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Chapter 69: Soulshard in Hand

With a huge crash, the forest wolfman\'s pouncing attack smashed a huge hole in the ground, but Zhang Lie\'s body vanished the instant his claws swiped through it.

The next moment, in a flurry of shadows, before the forest wolfman could respond, Zhang Lie appeared behind his head. A violet shortsword struck him, seemingly from an extradimensional space.

Just before the attack landed, the wolfman\'s fur rose up and shot out in the direction of the attack, preventing what would have been a lethal blow and sapping Zhang Lie of his momentum. While Zhang Lie was dealing with the fur, a claw came from his right, forcing him to defend against the sudden attack.

Zhang Lie activated [Rippling Walk], then vanished from sight once more. Reappearing by the wolfman\'s left flank, he thrust at the wolfman\'s unprotected side.

Clang! Despite his speed and stealth, the blade still struck a claw. As expected, a superior-grade lifeform was superior-grade indeed. Even if the wolfman weren\'t able to sense Zhang Lie until the very last moment, his agility and reflexes were still sufficient to block Zhang Lie\'s blow.

However, the corrosive strength of Venombane caused the wolfman to let out a pained howl. His claw had only touched it for an instant, but it was already corroding, and his paw was bloodied and throbbing.

Fortunately for the wolfman, his life-attuned genetic energy was a perfect counter for Zhang Lie. In a flash of green light, his claw was refreshed, and his injuries vanished as though he had never sustained them.

Zhang Lie immediately understood that this was an opponent he couldn\'t hope to exhaust to death. His techniques and reservoir of genetic energy were insufficient to overcome the wolfman\'s regeneration. If he were to eke out a victory, he would have to be fast and decisive.

Enraged, the forest wolfman took the offensive. As it howled, tendril after tendril of vine snapped up from the ground, stitching together into a large, intricate web all around it.

Zhang Lie had to admit that this particular forest wolfman was quite gifted at combat, having identified the weakness in Zhang Lie\'s stealth in just two or three clashes. The web of vines would massively reduce the space in which Zhang Lie could operate and hinder his ability to perform sneak attacks.

Ding! Ding! As the vines filled the air, the forest wolfman clashed with Zhang Lie in close combat, claws against blade. The wolfman\'s actions were particularly agile, and his claws seemed to strike at Zhang Lie from all directions.

Surprisingly, he was able to fight on equal footing with Zhang Lie.

The strength of this particular forest wolfman was shocking. Although Zhang Lie had yet to use any of his soulshards but Venombane, nor any of his higher-grade genetic techniques, an ordinary superior-grade lifeform certainly wouldn\'t be able to withstand Zhang Lie\'s strength after he consumed Potion #2.

And yet, under these conditions, the wolfman was about to gain the upper hand. As the vines filled the air around them, Zhang Lie\'s mobility became severely restricted.

"I have to admit I\'ve underestimated you. In that case, take this! [Fists of the Silent Sea]!" As Zhang Lie defended against the wolfman\'s claws with Venombane in his right hand, he attacked him with his left fist.

Fist and claw met in a giant explosion, filling the air with ripples of dark genetic energy. These ripples struck the wolfman\'s left arm and elbow, distorting them as though marring a surface of still water.

With a few loud cracks, the forest wolfman\'s arm was paralyzed and hung limply by his side.

The forest wolfman howled, and the web of vines he was controlling snapped apart. With his left arm severely injured, he had no choice but to give up on attacking Zhang Lie and to retreat instead.

As he howled, a wave of sound shot toward Zhang Lie, not intending to wound him, but only to deter his subsequent attacks. One fist, just one fist, had caused the bones of his left arm to crack and splinter, and even his life-attuned genetic energy wouldn\'t be able to heal such a severe injury instantaneously.

Of course, Zhang Lie wasn\'t going to give up on his prey. As the wolfman retreated, Zhang Lie gathered all his genetic energy and broke through the wolfman\'s barrier of sound.

The wolfman had just retreated, and the bones of his left arm just about to reform, when he sensed a shadowy figure by his back. Before he could react, Zhang Lie\'s left palm had already struck his back.

With a loud thump, the black ripples appeared once more, and the forest wolfman spat out a mouthful of fresh blood. He felt as though all his organs had suffered internal injury in the aftermath of the attack, and the genetic energy throughout his body instinctively retreated to his genetic core, lowering his defenses to their minimum.

He would pay a price for exposing such weakness, and that price would be his life.

A violet shortsword thrust deeply into the wolfman\'s unprotected head. Corrosive dark genetic energy burst from the wound, causing the wolfman\'s head to decay instantly, a lethal blow. As dark green blood shot out of the wound, the forest wolfman let out a dying howl.

Zhang Lie\'s left hand, hidden from sight, smashed a mutated-grade forest wolf soulshard to splinters. On top of the wolfman\'s head, a fist-sized, dark jade soulshard was rapidly condensing.

Fang Yi, Sun Mengmeng, and the gathered hunters\' faces lit up at the sight. From their perspective, it wasn\'t all that difficult to find a superior-grade lifeform; what was rare was to have it condense a soulshard after its death.

This was especially true for the rarer superior-grade lifeforms, such as the forest wolfman. It was certainly more likely than not that no soulshard would condense after a kill, so the fact that Zhang Lie had gotten the exact soulshard he wanted on his first attempt shocked them all.

Not everyone could claim to have such good fortune, after all.

On the other hand, Zhang Lie wasn\'t surprised: after all, his secret knowledge changed what would otherwise be a stochastic event into a deterministic one. With a sweep of his hand, he stored the superior-grade forest wolfman soulshard in his soulspace.

The pack of forest wolves rapidly backed down upon hearing the forest wolfman\'s dying howl, disappearing without a trace.

Having gotten what he wanted, Zhang Lie didn\'t intend to give chase. He gathered the other hunters over, had them store the mutated- and higher-grade carcasses, and then left with them.

Thus ended their first hunt as Team Zenith. They had accomplished all their objectives, and Zhang Lie was in a particularly good mood. Instead of heading back to the settlement directly, however, they went straight toward their next target: the longhorn dawnbeetle.