Chapter 160: Someone Else

Zhou Yi's words finally triggered a reaction. The monkey-like man thrust his iron staff forward, stopped advancing, and pointed at Zhou Yi, roaring:
"Still saying you didn't kill my brother? As if you don't know who did it, pay for his life!"
Zhou Yi raised his hand, halting his movement.
"Don't be in such a rush. It's a fact that I can't beat you, but you can't stop me from telling the truth, right? I did see your brother, and we even crossed paths. At that time, your brother and an old man carrying a saber, who seemed to be called Lord Cao, were leading a group to kill us.
Think about it carefully. With my abilities, do you think I could kill him?
We were in a desperate rush to escape at the time, and people from Base 37 were hunting us down. I only used a water arrow to defend myself for a moment, and then we fled. Whether we ran into the people from Base 37 afterwards, I have no idea."
Zhou Yi had no choice but to shift the blame now. After all, when the sky falls, the tall ones hold it up. The Black Panther was stronger than all of them; if you want revenge, go find him!
Sure enough, the monkey-man quieted down. Zhou Yi didn't dare to move, staring fixedly at the iron staff in the monkey-man's hand. His abilities were formidable, and his killing moves were completely unstoppable. Moreover, Zhou Yi and the other three were now severely injured; surviving this would be truly difficult.
The monkey-man thought for a moment, lifted the iron staff again, swung it around, and pointed it at Zhou Yi.
"Stop with all the nonsense. You Chosen Ones are all silver-tongued. Even if you didn't kill him, since I've laid eyes on you today, I'm still going to slaughter you. Prepare to die!"
With that, he hoisted the iron club and charged at Zhou Yi. Zhou Yi dodged with a few leaps, barely escaping. The monkey-man's club whipped up a blur, making it look as though three monkey-men were pouncing on him at once.
Sophia wanted to help, raising a fireball and hurling it at the monkey-man. Three consecutive explosions went off with bangs.
The monkey-man instantly shifted, lunged to Sophia's side, and swung the iron staff right at her body. Cheng Zhi hurriedly cast vines to cushion the staff, but it only slowed its momentum down.
Fatty's small stones flew rapidly, continuously pelting the monkey-man.
Infuriated, the monkey-man moved like a flying missile, charging straight toward Fatty. Fatty was slammed directly into the ceiling, Cheng Zhi was flung aside, and Sophia took a direct strike from the iron staff to her abdomen. With a muffled thud, she curled up and was thrown more than ten meters away, her life or death unknown.
Zhou Yi grew furious. It seemed he was truly going to die here today. This monkey-man was not someone easy to deal with; he had a one-track mind and no matter what was said, he was determined to kill them.
Standing up, Zhou Yi flipped his wrists, grabbed two colorful dragon essences, and crushed them directly. Specks of starlight scattered into the air, their brilliant hues adding a touch of radiance to the night sky.
"Stone Egg, I don't know if you're still asleep or just playing dumb. If you don't make a move before I die, forget about spirit stones, I'll crush all these dragon essences too. At worst, I'll give them all to this monkey-man, and you won't get a damn thing!"
A terrifying aura made Zhou Yi's breath hitch, and his entire body trembled uncontrollably, as if he would be choked to death in the very next second.
"Worthless trash... squandering heavenly treasures like this... and you still dare to threaten me?"
Without wasting words, Zhou Yi flipped his wrists, grabbing a dark blue spirit stone in one hand and more than twenty dragon essences in the other. With a hard squeeze, the spirit stone cracked open, and the dragon essences instantly turned into fine powder.

At this moment, Zhou Yi had entered a rather frantic state. The monkey-man over there was also somewhat baffled; instead of coming to rescue his companions, this person grabbed spirit stones and those colorful stones, said nothing, and just crushed them, momentarily freezing in place.
"Stop... stop..."
Zhou Yi continued crushing...
"Sigh, fine! I'll lend you my power temporarily, though whether you can withstand the aftermath later is beyond me."
Stone Egg's words made Zhou Yi freeze his actions. He put away the remaining dragon essences and dusted off the powder from his hands.
In an instant, Zhou Yi's eyes turned completely pitch black. He rolled his neck and patted his body; the previously fractured ribs were now completely healed. His entire temperament had changed. The monkey-man opposite him stared at Zhou Yi with caution, unsure of what had happened.
He clutched his iron staff, watching Zhou Yi's movements intently.
However, in the very next second, Zhou Yi moved. He instantly teleported right in front of the monkey-man, grabbed him by the neck, hoisted him up with force, and slammed him down onto the ground. Once, twice, three times... countless times.
Only then did Zhou Yi fling his body away. Like a kite with a broken string, the monkey-man crashed directly into the half-ruined door. With a loud clatter, the door shattered, and the monkey-man rolled inside. Zhou Yi walked step by step toward the room.
The monkey-man's physique was definitely extraordinary. For a human to grow into such a shape, it really took some effort; he must have practiced some bizarre secret technique, making his entire body look like a compressed block of feed.
Although Fatty and Cheng Zhi were severely injured, upon seeing Sophia lying motionless, they hurriedly crawled over, hoisted Sophia up, and rushed into the laboratory. At the very least, they couldn't abandon Sophia.
Just as Zhou Yi reached the doorway, the monkey-man rushed out wielding his iron club, showing not the slightest trace of injury.
The monkey-man's movements were blindingly fast, resembling his initial appearance as a flashing black shadow. However, Zhou Yi could now clearly trace his footwork. With a single reach, he grabbed the monkey-man's iron staff, and with his other hand, he seized the monkey-man by the ankle.
"Why run?"
The monkey-man struggled frantically, hoisted high into the air by his ankle. He had never experienced such humiliation, baring his fangs and roaring continuously.
"These teeth look even more like a beast's. Indeed, no matter how you look at it, you resemble a monkey. How could you even have a brother? Are you the result of a birth defect?"
These few remarks struck directly at the monkey-man's core pain point; his appearance was presumably the aspect he felt most insecure about.
With a surge of force from his waist, his entire body flipped upward in an attempt to grab Zhou Yi's wrist, but Zhou Yi did not give him the chance.
Having tortured them so miserably earlier, Zhou Yi had no intention of ending things easily. With a flick of his wrist, the iron staff was stretched and thinned out like a noodle, wrapping around the monkey-man's body a dozen times like a steel wire, binding his wrists and ankles as well.
Naturally, it was the method used for tying up pigs: binding the left hand to the right foot, and the right hand to the left foot, before securing the whole package tightly with steel wire.
Zhou Yi released his grip, and with a smack, the monkey-man hit the ground. A front tooth was knocked out instantly, and blood trickled down the corner of his mouth.

"I want to know why you came after us. I told you, we weren't the ones who killed him. Why won't you believe it?"
The monkey-man let out a sneer, his eyes full of indifference, as if it wasn't him who was bound.
"Chosen Ones are no good. If not for you people serving thieves as fathers, how could every realm turn into this state, and how could humanity become existence akin to livestock?"
Zhou Yi shook his head.
"Spare me your grand rhetoric. I just want to stay alive, I'm just a salted fish. Matters of supreme loyalty and righteousness have nothing to do with me. Answer my question: how did you get into this mission world? Why were you hunting us down?"
The monkey-man grunted and turned his head away. An ice arrow from Zhou Yi's hand stabbed directly into the monkey-man's shoulder blade, and the sound of fracturing bone could be distinctly heard.
"Ah! If you have the guts, kill me!"
Zhou Yi raised his foot and kicked the monkey-man's hip. The monkey-man rolled half a turn, flipping over to lie on his side. Zhou Yi squatted down in front of him, slid a section of steel wire horizontally across the monkey-man's mouth, and tied it into a knot behind his head.
"Answer the question, or the next ice arrow will cripple your leg. I don't need to tell you how painful it is when this thing pierces you. Don't worry, you won't die, and you won't even be able to bite your tongue off to commit suicide. Of course, if you still don't answer, the next step after that will be pulling out your teeth—that's something I'm quite good at!"
"Agh, you bastard! I don't know anything! Whatever dirty tricks you have, bring 'em on, grandpa!"
Without a moment's hesitation, Zhou Yi thrust three ice arrows directly into the monkey-man's thigh and knee. The sound of bones shattering had a rhythmic cadence to it as he just stared coldly at the monkey-man.
"Are your bones harder, or is the ice arrow harder? I'm going to test that today. Don't worry, once they're shattered to pieces, I'll set them back for you, let you heal, and then do it all over again. Anyway, I have nothing to do in this world, so I might as well use you to pass the time. Think it over and tell me: how did you find me?"
The monkey-man fell silent. Although it hurt and his consciousness was growing somewhat hazy at this point, he knew that the person in front of him was entirely capable of doing what he said.
"I don't know..."
"Ah!"
An ice arrow pierced the monkey-man's remaining front tooth, shattering it with a snap. Such agonizing pain made one's scalp tingle, and the monkey-man naturally couldn't endure it.
"Sto-op (Stop), I haven't finished speaking!"