Chapter 76

Pengcheng.

"Insufficient spiritual power is indeed my problem, but if I cannot absorb spiritual energy from the air, isn't that your problem?"

Sword light swept horizontally; Shen Mo instantly slaughtered the three mutated dogs rushing at him, then looked down at the Zhan Po Dao in his hand and said with a look of frustration at a piece of iron that wouldn't become steel.

"You are not the original Zhan Po Dao with no name; you are a mature Zhan Po Dao. Can't you absorb spiritual energy from the air yourself to sustain your own consumption?"

"I, wielding the strongest ice-type Zhan Po Dao, rank fifth on the Extraordinary List, and you dare to believe it? That's just the public ranking; add in the hidden ones and I can't even make the top ten."

"I can overlook other things, but those who ate Devil Fruits rank above me. Naruto has a member of the Otsutsuki clan as a god; what does One Piece have? They say 'Dead Fire Sea,' 'Dead Fire Sea,' yet now the 'Sea' ranked last surpasses us?"

"Give it some strength, big brother!"

The Zhan Po Dao trembled slightly, as if protesting.

No Zhan Po Dao needs to rely on itself to absorb spiritual energy from the air.

"In Xiao Bai's hands, you always suffered defeats and were instantly defeated by Aizen; in my hands, you also suffer defeats and get crushed by the extraordinary power of other worlds."

"Others now think it's you who is useless, not us."

Hearing his words, the Zhan Po Dao emitted a "buzzing" vibration, as if refuting him.

Master's lung fog; what does that have to do with it?

"Sigh, if I had obtained not you, but another Zhan Po Dao, like Kyoka Suigetsu, Senbonzakura, or Ryujin Jakka, they certainly wouldn't be as useless as you, forcing me to rely only on swordsmanship and mutated beasts to fight."

Shen Mo sighed deeply while killing the mutated pets around him with the Zhan Po Dao in his hand.

The moment his words ended, the Zhan Po Dao in his hand suddenly erupted with a bone-chilling coldness!

"Hmm?"

The next second, terrifying suction force surged from the blade, crazily drawing out the spiritual power within Shen Mo's body; his face instantly turned pale, but a wild joy flashed in his eyes—the blade transmitted a clear thought:

(Quickly replenish spiritual power! I'm about to unleash my ultimate!)

"Good, good, good! This should have happened long ago!"

Without a second thought, Shen Mo immediately pulled out a handful of spiritual energy liquid from his spatial ring, bit open the bottle stopper, and "gulped, gulped" down three bottles in succession; surging spiritual power instantly filled his entire body, while the Zhan Po Dao's suction force grew stronger and stronger, causing the surrounding air to begin distorting.

Sensing the spiritual power replenished, the Zhan Po Dao emitted a joyful hum; Shen Mo grinned, gripped the blade with both hands, and chanted loudly:

"Sit upon the frosty heavens—"

"Hyorinmaru!!!"

"Boom—"

Blinding ice-blue light shot straight into the sky! The form of the Zhan Po Dao in his hand suddenly changed, transforming into a slender long sword; the blade was covered in soft ice-blue light, and the end of the hilt extended into a crescent-moon-shaped chain, like the tail of an ice dragon.

Terrifying coldness erupted with Shen Mo at the center!

"Crack, crack—"

Within a hundred meters in all directions, the ground instantly froze into a thick layer of ice; moisture in the air condensed into countless ice crystals; the mutated pets rushing forward, still maintaining their charging posture, were frozen into ice sculptures; farther away, building surfaces were covered in frost patterns, streetlights burst, and the temperature of the entire street plummeted to its lowest in an instant!

The white breath Shen Mo exhaled even condensed into ice powder in the air.

"That's more like it!"

"If you had done this earlier, could Gu Che, Lu Jing, and Lin Lin Ruoxi have ranked above us?"

"Even if Ye Xuan isn't capable, that guy's strength is truly perverted."

"But it doesn't matter; apart from Elder Zhong and Ye Xuan, and those two suspected fifth-rank individuals whose identities are unknown, we are the strongest of this era!"

"Let the power of the Soul Reapers bloom with new life in this world, Hyorinmaru!"

It was merely the day after the spiritual energy tide descended; what humans needed to face were only some first-rank and second-rank mutated beasts.

Although among them were mutated beasts like mutated rats in vast numbers, for humans this was not difficult to handle; or rather, if they had infiltrated residential areas separately, launching surprise attacks on humans from sewers, ventilation shafts, or even wall cracks, that would indeed have caused massive casualties.

But perhaps driven by the bloodthirsty instincts after mutation, these rats chose the stupidest tactic of all; swarming onto the streets in groups, forming a dark, oppressive wave, hunting all life they encountered head-on.

And this happened to be the main battlefield of human firepower.

On both sides of the street, Tian Shu Bureau members wearing protective suits set up high-pressure flamethrowers; scorching white fire columns, like the scythes of the Grim Reaper, swept across the rat horde; temperatures of several thousand degrees instantly burned the rats into charcoal, and a pungent smell of burning filled the air.

Wherever the flames passed, the rat tide was forcibly burned into a scorched-black "vacuum zone," yet the rats behind still surged forward one after another, only to turn to ash within the fire wall.

In the night sky, hundreds of armed drones formed a hunting network, their mounted thermal imagers precisely locking onto every living target.

Machine guns swept, micro-missiles performed pinpoint eliminations, and some even dove straight into collisions; the killing efficiency of the drone swarm was astonishingly high, and wherever they passed, mutated beasts fell in droves.

Casualties?

Fully armed, these first-rank and second-rank mutated beasts were not enough to cause them any casualties.

But just as the Tian Shu Bureaus of the Imperial Capital, Demon City, Pengcheng, and Jin Ling allowed Gu Che, Lu Jing, Lin Lin Ruoxi, Shen Mo, and other holders of heavenly treasures possessing combat power and potential to act alone in eliminating mutated beasts;

Tian Shu Bureaus in other cities also selectively allowed the psychics they deemed to have potential to eliminate mutated beasts either alone or in teams, to hone their own strength.

"Eagle Eye! Can you damn well aim properly before shooting?"

"You were aiming at it, not me!"

Zhang Yu rolled sideways; the arrow whistled past his ear and "thwacked" into the streetlight pole behind him, and he shouted curses at the person behind him.

"Nonsense!"

"I wasn't aiming at you in the first place; you just dodged, so you thought I was shooting at you, but actually you didn't need to dodge at all!"

Chen Hao also shouted loudly.

"You damn Eagle Eye, the arrow hit the streetlight, and you're still bragging."

"Can you do it or not? If you can't, give me the arrow; you go up and fight it."

Zhang Yu cursed back, then immediately turned his head; a mutated black bull standing two meters tall charged at him with its head lowered; Zhang Yu also charged forward, gripping its horns tightly.

"Damn Eagle Eye, if you miss again this time, after I deal with it, I'll kill you!"

"My eyes are the ruler!"

Chen Hao snorted, then his eyes narrowed; he steadily raised a specially made composite crossbow, the tip of the crossbow bolt gleaming with cold light; his breathing stabilized, his heartbeat slowed, and the world became infinitely clear in that moment.

The extent of the mutated black bull's struggle, the angle of Zhang Yu's exertion, the speed of the night wind blowing

"Whoosh—!"

The crossbow bolt pierced the air, precisely passing through the gap beneath Zhang Yu's armpit to directly penetrate the mutated black ox's temple; the mutated black ox's movements clearly faltered.

(End of this chapter)