222: It is alive.

Chapter 222: It's Alive. "It's not all his."

Chen Mo stopped in his tracks.

He stood before a special cultivation tank.

The tank was empty.

The glass was shattered, and the nutrient solution inside had spilled all over the floor, long since dried up.

On the nameplate below the tank, a line of small text was written:

[Subject: Chen Mo]

[Organ Name: Heart of Origin]

[Status: Escaped]

"This was my place."

Chen Mo's fingers brushed across the nameplate, his fingertips trembling slightly. "Ten years ago, I slept in this jar. They dug out my heart, originally intending to keep it raised in here."

"Then what happened?" Ninth Master asked. "How did you escape?"

"Someone smashed the jar."

Chen Mo looked at the glass shards on the ground. "They stole me away."

"Who?"

Chen Mo did not answer.

He looked up toward the end of the corridor.

There was a massive set of double doors with a red cross painted on them.

Blinding surgical light leaked through the gap in the doors.

The heartbeat sound from that audio recording was coming from inside.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

The sound was as loud as thunder, making the glass tanks on both sides of the corridor hum and vibrate.

"It's right inside."

Chen Mo loaded fresh bullets and cocked the hammer. "Regardless of who is livestreaming that heartbeat, he's waiting for me."

He strode toward the doors.

Su Qingxue gripped her handgun tightly, her palms drenched in sweat.

She had a premonition.

Once these doors opened, they would witness the most insane truth in the world.

Chen Mo kicked the doors open.

The intense light was so blinding that the three of them couldn't open their eyes.

After a few seconds of adjusting, the sight before them left them completely stunned.

It was a massive circular operating theater, as large as a football field.

The stands surrounding it were filled with 'spectators.'

They were mummified corpses dressed in formal attire, holding binoculars and maintaining poses as if observing a surgery.

In the very center of the operating theater, a heart was suspended.

It wasn't an ordinary heart.

It was a massive black heart, a perfect fusion of machinery and flesh, pulsating violently.

It was suspended in mid-air by countless fiber-optic cables. With every beat, it sent out a visible ripple of air.

And beneath the heart stood a person.

The person had their back to the door, wearing a blood-stained white lab coat, frantically writing something on a blackboard.

Hearing the door open, the chalk in the person's hand snapped with a crack.

"You're late, Number 001."

The person slowly turned around.

He held a silver scalpel in his hand.

His face was covered by a featureless white mask, with only a large smiley face drawn where the mouth should be.

"The surgery has already begun."

The Masked Man pointed to the massive heart above his head. "Are you here to donate an organ? Or are you here to... inspect the results?"

Chen Mo looked at the mask.

He suddenly laughed.

It was the first time he had laughed on this entire journey.

The laugh was incredibly hideous.

"I'm here to return the goods."

Chen Mo raised his gun and aimed it at the heart. "The quality of this thing is no good. I want to switch manufacturers."

The Masked Man tilted his head.

"You can't do that."

He lightly snapped his fingers. "This was custom-made for you—the hell engine."

Boom!

As he snapped his fingers, the massive heart suddenly spewed out a cloud of black mist.

The hundreds of mummified 'spectators' in the stands actually stood up in unison.

They turned their heads, their hollow eye sockets staring fixedly at the three intruders.

The stitches in their mouths snapped, letting out a synchronized roar:

"Silence!"

What does it look like when hundreds of mummified corpses pounce down from five-meter-high stands at once?

It was like a black rainstorm.

Without any buffer or hesitation, those corpses in tattered formal wear acted as if someone had flipped a single switch, slamming straight down toward the ground.

The sound of breaking bones merged into one, like someone forcefully snapping a bundle of dry firewood in one's ear.

But they felt no pain.

Even if their legs were broken or their spines snapped, they continued to writhe frantically on the ground, crawling toward the operating table using both hands and feet.

"Silence—"

"Silence—"

The sounds coming from their throats weren't loud, but with hundreds of voices overlapping, it formed a low-frequency hum that made one's eardrums ache.

"How the hell is this silent!"

Ninth Master pulled a sawed-off shotgun from his bag and fired a shot at the fastest-crawling mummy.

Boom!

The mummy's upper body exploded into powder, and black dust filled the air.

But the remaining half of its body was still moving.

Those withered hands still clawed at the ground, dragging a torso with intestines spilling everywhere as it continued to crawl forward.

"Aim for the head!"

Su Qingxue fired rapid shots with her glock, each bullet accurately blowing off a skull cap.

But there were simply too many to kill.

The tide of corpses was like a swarm of black ants, instantly filling the entire floor of the operating theater and piling up toward the central platform.

"Don't worry about these pests."

Chen Mo didn't even look at the swarm of corpses beneath his feet; his eyes were only on the man in the white lab coat standing under the heart.

That was the Queen Bee.

As long as he strangled him, the swarm would naturally disperse.

Chen Mo stepped over the reaching arms as if crossing a thicket of thorns, reaching the operating table in a few strides.

The Masked Man did not dodge.

He still stood with his hands behind his back beneath that massive black heart, his head tilted slightly as if admiring a peerless work of art.

"Look at how powerfully it beats."

The Masked Man's voice carried a morbid obsession. "400 beats per minute, capable of powering a heavy tank. This is a biological miracle."

Bang!

Chen Mo raised his hand and fired.

This shot didn't hit the man, nor did it hit the heart.

The bullet struck a blood vessel connected to the heart.

Psh—

Black blood erupted, splashing all over the Masked Man.

When the blood hit the ground, it actually made a sizzling sound like strong acid corrosion, sending up plumes of white smoke.

"You are too crude."

The Masked Man sighed, reaching out to wipe the black blood from his face. "This is your blood, after all."

"I don't have this kind of black-hearted blood."

Chen Mo pulled the trigger again.

But this last bullet did not fire.

Because that massive heart suddenly contracted violently.

Thump!

An invisible shockwave swept across the entire room.

Chen Mo felt as if someone had punched him hard in the chest; his heart skipped a beat, and he stumbled to his knees.

The revolver flew from his hand.

Even Ninth Master and Su Qingxue in the distance were knocked over by the airwave, falling into the pile of corpses.

"Ah—"

Chen Mo clutched his chest, gasping for air. The pain didn't come from his flesh, but from the resonance of his nerve endings.

The artificial pump inside him was resonating at the same frequency as the monster above his head.

It was like two magnets desperately trying to snap together.

"Do you feel it?"

The Masked Man walked up to Chen Mo, looking down at him. "This is the 'homing instinct.' Even though your body is a piece of cobbled-together trash, your genes still remember their master."

He reached out and gently caressed the suspended heart.

The surface of the heart was covered in metal lines and electronic components, and the black muscle tissue shimmered with a metallic luster under the lights.

"This is the 'hell engine.'"

The Masked Man said, "It's alive. It has a consciousness. It misses you, Number 001."

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