274: Chapter 275 "The War of Sequences" [Clone City]: A prison of flesh and blood, a predicament created by the [Eye Demon].

With a wet, squelching "thwack," the flesh Bastion rising from the edges of [Clone City] completely closed directly above [Clone Tower]. At this point, [Clone City] had fully become a giant flesh cage, turning the trapped Hosts into sacrifices for [Beholder]'s [Flesh Ascension] ritual.

The aura of despair had become so thick it was almost tangible, spreading among the Hosts who were struggling to hold out against the giant flesh tentacles. As [Beholder] devoted its full attention to controlling [Clone City]—which had mutated into a massive flesh altar—and the ongoing sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of Clone brains, the entire [Clone City] had now transformed into a giant living predator. Aided by the high-end mechanical technology of the [Ultra-Era Tech Empire] that had mutated into flesh-tech, every surge of the fleshy ground, every swing of the flesh tentacles, and every drop of transparent slime dripping from the flesh Bastion was calculated and controlled with extreme precision.

With every pulse of the dark red flesh earth, countless thick, giant flesh tentacles grew from the ground; every building that had turned into a writhing mass of meat would launch an airtight flesh capture net; the network of thick blood vessels extending in all directions beneath the flesh ground acted like conveyor belts, transporting the Hosts already captured in spherical flesh toward the flesh tower at the city's center, [Clone Tower].

The resistance of the Hosts appeared increasingly futile in the face of such overwhelming power.

Hosts with Elemental-type Talents, facing giant flesh tentacles that had mutated to possess various corresponding elemental resistances under [Beholder]'s control, could no longer easily sever or destroy them as they had at the beginning. Some Hosts exerted all their strength to blast out massive amounts of lightning, only to be insulated by the transparent slime with insulating properties secreted on the surface of the flesh tentacles; several thick flesh tentacles pushed through the continuous bursts of lightning to capture them within spherical flesh. Other Hosts continuously released cold air from themselves, attempting to freeze all approaching flesh tentacles, but unexpectedly, the flesh tentacles generated heat through rapid vibrations and secreted transparent slime with heat-retaining properties on their surfaces. Even as the surrounding air condensed into large patches of white ice crystals due to the extreme low temperature, they could not stop the flesh tentacles surging forward while radiating high heat.

Hosts with Law-type Talents continuously consumed their physical strength, Mental Energy, and [Dream Power] to rewrite the underlying laws of the world. However, facing flesh tentacles that [Beholder] had specially mutated based on the different special abilities shown by each Host, they too could not escape the fate of being captured by the spherical flesh. A Host with a Talent to transform objects touched by their hands into controllable threads struggled to turn the flesh tentacles breaking through their thread defenses into flesh threads; however, countless extremely fine flesh nerve bundles poured in from the gaps in the flesh threads, binding the nearly exhausted Host and stuffing them into spherical flesh. A female Host with the "Bloom" Talent once again turned the flesh tentacles rushing at her into blooming flesh flowers; looking back at the flesh garden she had created, a cloud of dark red blood mist rolled in. This blood mist, carrying a powerful paralyzing effect, paralyzed her entire body before she could even react. The flesh garden behind her instantly melted, returning to the flesh earth as nutrients, while the Host was already within the spherical flesh inside the thick blood vessels beneath the ground.

In just a few dozen minutes, twenty-nine of the thirty-three Hosts who had originally entered [Clone City] had already been sealed within spherical flesh. They were being transferred toward [Clone Tower] along the blood vessel network beneath the flesh ground, reduced to sacrifices for [Beholder]'s [Flesh Ascension] ritual.

In the entire flesh prison known as [Clone City], only four Hosts remained who had not yet been captured.