Tian Lang looked at everything from a corner.

He didn’t expect the difference between Necromancer and Lich to be so great. The two necromancers combined couldn’t even reach Suo Ge’s feet.

Although, the difference was outside of his expectation that barely changed anything.

Since Suo Ge looks down on him, he would lay down and fuel his injury when time serves.

Out of everything, Reaper Mantis’s sudden weakness to ice was most surprising. It was a Gold-ranked Level 7 Golden King Beast. Thanks to its insectoid origin and strengthened exoskeleton, it had resistance to all common elements such as ice and fire.

He carefully observed the Reaper Mantis’s aura and found something peculiar around its belly. Suddenly he felt the royal swordswoman’s greed wasn’t entirely unfounded. This Reaper Mantis had a bulging belly.

It indeed had eggs in its belly!

Wait, doesn’t that mean there’s a male Reaper Mantis nearby? He had read that only a pair of male and female could give birth to a new life. Although he wasn’t aware of the know-how, it did mean he wasn’t wrong.

But after he checked his surroundings carefully, there was no powerful presence within the range of his eyes. Due to the oppression of the battle, all life forms capable of moving had already emptied the area.

Then again, if those terrifying little Reaper Mantises were born, they would undoubtedly not stay limited to Eagle’s Cry Valley and cause havoc in the whole Soaring Dragon Continent. This also explained how the Lich and its underlings survived for so long. It wasn’t that they were overly foolish, it was because they never encountered this terrifying lifeform before.

The Reaper Mantis, which had freed itself from the ice, hooked both of its arm scythes and flew towards the Zombie Dragon. It then spread its wings and did its best to shake off the remaining ice fragments on its body.

Lich Suo Ge summoned a Blood Wing Demon Guard, which had a body of raging flames and carried an ax. This Bronze-ranked Level 7 monster from the abyss was called to intercept Qian Qian.

Actually, he was searching for Tian Lang from the start. Rather than the girl who couldn’t detect his presence, the boy should be more dangerous. A part of him said what a boy in his early twenties could possibly do, but as an experienced Lich who cultivated for 500 years, he trusted his intuition.

The Demon Guard stopped the royal swordswoman's unrestricted destruction, but the latter persistently held her place. Their fight inside the Zombie Dragon’s body only heightened the damage. However, it was insignificant to the massive dragon. It would take at least ten minutes to paralyze one of its limbs.

Tian Lang had to ignore Qian Qian and the Demon Guard temporarily. He had a more pressing issue. He discovered that the Icy Orb could merge with the Zombie Dragon, evolving it into a Silver-Ranked Level 8 Undead-category Giant Frost Dragon.

It was definitely not good news for him and Qian Qian. For this very reason, undead-type beasts were most challenging to handle. They had a rare ability none of the other categories had. It was the ability to recombine dead spirits and evolve through merging.

This was indeed a summoning technique that was an exceptional cause of worry.

As long as their master could find some secret merging method, they could temporarily merge into one body and evolve into a higher grade undead beast. This could really make people go crazy...

Earlier, the Headless Horseman and the Iron Bone Skeleton had recombined into a Death Knight... Now, it was an even more powerful dead spirit combination, the Zombie Dragon and the Ice Orb, which recombined into a Giant Frost Dragon.

Tian Lang frowned. The evolution of the Giant Frost Dragon must be stopped. However, with Lich Suo Ge’s guidance, the Giant Frost Dragon’s evolution was extremely smooth and fast.

The Reaper Mantis pounced forward and tightened its arm scythes around the evolving Giant Frost Dragon. It prepared to use its frightful strength to tear its opponent’s entire body apart.

However, under Lich Suo Ge’s control, the Giant Frost Dragon immediately attacked the Reaper Mantis’s current weakness; its bulging belly.

This attack might not be useful under normal circumstances. However, the Reaper Mantis, which was about to become a mother, evidently was not in its normal condition. Furthermore, it was terrified that the eggs in its belly might be injured. It thus gave up on its attack and leaped backward.

A second Ice Orb noiselessly ambushed from the sky, hitting the back of the Reaper Mantis like a meteor.

It sealed the Reaper Mantis’ entire body in ice again.

The Giant Frost Dragon did not bite to attack like before. Under Lich Suo Ge’s control, it repeatedly breathed freezing air towards the Reaper Mantis’ ice sculpture, reinforcing the freezing effect.

The Reaper Mantis brandished both its arms wildly, melting the ice on its body very rapidly, and splashed the melted water around.

However, there was a huge mound of ice in its bulging belly. It protruded like a small hill and was continuously enlarging.

“[Descend of the Night].”

Lich Suo Ge summoned a black shadow and pointed his fingers at the head of the shadow. The shadow exploded into pieces and disappeared, becoming a black fog that shrouded the entire valley.

The entire valley became as dark as night, and one would have trouble finding the correct direction.

Tian Lang frowned. If he didn’t interfere now, his ‘ally,’ the Reaper Mantis, might be in a terrible position.

In Lich Suo Ge’s eyes, as long as the Gold-ranked Level 7 Reaper Mantis was killed, these small little humans could be easily and instantly killed.

The more the opponent underestimated him, the better his chances were, but it couldn’t be at the expense of his ally’s life.

The Reaper Mantis discovered that the enemy was aiming its attacks towards its belly. The eggs inside were making popping noises, like they were so cold that they were chattering. It immediately went crazy.

Tian Lang appeared like a ghost in the dark. He tapped the thick small hill-sized ice, which instantly shattered into countless pieces.

Tian Lang and the Reaper Mantis’s eyes met. However, neither of them attacked the other. The Reaper Mantis was a silent predator. For some reason, it felt like the human before it was also a predator, and their target was the Giant Frost Dragon before them. Especially when the chattering eggs seemed to finally stop, the Reaper Mantis seemed to unconsciously think of Tian Lang as its ally.

And all the anger for the damages its eggs suffered was directed at the Giant Frost Dragon and Suo Ge. As a mother, it couldn’t hold back the rage anymore.

Displaying its explosive strength, it crawled up on the Giant Frost Dragon, which was breathing freezing air. And before the dragon could fly up, an arm scythe grabbed onto its body and dragged it downwards.

The other arm scythe hooked and reined in the neck of the Giant Frost Dragon. It pulled at its neck until it emitted cracking sounds and seemed to be breaking apart.

Lowering its head, the Reaper Mantis madly bit into the neck of the Giant Frost Dragon.

Lich Suo Ge was blowing his top. It was really unfortunate that even the Silver-ranked Level 8 Giant Frost Dragon could not match up to a Gold King Beast like the Reaper Mantis. The power of its arm scythes, coupled with the Reaper Mantis’ innate killing abilities, made even the Giant Frost Dragon unable to break free. It could only struggle for its life. Meanwhile, the ax-wielding Blood Winged Demon Guard below was holding the royal swordswoman back.

Lich Suo Ge had no choice now but to get it to come back.

However, would Qian Qian let it go so easily?

Just when the Demon Guard turned its back, Qian Qian sheathed her sword and held out her hand. A Silver-ranked Advanced Grimoire opened by itself as a large phantom of White Tiger flashed above her.

Slowly, the phantom merged with Qian Qian as starting with her head, every strand of bodily hair turned white. The black-haired royal swordswoman had now thoroughly become a white princess, err... tigress.

Just then, she grabbed her sheathed sword hilt, as a single arc of white light separated the Demon Guard from top to bottom.

At first, Lich Suo Ge didn’t notice and only prepared to control his ax-wielding Blood Winged Demon Guard to use its Fire Shield Explosion skill to blast the hateable brat away.

Unexpectedly, to his astonishment, he found that he had lost all control and authority over his beast. The axe-wielding Blood Winged Demon Guard stayed still in the air like a log, not even moving a single inch. A large amount of blood, intestines, and brain matter had spurted out and fell to the ground like an abandoned log.

Right after, the royal swordswoman whirled her sword on top of her head and slammed it on the Giant Frost Dragon’s leg.

Rumble!

The Giant Frost Dragon trembled like withstanding a great earthquake.

Tian Lang took this chance and jumped to the peak of the dragon’s head. Qi concentrated on his right hand as he blasted a huge hole on the rock-hard dragon skull. He slipped the small stalk of the [Crystal Feeding Thorny Flower].

After absorbing [Mother Spirit Demoness] Beast Soul, the thorny flowers had gained abilities from [Moth Spirit Demoness].

[Parasyte] and [Link].

[Parasyte] allowed the thorny flower’s primary or auxiliary stalk to take root inside an organism. [Link], on the other hand, was quite vague even for Tian Lang. It allowed the digested energy to transfer to the main body. There seemed to be more to it, but Tian Lang could only figure out this much in such a short time.

Since there was the Reaper Mantis and Qian Qian, Tian Lang had no confidence that he could take the dragon core. In the end, this lazy and greedy golden thorny flower profited the most.

Without caring about the danger, it took root on the dragon skull upside-down and chomped on the dragon crystal viciously. Since it was just a stalk, it didn’t worry about dying.

The orb of ice that just went back to Lich Suo Ge leaped out and landed on Tian Lang.

In just an instant, a light blue hue spread around his body, turning him into a frozen human ice sculpture.

“[Lightning Strike]” Lich Suo Ge didn’t dare to belittle these young humans anymore. He realized they were hiding their strength from their start and that they had strength no less than one of those rankers, but they were still very young. Hence it was a suspicion that he could hardly believe.

Lich Suo Ge summoned a hammer-wielding Gold Armoured Puppet and ordered it to violently pound Tian Lang, who had already turned into an ice sculpture.

Rumble!

It was like another earth turning rumble.

“What a close call,” Lich Suo Ge secretly wiped his cold sweat away. Fortunately, his Demon Crystal Ice Spirit Orb was strong enough and was able to freeze that brat. Otherwise, he would probably have been in danger. Now, he only had to deal with this Reaper Mantis and the girl. After being frozen, no humans could survive such a fatal attack, or so it should have been...

To Lich Suo Ge’s dismay, Tian Lang, who should have been knocked tens of meters away, stood in his place, and with a simple punch, he sent the Gold Armoured Puppet against his halo shield. Sparks flew out of the puppet’s joint, indicating it couldn’t even anymore.

“What? Was that supposed to do some damage? This is so comfortable~” Tian Lang lazily stretched.

“This is impossible,” Lich Suo Ge completely couldn’t believe his own eyes, but the limp Gold Armored Puppet said otherwise.

“Unlike your rubbish teaching, my teacher said ‘Nothing is impossible.’ I thought it would be more powerful... but if that’s all you can do, make it easy for me and remove that shield.” Tian Lang sincerely advised.

“What about my Demon Crystal Ice Spirit Orb?” Lich Suo Ge thought that even if this brat did not die from the blow, he should still be an ice sculpture.

Tian Lang waved his hand, he held a fist-sized crystal core. It was the core of the Ice Spirit Orb, struggling to escape. There was still the same icy hue on his body, but it seemed to not obstruct him in any way.

No joke, even Meng Delan’s alchemized food couldn’t make him uncomfortable, even that was from inside his body. Now, this small spirit wanted to freeze him? In its dream!

Tian Lang thought for a moment before deciding not to kill the spirit. Then again, he couldn’t store living items in his shadow. With a thought, dark-golden runes surfaced on his body. Some of the runes wrapped around the core as the struggle stopped.

Tian Lang was surprised when it worked on the first try. Like candy, he pocketed it without care.

As for the Gold Armoured Puppet, well, if he couldn’t match with a Bronze-ranked Level 7 puppet’s strength, he might as well commit suicide.

Lich Suo Ge cried out ‘Not good’ in his heart. The moment he had summoned [Descend of the Night], every single undead-type beast would have their abilities increased by a different amount, but teleportation orbs would become useless. This is because this darkness that shrouded the entire place was considered to be within a special-type beast summon’s body–

Rumble!

With one demon in front of him, he almost forgot that there was another below.

“Spirit Spring!”

At that time, an unknown voice drifted to Lich Suo Ge and Tian Lang’s ear, causing the former to almost crap in his robe.