60 seconds earlier;
More than 4 km to the east of the lava golem, the Church of Doom's leader and Tang Dynasty's Supreme commander were aggressively attacking a five-tailed leopard with their movements so synchronized as if the both of them were teammates for years.
Both of them appeared to be filled with rage and wanted to kill the beast emperor at all costs as they lost all of their teammates.
A while ago, Gu Chao and Yan Hai successfully cut off Lan Ju's way as he was moving toward the battlefield. Or atleast they thought at first.
They wanted to kill Lan Ju before he steals the fire seed but they didn't expect that it was a part of Lan Ju's plan.
After dragging the two of the most powerful opponents from their respective teams to atleast 10 kilometers away, Lan Ju simply said hello to them, and then, turned into a scarlet leopard before teleporting to the golem.
By the time the two experts caught up to him, every member of their respective teams was ruthlessly massacred. Their bodies were collected.
Lan Ju was collecting the corpses of the experts from the Ironpalm sect while pushing away the golem's arms with its (100times) enlarged five tails. The leader of the group managed to escape using a great teleportation scroll. So, he was the only one alive.
In the meantime, Gu Chao and Yan Hai found him and they started their attacks in fury to take revenge for their companions, whose even corpses weren't spared by the beast.
Sensing Mark was getting near to the location, Lan Ju decided to take the both of them far away.
Their desire for revenge made them put priority on killing this demigod realm leopard at all costs. Since the leopard is an agile/offensive type, Gu Chao and Yan Hai had the confidence to take down the beast emperor despite their senses telling them that the latter is in the Demigod realm.
With no opponents except for the mysterious group left to trouble his sect master, Lan Ju thought that everything to go well. Little did he expect that Mark would come so close to the golem.
Even then, he didn't interfere and continued to fight against two Supreme realm experts, who happened to be quite a challenge as their strength far surpassed an average Supreme Being.
Adding on top of this, Gu Chao, the Supreme Commander of the Dragon Empire was a light/water attribute user while Yan Hai, the leader of the Church of Doom, surprisingly has the abilities of fire, water, wind, lightning, metal, poison, wood, and darkness.
As the fighting dragged on for a minute, Gu Chao was more alarmed upon witnessing the techniques of Yan Hai.
The Zheng is a beast emperor born with multi attributes. It wasn't a secret to either Yan Hai or Gu Chao. However, Gu Chao didn't expect to see Yan Hai has so many attributes.
Believing that no human could be born with so many attributes, he realized that Gu Chao was too dangerous to keep alive and decided to kill him when an opportunity arrives, perhaps, at a time when he will be drastically injured while fighting against the Zheng beast.
As for Yan Hai, he fought face to face against Lan Ju more than three times in the past and ran away with his life every single time. He learned its habits, techniques, weaknesses, and everything.
That knowledge brought him an advantage in this fight with a worthy teammate, who is in the same realm, can support his lightning with water, and can heal his injuries inflicted by the enemy.
And now, at present, Gu Chao unleashed a skill called the Aqua dragon, which is a concentrated form of huge volumes of water in the shape of a limbless & wingless dragon.
Yan Hai supported the skill by adding a lightning attribute to it, increasing its attack power to inflict damage on the scarlet leopard.
At first, Lan Ju wanted to evade the attack by using short teleportation but then, he sensed the surge of power from Mark's weird-looking weapon and the golem's actions simultaneously.
"Get lost the both of you."
Lan Ju roared at his opponents and conjured a powerful fireball with white flames dancing on it.
The hot white fireball completely destroyed the combined attack of Yan Hai and Gu Chao, unleashing a massive amount of energy from the collision.
By the time both of them stabilized themselves, the scarlet leopard is gone from their sight.
"Did it run away?" Gu Chao wondered out loud. Yan Hai immediately expanded his senses to scan the surroundings.
"It is at the golem." He replied before asking to himself, "who might be that civilian?"
Gu Chao was also a Supreme Being and he too can sense their presence at the battle site. "It appears that the beast has a weakness. What if we capture him and put psychological pressure on the zheng?"
Yan Hai didn't know who it is either but judging by how Mark was protected, he too agreed that it is a good choice. However, unfortunately, he wasn't the type to make cowardly actions to fulfill his goal.
He wanted to subdue or kill the beast no matter what. Glancing at Gu Chao, he got an idea. He took out a scroll from his storage card.
"What is it?" Gu Chao wondered whether Yan Hai has some trump card to act against the beast emperor.
Yan Hai answered truthfully, "This is something that will help me to defeat the beast."
Yan Hai used 'me' in the sentence but Gu Chao didn't dwell on such a thing because of the urgent situation. In fact, he was actually wondering whether Yan Hai has more treasures in his storage ring. He was a little bit excited to acquire them once this leader of the church of doom dies.
It was at that moment Yan Hai opened it toward Gu Chao, revealing complex symbols drawn inside a six-pointed star.
Gu Chao thought that Yan Hai was explaining it to him but the latter activated the seal by pouring ether energy into the scroll, unleashing threads of purple-colored energy threads from the scroll and capturing Gu Chao immediately.
As they were standing near, Gu Chao couldn't dodge the sudden attack and fell into a trap.
"You… What the hell are you doing?" Gu Chao roared at Yan Hai.
Yan Hai let out a smile, "Sorry but you'll have to become a part of me in order to defeat the Zheng. And don't bother to resist. This is created by our guardian of the Doom tower. You have to be in the same league as the zheng to resist it."
The energy threads tightened their grip, releasing strange energy into Gu Chao's body. He started to feel dizzy while his ether energy was slipping away from his body. He tried to resist it but all of his strength appeared to be draining away nonstop.
"You bas…tard… You will pay for…"
They were the last words Gu Chao spouted before his body started to deform, eventually turning into some kind of black ball.
Yan Hai picked up the ball from the ground and swallowed it. Within the next few seconds, a layer of golden energy covered his body, removing all the leftover bruises. "This surge of ether energy… the power of light attribute… I feel like I can break through to the Demigod realm. However, I need to fulfill the task. As long as I can acquire the fire seed and subdue the zheng, all the sacrifices are worth it."
He then turned around to look in the direction where the giant lava golem was supposed to be. "It looks like the battle is already over. Now, what are we waiting for? Let's go and cap…"
*rumble*
Two yellow lightning streaks descended from the sky simultaneously without any warning, striking the region where Mark and Lan Ju were supposed to be standing.
"Hmm, who are they?" Yan Hai furrowed his brows as he saw a group of seven slowly descending toward the ground.
He activated his senses, probing their realms. A trace of surprise appeared on his face, "All of them are in the Supreme realm? Who are they? Where did they come from? What should I do now? Dammit. The matter has become complicated. Should I go forward or should I leave?"
Meanwhile, at the remnants of Mt. Jizu, the scarlet leopard was lying on the ground with a hole in its body, the missile defense system was in flames, and Mark crashed onto a rock without any injuries.
