“Now, it’s just the two of us.”

Mu Yuan raised his forearm. A little blood stained the clothes sliced open by the bug. The blow hadn’t hurt the bug as much as expected, but it had still cut through muscle almost to the bone.

For an ordinary person, an injury like that would leave the whole arm temporarily useless.

Mu Yuan remarked, admiringly.

“Not bad. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt pain. When was the last time I got hurt? Let me think… Oh, it was when I faced a human King Species.”

Mu Yuan looked at the bug, its nerves taut.

“You know what a human King Species is? Well, it’s roughly a human Mutant on the same level as your Mother Body. But compared to an Upper-Tier Taboo Species like the Insect Race’s Mother Body, the Taboo Species I fought was kind of low-tier. Though if it hadn’t been, I’d be in a grave right now.”

“So, yeah. Low-tier is good. Low-tier is great.”

Completely ignoring whatever Mu Yuan was trying to say, the bug crouched even lower. Its combat instincts kept it watching every shift of power in Mu Yuan’s body.

It was searching for a flaw Mu Yuan might reveal without realizing it.

That should’ve been easy.

Against the naturally powerful bodies of the Insect Race, human bodies were both weak and stiff. Even if a powerful close-combat Mutant could raise their strength and reflexes to a level similar to a bug’s, bugs had the advantage of multiple joints and a unique muscle structure. They could attack in bizarre ways that human Mutants simply couldn’t match.

Traditional human fighting styles weren’t suited to fighting the Insect Race.

So long as it could spot a moment when the flow of power through a human body left them unable to defend against an insect’s attack, that was an opening to exploit.

But Mu Yuan had no openings.

From the moment he appeared until now, there hadn’t been a single flaw in the way the muscles in Mu Yuan’s body moved. The flow of power even formed a closed loop within him.

A perfect, harmonious closed loop.

The bug had never seen anything like it—not in any member of the Insect Race, nor in any human it had encountered. Insects and humans alike could only control their power correctly in broad strokes. To completely control every trace of power in the body, every shift in its flow, every second of the day…

The bug thought it had figured out the ability of the Disaster Species before it.

But that wasn’t good news. The bug would’ve rather Mu Yuan’s physical strength doubled than face an opponent with no openings at all.

For an instant, the bug thought it should run.

Even at the peak of its strength, it might not have been able to kill someone like this. And now, its body was covered in wounds.

But…

The bug was no longer alone.

Zhou Heng’s face appeared in its mind.

He was the future of their race, far more important than the bug itself.

The loyalty in its instincts easily overcame the fear born of its combat and survival instincts. Courage beyond the fear of death settled over the bug.

Cast aside what isn’t needed. Let what can’t be used stand still.

There was no need to think about the future, and it didn’t deserve a tomorrow. All that mattered was winning or losing right now.

Bet everything on the fight.

The bug’s gaze burned bright.

If Mu Yuan had eyes that could see the flow of his opponent’s energy, he would’ve noticed the bug’s body beneath its blue-black carapace suddenly growing several times hotter. Fierce life energy coursed through every blood vessel, giving its body an immense boost.

The bug was consuming its own life, overworking its internal organs and squeezing out every last drop of potential.

This skill, which nearly hurt the enemy three thousand to deal itself eight hundred in damage, had only just begun to work—and already it was showing its power. Mu Yuan, who’d seemed to have no openings at all, now presented the bug with several ways to fight him.

Its odds of winning had tripled.

The bug bent its foot, and a torrent of heat like fire scorched its body while channeling tremendous power into its legs.

The ground beneath the bug’s feet cracked in a dense web of fissures.

Mu Yuan frowned and raised his arm at once.

The bug’s arm blade struck Mu Yuan’s forearm, just as expected.

This time, the slash wasn’t one he could simply endure with his bones as he had before. The force behind it made Mu Yuan’s scalp prickle. It easily cut through the muscle as if it were tofu, then met the bones of his forearm.

With more than twice the power of the previous blow, combined with its sheer speed, the strike exceeded what Mu Yuan’s forearm bones could withstand.

Mu Yuan retreated sharply. Human fighting techniques might not be very effective against bugs, but methods for redirecting force and neutralizing impact didn’t stop working just because the opponent wasn’t human.

He used his arm to neutralize the force. As he stepped back, he let the bug’s forward-driving power ripple through his body with a shake. The flow of power circulating throughout Mu Yuan’s body now did exactly what it was supposed to. Without injuring him, it diverted the force that could’ve sliced a tank in half into his lower body.

Then Mu Yuan channeled it through his legs and into the ground.

The web of cracks burst outward with a rapid series of sharp snaps.

But Mu Yuan had only redirected seventy percent of the force when the ground suddenly gave way beneath him. It simply couldn’t withstand the bug’s power, and a hole a full meter across opened up.

With nothing beneath him to support him, Mu Yuan fell through in shock.

The distance between the hotel’s second and third floors was about three meters. It would take less than a second to hit the ground below. But for the bug, which had prepared for this moment…

One second was enough to decide life or death.

The bug used the ground for one last push. It had already slammed open a meter-wide hole under its tremendous force, and now the ground gave way even more violently beneath the bug’s powerful recoil. Cracks raced outward from the giant hole, and the force shook the walls and windows too. Sharp cracking sounds rang out one after another.

The bug leaped down through the hole. Using the momentum from its crouch and spring, it rushed toward Mu Yuan, who was still in midair. A lava-like torrent of heat spread across its body in an instant.

The self-damaging skill had reached its limit. The bug felt explosive waves of power coursing through its veins and spreading throughout its body.

Its arm blades, already sharp enough to cut through iron, now converged on Mu Yuan’s body with a strength and speed they’d never had before.

Every slash aimed straight for a vital point.

“Impressive. Your speed and strength have both more than doubled since before.”

Mu Yuan said softly.

The bug’s arm blade slashed toward Mu Yuan’s neck. To the bug’s surprise, Mu Yuan didn’t dodge or sacrifice a limb to protect himself from the fatal blow.

And more absurdly, not only did Mu Yuan make no attempt to defend himself—he still had the leisure to talk.

“But I haven’t finished what I was saying.”

The arm blade cut into his skin and opened his carotid artery. For an ordinary person, failing to stop the bleeding from a severed carotid artery within three minutes meant certain death. But for a human Mutant at the level of a Disaster Species, ordinary physical injuries were rarely enough to kill.

Their bodies had long since surpassed what it meant to be human.

“I told you, I’ve fought a human King Species. And the result of that battle…”

The bug pressed harder, determined to cut off Mu Yuan’s head.

“I won.”

A strange force pinned down the bug’s entire body. In the blink of an eye, cracks spread across its indestructible arm blade.

After all, its biological carapace was as hard as diamond—and far more flexible.

Mu Yuan reached out in midair and smiled. He pressed his palm against the chest of the bug, whose body had gone rigid.

A cloud of blood burst from the bug’s chest.

The bug and Mu Yuan fell to the ground together.

Mu Yuan wasn’t dead.