72: Chapter 72 Forbidden Technique: Blood and Flesh Holy Embryo
"Why…"
Vice Principal Liu Zhongming knelt on the ground, his withered palms pressing tightly against the hole in his chest, blood mixed with visceral fragments gushing out from between his fingers.
He didn't care.
Compared to the collapse of his physical body, the sense of mental defeat drove him mad.
His psychic field, which he prided himself on, had actually failed to detect the Shadow Assassin hiding in the shadows.
"Oh, you mean this."
Lu Chen brushed non-existent dust from his sleeves and pointed to the Shadow Assassin who was slowly putting away his dagger.
"Let me introduce him, this is my… bodyguard."
"As for why you see him as a mass of shadows, it's because… he is a shadow to begin with."
"Nonsense!"
Vice Principal Liu Zhongming snapped his head up, his murky eyeballs filled with bloodshot veins.
Immediately after, his body exploded with a "bang," turning into wood chips and straw flying everywhere.
A Substitute Puppet.
Lu Chen raised an eyebrow, not overly surprised.
"Using a clone to meet me, yet looking down on my clone. Vice Principal Liu, you play this double standard game much better than your research."
The next second, a loud crash of a glass container shattering came from the depths of the laboratory.
The main container holding the giant mutated brain burst open with a roar, splashing pale green preservative fluid everywhere.
Vice Principal Liu Zhongming, his true body, stumbled out from within.
At this moment, his appearance could no longer be described as merely miserable.
Half of his body displayed an eerie, withered wood texture; it was the backlash from his Substitute Puppet being destroyed.
"Good… very good!"
Vice Principal Liu Zhongming let out a strange laugh, his voice hoarse and grating.
"Lu Chen, you have destroyed thirty years of my hard work, destroyed my most perfect experimental subject… Since I cannot obtain a perfect vessel, then let me become perfection itself!"
He violently tore apart his tattered white lab coat, revealing a body as thin as a stick.
Following that, he formed seals with his hands and began chanting, the sounds strange and obscure, making one's skin crawl.
"Forbidden Technique · Sacred Flesh Womb!"
Rumble—the entire underground laboratory began to shake violently.
The dense rows of glass containers on the surrounding walls shattered completely at this moment.
Countless limbs of exotic beasts soaking in the liquid—tentacles with barbs, beast claws covered in scales, a still-beating giant heart, scarlet eyeballs…
They did not fall to the ground, but instead, drawn by some power, flew frantically toward Vice Principal Liu Zhongming.
"Come! Let us merge into one!"
Vice Principal Liu Zhongming spread his arms, letting those fleshy limbs slam into his body.
Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle—a nauseating sound of flesh merging echoed.
Those exotic beast limbs merged directly into his body, or rather, grew onto him.
In just a few short breaths, the thin old man was gone.
In his place stood a five-meter-tall, bloated, and twisted flesh monster!
It possessed seven or eight thick arms, each from a different powerful exotic beast; its back was packed with countless eyes, flickering with chaotic and evil light; the head that originally belonged to Vice Principal Liu Zhongming had been pushed to the chest area, surrounded by a ring of fangs and sharp teeth.
A suffocating, terrifying aura erupted from this stitched-together monster.
"Power… this is the ultimate form of life's evolution!"
"Now I am immortal and indestructible! I possess the strength of a Diamond Demon Ape, the speed of a Nether Wolf, the defense of a Great Earth Bear… what do you have to fight me with?!"
A giant shadow loomed over him.
Lu Chen stood before this behemoth, his figure appearing exceptionally small.
But he did not cower in fear as Vice Principal Liu Zhongming had expected.
On the contrary, Lu Chen looked up, carefully examined the monster before him, then frowned and gave an objective assessment:
"Truly ugly."
"If you stitch a pile of trash together, it will only become a bigger pile of trash; it will not become a work of art."
"Sharp-tongued!"
Vice Principal Liu Zhongming was furious.
All of its eyes stared fixedly at Lu Chen, boiling with killing intent.
"When I tear you into pieces and extract your soul to light a sky lantern, I'll see if you can still be so tough!"
"Die!"
That thick arm belonging to the Diamond Demon Ape, carrying the force of ten thousand tons, smashed down overhead!
This punch was enough to crush a heavy tank.
Lu Chen flashed aside, narrowly avoiding it.
The alloy floor was smashed into a deep pit, gravel flying everywhere.
"Running? In this enclosed space, where can you run to?"
Vice Principal Liu Zhongming sneered, his other arms brandishing claws and tentacles, sealing off all of Lu Chen's evasive space.
Vice Principal Liu Zhongming was enjoying the process of torturing his prey.
He didn't want to crush Lu Chen instantly; he wanted to enjoy the pleasure of his prey struggling in despair.
Lu Chen dodged awkwardly amidst the dense attacks, appearing to be in imminent danger.
Finally, under the sweep of a tentacle, he had nowhere to hide and was forced into a corner.
"It's over."
Vice Principal Liu Zhongming's massive body loomed over him, all his arms spreading out to form a cage of flesh.
The human face growing on his chest revealed a victor's wild laughter.
"Hand over your secrets, along with your flesh and blood, to me!"
The giant palm slammed shut, tightly gripping Lu Chen in its grasp.
The sensation of bones about to be crushed made Vice Principal Liu Zhongming tremble with excitement.
He had won.
Whether it was that mysterious Shadow Assassin or this genius harboring secrets, both had ultimately fallen under his absolute power.
However.
Just as he prepared to use force to crush the prey in his hand.
He sensed something was wrong.
The Lu Chen he had grabbed did not have a trace of fear on his face.
That young man was smiling at him.
The smile carried a hint of mockery, a hint of pity, and a kind of… craftiness of a plan successfully executed.
"Vice Principal, I am moved by your thirst for knowledge."
Lu Chen, held in the giant hand, spoke with difficulty; although his voice was weak, it clearly reached Vice Principal Liu Zhongming's ears.
"So, I have decided to use this body to teach you one last lesson."
Vice Principal Liu Zhongming was stunned: "You want to beg for mercy?"
"No."
Lu Chen shook his head, grinned, his expression eerie.
"I wanted to tell you that art… is an explosion."
As soon as the words fell.
Lu Chen's body began to glow.
Not just on the surface of his skin, but from his bone marrow and the depths of his internal organs, a blinding light of high-energy reaction shone through.
At the same time, that Shadow Assassin, who had been silent and clinging to Lu Chen's back, also began to glow.
That light, Vice Principal Liu Zhongming was all too familiar with it.
It was the precursor to energy being extremely compressed and about to go out of control.
"Since you like my clone so much…"
Lu Chen's voice became somewhat distorted, sounding exceptionally distant.
"Then I will let you see just how many 'surprises' are packed into this clone."
"Cl… Clone?!"
Vice Principal Liu Zhongming's pupils shrank violently.
An absurd thought emerged—could it be… that from the moment he entered, the person who had been acting with him and circling him was not Lu Chen himself at all?!
He actually… sent a clone to attend the banquet?!
"No! This is impossible!"
Vice Principal Liu Zhongming roared crazily, wanting to throw away the Lu Chen in his hand.
"Correct, but no prize."
Lu Chen's smile became blurry in the intense light.
"Let me introduce it, this is my latest work—[Self-Destruct Infantry · Supreme Deluxe Edition]."
"Also, buy one get one free; that Shadow Assassin was also included as a bonus."
"Since you're seeking thrills, you might as well see it through to the end."
"Boom—!"
The world lost its sound.
All colors faded at this moment, leaving only pure white.
This was no ordinary explosion.
Combined with that expensive Shadow Assassin.
The sympathetic detonation produced by the two at zero distance instantly broke through the critical point of the laboratory's defensive array.
The previous micro-bombs had limited power, but the current self-destruction released enough energy in the sealed room to destroy everything.
Vice Principal Liu Zhongming's massive, proud, stitched-together body could not even last a second at the core of the explosion before being completely vaporized.