If he could stop the Fifth-Order New Human's movement, Chen Xiao could seal it with his rule talent. He miscalculated.
Boom—boom—boom. Mountains shattered in succession as the creature's raw force slammed into the corridor. Even when partially constrained by rules, its power was obscene. Chen Xiao couldn't tell how effective the Nine-Foot Seal would be here — when power reaches a certain threshold, percentage reductions hardly matter. One percent left could still vaporize you.
"In my old life I'd have died instantly at Fifth Order." He thought coldly. "Now…" He tightened his grip.
"Take this!" He attacked.
The same cyan-blue halberd that had felled Li Taixuan, the Gate-Carrying Divine General, and the Fourth-Order brute now gleamed like a waking dragon. This was no ordinary strike — it was Chen Xiao's strongest blow after Dragonization. The halberd's tip found the Fifth-Order's skull and lightning tore through the air. He poured nearly everything into that strike; the Mountain and River Map quietly fed him stamina as the world blurred around the impact.
The Fifth-Order New Human went down, impaled through the head, collapsing like any other corpse. No miraculous regeneration, no collapse into formless horror — just dead. If someone hadn't announced its rank beforehand, no one would have believed it could fall so absolutely. Fifth Order acted human enough; Sixth Order, if ever seen, would be a different apocalypse — real intelligence, tactical guile, guerrilla cunning. Just the thought churned Chen Xiao's stomach.
He drew breath, letting the map pump him back up. Then the eleventh figure of Ghost Gate appeared.
This one was not merely monstrous — it was uncanny. A naked, androgynous silhouette shimmered in the dim light, slightly shorter than Chen Xiao, arms hanging loose. Most striking of all: it wore a goat's head. Curved horns spiraled upward, and in that dim corridor its eyes glowed with a terrible, cold intelligence.
"Heh." The thing's laugh was a dry, jagged sound. "I've heard of you. Chen Xiao of Jiangbei, right? Call me… Goat Head."
Chen Xiao said nothing; his mind went numb. It had recognized him at a glance. His eyelid twitched. That oppressive familiarity — he'd felt it before only from Horse-Face. Was this the normal difficulty now? Had anyone else survived to this point? Goat Head. What the hell was this?
"Heh. By the rules I'm supposed to kill you," it said. "Ready?"
A black vortex opened beneath Chen Xiao's feet, hungry and instant. He reacted with Divine Wind, lifting into the air, hovering just out of reach as the figure below blurred and shifted.
"Oh? You can fly." Goat Head's tone was mocking and clinical. "Curious — what sort of beings are you, claiming the name of gods?"
"You don't need to know," it replied, and the corridor erupted.
Flames snarled like dragons; thousands of ice stars fell like a meteor shower, each one materializing out of nowhere. They braided into a dizzying lattice that swallowed the corridor, weaving and tearing at the air. Boulders condensed from earth, pale blue magic roared; lava and lightning danced together. Mist rose in suffocating waves; starlight fractured and howled. Seventy, eighty kinds of magic — and every moment the list grew.
Chen Xiao's thoughts clicked into place: most goat-type awakeners favored magic. This goat hadn't shown one or two — it had shown nearly every kind. Could "gods" be walking aggregations of an animal's entire talent class? If so, the implications were terrifying. He had stepped into a game that could throw an entire pantheon at him.
A mountain-toppling boulder smashed into him, sending him hundreds of meters. He tumbled, slammed into the metal, clawed to a halt. Tyrannosaurus armor + Black Goat bloodline had pushed his defenses to their limit; only the most brutal impacts pierced through. Even then, he was not finished.
He rose, breath ragged, armor re-forming as Divine Wind eddied around him. The halberd pulsed faintly in his hands. He steadied himself, focus hard as flint.
Goat Head kept advancing, indifferent, its laugh like a blade. "Horse-Face says you have potential. You must be eliminated."
Chen Xiao's eyes narrowed. This was a god — an existence piled with uncanny talents and raw, elemental might. Most would run. He did not.
He stepped forward. Tyrannosaurus armor locked back onto him; the Divine Wind gathered; the halberd glowed with dragon-blue light. His posture was simple and terrible.
He was going to slaughter a god.