A red beam of light brushed past Zhang Lie's head as it turned another piece of land, hundreds of kilometers away, into a gigantic mushroom cloud. That was far too close for comfort. Even given Zhang Lie's defensive abilities, if the anchor were to land a direct hit on him, he'd be heavily injured, if not outright dead.

He had barely shifted his position and gotten a breather when three superior-grade lifeforms pounced at him as though they were mad.

Zhang Lie's eyes twitched. With a cutting motion, he released his control over the blood-red lake water. The disaster-grade lifeform, which he had been suppressing all this time, finally broke free. Of course, this also meant that Zhang Lie was finally able to make a move.

A pillar of genetic energy rose up into the skies from Zhang Lie's body, and Venombane appeared in his hand. "[The Boundless Blade: Dragon's Wrath]!"

A dragon's howl shook the skies. Before the superior-grade lifeforms could make a move, Zhang Lie struck. An array of blood-red dragons cleared the land all around Zhang Lie, annihilating the dozen or so superior-grade lifeforms nearby in a single brilliant moment.

Zhang Lie rushed toward the side of the disaster-grade lifeform. Comically, the disaster-grade lifeform actually tried to flee. The moment it had arrived in the first realm, it had fallen prey to Zhang Lie's machinations, and the lower half of its body was still corroding away in the lake. It was heavily wounded, and even a first-realm hunter like Zhang Lie could now pose a threat to it.

It knew that Zhang Lie had done something to the water in the lake, so it floated into the air. Sparks of light began to gather by its large, bulbous eye. Under such circumstances, Zhang Lie certainly wouldn't let himself get hit.

He moved quickly, but so too did the disaster-grade lifeform. By the time Zhang Lie skirted past the rays of death, it had already floated over a hundred meters into the air. The blood pooling around its body had vanished, and it looked almost like an abstract piece of art—though a flawed one, owing to the cracks on the central axis of the anchor and a scar marring its eye.

After arriving in a lower realm and rejuvenating itself with the life energy of the gathered hunters, the disaster-grade lifeform tried to establish itself as an apex predator. It howled at Zhang Lie in an attempt to expel him, or perhaps as a threat, announcing that the entire realm, all that was in sight, now belonged to its control.

As it howled, the superior-grade lifeforms nearby began to fall to the ground, their bodies dry and parched, just like those hunters that had been surrounding the lake.

Zhang Lie couldn't afford to let this absorption succeed; if he allowed the anchor to continuously replenish its lifeforce, the only thing that awaited him would be death.

He broke the seal on three of his potions, then surrounded his fists with the liquid within. Blood-streaked beams of water shot toward the anchor like spider silk. "Do you think I'll let you do as you please?!"

The disaster-grade lifeform immediately tried to evade these attacks, having suffered more than enough from them while within the lake. It howled. Frightening crystalline genetic energy gushed out of its body like a fountain, forming a domain of absolute control over its surroundings. 

Everything seemed to freeze, including Zhang Lie's bloody beams and his ongoing technique, [The Boundless Blade]. Pain flashed from his chest, and he felt as though he were about to stumble. He opened his mouth; blood trailed down his lips. His body seemed like nothing more than a shell.

Disoriented, Zhang Lie tried to flee. The moment he did so, the region of space surrounding the disaster-grade lifeform began to swell and distend, spatial distortions that were caused by the magnitude of the energy fluctuations coming from the anchor-like lifeform.

The failed attack caused Zhang Lie to realize just how much weaker he was compared to the wounded disaster-grade lifeform, and he had no intention of clashing against it head-on again. Instead, he would focus on slowly whittling the anchor down, just as he did while it still remained in the lake.

He moved rapidly and shot a few attacks at the anchor intermittently, forcing it to stop its plan of consuming the lifeforce of the superior-grade lifeforms around. Whenever he moved, he would shoot a skein of bloody water into the air, as though he were constructing a gigantic spiderweb.

Although the disaster-grade lifeform was impermeable to these threads because of the genetic energy currently surrounding its body, exuding and materializing genetic energy out of one's body took considerable effort and placed a toll on one's reserves. The anchor was able to sustain its expenditure by drawing from the lifeforce of those superior-grade lifeforms around, but it wouldn't be able to do so for long.

After all, its injuries were far more severe than they seemed.

Somehow, in its heavily wounded state, it had been able to arrive at the first realm of the dimensional world, which should have been a region of space over which it could wholly dominate.

This was what had happened in Zhang Lie's past life, but this time around, it found itself facing Zhang Lie, a reincarnator who understood its weaknesses shockingly well. Zhang Lie's spiderweb would definitely outlast its shielding, so unless anything were to change, it would eventually fall prey to him.

The disaster-grade lifeform had also noticed this point, so as it and Zhang Lie exchanged blow after blow, it began to float toward the region of space in which the bloody strands were least dense.

The heavily wounded disaster-grade lifeform might have overwhelming offense and defense, but its attack patterns and battle strategy were surprisingly single-minded. The ray of annihilation that it could shoot out of its eye was frightening indeed, but because of its injury, and because of the necessary charge-up period before the attack, it hadn't managed to land a direct hit on Zhang Lie even once.

The only other attack accessible to it in its heavily wounded state was its domain, but even that was slow to form after its injury. Zhang Lie suspected that it was originally a near-instantaneous attack; indeed, Zhang Lie had been caught in its effects, but the anchor was too slow to take advantage of it given its condition. The domain had briefly injured Zhang Lie, but that was a problem easily fixed with a few health potions.

The anchor shot out three beams of annihilation at the weak spot in the web of bloody skeins that Zhang Lie had intentionally left open. The next moment, it activated its domain once more and shot toward that opening, understanding that it couldn't afford to fight against this unusually strong and irritating human in its heavily wounded state.

It needed some time to recover and a source of genetic energy to repair its wounds. At peak condition, it would easily be able to take control of this entire realm, but before then, it would have to avoid any pests.

The moment right before it was about to escape from the web, however, it saw Zhang Lie smile. It immediately realized that there might have been a trap waiting for it, but it was all too late.

In front of the anchor, a small white wyrm blinked into existence. Its thoughts seemed to slow, and the wound by its eye seemed to magnify. Struck by a mental blow, the anchor fell into temporary paralysis, unable to sense its body or its limbs.

A frightening, corrosive energy entered its brain through the wound in its eye, causing it to try to retaliate with the full force of its might. There was a snake-like creature in its mental space—no, a gigantic, frightening, white-colored wyrmlike creature, with a piercing horn on its forehead and sharp, serrated teeth. It glowed with white, spiritual flame, then tore the anchor's mental space to shreds.

All faded to black. The last thing it saw was the human injecting the bloody liquid it had so feared into its body. It felt its lifeforce gather around its heart, then fade away. The last moment before its death, it suddenly regretted entering this dimension.

How could there have been such a killer lying in wait for him in this realm?