HBWnovel Chapter 328: Death Threat, Biological Deconstruction Ray!
Chapter 328: Death Threat, Biological Deconstruction Ray!
Hmm?What is going on?
Cheng Ye froze for a moment. The two immediately raised their guard and circled to the front of the figure to observe it closely.
Calling it a "stone head" was not quite accurate. The mutated head looked more like a mass of petrified tissue shaped like a sunflower.
Furthermore, this layer of petrified tissue was not a monotonous dull gray. Its surface was covered with fine spiral patterns, resembling the texture of a sunflower's disk magnified several times over.
Embedded within the gaps of the patterns were several dark red crystals the size of a fingertip, gleaming with a murky luster in the morning light.
For some reason, the moment he saw these crystals, two words popped into Cheng Ye's mind.
Redstone.
He immediately took out his Defense Terminal and searched for information related to "Redstone," but the images that appeared differed slightly from the crystals before him.
The Redstone sold by the Red River Gathering Place in the past were stones covered in blood-red veins. In contrast, the crystals before him looked more like translucent rubies, exuding an indescribable magnificence.
He then took a picture of this "stone man" in its entirety and used the Defense Terminal to run a matching search. The result was a completely blank interface—there were no relevant records.
'Is it actually an unknown Infected Body?'
Cheng Ye could not help but inhale a sharp breath of cold air. Even for an existence as bizarre as the Seamless Shadow Puppet, humanity still had relevant records on file. Yet, for this monster that had emerged from the mine, there was not a single shred of information?
Beside him, Liu Bi had simultaneously finished taking a picture and running a search. He quickly realized the severity of the situation. "This thing... it seems to be an unprecedented, unknown entity."
"Yeah, and the condition of this Stone Sunflower Person is also a bit abnormal..."
Cheng Ye observed it closely, casually giving the Infected Body a name.
Calling it a stone man wasn't quite fitting, as the shape of its head was exactly that of a sunflower.
Thus, he simply decided to refer to this Infected Body as a Stone Sunflower Person.
He didn't know what its original form had been. Regardless, apart from the few red crystals, the rest of its body was entirely dull gray, lacking any extraordinary features.
'Should I kill it and see if I can collect any new Traits?'
The moment this thought surfaced, Cheng Ye felt a strong urge to act.
But before making a move, he followed the tracks on the ground and circled the area.
There were no signs of a struggle on the ground, yet the Stone Sunflower Person's final footprint was more than twenty meters away from where it currently lay.
Cheng Ye stood in place and deduced: had it jumped over here on its own? Or was it more likely that it had been brutally sent flying by something, crashing all the way here from the center of the street?
Thinking back to the bizarre semi-truck they had seen yesterday, an absurd speculation suddenly arose in Cheng Ye's mind.
Unfortunately, upon opening the System Panel, the top right corner displayed no search target, indicating that he could not search for intelligence on this Stone Sunflower Person.
"Brother B, step back a bit."
Cheng Ye signaled Liu Bi to retreat to a safe distance, drew his Bison Combat Pistol, aimed at the Stone Sunflower Person's forehead, and pulled the trigger.
Clang!
Sparks violently burst forth. The bullet was actually deflected, bouncing a few times on the ground before coming to a stop.
'Good grief, this defense is way too astonishing.'
Cheng Ye raised an eyebrow. He simply shifted his aim, targeting the Stone Sunflower Person's torso—which still retained a human shape—and fired two consecutive shots right at the heart.
However, when the bullets struck the seemingly soft, pale yellow skin, it was just like hitting solid rock. They did not even leave the slightest dent.
'The Bison Combat Pistol actually can't break its defense?'
Cheng Ye grew increasingly curious. With such formidable defense, could it really be as he had guessed—that it had been targeted by the Seamless Shadow Puppet, exhausting its life force to end up in this state?
"Shoot its crystals. Those should be its weak points," Liu Bi's voice came from behind, his finger pointing at the red crystals in the center of the Stone Sunflower Person's head.
"Alright."
Cheng Ye narrowed his eyes slightly and adjusted his breathing, ensuring he could accurately hit that core crystal from twenty meters away.
However, right at the moment his finger was about to pull the trigger, an indescribable sensation of impending death fiercely seized him. Every hair on his body instantly stood on end.
Beside him, Liu Bi's expression changed at the same time. His muscles tensed up as he blurted out, "Wait, don't shoot!"
Unfortunately, before his words could completely fade, the bullet had already roared out of the muzzle.
Like a synchronized drill from Pacific Rim, the two men dove to the right almost simultaneously, their bodies tracing two arcs through the air.
And before they even landed, the bullet had flawlessly struck that red crystal.
Crack!
A crisp, ear-piercing sound of shattering rang out.
Immediately after, the remaining red crystals on the Stone Sunflower Person's face seemed to trigger a chain reaction, shattering one after another as fine crystal fragments sprayed in all directions.
As all the crystals shattered, the Stone Sunflower Person's twitching body suddenly froze.
Beneath its initially dull gray petrified skin, a faint red glow began to spread, as if some terrifying energy was about to burst out of its body.
The next second, the Stone Sunflower Person, originally lying on the ground, abruptly sat up. Its head aimed straight in the direction of the mine, a red light swirling within its lifeless eye sockets.
Under their horrified gazes, a hazy red light slowly rose from its sunflower-disk-shaped head, extending forward inch by inch.
In a matter of seconds, the red light condensed into a straight beam, shooting directly toward the entrance of the mine.
Bizarrely, even though several abandoned buildings stood across the beam's path, the red light seemed to ignore all obstacles, passing straight through as if those brick-and-stone structures did not exist.
Waves of an intense sensation of impending death instantly washed over them. Liu Bi trembled like a leaf, his teeth chattering uncontrollably, making even breathing difficult.
Cheng Ye also gritted his teeth, feeling as though his heart was being crushed by an invisible hand. He decisively opened the System Panel and unequipped the Spirit-Concealing State. Only then did that suffocating threat of death instantly vanish like an ebbing tide.
'What is this thing?'
'A death ray?'
The two men froze in place, not daring to move an inch, terrified that the slightest motion would attract the Stone Sunflower Person's attention and turn that lethal beam toward them.
It was only after more than ten seconds that the red light gradually dimmed and disappeared.
As the last speck of light dissipated, the Stone Sunflower Person's head burst open with a soft poof, splitting into fine powder that scattered in the wind.
At the same time, a notification lit up on the System Panel.
[The Collector has detected Diffused Biological Information. Automatically absorbing...]
[Absorption complete. New entry added to the Biological Compendium: ???]
'It really is an unrecorded, unknown Infected Body.'
Cheng Ye's heart sank. These accidents were simply happening one after another. They had just dealt with the Seamless Shadow Puppet, and now such a troublesome thing had popped out of the mine.
Fortunately, it was already half-dead when they encountered it. Had it been in its prime, if that beam of light had swept over them just now, the consequences would have been unimaginable.
He immediately clicked on the Illustrated Handbook to jump to the page. The result caught him completely by surprise: the newly appeared "???" entry was not classified under the animal category; rather, it landed in the plant category, which had previously only held the solitary Purple Spirit Bamboo Shoot.
'A plant?'
Cheng Ye paused, his gaze quickly drawn to the color of the entry.
Deep purple!
So rich that it almost bled into red!
'Does this mean that the Infected Body we just killed had actually touched the fringes of the transcendent?'
'What kind of monster is this?'
He hastily clicked into the entry. Two images popped up on the interface first.
One was of the Stone Sunflower Person lying on the ground when they first saw it, and the other was the moment it sat up and fired the red light beam.
Further down, lines of text slowly surfaced. Just like when he had first searched for the Myriad Command Earth Dharma Conch, the description field was full of unknowns. However, the number of Traits listed and their accumulation levels took Cheng Ye completely by surprise:
[???]
[Description]: Currently, no specific information matches. The Collector is requested to continue gathering civilization information or attempt to analyze Traits related to this ??? for information extraction. [Current Parasitic Probability]: No matching information. [Currently Recorded Traits]:
Sunlight Absorption (200%)
Energy-Gathering Redstone (132.15%)
Flame Energy Conversion (107.27%)
Biological Deconstruction Ray (22.21%)
Sun Flame (7.7%)
"It actually has... five Traits?"
Cheng Ye shivered, feeling as though one wave had barely settled before another crashed in.
Moreover, the names of these five Traits were not difficult to understand just by looking at them literally.
Sunlight Absorption probably meant the Stone Sunflower Person could absorb solar energy.
Energy-Gathering Redstone was indeed related to Redstone. Those petrified tissues on its head were likely Redstone after gathering energy.
Flame Energy Conversion presumably allowed it to convert the energy stored in the Redstone into Flame Energy.
Biological Deconstruction Ray was undoubtedly that lethal red beam from just now.
As for the Sun Flame... it sounded like some kind of special fire. He wondered if it could be used as food for Little Flame.
In a mere instant, countless thoughts flashed through Cheng Ye's mind.
This was the first time he had encountered a situation where killing a single Infected Body maximized a Trait directly.
Not only was the basic Trait maxed out, but the accumulation levels of two other Traits were also not low, enough to be extracted directly once.
'Should I follow the Collector's prompt and analyze a wave of intelligence first?'
Cheng Ye hesitated for a moment and instinctively turned to look at Liu Bi beside him.
However, this glance made his heart violently sink. Even though the Stone Sunflower Person had already crumbled to powder, Liu Bi was still trembling all over. His unfocused eyes stared fixedly at the mine, his pupils filled with lingering terror, as if he had seen something extremely horrifying.
"Brother B?" Cheng Ye hastily reached out and gave him a heavy pat.
Only then did Liu Bi snap back to his senses. His face instantly turned pale as paper. Grabbing Cheng Ye's arm, he roared hoarsely, "Run, quickly run! I can feel it... something is coming!"
"What? Something is coming?"
Goosebumps instantly erupted all over Cheng Ye's body, and a chill shot from the soles of his feet straight to the top of his head.
The two shared a tacit understanding. Without speaking a single word of nonsense, they turned around, took massive strides, and sprinted desperately toward the security office.
Fortunately, they were less than a kilometer away from the security office. Otherwise, seeing Liu Bi's state, Cheng Ye would have felt the urge to directly enter the Giant Louse Symbiotic State to flee.
In less than two minutes, the courtyard of the security office appeared in their line of sight.
"Start the car! Start the car!"
Before even rushing into the courtyard, Liu Bi was already screaming at the top of his lungs.
Luckily, Niu Fu had slept the second half of the night and wasn't completely dead to the world at this moment. The instant the two stumbled into the courtyard, the Armored Vehicle's engine roared to life.
The car door popped open with a thud. The moment the two scrambled in looking ragged, the Armored Vehicle bellowed, crashing toward the broken wall of the back gate.
Yin Ruofeng and the other three had just closed their eyes when they were awakened by the violent commotion, all looking completely bewildered.
Thankfully, none of them had unfastened their seatbelts at any point, so even when the vehicle violently swerved, no one was thrown out.
"Take last night's route, hurry! Just smash right through!" Liu Bi gripped the handle tightly, urging them repeatedly. However, his eyes were glued to the rearview mirror, staring at the mine as if a flood or a ferocious beast was chasing them from behind.
'What exactly did Brother B see?'
Cheng Ye's heart was full of doubts. He attempted to re-equip the Spirit-Concealing State.
The next second, a life-and-death terror even more intense than before seized him in an instant. It felt like a massive, invisible hand was gripping his heart, threatening to brutally crush it in the very next moment.
Yet, despite trying with all his might to sense the source of this terror, he could only pick up on a vague sensation.
The source was precisely the direction of the mine. In his senses, that thing seemed to have already stepped out of the mine, and it was getting closer and closer.
Waves of numbness shot up his spine. Cheng Ye violently unequipped the skill. Without a second thought, he opened the Illustrated Handbook, his gaze locking directly onto the maxed-out "Sunlight Absorption."
Anyway, this Trait had already accumulated to 200%. Even if he couldn't exchange it for useful intelligence, it would at most waste one chance; he could always exchange it for skills or Items later.
He silently chanted in his mind for intelligence exchange, analyzing the information.
The Recharge Value in the upper right corner was deducted by 25%, dropping to 50%.
Simultaneously, the surrounding scenery began to slowly shatter and reorganize like pixel blocks.
Cheng Ye's vision blurred, as if he had fallen into some kind of Hallucination. When he refocused, he had actually left the bumpy Armored Vehicle and was once again standing in the center of the security office's courtyard.
He looked around. Abandoned Defensive Facilities were scattered by the front gate of the courtyard, and the back gate was open. Obviously, this was not the current timeline, but rather how it looked before they made camp last night.
Looking around, the abandoned Red River Gathering Place remained as ruined as ever, lacking any new abnormalities. Even though the sunlight overhead carried an unnaturally intense heat, it could not dispel even a fraction of the desolation permeating the air.
'Sunlight?'
'Intense heat?'
Cheng Ye paused for a second and abruptly looked up at the cliffs on both sides of the canyon.
With just this one glance, the blood in his entire body seemingly froze solid. His pupils contracted violently, and disbelief and horror surged in his eyes.
'What is this?'
'Ten... no, a whole cluster... of suns?'
The top of the canyon looked as if a raging inferno had ignited, blazing blindingly bright.
Looking up from below, it was as if countless suns hung in mid-air. The torrential light cascading down was so piercing that one simply could not keep their eyes open.
At first glance, it truly looked as if the sky had torn open, dropping a shower of burning stars!
Cheng Ye instinctively paused the scene and slowly elevated his perspective. As his line of sight rose bit by bit, he finally saw the truth.
There were no falling suns at all. It was clearly the outer edges of the mine entrances carved into the cliffs—densely packed with dozens, hundreds of Stone Sunflower People!
The Stone Sunflower People emitting the most blinding light had red crystals the size of fists on their faces. They slightly tilted their heads back, grinning, actually exuding a posture that bordered on blissful.
As for the Stone Sunflower People with slightly dimmer light, their crystals were also larger than fingertips, and they were similarly absorbing the sunlight with pure greed.
'These damned things actually live deep in the mines, and every day they crawl out to the cliff entrances to collectively absorb sunlight?'
Cheng Ye's heart quaked wildly, a chill shooting straight up his spine to the top of his head.
But before he could ponder this further, the intelligence analysis scene violently shattered, and the surroundings twisted once more.
Back in the vehicle, he looked at the rearview mirror again, gazing in the direction of the mine. He somewhat understood where the death threat he felt upon equipping the Spirit-Concealing State was coming from.
However, at this very moment, there was no longer any time for him to continue analyzing the origins of these Stone Sunflower People.
In the rearview mirror, flashes of light clearly flickered above the cliff, as if things were swarming out in droves, moving downward.
The moment he caught sight of that light, Liu Bi almost leaped out of his seat.
But the next second, his gaze suddenly became glassy and his body quickly calmed down. Evidently, he had forcefully entered the Heaven-Man Martial Domain state.
"Old Niu, head left!" a dull, robotic voice echoed in the cabin, devoid of any emotion.
Without even thinking, Niu Fu forcefully spun the steering wheel all the way.
The tires emitted an ear-piercing screech against the ground. The Armored Vehicle forcefully carved out a terrifying arc, crashing straight toward a nearby residential house.
And in this very instant.
A hazy red light descended from high above. Like diluted blood mist, it gently drifted over the street the Armored Vehicle had just been driving on.
That light possessed a neon-like, illusionary texture. It appeared utterly weightless, let alone possessing any lethal force, yet it made the surrounding air inexplicably stagnate.
"Smash right through!" Liu Bi's voice rang out again.
The Armored Vehicle let out a beast-like roar, its engine revving to the max, as it brutally smashed through the semi-collapsed dirt wall of the roadside house.
Rammed earth and crushed stones shattered and flew like wet paper before the steel chassis. The vehicle shuddered violently, nearly spinning out of control and flipping over.
But this desperate breakout was, ultimately, half a beat too slow.
Another hazy red beam dropped from high above. It was supposed to completely envelop the entire Armored Vehicle, but due to that hair-raising lane change, it barely covered only the rear half of the vehicle.
The Isolation Alloy, which could easily withstand the claw attacks, steel-tooth bites, and even artillery bombardments of Infected Bodies, was now like flimsy paper acting as mere decoration. The red light passed through the metal barrier without any hindrance, landing straight on the Pang Siblings in the very last row.
Sizzle—
A very soft, muffled sound echoed, much like a scalding iron pressing against damp fabric. A wisp of pale green smoke, almost invisible to the eye, slowly rose within the sealed cabin, carrying a trace of a scorched odor.
Cheng Ye was still staring intently at the rearview mirror. When he caught a glimpse of that smear of red light from the corner of his eye, his heart plummeted.
Hearing this strange noise, he instinctively turned his head, his gaze fixing on the back seats.
He saw the siblings' terrified expressions forcefully frozen in place by some invisible power.
The red light seemingly took on a life of its own, gently "caressing" across their skin.
A bizarre scene abruptly unfolded.
Weird ripples began to slowly emerge on the surface of their skin. It was not the wriggling of flesh, but rather as if countless surging undercurrents were hidden beneath, bulging and swelling inch by inch, as though something was trying to burst out from the inside.
But before anyone could process this horrifying image, an even more terrifying scene followed!
The two siblings were like cotton wadding ignited by a spark. Without any open flames flaring up or ashes scattering, from head to toe, at a speed impossible for the naked eye to catch, they instantly disintegrated and dissolved.
It was not a bloody, mangled shattering, but a complete annihilation that left not even the slightest trace of residue behind.
Flop!
With a soft sound, the clothes on their bodies lost all support, falling limply onto the cold seats.
Faint body heat still lingered within the folds of the fabric.
Yet the two young people who had been quiet ever since getting in the car, the two siblings in a desperate rush to return to Light Rainbow to visit their critically ill father...
In merely the blink of an eye, they had completely vanished without a trace!