As Renhuang's army entered the palace, Zhang Lie found an elder of the empire of stars seated on the throne. "Ah, you're all here. I've been waiting for you for quite a long time."
The elder seemed to have known that Zhang Lie would make his way here sooner or later.
The members of Team Zenith prepared to fight, but Zhang Lie stopped them. The elder didn't seem to have any fighting spirit at all.
The elder stood up and patted the throne. "How uncomfortable."
Zhang Lie frowned as he asked, "Where has everyone else gone?"
The elder replied slowly, "Upon hearing that you all were passing through the border, I had the others leave with whatever fighters remained."
He knew that the monarch of stars had left in search of Renhuang's forces. Since Renhuang's forces had made it all the way here, the monarch was most likely dead.
"I think it's rather obvious at this point, but please allow me to confirm—has his majesty perished?"
"Indeed!"
"As expected." The elder stumbled in his dejection. "I'd like to ask how you managed it—ah, I probably shouldn't."
"You may, but you'll have to answer one of my questions first. What happened to the empire of stars? Was this caused by the monarch of stars himself?"
The elder replied frankly, "The monarch of stars was a madman. He sacrificed three sura empires and half of his own for strength, but it looks like it was all for naught."
This was essentially what Zhang Lie had expected. He had noticed an extraordinary number of souls trapped in the compass in the monarch of stars' possession when he glanced at it with his dragon's pupils. It was now apparent that those souls came from the citizens of these sura empires.
In some sense, this meant that there were fewer sura that Zhang Lie had to deal with.
"I know where the treasury of the empire of stars is located," the elder volunteered.
"And what do you want in exchange for that information?" Zhang Lie knew that there was no reason the elder would give them that information freely.
"The sura of the empire are innocent, and they shouldn't have to foot the cost of this battle."
Zhang Lie's voice was cold. "And what of the human captives you've taken over the years?"
The sura treated humans like livestock; how many had they killed since the inception of the dimensional world?
The elder frowned. "In that case, you won't be able to get a single thing out of me. I've already consumed poison upon receiving word of your arrival, and it looks like I have about half an hour left."
With one step, Zhang Lie suddenly appeared in front of the elder and caught him by the head. "Half an hour is enough."
The elder looked at him with steely resolve. "I won't reveal a single thing."
"That's not a problem for me." Zhang Lie summoned his moonlight wyrm and had the elder's soul forcibly extracted.
As he had guessed, the reason for the desolation he and his troops had witnessed was the compass that the monarch of stars had created. He saw the elder watch on coldly as huge groups of humans, trapped in cages like livestock, were sent deep into the palace. Zhang Lie clenched his fists tightly.
The elder had never intended on giving them the location of the treasury. Important files and the portable valuables had all been carried off by the remnant fighters of the empire of stars. Indeed, the elder had intended on taking this opportunity to lure Renhuang's forces into a trap.
Zhang Lie turned around and strode outside the palace. Sun Mengmeng asked, "Captain, where are you headed?"
"To take some things back."
By then, the fighters were already some distance away from the palace.
They turned back and glanced toward the capital. "What do you think is happening to the elder now?"
His comrade replied, "Who knows? I hope he's successful in buying us some more time, at least."
The first sura nodded seriously. "We have to preserve the empire of stars' remaining combat strength and prepare to revive our kingdom anew." contemporary romance
Just then, a figure appeared before all the fighters.
.
Thanks to the elder's memories, Zhang Lie easily found out where the fighters were headed, and he slaughtered them to the last.
Then, he brought the documents and valuables they carried with them back to the palace. The elder had never expected that he would become the "culprit" behind these fighters' death, that he would be the one to reveal their location to Zhang Lie.
By the time he returned, the members of Team Zenith had found the treasury. As they opened it up and saw countless herbs, artifacts, and treasure within, their eyes lit up.
As expected of the treasury of a sura empire! All sorts of ores and herbs, treasures that none of them recognized, the plants and reagents that were needed for limit-breaking potions—all of them could be found within the treasury.
Renhuang had, in a matter of moments, become the richest human settlement around. After all, it had just acquired the accumulated wealth of a sura empire.
In order to deal with the forces of the empire of stars, the Yeluo had emptied Renhuang's storehouse of herbs to manufacture large quantities of the Yeluo poison. Now, they made back ten times that quantity in herbs.
Even more impressive than the treasury was the monarch of stars' private study, which contained notes on all his research to date, including vital information on the soul, spiritual matter, blood, and genetic lifeforms.
Zhang Lie thought that his research on grafting sura together with genetic lifeforms could be particularly invaluable. Although the resulting hybrid creatures were monstrosities, he had to admit that it was a very effective way of increasing one's strength.
The sura themselves had astounding constitutions, and there were rare few lifeforms that surpassed them. On the other hand, humans tended to be weak, and they only grew by assimilating gene fragments into their bodies.
If Zhang Lie could improve and mature this grafting technique, humans would immediately become much stronger. Zhang Lie himself wasn't willing to become a mutant, but that didn't mean other hunters weren't. It would immediately provide strength, despite the many drawbacks it possessed.
In addition to research on this technique, the monarch of stars had also penned monographs on transferring wounds and sacrificing one's blood for temporary boosts in strength. These techniques were particularly difficult to learn, and Zhang Lie passed them on to the members of Team Zenith in case any of them were interested.
The technique that Zhang Lie was searching for was the basal form of Gaoyuan's specialty—the ability of rapid regeneration and regrowth.
The fundamental idea of the technique was to extract growth factors from his sperm, concentrate and refine them, and use that concentrated essence to facilitate regeneration.
This was a crazy idea, one that only a genius like the monarch of stars could have brought to fruition. Lunacy and genius were two sides of the same coin—the nine godsons of the monarch of stars had proven this point.
Despite the ingenuity of the technique, it wasn't as efficient as Zhang Lie had expected. He would only be able to recover from one serious injury at once; if the injury was too serious, he might even exhaust his sperm and give himself erectile dysfunction.
Furthermore, while storing up and refining his sperm, he would be barred from all sort of sexual activity unless he wanted to get more sperm cells from external sources like Gaoyuan did, or install testicles all over his body like the monarch of stars did. Neither option was palatable to Zhang Lie.
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