The mental attacks from the eighteen eyes were stronger than the golden roc's mental attacks, but Zhang Lie was no slouch himself.

Zhang Lie howled, his eyes like lightning. Although he wasn't a cultivator who focused on spiritual and mental cultivation, his soul had survived the tempering of two lifetimes, and it was naturally stronger than that of the disaster-grade chimera.

The chimera shrieked, blood seeping out of its eighteen eyes. It fell to the ground.

Zhang Lie swooped down, his fist shaking the sky like a black dragon.

The chimera's black fur stood on end; one of its heads suddenly grew multiple times larger, like an umbral millstone brimming with light.

As the dragon dove down, a lion's head burst open in a shower of crystals.

The other eight heads shrieked.

A scarlet dragon's claw slammed down on his body, but Zhang Lie dodged it. A huge trench formed where the claw landed, the bottom of which couldn't be seen from up above.

Zhang Lie unsheathed Guicang and struck with a slash of sword energy. A huge slit formed in the void, cutting apart the dragon's claw. However, the disaster-grade lifeform didn't rear back. It continued attacking ferociously, its whole body transforming into a weapon. Its tail shot out and swept through everything in its path.

Zhang Lie evaded the attack as the tail crushed countless rocks into powder in mid-air. Its ferocity shocked one and all.

"[The Boundless Blade: Yawning Wave]!"

A waterfall of genetic energy was imbued in Guicang. As Zhang Lie slashed forward with the sword, devastating sword energy was unleashed.

The chimera sprayed out a burst of white light, shining with metallic luster, as it defended itself against the titanic waves. A huge explosion rang out.Within moments, the chimera's sliced-off claw had regrown. It boasted vitality stronger than even the golden roc Zhang Lie had faced.

A raging shark surfed forward on Zhang Lie's sword slash. The chimera spread its wings wide as it soared into the air. The raging shark gave chase, but the chimera swooped down from above and struck with its claws, obliterating the shark.

The chimera howled, its gaze cold. It launched a killing blow, covering heaven and earth in blazing light.

A meteor's worth of energy exploded in mid-air, and the ground quaked as though a volcano were about to explode.

The chimera roared as 108 sharp blades grew out of its back at even intervals along its spine, each with a silvery-white sheen. Killing intent filled the air. The blades stood like pillars separating heaven from earth, thick and ice-cold, giving the onlookers a chilling sensation.

The chimera roared and leapt forward, and all the blades suddenly turned toward their target. They gathered in a square around the tiger and shot toward Zhang Lie simultaneously.

The bloodstained blades, suffused with an aura of calamity, approached Zhang Lie at breakneck speed.

Zhang Lie swung his own blades with the resplendence of dawn, defending against the sudden assault. Light covered the land like an intense meteor shower. Formless ripples shattered rock and cleaved mountains.

He raised the blade in his hand high into the air, encircled by black genetic energy.

"[The Boundless Blade: the River Lethe]!"

The temperature had dropped to sub-zero values, and a strong wind buffeted the battlefield. Blood-colored frost appeared around the two combatants.

A stellar river materialized in the air. As though the doors to hell had just been thrown open, tens of thousands of serpents rushed out in a flood.

Each serpent was pitch-black like the abyss, like the dark of night, and speckled with starlight, a miniaturized version of the Milky Way. The serpents were guides and ferrymen both, leading departed souls into sky and space, freed from the mortal coil.As Zhang Lie's sword swung down, the stellar river struck the mortal world.

With every slash of Guicang, the serpents fell like meteors, whizzing down to the ground and clashing against the chimera's blades, but the sharp blades that the chimera had somehow produced seemed impervious to damage. Killing intent formed a thick aura around them, so concentrated that it could affect material form.

Zhang Lie's stellar river began to expand as corrosive energy spread alongside black snowflakes. The ground sizzled as it was corroded away.

Resplendent silver light, like armor, shielded the chimera from the corrosion of Zhang Lie's black snowflakes.

The chimera roared, its eyes cold. It spat out a mouthful of white light, causing the blades to gleam even more brightly. They pierced through the stellar river shielding Zhang Lie and headed straight for his body.

The blades flew toward him and pinned him down with overwhelming strength, causing the land to crumble where they landed.

Each blade was like a thick pillar; if any were to strike Zhang Lie, he wouldn't be pierced through, but rather ground into meat paste.

Zhang Lie frowned. The chimera had improved on the characteristics of the five genetic lifeforms that it constituted. The most obvious difference were these blades.

The whitegold tiger only had 28 such blades, but the chimera had a full 108. It was even stronger than the six-headed lifeform that Zhang Lie had asked to face.

As all the blades landed simultaneously, Zhang Lie barely dodged them one by one. Space around him warped and distended; a number of black holes formed, one around each blade, trapping him in an unavoidable attack.

Even so, the fighting spirit in Zhang Lie's eyes only grew more intense.

"[The Boundless Blade: the River Lethe]!"

Pitch-black genetic energy expanded through the battlefield. The genetic energy looked as though it had come from the abyss, or perhaps from the expanding, limitless universe. Starlight struck the genetic energy in a flash of surprising beauty.

The night sky morphed into a raging sea. Waves surged forward, sounding like peals of thunder, like stampeding hooves. The universe itself seemed to shake, as though the stars were shifting positions.

The surface of the stellar sea frothed with waves, layering and texturing it. Auroras hung in the air, veiling the night sky.

From afar, stellar dragons seemed to roar. The pitch-black dragons were like the night sky made manifest. Thunder and lightning crackled in the air.