"Hssss!"

"Kak-kak-kak!"

"Jiggu-jiggu!"

"Hsssssssss!"

This was how several behemoths greeted one another—no common language between them, so all they could do was compete over who had the bigger voice and the fiercer bearing. Standing in the crook of the thunderbolt giant fir, Shen Cong could at least use the Cicada Language to parse out what each of them was feeling.

Yellow Great-Immortal: "Back off!"

The four-legged dragon: "Worm, I'll kill you!"

The Sea Snake King: "Get lost!"

The ultimate-grade yellow-bellied sea snake: "My boss says get lost—you hear him!"

The super-grade yellow-bellied sea snake: "The boss is mighty!"

All the hissing and roaring didn't accomplish much. The Sea Snake King had numbers on its side, but that couldn't frighten Yellow Great-Immortal, which was nuclear-grade in its own right. As for the four-legged dragon, it had hunted down more behemoths alongside Shen Cong than anyone could count; nothing fazed it anymore. It dared to needle even Yellow Great-Immortal, never mind a few snakes.

Loosely joined as they were, Yellow Great-Immortal and the four-legged dragon posed a serious threat to the Sea Snake King—Yellow Great-Immortal above all, which gave it the feeling of facing a natural predator.

Siberian weasels might not care for eating snakes, but for a little animal like that, eating one was no great trick.

Of course, at their present state of mutated evolution, diet and habits alike had changed beyond recognition, and so had the way they fought. In the old days plenty of snakes relied on venom, but now they all had metal bodies—short of corrosive Activity, venom had no effect whatsoever.

The Sea Snake King was wary of Yellow Great-Immortal, but not afraid of it.

The standoff went on.

Until, an hour later, Shen Cong finally couldn't stand to watch anymore. He'd seen enough to judge that this Sea Snake King's fighting strength held nothing much out of the ordinary; the aura its pressure gave off was an even match for Yellow Great-Immortal's. Fighting strength like that wouldn't have frightened Shen Cong even before he broke past nuclear-grade.

Let alone now.

The height a particle-grade evolved…