Battle of the Commanders

The two monsters savaged each other without mercy, flesh and blood flying in all directions, locked in a war neither would walk away from.

Deep in the underground river cavern, meanwhile, Zhang Xiaohou had finished refining the Earth Element Spirit Seed — the Flowing Marsh — and felt so light he could practically float off the ground.

This was Zhang Xiaohou's first Spirit Seed, and it was nothing short of a massive leap in power. Missions that others couldn't manage on their own — he might actually be able to handle solo now!

"The Flowing Marsh is probably the finest Spirit Seed the Earth Element has to offer," Ah Li Man said. "When solid, it rivals bedrock — nearly indestructible. When fluid, it transforms into quicksand and swampland, with powerful adhesive and toxic properties."

Zhang Xiaohou looked a little embarrassed. He hadn't expected the two of them to hand it over so readily.

The Flowing Marsh gave him a wholly different sensation. Just as Ah Li Man had described, it possessed two entirely distinct sub-attributes — a rarity among Spirit Seeds. Not only would it double the power of all his Earth Element magic, it opened up a wealth of new tactical options as well.

Take the Earth Wave, for example. For most practitioners, it was good for little more than movement. Even a skilled user could barely manage a faint ripple of quicksand, enough to slow an enemy's advance at best.

But an Earth Wave empowered by the Flowing Marsh was something else entirely. It could conjure a wide-area swamp trap, locking an enemy's feet in soft, adhesive mud that made movement nearly impossible — and to top it off, it carried a water-type venom that seeped right through the skin...

Zhang Xiaohou felt his combat power hadn't merely doubled — it had exploded.

*Running with Brother Fan really is something else,* he thought. *Some people spend their whole lives saving up and still can't afford a Spirit Seed, and here I am walking away with one this exceptional.*

"Don't be embarrassed — you earned it," Mo Fan said, clapping him on the shoulder. "You were putting your life on the line out there, after all."

Zhang Xiaohou had pulled his weight and then some. On top of that, the kid had sold off everything he owned just to bring him two Spirit Essences. Mo Fan wasn't about to shortchange his idiot little brother. The Flowing Marsh had turned up at just the right time — if not Zhang Xiaohou, then who deserved it?

"Yeah!" Zhang Xiaohou gave a firm nod.

"Let's head back up," Ah Li Man said.

"Move out."

"With any luck, those two will have killed each other."

The three of them scrambled back to the surface and sprinted toward the central mud lake.

The violent tremors of the two creatures' battle reached them from a great distance. Mo Fan couldn't help but marvel at the sheer tenacity of the Marsh Poison Centipede and the Armored-Shell Giant Lizard — the three of them had rested underground for quite a while now, and those two still hadn't settled things.

**CRACK!**

Without warning, a leg the size of a tree trunk came crashing down from above, slamming into the ground right in front of them.

All three scattered with lightning reflexes, diving in different directions. The centipede leg was razor-sharp — it swept through the air like a massive scythe, leaving Zhang Xiaohou's heart hammering in his chest.

"The centipede only has six legs left!" Zhang Xiaohou cried, jabbing a finger up at the Marsh Poison Centipede as it launched itself into the air. His face was alight with excitement.

High above the surface of the mud lake, the Marsh Poison Centipede's hundred-meter body writhed with tremendous effort, using the whip-like flexibility of its frame to deliver a devastating blow to the Armored-Shell Giant Lizard.

The Armored-Shell Giant Lizard raised its massive carapace to deflect the strike, but the flat shell cracked clean across in a single blow — a brutal testament to just how terrifying the centipede's full-body whip could be.

The impact drove the Armored-Shell Giant Lizard deep into the mud lake, the force so overwhelming that even its powerful body couldn't claw back upright for a long, struggling moment.

The Marsh Poison Centipede gave it no chance to recover. Its body wound around the Armored-Shell Giant Lizard's thick, stubby neck like a massive chain, straining to wrench its head clean off.

The lizard thrashed in agony, but its somewhat stubby limbs were useless at this angle. Worse, the venom spreading through its body grew more potent by the second, sapping the titanic brute strength that had always been its greatest weapon.

Realizing the swamp was hampering its movement, the Armored-Shell Giant Lizard planted its legs and surged out of the lake — a mountain of flesh and muscle charging straight for the bank.

The hundred-meter centipede was still coiled around that mountain of a neck. Whether the Armored-Shell Giant Lizard had spotted the humans who'd sparked this whole conflict, or whether it had simply charged blindly, the direction it chose was straight toward where Mo Fan and the others were standing.

The three of them scrambled for cover. A moment later, they watched as a mountain-sized lizard, a giant centipede coiled around its throat, slammed headlong into the valley wall.

A forest? Nothing but a patch of weeds to creatures like these.

A valley wall? Barely worth calling a stone fence.

The Armored-Shell Giant Lizard felt itself choking, felt its head being slowly twisted off. Driven mad, it rampaged and crashed in every direction, desperate to shake loose the centipede that tightened its grip with every passing second.

The Marsh Poison Centipede had gone all in. This was its killing blow, and it knew it. If it lost its grip, it would be crushed to paste — it had too few legs left to run. So no matter how violently the Armored-Shell Giant Lizard slammed and thrashed, it held on with absolute resolve. The blood and bodily fluids pouring from its wounds rained continuously onto the lizard's scales, soaking through the thick hide into the muscle beneath. Just a little longer, and the venom would finish the job — and when it did, that massive lizard's head would finally part from its body.

The noise was like rolling thunder hammering the earth. Every impact either punched a crater into the ground or sent a section of mountainside crumbling down.

Blood everywhere. Shredded flesh everywhere. The two commander-class monsters had driven each other to the point of absolute mutual destruction.

Blood. Bodily fluids. The liquor of ruptured organs.

Every fluid inside the Marsh Poison Centipede was lethal. It wept across the Armored-Shell Giant Lizard's scales, worked through the thick hide into the muscle beneath, and flooded through every open wound into the lizard's body.

The Armored-Shell Giant Lizard had turned a waterlogged shade of purple. The poison had run deep.

In truth, the lizard had been winning throughout the fight. It had torn off the centipede's legs one by one, reduced its outer shell to ruins. By any measure of raw combat, it held the advantage.

But as the battle dragged on, the venom grew ever more devastating. The Armored-Shell Giant Lizard could never have imagined that in the end, it would be brought low not by brute force, but by poison.

The mountain of its body went numb, inch by inch. Its limbs stiffened until they refused to obey. Paralysis crept across every part of it, and the strength that had always defined it drained away to nothing.

The crushing agony at its throat was unbearable. Its final desperate slam had still not killed the damned centipede — which meant it was finished.

For years, the Armored-Shell Giant Lizard had sent the Marsh Poison Centipede scrambling to collect its own severed legs from the ground. But in this one battle — where the centipede had thrown away all caution and fought with its life on the line — the vicious creature had proven itself far more terrifying than it had ever seemed.

**BOOM — BOOM — BOOM —**

The mountain of lizard flesh finally, slowly, toppled.

The venom had spread to every corner of the Armored-Shell Giant Lizard's body. Its flesh had gone rigid beyond all movement. Its once-powerful neck showed clear signs of dislocation, wrenched nearly halfway off by the Marsh Poison Centipede's relentless coiling.

It hadn't been ripped all the way off — because the Marsh Poison Centipede itself had run out of strength.

Three more of its legs had shattered in the final chaos. It was down to three now, its body a tapestry of wounds.

Yet it raised its head with pride and screamed into the night sky with everything it had left — as if declaring to every living thing in the valley that it had, in this moment, reclaimed what was rightfully its own.