Chapter 290: 185. Divine Punishment! Shen Qinghan's Outburst! Ninth Elder in Danger!_2
Yuan Dongzhi sensed the danger.
She wanted to dodge.
But her speed was simply not enough.
She had barely made a dodging motion when her entire body was engulfed by the energy beam, suffering the horror of extreme temperatures eroding her.
The energy beam continued for several seconds.
During this time, the seawater below was being continuously evaporated, exposing a trench several meters deep.
In the moment the light faded,
Yuan Dongzhi reappeared in the mecha pilot's view, her body charred black, her clothes and hair all turned to ashes, emitting a burnt smell.
Thanks to the scales shielding her, Yuan Dongzhi, whose clothes had been burnt away, did not reveal her body.
"She's only slightly injured?!"
The man piloting the mecha had a face full of disbelief.
The energy beam was the mecha's most powerful attack method.
Yet Yuan Dongzhi was able to withstand an energy beam with her flesh and blood and not suffer serious injuries.
This caused the man to feel fear.
"If one shot isn't enough, then take another!"
The man suppressed the fear in his heart and pressed the launch button for the energy beam once again.
But this time, before the energy beam could be fired, the mecha was struck by a giant dragon that instantly materialized and was sunk deep into the seabed.
Being wildly torn and strangled.
Metal parts from its exterior kept falling off.
At the same time,
another hundred-meter dragon made of seawater instantly formed in front, knocking the hunchback masked figure pursuing Lin Zichen into the seabed.
Yuan Dongzhi didn't follow into the seabed.
She just hovered above the sea surface,
controlling the two hundred-meter dragons remotely, continuously attacking the mecha and the hunchback masked figure at the sea bottom.
During this time, Yuan Dongzhi, who had just been hit directly by the energy beam, was rapidly self-healing.
The burned skin began to reform.
New long hair started to grow from her bald head.
Aside from the clothes that turned to ashes, all other damage healed back perfectly.
"Boom——!"
"Boom——!"
Two explosive noises were heard from the sea surface in succession.
The hunchback masked figure emerged from the seabed, covered in horrifying wounds, blood incessantly seeping out.
The mecha broke through the water right after, its weapons almost completely damaged and unusable.
Yuan Dongzhi, who had transformed into a dragon woman, was too powerful.
Even facing two adversaries, she wasn't at a disadvantage at all.
In fact, she held an absolute upper hand, completely suppressing both the hunchback masked figure and the mecha throughout.
The hunchback masked figure looked ahead, sensing that Lin Zichen was swimming farther away, about to escape his perception range, and immediately erupted with all his Qi-Blood, surging forward in the water at high speed.
The moment he broke away, he did not forget to issue a deadly order to the man piloting the mecha behind him:
"Self-destruct!"
"Use the backup hidden energy source to self-destruct and delay Yuan Dongzhi!"
"Otherwise, your whole family will die miserably!"
"..."
Hearing this cruel command that required sacrificing his life, the man's face was instantly draped in despair.
He was still young, he didn't want to die.
But he wanted even less for his wife and daughter to die.
Without much hesitation, the man issued the command for the backup hidden energy source to self-destruct to the mecha and then piloted the mecha towards Yuan Dongzhi at the highest speed.
Yuan Dongzhi saw this and immediately dived into the seabed to take emergency cover.
However, before she managed to get into the water, she was already approached by the mecha.
"Boom——!"
A deafening explosion sounded.
The whole sea surface erupted with fire, a massive amount of water instantly vaporized.
The surrounding towering trees turned into ash in the blink of an eye.
Yuan Dongzhi, at the center of the explosion, was directly bombed into a critical state.
The scales on her body had almost all shattered and fallen off.
Her right arm was blown off halfway.
One-third of her head was gone.
The whole person lay on the sea surface full of fire, barely alive, completely incapacitated.
However, as long as she still had a breath and enough energy,
the Living Dead Slug gene within her would keep repairing her wounds until she was fully healed.
But time did not permit her to heal slowly.
Because at this moment, the hunchback masked figure was chasing Lin Zichen at high speed.
If she couldn't immediately go to stop him, then Lin Zichen was doomed to fall into the hands of the hunchback masked figure.
She didn't hesitate at all in the face of the current situation.
She sacrificed her essence blood immediately.
Feeding the Living Dead Slugs genes within her body.
Accelerating the self-healing of her wounded body.
...
Elsewhere.
Without Yuan Dongzhi's interference, the hunchbacked masked man quickly caught up with Lin Zichen.
He was able to catch up, all thanks to Shen Qinghan, who slowed down Lin Zichen and exposed his location.
Lin Zichen had "Natural Camouflage" to hide his presence.
But Shen Qinghan did not.
Under the sea.
Lin Zichen sensed that the hunchbacked masked man had caught up.
He didn't hesitate and immediately deactivated the "Natural Camouflage" biometric attribute, deciding to split up and swim away from Shen Qinghan, drawing the masked man's attention to himself.
Shen Qinghan, afraid of causing more trouble for him, didn't dare to hesitate and quickly parted ways with him.
"Bang... Bang... Bang!"
With a thought, the hunchbacked masked man controlled a large number of vines to shoot into the sea bed.
The vines under his control did not all pursue Lin Zichen.
Instead, they split into two groups, part chasing the slippery Lin Zichen, and part going after the slower swimming Shen Qinghan.
It was just a moment.
Shen Qinghan was entangled by several thick vines around her body, violently pulled out of the water, and suspended in the air above the ocean, unable to move.
Lin Zichen, on the other hand, relied on his "Forest Lord" and "Advanced Spirit" biometric attributes to escape the vines' grasp several times, never getting caught.
The hunchbacked masked man didn't even intend to capture him.
After all, he had tried several times before and never succeeded.
The hunchbacked masked man's real target was Shen Qinghan, who had always been with Lin Zichen.
"Lin Zichen, come out!"
"If you don't come out, I'll kill her!
"Take her back to the Divine Plant Cult to be publicly shamed and tortured to death!"
The hunchbacked masked man, realizing the unique relationship between Lin Zichen and Shen Qinghan, directly threatened him with Shen Qinghan's life.
While shouting these words, he wrapped the vines tightly around Shen Qinghan's mouth to silence her.
He didn't want to hear any idiotic words like "don't mind me, just run," he just wanted Lin Zichen to appear immediately and surrender without wasting time.
"Swoosh——"
Faced with the threat, Lin Zichen was forced to reveal himself, immediately breaking through the water from the seabed, appearing right before the hunchbacked masked man.
He looked calmly at the hunchbacked masked man and said, "I'll go with you, let her go."
While uttering this sentence, his feelings were not as calm as he appeared; he was filled with regret.
He had decided to flee with Shen Qinghan, believing Yuan Dongzhi could hold off the masked man and the mech.
If he had known Yuan Dongzhi couldn't hold them off, he would never have fled with Shen Qinghan.
Unfortunately, there was no medicine for regret in the world.
"Buzz... Buzz... Buzz!"
The hunchbacked masked man shot out several blood-red vines, entangling Lin Zichen and pulling him out of the water.
He then kept his word by immediately releasing the vines from Shen Qinghan, setting her free.
As the personnel manager of the Divine Plant Cult, his mission was to bring Lin Zichen back to the cult, not to make an enemy of him.
Given Lin Zichen's astonishing talent, once he became a member of the Divine Plant Cult, he would undoubtedly ascend to a high position soon.
The hunchbacked masked man, with a clear mind, would not make an enemy of a Lin Zichen with such a bright future.
"Kid, when you get to the Divine Plant Cult's headquarters and see the unmatched god of the Origin Land, you'll thank me for taking you away today."
The hunchbacked masked man laughed, and without staying a moment longer, swiftly left with Lin Zichen from the forest turned into an ocean by the tsunami.
Behind him, Shen Qinghan, seeing Lin Zichen being taken away by the hunchbacked masked man, frantically swam after them like mad.
Desperately chasing.
But she couldn't catch up.
The gap in biological level was too great; no matter how good she was in the water, she couldn't keep up with the pace of a Rare-level Fighter.
Watching Lin Zichen's figure get farther and farther away, Shen Qinghan cried out in despair:
"Xiao Chen!"
"Xiao Chen!"
"Xiao Chen!!!"
Just as her tears wouldn't stop and her heart felt utterly hopeless,
suddenly, an ancient and weathered murmuring sounded in her ears.
"God..."
"Offense... against God..."
"Divine retribution..."
In the moment when the murmuring ceased,</