Chapter 61: Perfect Lifeform
Yu Xian had miscalculated. He had thought reminding the creature of its identity would restore Hu Weijie's sanity. However, his actions had inadvertently made it stronger.
Unable to locate Yu Xian, the creature scanned the surrounding area. Gradually, four more eyes sprouted from its head, and a human face split open on the back of its skull, bearing an additional six eyes. Eyes continued to sprout all over its body until one of the eyes atop its head locked onto Yu Xian's position in the sky.
The creature bent its legs and launched itself upward. It instantly appeared before the bubble and shattered it with a punch. However, having tracked the creature's movement, Yu Xian had teleported away ahead of time.
The creature looked down at a distant bubble, and the tail on its back turned into wings. With a flap, it instantly appeared in front of the bubble and delivered another punch. The bubble exploded on the spot. Yu Xian immediately teleported away again, taking Gong Qian with him.
The creature appeared to have adapted to Yu Xian's fighting style. Relying on the dense cluster of eyes covering its body, it could pinpoint Yu Xian's location almost instantly whenever he reappeared in a different location. It would shatter the bubble with a single punch. Then, propelling itself forward with its wings, it would appear directly in front of Yu Xian at one hundred times the speed of sound.
This time, just as it closed in on Yu Xian, a small, delicate fist appeared from its right side. The fist slammed directly into its cheek. The sheer, immense force of the blow sent the creature flying and left a deep, bruised mark on its flesh.
Gong Qian could previously obliterate the nine-tailed fox in one blow. So, this result made her frown. "Its defense has shot up."
The creature drove several of its tails into the ground to come to a stop. Turning toward Yu Xian, it charged forward once more with a powerful push from its tails.
Yu Xian's expression became serious, and he turned to Gong Qian. "We'll use that move. Get ready!"
Gong Qian instantly understood exactly what he had in mind. "Got it!"
The creature was too powerful. While Gong Qian could hold her own against it, Yu Xian wouldn't be able to survive even a single hit from it. The situation had become too dangerous.
Yu Xian immediately directed a large number of bubbles toward the creature from every direction. The creature swept its tails through the air and shattered the approaching bubbles, but a fist suddenly appeared above its head, slamming it straight into the ground below.
The ground split apart, and the creature plowed a long trench before coming to a stop. It tried to get up to its feet when another fist crashed into its head, slamming it back into the ground and blasting out a massive crater.
Gong Qian no longer needed to aim. She unleashed a relentless barrage of punches. Her fists emerged from different bubbles at different angles, striking from every direction and pinning the creature beneath the ground.
Several times, the creature tried to push itself up, but the moment it exerted any force, Gong Qian's fists crashed down on it. Under the crushing weight of tens of thousands of tons of force, it was repeatedly slammed back into the ground, driving the crater deeper and deeper.
However, this creature was ultimately different from Deimos. The countless eyes covering its body twitched frantically, searching for an opportunity to counterattack.
When no suitable opening appeared, the eyes gradually turned crimson. Without warning, they shot out scarlet beams simultaneously. These dozens of red rays shattered many of Yu Xian's bubbles on the spot.
Yu Xian frowned and immediately created more bubbles to fill the gaps. At the same time, he transmitted his voice through one of the bubbles. "You are Hu Weijie. You are Hu Tu'er's father. You are Hu Xian'er's husband. Wake up!"
The creature instantly clawed at the bubble. As its body resisted violently, a brand-new arm sprouted from its elbow, frantically tearing at the space in front of it.
When Yu Xian saw the creature react to his words, his eyes lit up slightly. He immediately repeated the words over and over. "Wake up! You are Hu Weijie!"
Suddenly, the creature stopped struggling to get up. As if locked in a state of absolute stillness, it lay motionless on the ground.
Yu Xian and Gong Qian exchanged a glance, both holding back from interfering or attacking the creature. After all, neither of them actually wanted to kill Hu Weijie. Their true goal was to extract more secrets about the drug from him.
***
A reputation exceeding one's actual abilities was like a crown too heavy. Sooner or later, it would become suffocating.
Even though he was one of Silver City's famous Seven Heroes of the Hu Family, Hu Weijie had always felt a deep sense of pain. His six brothers had all achieved considerable success in their respective fields. Against their accomplishments, he felt like nothing more than trash buried in a heap of garbage. He especially felt so toward Hu Junjie. Whenever people mentioned him, they would instinctively raise a thumbs-up and praise him as a true man among men.
Hu Weijie felt he was merely there to make up the numbers. The Seven Heroes of the Hu Family required seven people to justify the name—that was the sole reason he was included among them. He was clumsy with words, dull-witted, and chronically taciturn. Even his wife and daughter barely acknowledged his existence. He often felt like an unnecessary person, someone who simply happened to be alive.
However, a year ago, everything had changed. After disposing of a corpse, he was on his way back to Silver City when he happened to save an elderly man. Out of gratitude, the old man extended an olive branch, inviting him to join a grand, monumental experiment.
The old man possessed a mysterious drug that could strengthen a creature's bloodline and physical abilities. More importantly, it could fuse the bloodlines of different creatures, allowing a subject to surpass the limits of its original lineage.
Hu Weijie's role in the experiment was simple. He only needed to dispose of the failed test subjects. A seasoned cleaner, he worked for this mysterious old man in his spare time, quietly smuggling one grotesque, mutated failure after another out of Silver City.
Then, at long last, the experiment succeeded. They had created the Perfect Lifeform. It possessed infinite shapeshifting capabilities, carried the genes of countless supernatural creatures, had no weakness, and was almost invincible.
However, a crisis soon struck. The Perfect Lifeform broke through the laboratory's multiple layers of containment, vanishing into the night. In the accompanying chaos, the facility's Aberrant Parasites had managed to escape as well.
The moment the Aberrant Parasites escaped, Hu Weijie realized that disaster was imminent. Taking advantage of the chaos, he snatched a massive supply of the perfected drug and fled Silver City under the cover of night. His goal was to evolve and become an existence far more powerful and flawless than the progenitor of the Nine-tailed Fox. He wanted to become the most outstanding of the Seven Heroes of the Hu Family.
Hu Weijie had made extensive preparations at the Starbird Airport. He even installed numerous tape recorders throughout the facility to preserve his sense of self.
Stripping off his clothes, he injected the drug into his body, one vial after another, without pause. A boundless torrent of power surged within his veins. He had started with only two tails, but new tails sprouted in rapid succession.
All around him, the tape recorders continuously played recordings of his name while the foxes confined within nearby cages cried out in fear. Whenever the overwhelming power threatened to erode his identity and make him lose himself, those familiar sounds would pull him back. They reminded him who he was and that he was undergoing a magnificent evolution.
Just as he felt the ninth tail was about to emerge, a thunderous explosion echoed from outside the Starbird Airport. Startled, he looked toward the entrance and saw the Perfect Lifeform standing right outside the door. The look it gave him sent a violent shiver running straight down his spine.