They came with aggressive momentum and from a tricky angle; in the initial moment of their move, Wei Huan actually failed to detect them. It wasn't until they slammed into Dot Mom's protective shield that their presence was revealed.
The leading snakes were bounced back by the impact, while the rest skidded to a halt, staring in suspicion and uncertainty at the invisible wall of air that felt like an ancient seal.
Sensing the disturbance, Wei Huan and Dot Mom looked down simultaneously, spotting the group of snakes that had burrowed up from the depths. Wei Huan had never liked snakes; no part of their biology appealed to human aesthetics. Mu Zhong shared the sentiment. Noticing Wei Huan's shift in focus, he peered down as well and realized: "I was wondering why we hadn't seen any snakes when there are already dragons. So, they were here all along, lying in ambush."
Their calm demeanor made it seem as though the ongoing assassination attempt had nothing to do with them; they even had the leisure for small talk. Naturally, this "turning point" ambush, intended to flip the script of the battle, was destined for failure.
The snake demons had alerted Wei Huan the moment they were halted by the shield. The Two-Headed Hidden Demons moved out to meet them. Even though the Hidden Demons were individually outmatched by this high-level elite strike team, they held the numerical advantage, surrounding each snake in teams of three.
The battlefield became a messy brawl. The snakes possessed immense physical strength, their tails shattering the flesh and bone of any Hidden Demon too slow to dodge. However, their most fearsome weapon—venom—was utterly useless against the undead. This forced them into a raw, primitive melee of biting and constriction. Some Hidden Demons were crushed into mincemeat within the snakes' coils.
When a Hidden Demon died, it simply returned to the Great Tomb to wait for redeployment. Wei Huan had cleared a "fast lane" through half of his teleportation gates specifically for them, and within moments, they were back on the field.
After a long struggle, the number of Hidden Demons had not decreased, while the snakes realized their own wounds were beginning to throb with unbearable pain. Upon closer inspection, they found that the zombie-type undead carried a rot-toxin that infected their flesh on contact, causing wounds to expand rapidly. Some snakes, driven mad by the pain, bit off their own rotting flesh to stop the spread. The stronger ones used their internal energy to force the toxin out.
The leader of the strike team, a Black Jiao (Horned Snake), looked up at the strange, misshapen vehicle hovering above. It knew the true Demon King was inside. If he died, this undead calamity would vanish!
Ignoring the Hidden Demons, the Black Jiao lunged toward the vehicle. Behind it, the remaining snakes abandoned their skirmishes, unleashing their maximum destructive power against Dot Mom's shield.
'Boom! Rumble!'
The shield rippled violently under the assault, thinning in spots as if it might shatter at any moment. But a Pseudo-God's defense was not so easily broken. Having absorbed the first wave, Wei Huan's retaliation arrived.
Five vehicles ascended simultaneously, their mounted arrow towers opening fire. These were Grade 6 vehicles, and two of them boasted Grade 7 towers—forces not to be trifled with. The snakes scrambled to dodge, but two were caught in the crossfire. Without even a chance to struggle, they were cleaved in half, perishing on the spot.
The terrifying power of the attack froze the strike team in their tracks. The surviving snakes retreated a full mile, not daring to approach again. Wei Huan watched them—unwilling to leave but too afraid to attack—and turned his attention back to the main battlefield.
At the front, even with the Beast King organizing the retreat into a stand, the tides remained firmly against the beast army. Several Grade 7 Great Demons were being targeted specifically by Wei Huan, pinned down so heavily they couldn't spare a moment to aid their subordinates. This was why Wei Huan hadn't sent reinforcements to deal with the snakes; he had to maintain relentless pressure at the front to ensure he wasn't dragged into a war of attrition. He was one man against a world; if the beasts realized his limits and brought in endless reinforcements, a clean conquest would become impossible.
The Beast King's tentacles swayed, manifesting powers across the field. A Wolf Legion flanking maneuver was intercepted, and the high-level beasts hidden underground finally managed to flee. The red Facehugger (the "Great-Great-Granddaughter") crawled out from the earth, visibly annoyed that she hadn't secured any kills. Dot Mom's bloodline was growing smarter and more temperamental with each generation; to Wei Huan, this red one seemed like a spoiled, proud little princess.
Gouzi and the "Grandchildren" generation worked together, using Facehugger explosions to barely contain the bull demon. Despite being covered in blood, the massive beast's vitality was incredible.
However, the Beast King—or perhaps the bull—realized that the undead's true primary target was not the bull or the subterranean monsters, but the Nine-Tailed Fox. In a short span of time, the fox had been surrounded by thousands of undead, with Brother Hammer and Big Foot circling like vultures.
The fox's purple fire was lethal, incinerating a Grade 6 Hidden Demon in less than a minute. Over eight hundred Hidden Demons had already been reduced to ash. While this was a massive drain on Wei Huan's Nether Power, he was undeterred. Even a dying undead would trade its last breath for one scratch on the fox's hide.
"Hahaha~~" The Nine-Tailed Fox let out a shriek that sounded like a woman's laughter—a desperate cry for help.
The Snail-King's tentacles whipped about. The underground beasts resurfaced to strike the Hidden Demons surrounding the fox, and the bull demon charged toward the fray, even at the cost of one of its horns.
In this critical moment, Wei Huan remained chillingly calm.
A small Kobold perched on the shoulder of a Hidden Demon near the fox opened its mouth and "spat." A red streak shot out—the Red Facehugger. As the only bright color in the army, she possessed the most potent self-detonation ability. To ensure the kill, she leaked a massive amount of Nether Fire bombs from her gnarled abdomen as she lunged.
The Nine-Tailed Fox had to die today!
"Human!!"
Suddenly, a voice echoed in Wei Huan's mind. It wasn't a human language, but since it was projected directly into his consciousness, its meaning was clear. Wei Huan locked eyes with the Beast King—those massive, pitch-black eyes. He realized he recognized this creature; he had seen it before.
Perhaps the King was speaking out of hatred, or perhaps it was pleading for the fox's life. It didn't matter. Wei Huan wanted that soul.
The Red Facehugger's lunge was flawless. Before she even touched the fox, she detonated. The combined force of her blast and the Nether Fire bombs created a blinding white flash.
The world seemed to shake apart. The air was consumed in the blast radius. Undead and beasts alike were vaporized instantly. A massive heatwave followed, blowing back survivors and bringing the entire battle to a standstill.
When the smoke cleared, a crater spanning over a thousand square kilometers—the size of a small country—remained. It was a bottomless abyss reaching into the depths of the earth. Naturally, the fox at the center was gone. The subterranean beast sent to save it likely perished as well. The bull demon, which had been just outside the blast radius, stood staring at the pit, its eyes suddenly clearing of bloodlust, its expression turning almost simple-minded.
"Human!"
The voice rang out again. Wei Huan ignored it. Despite his internal shock, he reached out, attempting to seize the fox's soul from a distance. It was too far.
"Move forward," Wei Huan commanded, his face betraying nothing of the voice echoing in his head.
His silence and continued advance pushed the Beast King past its final limit. "Human!! Die!!" it roared in his mind.
Its body expanded once more, becoming a celestial giant of immeasurable height. Its hands slammed onto the earth as it crawled forward with a sickening, alien motion, crossing the battlefield to attack the vehicle directly. Its sheer scale was horrifying; Mu Zhong involuntarily leaned back. To this snail-monster, a human wasn't even as thick as a single hair. Its eyes were continents; its mouth could swallow stars.
Wei Huan's expression didn't flicker. 'Just a matter of size,' he thought. 'What of it?'
With a thought, Dot Mom began to grow. Within heartbeats, she matched the monster's size. The vehicles broke through the planet's atmosphere into the vast, silent cosmos, where colorful nebulae swirled in the dark.
Wei Huan stared down the Beast King at the same height. On his command, the 78 Dark Beast Royals finally flew out, absorbing the power of the undead to manifest thousand-meter-tall Dharma-Apparitions. These apparitions took the form of giant Hidden Demons, swarming the snail's exposed, soft flesh and tearing at it with savage claws.
"Aaaagh—!!"
The Beast King screamed in agony. It never dreamed that Wei Huan held this card in reserve—undead that could match its size and a squad of thousand-meter elites capable of inflicting massive damage.
"Humans! Damned humans! Die! Die!!" The King roared, retreating its body back toward the planet. Wei Huan didn't let up, his royals hounding the retreat and leaving massive gashes in the snail's flesh.
Eventually, the King shrank and retreated to the other side of the battlefield. The 50 royal apparitions remained, looming over the remaining resistance. Whether it was the intimidation of the giants or the King losing focus during its flight, the beasts' eyes cleared of the King's influence. They immediately turned and fled in terror. In an instant, the center of the battlefield was empty of living beasts.
The Beast King retreated toward the Broken Mountain. Seeing it cower, Wei Huan finally spoke in his mind: "Are you also... Challengers?"
He asked this—using the plural—because seeing this King had triggered a memory. Back in the Grade 5 world, when he killed the Diamond-rank "Liar Race" survivor, its exploding memories had invaded his brain. As the strongest present, Wei Huan had received the most information: a deep-seated terror of nine gargantuan beings that transcended worlds.
This snail was one of them.
He hadn't forgotten. He had known since the beginning that if the end of the challenge wasn't "ascension," it was "gu-cultivation"—a brutal competition where the winners eventually meet at the end. Back then, he and Mu Zhong had debated whether individual civilizations or hive-mind civilizations were stronger. Now, the monster that had once inspired such fear had been easily thrashed by him.
Strength wasn't about the 'type' of civilization; it was about how much you gained, absorbed, and achieved on the path of evolution. Wei Huan had been greedy and ruthless, a literal Demon King to this world, but he had no regrets. If he had been "kind" and "lazy," and it was he who lay defeated today, would he have regretted his mercy? No. To protect his race from falling again, he had to be cold and draw the blood of other races to strengthen his own.
When no response came, Wei Huan spoke again: "Weren't there nine of you? Are you the only one left here? Abandoned? Or do you just view this as a colony? It doesn't matter if you won't talk. I'm just telling you: this world is mine."
"Human!" The Beast King's voice shrieked with bitter malice. "What is a mere small world to my Celestial Demon Race? Your human race is nothing but dogs panting for breath on the Battlefield of Ten Thousand Races, powerless and doomed. I will wait for you there—I will wait for the day I crush you with a single finger! Hmph!"
With a final snort, the Beast King's body faded into transparency and vanished.
"You're letting it go?" Mu Zhong's voice came over the comms.
"I can't stop it," Wei Huan replied.
He looked at the Broken Mountain, where a massive, irregular nest sat. The King's shrunken form had returned there. Wei Huan used the eyes of a Legendary Magic Eye Lord to peer into the nest's depths.
There stood a World Gate.
Wei Huan's heart skipped a beat. A World Gate? Why was there a gate here? Had he never actually left the Challenge World? But he quickly remembered the King calling this a "small world," distinguishing it from the Challenge.
He watched the Beast King step through the gate. Before leaving, the creature looked back with a cruel smile and waved a hand. As it vanished, the gate cracked and began to collapse.
"Damn it!" Wei Huan barked. His undead swarmed toward the mountain. This was a gate—potentially a door to the Ninth-Grade world, a door to the "truth." He knew Grade 9 was terrifying, but he was human; he desperately wanted to know why the universe treated living beings—treated humans—this way.
"Mu Zhong," Wei Huan's breathing was shallow.
"I'm here."
"Tell Dou Lin and Big Foot to bring a few people to the Kobolds. Teleport to me in three minutes."
Mu Zhong didn't ask why. He couldn't hear the King or see the collapsing gate, but he offered unconditional cooperation.
Wei Huan recalled most of his royals, keeping only five as a personal guard, and charged toward the Broken Mountain. The surrounding beast tribes had vanished—even the young ones were gone. He reached the nest unopposed. Big Foot, three Gamblers, and Dou Lin had already teleported in via the Kobolds.
"Follow me," Wei Huan said, rushing into the nest.
The interior was surprisingly clean and silver, organized like a giant, sterile honeycomb. The air was fresh with a hint of sweetness, but Wei Huan warned the team to hold their breath until the composition was verified.
They navigated the corridors until they reached a vast, circular hall. But the World Gate that had stood there was gone—completely vanished.
Wei Huan turned to the five of them.
"There's spatial energy here," Dou Lin said first.
Big Foot added: "Yes, it connects to another plane. This is a spatial tunnel. It's invisible to the eye, but the tunnel itself is still relatively stable."
"It was a World Gate," Dou Lin noted. "Was there a gate here just now?"
"I can cross it," Big Foot said.
"Me too!" Dou Lin chirped.
Big Foot looked at Wei Huan for orders. "Should I take some men through to scout it out?"
"I... I..." Dou Lin wanted to volunteer too, but his fear caught up with him, making him nearly bite his tongue.