Almost as soon as Zhang Lie's strike landed, the moonlight wyrm began to writhe in pain, opening its maw and trying to strike at Zhang Lie's head with its long tongue as it did so.

Zhang Lie frowned. In an explosion of genetic energy, he transformed into a blood-colored wolfman, his body adorned with a suit of silver armor, gold wings spread out wide open behind him. Compared to the gigantic wolfman that Zhou Ying, Li Feng, and Yang Ze had combined to pilot, Zhang Lie's wolfman form was smaller but also more agile. 

With Venombane, Zhang Lie defended himself against the wyrm's tongue, remarking at how tough it was. As he fended the tongue off, he launched a bloody dragon in the wyrm's direction. "[The Boundless Blade: Dragon's Wrath]!"

The wyrm howled, and the water in the Moonlit Pond again rose up at its will. It formed a belt of water under the moonlight wyrm's control, defending itself against Zhang Lie's attack.

However, the moonlight wyrm had still underestimated Zhang Lie's attack. His framework now combined three elemental attunements, and its resulting strength was far superior to what the moonlight wyrm had anticipated.

As a result, its defensive technique failed completely, and the bloody dragon took barely a moment to break the barrier of water and smash against the moonlight wyrm's head. The wyrm screeched, the scales on its head corroding in wisps of black smoke. Black blood leaked out of its ruined eye, and its majestic features were now all in tatters. The moonlight wyrm felt a sense of primal fear for the first time.

As it tried to retreat back into the pond, attacks came at it from the left and the right. From the left, the gigantic wolfman had somehow sprouted wings of light, and was heading right for the wyrm. On the right, nine blueflame phoenixes shot toward the wyrm, their strength incomparable to Sun Mengmeng's previous attacks.

"[Storm of Leaves: Void Cut]!"

"[Lunarflame Shot: Ninefold Phantasmagoria]!"

The gigantic wolfman swung its blade from some distance away; nevertheless, the blade suddenly appeared by the moonlight wyrm's side, as though the distance between them were immaterial.

The moonlight wyrm screeched again as its scales broke against the attack. The force of the attack propelled it upward, causing its intention to retreat back to the depths of the pond to fail.

At the same time, the nine phoenixes struck its face, causing the wyrm to keen in agony. Blood streaked down the rest of its once-immaculate body, but Zhang Lie frowned at the sight. Something was wrong—the wyrm was too weak!

Although it had broken through the limits of a superior-grade lifeform, it wasn't peak-grade yet. Furthermore, it seemed to be a bit slimmer than the wyrm he had seen the last time around. Could there have been multiple wyrms in the Moonlit Pond?

Zhang Lie, who was supposed to follow up with an attack, instead hesitated for a moment, giving the wyrm some room to breathe. It cried out, disgorging a beam of white light from its body, purifying and nullifying all domain effects in the immediate vicinity.

The next moment, it darted back into the pond and began fleeing into the deep trench at the very center. Although Zhang Lie was still unsure about just what was going on, he followed suit without any hesitation.

"Wait for me here. Prepare for another fight at any moment!"

He darted into the water so quickly the members of Team Zenith couldn't say anything to him. The water had become murky because of the poisons he had poured into the pond, but Zhang Lie was resistant on account of his framework being water-attuned. At his stage of development, he could even be considered an anthropomorphic aquatic lifeform.

He navigated the perturbed waters based on the fluctuations of genetic energy and the scent of blood that the injured moonlit wyrm gave off. It was currently diving deep into the pond, so quickly it seemed almost like a ray of light. However, Zhang Lie wasn't much slower. Circulating [Ninecarp Transformation], he followed behind the wyrm like a black piranha.

Because the wyrm was injured, the distance between it and Zhang Lie was steadily narrowing. In a matter of moments, Zhang Lie was close enough to strike. "[Fists of the Silent Sea: Fade]!"

Waves of force punched through the water. Although he was too far from the wyrm to do substantive damage, he could at least slow down the wyrm even further, but the wyrm retaliated with attacks of its own, repelling Zhang Lie with flamboyant waves of its tail.

The distance between the two creatures remained at around thirty meters; Zhang Lie wasn't able to close in, but neither could the wyrm escape his pursuit. Both of them were diving even deeper into the pond, so deep the water had regained its clarity.

Zhang Lie was only able to identify how deep they were going because of the steadily increasing water pressure, which wasn't a good sign for him. Although Zhang Lie's elemental attunement was compatible and his stats were high enough that the water pressure was unlikely to be a burden, it would certainly reduce his agility and strength in a battle.

The moonlight wyrm had impressive defensive capabilities; if Zhang Lie had to expend much of his genetic energy just to deal with the water pressure, it would be hard for him to trap the wyrm here.

He reactivated the blood ant soulshard that he had deactivated the moment he dove into the water, and his body immediately became suffused with a bloody glow, raising his speed almost fivefold.

In a matter of moments, Zhang Lie had caught up to the moonlight wyrm. "[Fists of the Silent Sea: Rise]!"

Before the moonlight wyrm could react, it felt a tremendous pain by its lower jaw, a blow directed at it with such force that he was propelled upwards. Despite the fact that it was running away so quickly, the wyrm was inflicted with heavy wounds and copious toxins throughout its body, so it had little offensive power left.

Furthermore, the moment Zhang Lie caught up, he activated [Eclipse] once more. The bloody moon caused the genetic energy supporting its body to falter as it drained away.

The moonlit wyrm keened once more, its final defense, causing rings of white light to shine around it as it purged the debilitating effects in its vicinity. Even Zhang Lie's [Eclipse] was dispelled, but the moment it did so, Zhang Lie struck at it again with [The Boundless Blade], piercing through its lower jaw.

This time, the moonlight wyrm didn't even have energy to struggle. Zhang Lie's sword technique exploded in its head, killing the wyrm instantly.

Shockingly, the moment the wyrm perished, genetic energy condensed by the horn on its ruined forehead, producing a white-jade soulshard, a soulshard from the moonlight wyrm itself! Zhang Lie had hardly anticipated that he would be so lucky.

[You successfully killed a liminal superior-grade moonlight wyrm and obtained its soulshard. By consuming the flesh of the superior-grade moonlight wyrm, you may receive one to ten superior gene fragments.]

However, his excitement didn't last long. A... superior-grade moonlight wyrm?   Just what was going on? Wasn't this supposed to be a peak-grade moonlight wyrm?

It really was weaker than he had anticipated, but the will of the world had used an unusual adjective, 'liminal'. Could he have been mistaken? Was this really the only moonlight wyrm in the Moonlit Pond?

Despite the unusual classification, the moonlight wyrm had only given superior-grade rewards. That implied that the moonlight wyrm was still technically a superior-grade lifeform, and had yet to evolve into a peak-grade one.

Perhaps this was because the first realm of the dimensional world wouldn't allow the existence of peak-grade lifeforms, but even so, it was far stronger than an ordinary superior-grade lifeform, which was likely why the will of the dimensional world evaluated it as 'liminal'.

But something was still strange. He was certain the moonlight wyrm he had encountered was a peak-grade lifeform… Could he have been mistaken because he was too weak then?

In truth, even Zhang Lie himself was confused as to what was going on. However, this wasn't a good environment in which to ponder such a question. Zhang Lie would swim back up to the surface before thinking further about this.

With the moonlight wyrm's carcass in his hand, he began swimming upwards. What he didn't notice was the blood seeping from the moonlight wyrm's mouth as he continued to swim, causing a large air bubble to rise from the depths of the Moonlit Pond.