Chapter 47: King of Insects (Part 4)

"Last words? Do you not even possess the capability to perceive the current situation, you arrogant human brat?" The Canine King let out a sneer through its slender nose.

"Are those your last words? A string of rhetorical questions?" Zhou Ke sighed in disappointment.

He casually jammed the Spirit Key into the earth by his feet, pulled a roll of bandages from his barely surviving trouser pockets, and began to bandage the knife wounds on his palms right on the spot.

Although he looked battered from head to toe, scorched by the sea of fire, the majority of the destructive force had actually been parried by his slashes and neutralized by his aether. What he sustained were merely minor surface abrasions, roughly equivalent to being singed by a lighter.

"How dull. If I were the one leaving last words, I'd definitely invent a nonexistent place name, falsely claiming a treasure was hidden there, and make greedy people rack their brains to no avail."

Mr. Zhou said "if," but in truth, he had already done it.

In his past life, he buried some things in the suburbs and wrote a riddle in his will.

When someone truly managed to solve the riddle, what they would dig up in the suburbs was—a new riddle.

After repeating this cycle thirty times, that person would find a lottery ticket he had cherished for many years at the final destination.

Well, a winning one.

It won over half a million, but the redemption date had already passed.

If he had been aware of it from beyond the grave at that time, he surely would have smiled as he plummeted straight down into the eighteenth level of hell.

Returning to the present moment, though Zhou Ke's injuries were not serious, his aether was completely exhausted. The Canine King would likely take his little life with just two or three more moves.

In contrast, the Canine King had suffered virtually no depletion of its condition.

Aside from three shallow-to-moderate slash marks, its fur was glossy and pristine, and its aura was as vigorous as ever.

Even though Zhou Ke had been darting around like a bug, driving the Canine King to distraction, the intensity of his attacks fell far short of constituting a fatal threat.

Yet why—

"Why does he look like the outcome has already been decided?" The Canine King guarded against the nonchalant Zhou Ke, its beastly pupils filled with confusion.

"Did you know? The bodily structures of canines and humans are largely similar," Zhou Ke suddenly remarked. "The former's heart is located within the thoracic mediastinum, between the third and sixth ribs. The latter are mostly located between the second and fifth ribs."

As he spoke, he pressed his bandaged palm against the location of his own heart.

All of this knowledge served as material reserves for Mr. Zhou's fairy tale writing—please do not misunderstand, it was acquired through proper channels such as book theories and medical school dissection rooms.

"For the vast majority of living beings, the heart is the vital spot."

"Are you saying you are going to pierce my heart next?" The Canine King arrogantly glanced at the Spirit Key, whose blade lacked luster. "With your slender, dull knife?"

Flames gathered in its mouth, intending to burn this ignorant human down to charred bones in one breath.

"No, I'm the type of person who only shares a thing after I've already finished doing it."

Rolling waves of heat rustled his pitch-black tips of hair as Zhou Ke reached out to reverse his grip on the hilt of the Spirit Key.

The blade pointed vertically downward, and the hilt twisted like a key.

"Welcome me, Spirit Key."

Hum—

The purple flames stopped abruptly, and the air returned to silence.

"How is that possible?"

The Canine King struggled to move its head to look at its chest, its eyes filled with utter disbelief.

From its left forearm to its chest and abdomen, there was now a clear-cut, hollow quadrilateral that passed all the way through from front to back.

Looking from bottom to top, one could see the purple-tinted sky; looking from top to bottom, one could see the blood-dripping earth.

The cuts were shallow enough to reach the internal organs and deep enough to reach the bones, yet they were all as flat and smooth as if a large spoonful had been cleanly carved out of soft tofu.

"Why didn't I perceive any attacking or advancing movement from him?"

The Canine King could no longer maintain its balance and collapsed pathetically, the splendor of life rapidly fading from its pupils.

"Ah, good work. It's over, it's over."

Unflustered and unelated, Zhou Ke walked closer with his blade in hand, casually stepping on the Canine King's head to prevent any further trouble.

"Why?" The Canine King died with lingering resentment.

"Why, you ask? Oh, you mean this."

Zhou Ke chuckled and generously explained:

"The Spirit Key, my weapon, can carve lines marked as 'door frames' onto any physical entity.

It continuously consumes aether over time to extend or seal the door frames. When four door frames appear and close, a 'door' can be opened at the corresponding location."

The "door" he spoke of referred precisely to the huge hollow carved out of the Canine King's chest.

And the door frames he had personally carved numbered three in total:

One on the left forearm.
One on the chest.
One on the chest and abdomen.

These three wounds formed a reversed "匚" shape across space.

What remained to be done was to continuously consume aether and wait for time to fill in that remaining "door frame."

Had Zhou Ke possessed abundant aether and patience, he could have even executed just a single strike and then waited for the three "door frames" to complete themselves.

The attack method of the Spirit Key was equivalent to spatial slicing, entirely ignoring hardness and defense.

In other words, from the very first second Zhou Ke slashed the Canine King, the death knell of the Grim Reaper had already chimed silently.

"Considering your special body shape, I intentionally expanded the range to ensure I hit your heart."

Clearly discussing the strategy of killing his opponent, Zhou Ke's tone sounded as if he were chatting with an old friend about how many tea leaves to put in a pot of tea.

It was so casual as to be chilling.

"Despicable human, I admit I underestimated you, however—"

Having lost its heart, the Canine King still refused to swallow its last breath for a long time. "However, don't celebrate too early. The Insect King was driven back underground by me. Even if it were to re-hatch, it would starve to death underground due to a lack of energy to return to the surface.

"Yet you audacious humans ignorantly broke into the underground, turning into its nourishment instead.

"I can already smell the filthy stench of the Insect King's rot. Once it has the strength to prey, it will quickly recover to its prime—"

Beyond that, Zhou Ke could no longer hear anything. The Canine King's pupils dilated blankly, and from its lolling tongue and mouth, a purple-and-white mixed four-cornered crystal rolled out—a Grade E Magic Crystal.

[You have eliminated a Freak Commander - Canine King, and obtained 10,000 points.]

Zhou Ke bent down to pick up the magic crystal and stood frozen in place, waiting for quite a long time, yet he never received the new prompt he had been waiting for.

"Strange, didn't they say the city defense battle would end after killing a Freak Commander?" He paused. "Wait, *have eliminated a Freak Commander*?"

Time rewound to half an hour ago.

Somewhere in the city, five examinees lined up in an "insect" shape successively unveiled the [Surprise Boxes] in their hands.

Unlike normal circumstances, the boxes no longer contained cookies and candies, but rather fragments of parchment.

Piecing them together, what was revealed was precisely a layout map of the city's underground pipes.

A location was marked on it with foul-smelling liquid, causing Jiaohai to be ecstatic, unable to resist pressing it against his face to take a deep sniff.

"The clearance reward of the Gate of Bi Yue Wu is mine!"