s breath.

Sizzle!

The first two rifts collapsed into nothingness. Several stray tendrils of black bile slipped through the shrinking gaps, arching through the air and splashing directly across Ethan’s chest.

Agonizing pain tore through his nervous system.

The dark fluid melted straight through his tactical vest and undershirt as if they were wet tissue paper. Multiple puncture-like burns bored instantly into his flesh, the margins of the wounds turning necrotic and black as the vile energy ate toward his ribs. Fresh blood welled up, sizzling as it mixed with the corrosive residue.

"Dammit!"

Ethan gritted his teeth so hard they nearly cracked. He kicked off the ground with explosive power, throwing his body toward the rusted chassis of an abandoned sedan parked by the curb.

He slammed hard into the driver’s side door, scrambled over the hood, and rolled onto the far side of the vehicle just as the main wave of black breath washed over his previous position.

The asphalt where he had knelt began to hiss violently.

Within seconds, the stone dissolved into bubbling sludge, leaving behind a smoking, blackened crater nearly half a meter deep.

Ethan crouched against the rusted wheel well, his chest heaving as sweat mixed with blood dripped down his collar.

One minor misstep against this beast meant catastrophic injury; a second mistake would guarantee his death. Yet he could not withdraw. With the space around the district sealed by the creature’s domain, finding a way to crack its defense and break the perimeter barrier was his only path to survival.

He peered over the dented hood, his eyes locking onto the drake’s massive, horned head.

The beast’s eyes.

Unlike its neck, spine, and chest, its ocular sockets could not be plated with heavy bronze scales. If he could drive a spatial attack directly through its pupils, he could scramble its brain before its regeneration took over.

"Spatial Cut!"

Ethan sprang up, channeling two swift blades toward the creature’s left eye.

Yet the moment his spiritual power flared, the Blackscale Drake’s neck whipped sideways with astonishing speed.

It had anticipated the strike.

Instead of taking the hit, the creature swung its massive, recurved horn in a violent horizontal arc, meeting the spatial path with surgical precision. The iron-hard horn swept directly into Ethan’s line of attack, deflecting the spatial blade before continuing its trajectory and striking Ethan’s outstretched right wrist.

A sickening snap echoed through the street.

A jolt of blinding, white-hot agony shot up Ethan’s arm. The impact ripped his fingers open, and his combat sword was knocked free, spinning twenty feet through the air before clattering uselessly onto the rubble.

Ethan staggered back three paces, clutching his forearm.

The curved horn had torn through his leather bracer and flesh alike, carving a jagged, bleeding furrow that exposed a pale glimpse of cracked radius bone beneath. Crimson blood gushed down his fingers, soaking his sleeve in seconds.

For a fraction of a heartbeat, Ethan’s vision blurred from the shock of the trauma.

Then, his survival instinct surged back with cold fury.

I’m not dying on this street.

"Space Fissure!"

Ethan thrust out his left hand, forcing his spiritual pool to ignite.

One rift ripped through the air.

A second opened beside it.

A third followed immediately after, carving directly into the glowing cyan aura enveloping the Blackscale Drake. The three fissures battered the creature’s outer energy layer, grinding against its natural ward and tearing a momentary gap through the beast’s defense.

With the opening cleared, Ethan drove a fourth fissure straight through the breach.

The dark void materialized inches from the drake’s throat, shearing downward with absolute spatial force.

RIIIP!

The planar rift bit deep into the softer scales along the right side of the beast’s neck, severing flesh, muscle, and thick arteries.

A geyser of thick, blackened blood sprayed across the cracked pavement.