Chapter 63: The Ability Tree of the Perfect Lifeform
One minute later, Hu Weijie's face twitched violently. A smaller face began to grow on his cheek. He instinctively slapped his cheek and screamed at the top of his lungs, "Are you done yet? I can't hold it back much longer!"
Yu Xian used every ounce of strength in his body, desperately gulping down the creature's blood as fast as he could. Suddenly, an old man’s face flashed vividly across his mind. The man was completely bald but sported a curly white beard. His features had a somewhat mixed, biracial appearance, and his eyes carried a blend of ancient weariness and ruthless ambition.
This is Peng Zu!
Yu Xian instantly let go of Hu Weijie and leaped backward. A spatial bubble manifested behind his back and teleported him a hundred meters away in the blink of an eye.
Hu Weijie misunderstood that Yu Xian was fleeing and roared in a desperate fury, "No! Do it! Kill me!"
But in the next split second, he watched Yu Xian pull a massive hoard of explosives out of his spatial ring, stuffing them all into a single, massive spatial bubble. Yu Xian had teleported Zhang Shou and Bluebird right beside him. Back in the armory, the two of them had packed away even more explosives than Yu Xian. They also unloaded astonishing quantities of explosives from their spatial rings.
While technology was not useless against supernatural beings, under normal circumstances, not even an Insect-rank creature would stand there like an idiot and let itself be blown up. If a supernatural creature could neither dodge nor defend itself, the simultaneous detonation of several thousand enhanced explosives would be enough to severely wound or even kill it.
Hu Weijie was panicking. "Hurry! Hurry! It can sense the danger. I won't be able to suppress it much longer!"
Once everything was ready, Yu Xian nodded to Hu Weijie. He teleported everyone away, leaving behind a single bubble packed to the brim with explosives and shooting it toward Hu Weijie.
In his final moments, Hu Weijie didn't try to retreat or flee. Instead, he threw his arms wide open, embracing the bubble and deactivating all his innate defenses. "Xian'er... Tu'er... Goodbye. Live well. Live happily."
His final thoughts were filled with Hu Xian'er and Hu Tu'er. There was only love, longing, and reluctance to part. Not a trace of fear remained.
From a distant hilltop, Yu Xian pulled the pin from an incendiary grenade and tossed it into a small bubble. The next second, a terrifying explosion erupted from the giant crater in the distance.
Though the weapons stored in the Public Security Bureau's armory weren't high-tier military hardware, they were engineered to combat supernatural beings. Therefore, the explosives' destructive power far surpassed that of ordinary explosives. A single incendiary grenade was more than ten times as powerful as a conventional one.
Furthermore, Yu Xian hadn't withdrawn the bubble containing the explosives. Instead, at the final moment, he had expanded it into a giant sphere fifty meters in diameter. Detonating the explosives inside this enclosed space turned the bubble into a pressure cooker, exponentially multiplying the destructive force of the blast.
Although it lasted for less than a second before bursting, the immense pressure generated during that moment was enough to significantly increase the explosion's overall power.
At the center of the blast, blazing flames roared and churned. Suddenly, a charred black creature burst out of the fire and fled toward Starbird Airport at astonishing speed.
Everyone was stunned. Yu Xian exclaimed, "It survived that?"
He teleported Gong Qian high into the sky. The Perfect Lifeform, which was sprinting across the ground, heard an unusual sound from above. Looking up, it saw Gong Qian descending from the sky, her fist crashing down toward it. An instant later, her punch slammed directly into its head.
The ground shuddered violently. Gong Qian’s fist flattened the Perfect Lifeform, leaving it slumped in the center of a massive crater like a heap of mangled mud. Without pause, she unleashed a relentless torrent of punches down upon the creature. This time, she would absolutely not stop until its flesh and bone were thoroughly pulverized into a fine paste.
Standing atop a jagged boulder at the crest of the hill, Yu Xian saw that Gong Qian had the situation completely under control, so he didn't rush to intervene. After consuming a large amount of the Perfect Lifeform's blood, he had not only inherited fragments of Hu Weijie's memories but also gained portions of the creature's memories. At the same time, as he digested the blood, his body seemed to be undergoing subtle changes of its own.
The Perfect Lifeform had hatched from an egg. In its embryonic state, it had been injected with enormous quantities of the experimental drug, which had allowed it to reach maturity.
As a result, although it was extraordinarily powerful, it was not particularly intelligent. Almost everything it did was driven by instinct. It possessed astonishing hunting instincts and an exceptional ability to camouflage itself by changing colors. Even though the laboratory had employed formations, barriers, high-voltage grids, aqua regia, and numerous other containment measures, it had still escaped with ease.
Through the creature's memories, Yu Xian saw that its short life had consisted almost entirely of eating and searching for its next meal. That continued until it caught Hu Weijie's scent. From several kilometers away, it had raced all the way to Hu Weijie's hiding spot at Starbird Airport.
After devouring both Hu Weijie and the foxes Hu Weijie had prepared for himself, the Perfect Lifeform had become contaminated by demonic energy. However, its instincts told it that the demonic energy would benefit rather than harm it, so it accepted the energy without hesitation.
In fact, if it had managed to seek recognition, it would have become extraordinarily intelligent within a short period of time. At that point, it would have become humanity's greatest threat.
Unfortunately for it, Hu Weijie had proven to be far too "nutritious." After it gorged itself to the point of lethargy, its hunting instincts diminished. It settled down at Starbird Airport, intending to finish digesting Hu Weijie before looking for humans to seek recognition. This period of hibernation was exactly what the Wickedness Purging Squad had interrupted.
A wave of relief washed over Yu Xian. They were incredibly fortunate to have uncovered this threat so early, denying the Perfect Lifeform any further opportunity to mature. Otherwise, it would have become humanity's greatest nightmare. Its potential was infinite, its forms ever-changing. Its only real weakness was that it wasn't very intelligent.
If not for Hu Weijie taking the blast head-on, the Perfect Lifeform would have had plenty of ways to defend itself. In his final moments, Hu Weijie had used an almost unimaginable feat of sheer willpower to completely disable the body's defensive capabilities. As a result, the Perfect Lifeform was gravely wounded by the explosion.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Yu Xian clutched his chest. His heart was mutating. The Perfect Lifeform's blood was teeming with a vast, concentrated pool of genetic material from countless supernatural creatures. The violent stimulation of these genes had thrown both his Vampire Heart and his Pangu Heart into upheaval. A brand-new heart was aggressively sprouting right at the intersection of the two existing hearts.
The memories of Hu Weijie and the Perfect Lifeform were merely bonuses. For vampires, the most important thing had always been the nutrients contained within blood.
And Yu Xian, a mutant vampire that had undergone mutation upon mutation upon mutation, was already far removed from ordinary vampires. His absorptive capabilities had long since surpassed even those of the progenitor of the Blood Race.
As the new heart took shape, Yu Xian closed his eyes. In his mind, a majestic ability tree seemed to sprout and grow at a breakneck speed, each of its twisting branches representing a distinct ability.
If the ability trees tied to his Pangu Heart and Vampire Heart were completely shrouded in question marks, forcing him to awaken abilities blindly at random, then this new ability tree was entirely open and transparent. Yu Xian was free to choose exactly which abilities he wanted to activate along its branches.
The Perfect Skill Tree!
The ability represented by the first branch was Super Stomach. It granted the host extraordinary digestive power. Anything the host swallowed would be rapidly broken down in the stomach and absorbed by supercharged gastric fluids.
The ability represented by the second branch was Super Regeneration. As long as sufficient energy was available, every cell in the body could divide without limit, allowing virtually any injury to be repaired in a remarkably short period of time.
The third branch's ability was Super Smell. This had transcended the boundaries of a conventional sense of smell, crossing into the realm of the profoundly supernatural. It allowed the host to catch a scent from several kilometers away, even if the scent particles themselves hadn't physically drifted that far through the air.
Yu Xian examined the abilities represented by each branch of the ability tree. The more he looked, the more astonished he became. At the same time, he finally understood why both Hu Weijie and Peng Zu believed that the Perfect Lifeform was truly perfect. Its abilities were simply too well-rounded. It had no meaningful weaknesses whatsoever.