97: Chapter 97: Give yourself an injection and instantly become a superhero.
"Squelch."
The ultra-fine alloy needle pierced the skin and plunged into the myocardium.
The feeling was strange.
It didn't feel like piercing flesh; it was more like slowly plunging a red-hot dagger into a block of butter. Chen Yuan's finger pulled the trigger, and high-pressure gas pushed the piston, emitting a soft "hiss."
The dark golden liquid was pumped into his heart, not a single drop remaining.
In that instant, the world seemed to hit the pause button.
Chen Yuan maintained his injection posture, his pupils slightly dilated. He could clearly feel that chill being pumped into his aorta with every heartbeat, then branching out into countless capillaries, finally reaching every corner of his body.
One second.
Two seconds.
The silence was terrifying.
"Thump—!"
The first heartbeat slammed heavily against his eardrum, dull and heavy, like a war drum beating inside his chest.
Immediately following it was a scorching heat capable of incinerating the soul.
"Ugh!"
Chen Yuan let out a muffled groan, and the injection gun in his hand slid to the floor. His entire body felt as if the bones had been extracted, and he uncontrollably collapsed onto the cold metal floor.
Pain.
Indescribable pain.
If his previous injuries were physical blows, then this was like someone throwing him into a blender filled with strong acid.
Every cell was wailing, and every nerve was screaming.
He felt his blood boiling. That wasn't a metaphor; it was genuinely boiling. His body temperature soared to 42 degrees in just a few seconds, and the sweat that seeped from his pores was evaporated by the high heat, turning into wisps of white mist that shrouded him completely.
"Crack... crack..."
A teeth-aching sound of bones popping came from within his body.
That was his bones restructuring.
His originally fragile human calcified bones were being devoured and decomposed by the T-Virus, then rearranged into a denser, harder structure. His bone density was increasing crazily, and his spine, like a waking dragon, writhed violently under his skin, forcibly stretching and reshaping his body.
Chen Yuan gripped the floor tightly.
The hard alloy floor, under his fingernails, was like soft mud, being forcibly gouged with ten deep marks.
"Roar..."
He wanted to roar, to vent, but his throat could only produce beast-like wheezing. His vocal cords were being torn and then rapidly healing, becoming tougher and more resonant.
This wasn't evolution at all.
It was a war.
A total war occurring in the microscopic world between the T-Virus and fragile human genes.
Weak old cells were ruthlessly wiped out, and powerful new cells were reborn on the ruins.
Chen Yuan felt his consciousness beginning to blur. He drifted in an abyss of pain, and countless bizarre, grotesque hallucinations appeared before his eyes.
He saw ancient beasts roaring on the wilderness, saw starships burning in space, and saw... himself, sitting on a throne, overlooking all living beings.
"Is this... the price?"
Chen Yuan bit through his lip, and blood dripped down his chin.
He did not pass out.
Relying on the powerful willpower of living two lifetimes, he forcibly endured this wave of excruciating pain that would have caused brain death in an ordinary person. He wanted to watch clearly, to watch how he stepped by step shed his mortal coil and ascended to godhood.
He didn't know how long had passed.
Perhaps a century, perhaps only a few minutes.
That scorching heat that burned everything began to slowly recede, and in its place was an unprecedented, tingling comfort, like an electric current.
Power.
Endless power surged up like a tide, filling every gap in his body.
Chen Yuan lay on the ground, panting heavily.
His sweat had dried up, and his skin took on a nearly transparent, jade-like color. The blood vessels that were once vaguely visible had disappeared, replaced by muscle lines that were smooth to the extreme.
They didn't bulge exaggeratedly like a bodybuilding champion, but every muscle contained explosive power compressed to the limit, like a cheetah, like a fully drawn bow.
"Hoo..."
He exhaled a breath of stale air; the airflow actually formed a visible white streak in the air, shooting out more than two meters before dissipating.
The world had changed.
Chen Yuan didn't rush to stand up, but instead remained in his prone position, quietly sensing everything around him.
His senses were amplified infinitely.
He closed his eyes, yet he seemed to see more clearly.
He heard it.
He heard the humming sound of the refrigeration compressor running in the vending machine at the end of the corridor outside the laboratory.
He heard the coquettish laughter of some female celebrity by the pool in Elysium Manor, hundreds of meters above ground, and could even distinguish that it was Jessica's voice.
He heard the wind blowing across the desert, the rustling sound of sand grains rubbing against rocks.
And even...
He heard Alice standing outside the door, the steady and powerful beating of her biochemical heart.
"Thump, thump, thump."
Everything was so clear, so distinct. The originally muddy and noisy world was dismantled into precise data sources in his mind. He was no longer looking with his eyes or listening with his ears; he was "reading" the world with a higher-dimensional perception.
"Is this... awakening?"
Chen Yuan slowly opened his eyes.
His originally ink-black pupils now had a strange, ghostly blue luster swirling in their depths, like the most mysterious blue hole in the deep sea, captivating and soul-stirring.
He braced against the floor, preparing to stand up. However, the moment he exerted force, a sudden change occurred.
The surrounding air seemed to suddenly become viscous, and an invisible force field spread outwards from him as the center.
"Zzz—"
Those alloy fragments scattered on the ground, which he had just crushed, did not fall; instead, as if violating the laws of physics, they slowly... floated up.
It wasn't just the fragments.
Even the discarded empty injection gun and the water glass on the table next to it left the tabletop tremblingly, hovering in mid-air, slowly revolving around his body.
Gravity.
At this moment, it seemed to have lost its hold on him.
Chen Yuan was stunned for a moment, looking at this scene that resembled a sci-fi movie.
He reached out and gently touched a floating metal fragment.
"Ripple."
The fragment rippled like water.
"Psychokinesis? Or... a biological magnetic field?"
Chen Yuan looked at his palm, where that layer of faint, ghostly blue light danced at his fingertips. He could feel that the energy surging within his body hadn't just changed his physical body; it had even begun to overflow, affecting the surrounding physical environment.
This had already exceeded the scope of humanity.
It even exceeded the original settings of the T-Virus.
This was a... miracle produced after the fusion of type-z ore energy and the perfect T-Virus.
"Since gravity can't control me."
A wild smile curled at the corners of Chen Yuan's mouth, and he exerted a slight force with his legs.
There was no running start, no charging up. His body was like a light feather, or rather, like an anti-gravity rocket, lifting off the ground effortlessly and hovering half a meter in the air.
The pleasure of controlling everything made him want to let out a long roar.
He looked down, watching the man in the mirror floating in mid-air, eyes glowing with blue light, his whole body radiating divine brilliance.
That was no longer Chen Yuan.
That was... the newly born god in this world.
"It seems I can save on security fees from now on."
Chen Yuan clenched his fist, feeling the power between his fingers that seemed capable of crushing the void, and whispered to himself:
"Because now, I... am the strongest weapon."