HBWnovel Chapter 233: Shielding Pollution, The First Rune!
Chapter 233: Shielding Pollution, The First Rune!
'June 8th, Shegang Bridge, water monster attack?'Cheng Ye felt a sudden buzz in his head. His previous confusion was instantly washed away, and he felt completely enlightened, as if his meridians had suddenly been unblocked.
He had finally obtained a crucial piece of information to defeat the enemy!
So these Crab-men—parasitized by the Demonic Eye Sponge and transformed into Infected Bodies and Fusion Entities by the Poisonous Water Crystals—didn't die in the subsequent flash flood at all. Instead, they had already been killed by a "Water Monster" long before the flood even occurred!
No wonder Zhou Mazi had clearly heard him but showed absolutely no reaction when he mentioned the flash flood earlier.
The most direct way to eliminate a Death-Whisper Tentacle Infected Body was to point out the fact that they were "already dead."
This fact could not be fabricated or extracted through torture. One had to accurately state the three key elements of the Infected Body's death: time, location, and scenario.
The three elements could be somewhat vague. The specific cause of death or how tragic the process was didn't matter.
However, the three points of "when, where, and killed by what" were indispensable and had to be absolutely correct.
Clearly, Zhou Mazi also vaguely understood Cheng Ye's intention. Even though his consciousness was growing increasingly blurry, he still managed to blurt out the crucial information in one breath.
"That Water Monster, can you remember what it looked like?" Cheng Ye pressed, his heart tightening slightly.
Yun City, where Yueye Shelter City was located, was merely near a tributary of the Linjiang River.
It was just that this tributary was much wider than the White Water River, measuring over twenty meters across.
Heading downstream from there to where it merged with the main channel of the Linjiang River, about forty kilometers away, was Shegang Bridge.
And from Shegang Bridge to the White Water River, it should only be a hundred kilometers or so by waterway!
"Tentacles... many... tentacles..." a broken voice drifted over.
Zhou Mazi's voice was intermittent, and his body spasmed even more violently. Bloody froth continuously seeped from his face, neck, and even between his fingers.
Without the "resurrection power" provided by the Death-Whisper Tentacle, it was obvious he could no longer survive.
'Tentacles?'
'A variant of the Death-Whisper Tentacle?'
Cheng Ye frowned deeply. There were simply too many variants of this Infection Source. There were no less than forty recorded close relatives alone. Without more information, it was impossible to make a judgment.
And Zhou Mazi clearly hadn't seen exactly what kind of tentacles they were, simply repeating the word over and over.
Realizing he wouldn't get any more information from him, Cheng Ye's expression suddenly darkened.
Such vital news concerning human lives should have been discovered and reported to headquarters by the scouts deployed around Happiness City, even if Yueye Shelter City was too busy dealing with the impending Infection Tide to verify it.
Yet, when he had entered the Chamber earlier, the intelligence provided by the Inspection Station hadn't mentioned a single word about this.
There was only one possibility: Yueye Shelter City not only failed to notify the neighboring shelter cities but deliberately covered up the news!
'Damn them!'
'They deserve to die!'
In this wasteland ravaged by Infection Sources, the reason large shelter cities could stand tall was due to information coordination. Once someone violated this bottom line, it would only lead to more people dying at the hands of the Infection Sources.
But now, Yueye Shelter City had actively broken this pact.
Cheng Ye took a few deep breaths to suppress the rising anger in his heart. His gaze fell back onto Zhou Mazi, and his voice softened a fraction. "Do you have any final wishes? Speak them!"
"I... I..." Zhou Mazi stammered weakly before suddenly spewing out a large mouthful of black blood. A trace of clarity flashed through his cloudy eyes as he pleaded, "Let me die... Don't let me turn into an Infected Body again... to harm people..."
"I will grant your wish!" Cheng Ye solemnly promised.
"Th-thank you..." As their eyes met, a relieved smile suddenly tugged at the corner of Zhou Mazi's mouth. His body went limp, entirely devoid of movement.
Cheng Ye squatted silently for half a minute. Only when he confirmed the man was no longer twitching did he stand up and draw the Red Blade from his waist.
With a flash of cold light, Zhou Mazi's Head was cleanly severed.
Immediately after, he swung his blade again, splitting open the armor plating on the corpse's chest and shredding the faintly beating heart into pieces.
With the two major vital points of the human body completely destroyed, no matter how strong the Infection Source was, there was absolutely no chance of resurrecting him.
'Zhou Mazi, have a safe journey,' Cheng Ye murmured silently in his heart.
Anyone capable of becoming a Fusion Entity must have harbored some kind of intense Obsession.
And the fact that Zhou Mazi, fully aware of his impending death, could lucidly provide crucial intelligence and only ask to "not harm people" proved that in life, he must have been an ordinary man with a strong moral bottom line and unwavering Belief.
What a pity.
Such a person unfortunately encountered a shelter city that concealed information and a group of fools who disregarded life, ultimately ending up dead and parasitized in such a tragic conclusion.
When alive, Zhou Mazi was an enemy from an opposing Faction; a meeting between them would only end in life or death.
In death, Zhou Mazi returned to the Humans' Faction. Cheng Ye felt a wave of lamentation well up inside him, yet he couldn't speak a single word.
Whoosh.
The surrounding Vitality energy was still converging toward him. Cheng Ye immediately reigned in his thoughts, absorbing the energy with all his might before the Crab-men could catch up.
After all these years, Tan Ming's pollution had long been proven to have controllable risks, and the interface had never prompted any related dangers.
Although he still felt a bit of trepidation when borrowing his power, he felt much more reassured compared to using an Infection Source like the Earth-Shrinking Giant Louse.
The blood-red battle armor grew increasingly solid under the continuous nourishment of the Vitality, and even the lines of the Rune on its surface brightened a bit.
It wasn't until the energy broke through a certain critical point, and the outline of the bottom-right corner of the Rune completely solidified, that Cheng Ye's physique underwent another transformation.
He strained to grow from 1.8 meters, eventually stopping at two meters tall. Standing in the Rongdong, he looked like a small iron tower.
'It seems breaking through the suppression of the Chamber's Rune isn't that easy. It was only simple during the initial increase in size...'
Cheng Ye nodded to himself.
When he withdrew his perception, all vegetation within fifty meters had completely withered and yellowed, even the moss on the ground turning into dust. Meanwhile, the Crab-men behind him finally caught up, forming a dense, swarming mass.
He took a deep breath, sinking his breath to his Dantian, before suddenly spinning around and roaring at the crab swarm, "June 8th, Shegang Bridge, Water Monster attack, you are all dead!"
His voice exploded like rolling thunder, landing clearly in the ears of every Crab-man.
Boom!
An almost tangible white mental fluctuation abruptly crashed down from the "white clouds" above.
'Is this... single-target Mental Pollution?'
A suffocating sensation of near-death instantly washed over him, like an invisible hand clamping around his throat. Cheng Ye's body froze entirely.
However, it did not disappoint him. The "red clouds" overhead immediately responded. A stream of bloody Essence surged into his battle armor through their connection, and the Rune instantly ignited with blazing blood-red flames.
Once the blood flames burned, the white fluctuation was completely blocked out.
As the blood flames grew even more intense, the fluctuation was actually forcefully deflected, vanishing into thin air.
Meanwhile, under Cheng Ye's watchful gaze, the majority of the rushing Crab-men stumbled and fell to their knees, bizarre gurgling sounds escaping their throats.
Crimson Death-Whisper Tentacles extended from their mouths. With no targets around to infect through Parasitism, they could only tie themselves into futile knots in the air before finally dropping limply to the ground.
With just a single sentence, nearly three hundred Crab-men died on the spot, not even having the chance to resist!
Only a fifth of the Crab-men remained standing. Obviously, they didn't die in the Shegang Bridge attack on June 8th, but rather perished in some other disaster. That sentence failed to trigger their death-whisper weakness.
Cheng Ye wasn't in a hurry to step forward and clean up the remaining Crab-men. Instead, he looked down at his armor.
The newly solidified section at the bottom right corner of the Rune had become blurry again, and his size was continuously shrinking, ultimately returning to just over 1.2 meters.
Although he couldn't communicate directly with Tan Ming, this change had already made one thing crystal clear.
'Breaking through the Mental Pollution of the Myriad Command Earth Dharma Conch requires energy?'
Cheng Ye was instantly overjoyed.
As long as it was a target that could be materialized and possessed a pattern of consumption and replenishment, there was a way to deal with it.
The most terrifying aspect of the Myriad Command Earth Dharma Conch was that Humans were unable to resist its Mental Pollution. No matter how much energy one possessed, their mental defenses would shatter at the slightest touch.
But now, Tan Ming's blood-red battle armor perfectly masked this weakness.
In other words, the current situation had finally returned to a "fair duel." All he had to do was deal with the Crab-men.
And the key information that triggered the Death-Whisper Tentacles was like a "magic spell" requiring energy consumption. As long as he had Vitality to replenish it, he could cast it repeatedly!
'What an unprecedented and wonderful experience...'
Compared to Happiness City's backing, this real-time cooperative assistance from Tan Ming felt much more reliable.
For the remaining Crab-men, he didn't waste any more energy on his "magic." Instead, he charged in with dual blades in hand. The red and purple blade lights flashed through the crab swarm, each strike claiming the lives of several Crab-men.
When only about a dozen were left, his body suddenly jolted, and the visual interface popped up automatically:
[The Collector has detected dissipating biological information, automatically absorbing...]
[Absorption complete. The Abyssal Water Cave Crab's Trait (Living Water Essence) has reached full value. You may continue to accumulate. Maximum storage capacity: 200%
]
"Living Water Essence is full again?"
Cheng Ye froze for a second, suddenly feeling as though he had struck a goldmine.
This was especially true when his gaze drifted toward the endless tide of Crab-men rushing in from the distance, and then back to the interface prompt.
He stood dumbfounded. Never before had he felt his grip on his swords tighten so firmly.
In his eyes, those Crab-men no longer looked ferocious. Instead, they had transformed into walking notifications of Trait increases.
'If I just get two more portions of essence, I can fully feed the Earth-Shrinking Giant Louse. What kind of effect will it have once it's full?'
'If I could hoard seven or eight portions of essence, wouldn't breeding fish in an enclosed pond be incredibly easy in the future?'
Countless thoughts flashed through his mind, but in the next second, upon seeing over a dozen Crab-man Fusion Entities dash out from the swarm, brandishing six iron-whip crab pincers behind them, Cheng Ye turned and bolted without hesitation.
Compared to the blood-red figures who only knew brute force, his greatest advantage was his ability to kite enemies.
Collecting Traits was one thing, but more importantly, lowering the energy level of the Dharma Conch and weakening the Immortal Item for Containment was his ultimate goal.
Lush green trees withered at a visible rate, vines dried and hung limply, and even the dead branches and rotting leaves on the ground seemed to be drained of their last drop of moisture.
As the Vitality continuously surged in, the blurry Rune on his battle armor became clear once more. His height climbed back from 1.2 meters to 1.8 meters, and a sense of surging power filled his entire body again.
During this period, three more blood-red figures charged over from a distance.
Before Cheng Ye could even raise his hand to stop them, the figures melted into pools of bloody water with a splash, merging into his battle armor without a second thought and causing the blood-red glow to brighten further.
"No, wait, can't you just stay alive and listen to my commands for a team fight?"
Cheng Ye felt a bit of a headache.
If he had thousands of these blood-red figures to help, the pressure of dealing with the Crab-men would be drastically reduced.
Yet these "Tan Ming clones" didn't give him a chance to explain at all. They actively fused with him upon arrival, as if they were afraid of causing him any trouble.
'Perhaps I need to collect more of Tan Ming's Traits to command them?'
He opened his bestiary and glanced at it a few times, ultimately abandoning the thought of taking off his armor and killing a few more "Tan Mings" to farm Traits.
Right now, both the Myriad Command Earth Dharma Conch and the Demonic Eye Sponge had their eyes on him. Without the armor's protection, never mind farming Traits, it was hard to say if he could even escape. Anyway, Tan Ming was entrenched underground in Shi Province, so there would be plenty of opportunities to collect his traits in the future. There was no need to rush.
By the time another fifty-meter radius of Vitality was drained, Cheng Ye's body continued its explosive growth, breaking through the 2.1-meter mark. Standing in the Rongdong, he could almost look down on those Crab-man Fusion Entities.
Caught between continuing to slaughter the Crab-men and continuing to absorb energy, Cheng Ye paused for a moment before finally charging forward with his dual blades raised.
The Myriad Command Earth Dharma Conch's energy had two indicators.
The Crab-men were its mana pool; as long as all the Infected Bodies didn't die, it had infinite mana to fight against Tan Ming.
The Vitality of the vegetation was its maximum mana cap; only by maintaining this Vitality could it unleash its full power.
To weaken it, he had to sever both sources.
"June 8th..."
The familiar roar echoed. Like playing a Hack-and-Slash game, hundreds of pursuing Crab-men crashed to the ground, their bodies violently thrashing as slime and tentacles endlessly poured from their mouths.
Cheng Ye stepped forward and sliced apart a few dropped Death-Whisper Tentacles, but didn't glean any more crucial information, only managing to collect the most basic "Death-Whisper Tentacle" bestiary entry:
[Death-Whisper Tentacle]
[Description]: An aquatic parasite originating from deep-water mud layers. Its entire body is semi-transparent and grayish-brown. They mostly entangle themselves around dead wood underwater, sunken corpses, or in rock crevices. When their tentacles come into contact with the corpse of a dead organism, they rapidly pierce the skin or scales, initiating Parasitism and bringing it back to life as a "Resurrected."
During the Parasitism stage, the Death-Whisper Tentacle relies on memory fragments from before the deceased's death to lock onto their unfulfilled wishes, driving the Resurrected to act toward that goal. If a living creature clearly points out the fact that the Resurrected is "already dead," the host body instantly loses its supporting strength, and the parasitic tentacle dies along with it.
[Current Parasitism Probability]:
Direct Contact (Pollution Probability: None for now; only spreads to the deceased)
[Currently Recorded Traits]:
Dead Perception (19.27%)
Death Whisper* (6.15%)
There were only two simple Traits. Cheng Ye took a single glance and looked away.
Any skill marked with an asterisk could not be equipped at all, and he certainly had no desire to undergo Parasitism from a Death-Whisper Tentacle.
Moreover, any extracted Trait would most likely only be at the lowest level, Lv1. It couldn't be fused with his Lv5 Earth-Shrinking Giant Louse and could only be fused with Little Flame.
'It'd be great if I could encounter a Transcendent Creature capable of accommodating all Traits in the future...'
Cheng Ye muttered in his heart as he turned and left the battlefield.
He wondered how Luo Kuke was holding up on his end. As he ran, he purposefully headed deeper into the dense forest.
He wasn't sure if the Myriad Command Earth Dharma Conch had remodeled the Rongdong's space, but the size of this cavern was truly absurd. Even though his physique had recovered to 2.1 meters, after running for almost ten minutes, he still couldn't see the end.
Once he completed the Containment of the Myriad Command Earth Dharma Conch and the Demonic Eye Sponge, he could transform this Rongdong into a secret base.
In the future, he could connect it via a surface elevator and conduct some experiments inside here, or even secretly farm; it should be very difficult for anyone to discover.
Cheng Ye calculated in his mind while continuously siphoning Vitality.
After all, he just needed to mimic the Myriad Command Earth Dharma Conch's method and use the Chamber to seal the entrance.
Of course, the prerequisite was not to alarm Lord Tan Ming.
The massive tree beside him was drained of its final trace of Vitality, its withered trunk crashing heavily to the ground. As the energy flooded in, his body size surged yet again, breaking past 2.3 meters.
Another wave of Crab-men charged from the distance. Cheng Ye opened his mouth and shouted the key information, and the crab swarm collapsed instantly, while his height fell back to 1.8 meters.
He immediately switched to another area filled with Vitality to continue his extraction, and his height soon shot back up to 2.4 meters...
Yet another wave of Crab-men rushed over to their deaths...
Using the Vitality created by the Myriad Command Earth Dharma Conch to deal with the Crab-men it used to guard that very Vitality.
This move of "Using Their Own Methods Against Them" made even Cheng Ye himself feel incredibly exhilarated.
To his even greater surprise, as he drew away the attention of the majority of the Crab-men, the remaining blood-red figures finally caught a breather. They began to furiously absorb Vitality all over the Rongdong, evolving into quite a few powerful individuals.
Some blood-red figures grew to two meters tall, broad-shouldered and stout. The muscle knots on their arms looked like they were going to burst, transforming them into muscle men who could blow apart several harassing ordinary Crab-men with a single punch.
Others were as thin as monkeys but stood a full three meters tall. Their arms and legs were long and slender like blades, and a wide sweep from them could reap through the crab swarm on a massive scale.
There were also a few "fatty" figures with astonishing tonnage that grew to four meters tall. Even when Crab-man Fusion Entities encountered them, these figures would abruptly leap up and crush their shells simply by sitting on them.
But most importantly, these evolved blood-red figures finally stopped rushing over to fuse with him the moment they saw him.
Whenever they crossed paths, they would take the initiative to yield the Vitality zone beneath their feet, gesturing for Cheng Ye to absorb it, while they themselves turned to seek out elsewhere.
"Hey, bro, don't leave!"
Watching the four-meter-tall "fatty" lumber away with heavy, thudding steps, Cheng Ye couldn't help but shout, "Tan Ming! Tan Ming! Come back and team up!"
If he could gather a few powerful combatants with such Combat Power, forming a squad would definitely be much stronger than him fighting completely alone.
Regrettably, not a single figure could understand his words. Instead, they acted as if repelled by magnets, not even giving him the chance to approach within fifty meters. They merely silently cleared out scattered Crab-men in the distance.
However, thanks to these "allies" active in the vicinity, the intensity of the Crab-men's pursuit noticeably weakened, allowing Cheng Ye to finally focus on absorbing Vitality with peace of mind.
"Alright then, I'll just suck, suck, suck..."
He simply squatted on the ground, pressing his hands into the dirt, and used his Intent to frantically tear away at the surrounding green energy.
Once an area was drained, he immediately moved on to the next.
Unwittingly, his body size had quietly broken past the three-meter mark. Standing in the Rongdong, he looked like a moving pillar.
The white pollution fluctuation belonging to the Myriad Command Earth Dharma Conch hovering overhead seemed to realize it couldn't do anything to him. After circling for a moment, it dispersed, leaving only the Demonic Eye Sponge still stubbornly locking onto him with an invisible mark, guiding the Crab-men over to hunt him down, though they posed no threat whatsoever.
Buzz—
The Rune on the surface of his humming battle armor began to flicker frequently, its previously blurry outline gradually coming into focus.
Bottom right, bottom left, top right, top left—more and more strokes were filled with energy. The Rune's form slowly came into focus, faintly revealing a complex pattern laced with blood-red textures.
Cheng Ye could clearly sense his connection with Tan Ming deepening, to the point where he could faintly brush against an invisible boundary.
And this boundary finally shattered as his height surged to three and a half meters.
Boom.
It felt like a clap of thunder exploded in his mind the exact instant the final stroke of the battle armor's Rune was filled.
Cheng Ye jerked his head up, and countless shifting, illusory scenes abruptly surfaced before his eyes:
He saw ordinary blood-red figures sprawled on the ground, frantically absorbing Vitality, only to be ganged up on by Crab-men.
He saw monkey-thin figures darting through the forest, their arms sweeping like a blademaster's storm, slaughtering the Crab-men into a steady retreat.
He even vicariously experienced a four-meter-tall fatty descending from the sky, feeling the heavy, muffled impact of crushing a Crab-man Fusion Entity with its rear.
"This is..."
Cheng Ye gasped, instinctively focusing his sight on a scene where two ordinary blood-red figures were being besieged by over a dozen Crab-men.
In the next second, the other scenes instantly faded away, and an inexplicable sense of "control" welled up in his mind.
He tested using his Intent to command one of the figures to step back twice, and that figure surprisingly executed a highly Agile retreat, narrowly dodging a Crab-man's smashing pincers.
Immediately after, he controlled the figure to leap high into the air and deliver a flying kick straight to the Head of the Crab-man behind it.
That Crab-man clearly didn't expect the "target" to suddenly fight back. It took the kick squarely, its head directly snapping to the side as dark green bodily fluids drooled from the corner of its mouth.
'I can actually control it?'
Cheng Ye was thoroughly stunned. As that sense of connection grew stronger, he even had the illusion that he had become the blood-red figure himself. The physical control lacked the slightest sluggishness, feeling unbelievably smooth.
Moreover, it wasn't until this moment that he realized these blood-red figures weren't weak at all. Their physical attributes far surpassed ordinary Crab-men; they just lacked combat instincts, which was why they were easily cornered.
Relying on his remote control, all the besieging Crab-men were slain in less than half a minute.
Just as he attempted to sever the feeling of control, a much clearer communication fluctuation suddenly arrived from above his head.
Cheng Ye looked up in bewilderment at the smear of red clouds that had been constantly hovering high up in the Rongdong.
'No way?'
'Did Tan Ming turn himself into a "router" to transmit and receive "signals" within the Rongdong?'
Controlling the clone just now felt exactly as if his Intent was first transmitted to the red clouds, and then forwarded by the red clouds down to the blood-red figures below—remarkably similar to a computer's remote assistance.
'So it wasn't that I hadn't collected enough Traits before, but rather that I needed this complete Rune to act as a receiver?'
Realizing this, Cheng Ye couldn't help but reach out and touch the Rune on the surface of his armor. His fingertips didn't touch any physical substance, nor did they feel the slightest sensation, yet a vivid Intent seemed permanently etched into his mind.
Cheng Ye froze slightly, instinctively looking away so as not to look at the fully materialized Rune on the battle armor.
Strangely, however, even though he averted his gaze, the image of the Rune in his mind did not blur and dissipate as it had before.
The flow of every line, the curvature of every stroke, and even the almost imperceptibly fine, serrated traces along the edges of the Rune were so clear that they felt as if they were right before his eyes, imprinted in the depths of his memory without a single error.
This was...