Chapter 216 Brain Formatting Completed

"Warning! Energy threshold insufficient! This 'lock' is harder than we imagined; it's embedded deep within every base pair!"

Academician Wang stared at the frantically trembling red progress bar on the screen, sweat streaming down his sparse hair and dripping onto the console. He didn't even turn his head, his hands flying across the virtual keyboard as if trying to smash the screen.

Alita's projection flickered with red light beside him, her voice becoming urgent: "Boss, the computing power is sufficient, but the energy supply can't keep up! The instantaneous power required to crack this genetic lock is equivalent to overloading the main engine of the great xia dragon sparrow a hundred times!"

The air in the hall was stiflingly hot, and the life loom emitted an unbearable humming sound; the originally soft golden light began to flicker unsteadily.

Lin Yuan sat on the throne, holding his half-finished thermos. He glanced at the wooden-post-like White (former Queen) beside him.

"Out of power? Isn't this a ready-made battery right here?"

Lin Yuan pointed at the Leviathan bio-warship beneath his feet, then at the dull-eyed White.

"Alita, shut down White's life support system. Drain all the bio-energy from this ship and this bug. Charge it for me until it breaks!"

"But Boss..." A Ji shrank behind a pillar, muttering softly, "If you keep draining her, this lady might turn into a husk, and this ship will collapse, right?"

"If it collapses, so be it. Out with the old, in with the new." Lin Yuan slammed his cup onto the ground, his voice cold as ice shards. "Even if we have to squeeze this bug into slag, you will smash that lock open for me!"

"Received! Energy extraction protocol... forced execution!"

Following Alita's command, the entire bio-hall jolted violently.

"Ugh..."

White, who had been expressionless all along, let out a muffled groan. Her skin, originally plump and elastic, began to lose its luster at a speed visible to the naked eye.

And the Leviathan giant ship, thousands of meters long beneath their feet, emitted a mournful cry similar to a dying whale. The muscle fibers on the walls began to wither and snap, and the originally moist biological cavities became shriveled and gray.

A massive amount of bio-energy turned into pure blue spectral light, surging frantically into the life loom through those thick conduits.

BOOM—!!!

The hum of the loom instantly rose an octave.

The red progress bar on the screen, as if injected with a shot of adrenaline, instantly soared from a stuttering 30% to 100%.

[Ding! Genetic lock first layer: Mortal Flesh, broken.]

[Generating evolutionary induction stock solution...]

In the huge liquid storage tank connected below the loom, those thick green liquids began to boil and purify. A few minutes later, a previously unseen golden mist churned within the tank.

This gold was not dazzling; instead, it carried an extremely sacred texture. Even through the thick reinforced glass, everyone could smell a strange fragrance that made the soul tremble.

That was the scent of a leap in life levels.

"It's done! It's done!!" Academician Wang was dancing with excitement, grabbing Chen Weiguo's sleeve and shaking it vigorously. "This is the perfect version of the genetic stock solution! It doesn't need injection, it doesn't even need oral administration; it takes effect just by touching the mucous membrane! This is a nano-level biological inducer!"

Lin Yuan stood up, looking at the churning golden mist in the tank, his lips curling into a wanton arc.

"Old Chen, send the notification."

"Global martial law. Tell everyone to stay exactly where they are and breathe with their mouths wide open."

"This time, I'm going to change the species for all of humanity."

...

Ten minutes later.

Countless drones and spraying airships loaded with golden mist rose from various frontline bases, flying toward settlements across the globe, blotting out the sky.

No explanations, no mobilization.

In this apocalypse, Lin Yuan's word was the supreme command.

Huaxia District, a certain underground shelter.

"What is this thing? Why is golden smoke suddenly spraying from above?"

"It's not poison gas, is it?"

The crowd was agitated and uneasy, but under the cold gaze of the armed soldiers, no one dared to run around.

Soon, the golden mist poured in through the ventilation ducts, permeating every corner. People instinctively held their breath, but that strange fragrance could not be blocked in this confined space.

"Cough, cough... Smells so good..."

A middle-aged woman holding a child took a breath, and before she could speak, she fell to the ground with a thud like a puppet with cut strings.

"Mom! What's wrong, Mom?!"

"Murder! They're killing us all!"

Panic erupted instantly. But then, the second, the third, the hundredth...

Whether they were strong soldiers or frail elderly, as long as they inhaled the golden mist, without exception, everyone lost consciousness within a second and collapsed softly to the ground.

Less than half an hour later.

The entire Earth was quiet.

The once-bustling shelters, busy factories, and heavily guarded defense lines were now devoid of any human voice. There was only the sound of the wind and the motor whirring of patrolling mechanical guards.

The scene was extremely eerie.

Billions of humans lay helter-skelter on the streets, in trenches, and in workshops, as if they had collectively entered hibernation.

And at this moment, beyond this silent reality.

Another dimension was in an uproar.

"Holy shit! Where is this?!"

Zhao Gang opened his eyes abruptly, finding himself standing on a desolate red Gobi desert. Yet he clearly remembered he had been cleaning his gun in the trench just a moment ago.

"Company Commander! You're in here too?"

Looking back, it was his own group of recruits. And not just them; the horizon was packed with people, even foreigners from the neighboring defense zone.

[Welcome to the 'Evolutionary Trial Ground'.]

[Current Version: 1.0 Beta.]

[Server Provider: Zerg Neural Network (Cracked).]

Lin Yuan's voice, carrying a hint of mockery, exploded in the sky.

Before anyone could react, the ground suddenly shook. Countless ferocious bugs crawled out from underground—but these were not real bugs; they were "sparring partners" made of data and mental energy.

"Want to get stronger? Want to stop being a weakling?"

"Then let's fight. You won't die here, but it will hurt. Endure it, and you'll wake up a superman. If you can't endure it... then keep sleeping, sleep until you die."

As Lin Yuan's voice faded, the entire mental world instantly turned into a slaughterhouse.

...

In the real world, time passed second by second.

Everyone's body was undergoing astonishing, drastic changes. Body temperatures rose to levels that would have been fatal to old humans, black grease and dead skin seeped from the surface of their skin, and bones reorganized and thickened with snapping sounds.

24 hours later.

In the shelter.

The middle-aged woman who had been holding her child earlier suddenly twitched her finger.

She opened her eyes groggily, feeling as sore all over as if she had been run over by a truck, but also filled with an indescribable lightness.

"Ouch, why is this floor so hard..."

The woman instinctively tried to push herself up from the ground.

Crack!

A crisp sound rang out.

The woman froze. She looked at her palm—that push had left a two-inch-deep palm print directly into the concrete floor, surrounded by spiderweb cracks.

"My... my rheumatism is gone?"

She touched her knees in disbelief; not only did they not hurt, but she felt her legs were filled with explosive power. She tried to jump.

Whoosh!

She flew over two meters high into the air, her head hitting the ceiling with a "thud," tilting the chandelier.

"Holy crap!" The woman landed, clutching her head, which wasn't bleeding, looking completely bewildered.

Similar scenes were happening frantically all over the world.

In the defense trench, the first thing Zhao Gang did when he woke up was reach for his gun. But he used too much force, and the assault rifle made of special steel was flattened like a dough stick in his grip.

"Company Commander! Look at me!"

A young soldier took off his nearsighted glasses and pointed at a fly several kilometers away, exclaiming: "I can see the patterns on its wings! I can even count how many legs it has!"

"I feel like I could punch a cow to death right now!" Another fat cook was shadowboxing; every punch he threw brought a distinct whistling sound of breaking wind.

Inside the Leviathan, the control hall.

"Boss, the data is out."

Alita looked at the data stream frantically jumping on the screen, her electronic eyes almost turning into heart shapes. "It's too outrageous! It's simply a biological miracle!"

"Speak human." Lin Yuan was still fiddling with the "miniature version of White," which had been drained of energy and was now only the size of a palm.

"The average physical fitness index of humans has soared from the original 5 to 50!"

Alita pulled up a comparison chart. "This means that if you grab any passerby now, their physical fitness exceeds that of the top soldiers of the past. They can run a 100-meter sprint in under 5 seconds, single-arm strength exceeds half a ton, and their immune system can directly devour infection sources at the T-virus level."

"More importantly..."

Alita paused. "A gap has been opened in their genetic lock; this is just the beginning. With subsequent training and adaptation, this value will continue to rise."

Lin Yuan nodded with satisfaction: "Not bad, didn't waste this big bug."

He looked down at the Zerg Queen in his hand, which had shrunk to the size of a Chihuahua. At this moment, White was lying weakly in his palm, panting with her tongue out, and even her originally ferocious carapace had become soft and limp, looking actually kind of... ugly-cute?

"Boss..."

Just then, A Ji, who had been silent, suddenly approached.

The kid's face was pale, as if he had just had a serious illness, but his eyes were fixed, revealing an indescribable strangeness.

"What? Do you want to be flattened too?" Lin Yuan glanced at him.

"No... Boss, I think something is wrong with me."

A Ji reached out his hand, trembling. He didn't touch the cigarette case on the table, but grabbed at the empty air from a distance of over ten centimeters.

Hum.

It was as if an invisible string in the air had been plucked.

The cigarette case, which had been stationary, actually wobbled and floated up, as if supported by an invisible hand, slowly flying into A Ji's palm.

Clatter.

The cigarette case fell into his hand.

A Ji was so scared his hand shook, and the cigarette case fell to the floor again.

"Holy crap! Is it haunted?!" A Ji screamed, clutching his head.

Lin Yuan's originally lazy gaze froze instantly.

He sat up straight abruptly, his purple pupils staring fixedly at A Ji, or rather, at the faint, extremely weak but real mental energy fluctuation between A Ji's brows.

"Telekinesis?"

Lin Yuan narrowed his eyes, his lips curling into a meaningful smile.

He had originally thought it was just simple physical enhancement; he didn't expect that once this genetic lock was pried open, it would leak such a good thing.

"Alita, rescan all survivors."

Lin Yuan stood up, walked to A Ji, and reached out to pat the kid's dull face.

"Looks like we're going to have mages in our team."