Zhu Que felt that these people before him had truly eaten a bear’s heart and leopard’s gall—as “Participants,” they actually dared to fight him.

“If Xuanwu doesn’t show herself soon, I’ll do her work for her,” Zhu Que raised his head and said to the sky. “There are quite a few ‘Participants’ breaking the rules.”

“Too bad she can’t show herself anymore,” Liu Twenty-One replied.

“Oh…?” Zhu Que withdrew his gaze and looked at the tall, thin man before him. “From that tone, it sounds like Xuanwu is already dead.”

“Yes, we sent her off,” Liu Twenty-One slowly pulled Zhoumo behind him. “Next, we’re preparing to send you off.”

“Such bold words…” Zhu Que slightly furrowed his brow, but the smile remained on his face. “I can’t even send Xuanwu off—you think you can?”

“If you don’t believe it, feel free to try.”

Cold sweat slowly appeared on Liu Twenty-One’s forehead. Right now, they could only delay for as long as possible. After all, all of “Cat’s” attacks required high coordination. Theoretically, the more people who arrived, the better their chances would be.

At this moment, the people from “Extreme Path” felt the scene before them was difficult to handle. The numerous support-type “Echoes” had no way to injure Zhu Que at this time, so they could only keep moving closer to the “Door” during the standoff. After all, their mission had never been to “kill the Divine Beast” but to “board the vehicle.”

“Tsk, we need to find a way to free Earth-Pig…” Zhoumo quietly said to Cui Fourteen from behind. “He knows a weakness of Zhu Que’s that we don’t. He can’t die right now.”

“With just the three of us… I’m afraid…” Cui Fourteen’s expression was troubled.

“Tsk, it’s fine,” Zhoumo shook her head. “We’ll stall for as long as we can.”

After saying this, she also noticed that both Cui Fourteen and Liu Twenty-One had quite a few wounds on them. It seemed that in the battle with Xuanwu, everyone hadn’t gained any advantage either.

Zhu Que looked at the three of them with a somewhat playful expression, then walked forward step by step. “Whether you’re lying to me or not, I’m taking over Xuanwu’s work. Farewell.”

As soon as his words fell, Zhu Que immediately disappeared from his spot. At this moment, Earth-Pig was also flung against the wall due to the high-speed movement, and the fresh blood all over his body left shocking blood marks on the wall.

Zhoumo and the others only felt a gust of wind sweep past them. The speed was so fast they didn’t even see how Zhu Que moved.

They turned their heads back to discover that in just a brief moment, Zhu Que’s hands now held several human heads—they were the people from “Extreme Path” from earlier.

He held all the heads by their hair, as if carrying plastic bags just returned from the supermarket with a full load.

Those heads all retained the shocked expressions from the moment before death, and even their mouths were still slightly moving. Seven headless bodies stood at the entrance of the transmission gate, still not having fallen down yet.

“Some children really don’t listen,” Zhu Que said. “One moment of carelessness and they’re gone.”

Liu Twenty-One’s brows furrowed tightly. He knew Zhu Que didn’t actually want to not kill them—he was simply toying with their lives. If they couldn’t strike first at this moment, they might not even know when they would die.

His mind stirred slightly, and the seven heads actually began to quietly sprout tender shoots from all seven orifices.

Because “Wild Growth” Ning Eighteen wasn’t here, the tender shoots grew somewhat slowly, but they still climbed upward in an extremely bizarre scene.

Zhu Que seemed to sense something and stared at Liu Twenty-One with a smile. “Playing little tricks… right?”

With those words, he held all the heads in his left hand, then grabbed the hair of one with his right hand, spun it around in his hand like a meteor several times, then flung it toward Liu Twenty-One’s direction.

Seeing a human head flying toward him like a missile, Liu Twenty-One instantly widened his eyes, crossing his arms in front of his chest. The next instant, he felt like a bowling ball had crashed into his arms.

A clear sound of bone cracking entered his ears. The incredibly hard human head actually exploded on Liu Twenty-One’s hands like a watermelon, sending up a mist of blood and sending him flying backward on the spot.

After flying far back, Liu Twenty-One slid on the ground for some distance, only feeling excruciating pain all over his body. That bone-cracking sound—he didn’t know if it was the sound of the skull splitting or his arms breaking. He only knew his brain had gone completely blank and he couldn’t think at all.

“Twenty-One…” Seeing this, Cui Fourteen immediately ran over to check on his condition. After running just three steps, she heard the sound of something cutting through the wind.

She twisted her head to see a human head flying at her. The extreme speed made the head’s expression begin to distort and deform.

Cui Fourteen picked up two rings and, in the critical moment, blocked one ring in front of her while throwing the other ring outward.

After the head flew into the ring in front of Cui Fourteen, it rapidly shot out from the other ring, immediately changing direction and flying toward Zhu Que.

Seeing this, Zhu Que merely stuck out his chest, letting that head shatter to pieces against it.

Cui Fourteen, still shaken, took a breath and hurried to help Twenty-One up from the side.

“Are you okay…?” she asked.

“Fourteenth Sister… he seems to only be able to fight in close combat…” Liu Twenty-One didn’t tell Cui Fourteen that his hands had lost feeling. He only immediately stated his speculation.

“What?” Cui Fourteen asked in confusion.

Liu Twenty-One coughed lightly. “Fourteenth Sister, he’s different from Xuanwu and Baihu… He can neither release ‘Explosive Combustion’ nor use ‘Reach into the Bag’… The way he causes damage is the same as ordinary ‘Zodiacs’—close combat.”

“Even if it’s close combat, we’re no match for him…” Cui Fourteen said with a grave expression. “Moreover, he still has ‘Leap,’ ‘Levitation,’ and ‘Soul Seizure,’ which makes his lethality far exceed other ‘Zodiacs.'”

Hearing this statement, Zhoumo was slightly startled. “‘Leap,’ ‘Levitation,’ and ‘Soul Seizure’…?”

A strange thought arose in her mind—

If that’s the case, Zhu Que was almost no different from a “Heaven-level.” How could he sanction all the “Zodiacs”?

Could the deterrent power of “Soul Seizure” really be that great?

“Mmm… mmm…” At this moment, Earth-Pig was frantically squeezing sounds from his throat. Although he couldn’t speak a single word, his eyes told Zhoumo that this matter wasn’t as simple as it appeared on the surface.

Even with “Soul Seizure” as his trump card, Zhu Que had no way to sanction all the “Zodiacs.” After all, he was different from Xuanwu—he was only responsible for “Zodiacs.” As long as a single “Earth-level” knew that piercing their own eardrums could break “Soul Seizure,” Zhu Que would be in danger.

“But right now, what should we…” Zhoumo had no idea how to get Earth-Pig to reveal Zhu Que’s trump card.

Just at this moment, the crisp sound of a lighter rang out not far away.

A short dwarf was seen lowering his head to light a cigarette, then said softly, “It’s okay. We’ll figure out a way together.”