212: Void Cry and Out-of-Control Creation

The alarm blared like a rusty saw blade repeatedly cutting into their eardrums, and rotating red lights rendered the enclosed hall like a negative in developing fluid. The heavy isolation gates had fallen completely, trapping the Hanhai team in this slaughterhouse filled with the severed limbs of Corpse Puppets.

"Physically locked; the hydraulic system has been cut." Eve's fingers tapped out a blur on the virtual keyboard, fine beads of sweat seeping from her forehead. "The opponent didn't just seize permissions; they also injected a targeted logic virus. My computing power is being dragged down."

The Commander who had stood on the high ground had long since disappeared behind the maintenance door, leaving only the mocking echoes that had yet to dissipate in the air.

Chen Feng didn't look at the tightly closed gate. In his vision, pale blue data streams were frantically washing over the surrounding walls.

[Interstellar Exchange System · Value Evaluation Module Activated]

Countless white tags surfaced and vanished on his retina: "High-Strength Alloy (Extremely Low Value)," "Biological Fascia Wall (Low Value)," "Discarded Energy Transmission Pipe (Low Value)"... His gaze swept across an inconspicuous ventilation grille in the corner of the hall. It was covered in thick grease and mold, looking no different from its surroundings.

But the tag given by the system was a piercing gold.

[Hidden Living Maintenance Passage]

[Value Evaluation: Extremely High (Only way out in the current environment)]

[Note: This is a maintenance port reserved for the convenience of transporting High-Dimensional Nutrient Solution to the core culture dish, leading directly to the heart.]

"Heh."

The corner of Chen Feng's mouth twitched as he let out a short, cold laugh. He raised his hand, his fingertip pointing precisely at that corner.

"Reno, three o'clock direction, that exhaust port. Blast it open."

Reno didn't waste any words. His pitch-black mechanical arm let out a low hum, and his massive alloy claws directly grabbed the grease-covered grille.

"Open up for me!"

Accompanied by the ear-piercing sound of tearing metal, the entire section of the wall was forcibly ripped away. What was revealed was not a narrow pipe, but a biological passage wide enough for two people to walk side-by-side, its dark red fleshy walls still twitching slightly.

"Let's go." Chen Feng put away his gun and was the first to crawl inside. "Since they want to trap us like rats, we'll go steal their 'God' and sell it."

...The air inside the passage was humid and viscous, carrying a strong smell of rust. The sensation underfoot wasn't like metal, but rather like stepping into the esophagus of some giant creature; the soft fleshy walls occasionally secreted a slimy liquid.

"This hellish place..." K followed in the middle of the team, his murky eyes staring fixedly at the twitching fleshy walls around them, his voice turning hoarse from excessive excitement. "Do you hear that? It's breathing... this entire fortress is alive."

"Shut up." Reno walked at the very front, his mechanical eye scanning the darkness with a ghastly green beam. "Focus on the path."

As they went deeper, a strange sound began to echo within the passage.

"Sizzle— Sizzle—"

It was the crisp sound of metal being forcibly torn, mixed with the low growls of some beast suppressed deep in its throat. The sound wasn't loud, but it was like a cold file, scraping against everyone's nerves stroke by stroke.

Grom stopped in his tracks, his massive palm pressing against the fleshy wall, a solemn expression appearing on his rock-like face.

"The life reactions ahead... are very chaotic." The tall Rock Guard Clan warrior lowered his voice. "It's not one, but many. They are devouring each other, or... being fused."

The sense of oppression was like physical mercury, seeping into their bodies through their pores.

Chen Feng didn't speak; he only quickened his pace. In his system vision, the red value dots ahead had become dense to a startling degree.

Turning the final corner, the scene before them suddenly opened up.

Everyone subconsciously held their breath.

This was a massive spherical space, over a hundred meters in diameter. Countless thick cables and biological blood vessels protruded from the walls in all directions, converging toward the center.

And at the end of these lines, a transparent cultivation pod ten meters in diameter was suspended.

Curled within the pale gold nutrient solution was a pale youth.

He looked to be only fifteen or sixteen years old, his frame so thin it seemed a gust of wind could blow him away. However, half of his body was composed of the most precise Flowing-Light Prosthetics, silver liquid metal flowing beneath his skin like a living thing, constructing perfect muscle lines. The other half of his body was mutated flesh that constantly writhed and proliferated, with dark red tentacles floating in the water as if they possessed consciousness.

Countless probes, finer than a strand of hair, were inserted into his spine and the back of his head, with data light streams frantically transmitting along the lines.

"So this is... Chimera."

Eve walked to the edge of the platform and looked up at the suspended youth, a complex emotion showing in her eyes.

"A perfect fusion," she murmured to herself, her fingers moving unconsciously in the air. "They actually did it. Forcibly stitching high-dimensional mechanical logic with chaotic biological instinct... this child is enduring the pain of his soul being torn apart every single moment."

"But he hasn't woken up yet."

Chen Feng's voice was as cold as ice. He wasn't focused on the technology, but on the person currently cracking the cultivation pod's password.

On the control platform below the cultivation pod, a squad of fully armed soldiers was busy. They wore black exoskeleton armor, and the bleeding skull insignia on their chests was particularly eye-catching in the dim light.

The Black Water Conglomerate.

The leader was a cyborg over two meters tall. His head had been completely modified, leaving only his jaw and lips; the upper half was a multi-functional tactical eyepiece set. At this moment, one of his hands was plugged directly into the control panel's interface, the indicator lights on his arm flashing frantically.

"Hurry up!" the cyborg let out a piercing electronic synthesized voice. "That idiot Commander has already started the awakening procedure. We have to implant the 'Blackwater' control protocol before he wakes up! This is a priceless piece of cargo!"

"Cargo?"

Reno stepped out from behind Chen Feng. That black mechanical arm, sourced from the wreckage of a high-dimensional battleship, began to charge, lava-like crimson patterns surfacing on its exterior.

The cyborg snapped his head around, his tactical eyepieces instantly locking onto Reno.

"Hanhai Trade?" The cyborg split his mouth, revealing two rows of forest-white alloy teeth. "I originally planned to find you after taking the goods. I didn't expect you to deliver yourselves to my door."

"Deliver your mother!"

Reno didn't wait for Chen Feng's order; the metal floor beneath his feet suddenly exploded.

His entire person was like a shell fired from a cannon, instantly crossing the distance of dozens of meters. His pitch-black mechanical arm was raised high, and the energy nozzle in his palm suddenly lit up with a blinding white light.

"Boom!"

A high-energy compressed cannon shot was fired at point-blank range.

The two Blackwater mercenaries blocking the way didn't even have time to activate their shields before their upper bodies were directly vaporized, leaving only two pairs of legs standing in place.

The blast wave sent the surrounding instruments flying, leaving the control platform in a mess.

"You're looking for death!"

The cyborg leader roared, the thrusters on his back emitting blue tail flames as his figure pulled out a phantom in the air, barely avoiding Reno's follow-up heavy punch.

"Fire! Use interference rounds!"

Following the leader's command, the remaining dozen or so Blackwater mercenaries quickly scattered, the assault rifles in their hands spitting out eerie blue tongues of fire.

"Zzzzz—"

Those bullets hit the energy shield on Reno's body, but they weren't deflected. Instead, they clung to it like leeches, releasing intense electromagnetic pulses.

"Shield overload! Generator offline!" Eve shouted in the communication channel. "Watch out! Those are Phase Interference Rounds specifically designed against energy shields!"

Losing the protection of his shield, Reno was instantly exposed to a dense rain of bullets.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

The bullets hit his reinforced skin and mechanical arm, sparking a series of flashes. Although they couldn't penetrate his defense, the immense impact force sent him stumbling backward.

"Boss! These bastards' equipment is a bit wicked!"

Reno protected his head and swept his mechanical arm, swatting a flying metal table into a flat disc.

"The Black Water Conglomerate makes its fortune from war; their equipment is indeed a grade higher than those miners from Giant Star Mining."

Chen Feng calmly hid behind a pillar, his Gauss Pistol firing precise shots, each bullet taking the life of a mercenary.

"Grom, cover Reno! Eve, cut their communications! K, stop watching the show and knock that leader down for me!"

"Hehehe... As you wish, my financier."

K laughed strangely as he darted out from the shadows, his weapon a modified Corrosive Ray Gun. A green beam hit a mercenary's leg, and the man's armor instantly melted like wax, causing him to let out a shrill scream.

A chaotic battle broke out instantly.

The Blackwater mercenaries were well-trained and coordinated perfectly. They used the terrain and equipment advantages to cover each other, firmly suppressing the Hanhai team.

The cyborg leader was even more troublesome. His hands could transform into various weapons, sometimes high-frequency vibration blades, sometimes miniature missile launchers.

"Die, you big oaf!"

The leader seized a flaw in Reno's defense and sent a miniature missile straight for Reno's face.

Reno had no way to dodge and could only tank it with his mechanical arm.

"Boom!"

The violent explosion sent Reno flying, slamming him heavily against the base of the cultivation pod.

"Cough, cough..." Reno spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva and shook his slightly dazed head.

However, no one noticed that a stray shot from that missile just now had shattered the hydraulic control valve at the bottom of the cultivation pod.

"Warning! Pressure imbalance! Nutrient solution leakage!"

The piercing alarm instantly rose an octave, turning into a heart-stopping continuous wail.

"Ssss—"

A crack opened at the bottom of the massive cultivation pod, and the pale gold nutrient solution gushed out like a bursting dam, quickly spreading across the platform.

As the liquid level dropped, the youth suspended in the center lost his buoyancy and his body slowly sank.

The countless lines connected to him snapped due to the tension, bursting with strings of electrical sparks.

"No! Damn it!" The cyborg leader's face changed drastically. Ignoring the attack on Reno, he turned and rushed toward the control console. "Plug it quickly! We can't let him wake up now! The control protocol hasn't finished implanting!"

Too late.

The youth who had been curled up suddenly twitched violently.

The next second.

He snapped his eyes open.

Time seemed to freeze at this moment.

Chen Feng happened to see that pair of eyes through his scope.

There were no pupils, no whites of the eyes, only a deep, despairing, chaotic void. It was like the darkest abyss in the universe, capable of devouring all light and sanity.

The youth opened his mouth.

No sound came out.

But in everyone's minds, a cry sharp to the extreme rang out simultaneously.

"Woom—!!!"

That wasn't a sound wave, but an impact that acted directly on the mental level.

"Aaaahhh!"

The several Blackwater mercenaries closest to him instantly clutched their heads, bleeding from their seven orifices, their eyeballs bursting open.

Even powerful warriors like Reno and Grom felt the world spin, kneeling on the ground in pain, their hands tightly covering their ears.

K was even worse, twitching on the ground like he was having a seizure, foaming at the mouth and muttering incoherently, "I saw it... I saw it... the abyss..."

Chen Feng felt as if his brain was being violently stirred by a red-hot iron poker. But relying on his powerful willpower and the system's mental barrier, he forcibly withstood the first wave of impact.

He raised his head and looked at the youth.

The youth had already stood up. The nutrient solution beneath his feet was rapidly evaporating, turning into clouds of dark red blood mist surrounding him.

The flowing-light circuits on his mechanical half had turned a piercing scarlet, while the fleshy half began to writhe frantically, growing sharp bone spurs.

He slowly raised his hand and made a grasping motion in the air toward the not-far-off cyborg leader.

"Crack."

That cyborg leader, who was covered in high-strength alloy armor and possessed terrifying combat power, didn't even have time to scream before his entire person was like a crushed soda can, instantly twisting into a lump of scrap metal.

Blood and machine oil mixed together, squeezing out from the gaps in the armor.

"Monster..."

A surviving Blackwater mercenary fearfully raised his gun and pulled the trigger.

"Click."

The sound of a dry fire came from the chamber.

It wasn't just him.

The mechanical arm in Reno's hand went dark, Chen Feng's Gauss Pistol lost its response, and Eve's portable computer screen turned into static.

All electronic equipment, all energy weapons, failed completely in this instant.

In this fortress core filled with high technology, the laws had been rewritten.

The youth turned his head, those void-like eyes sweeping over everyone present.

That kind of gaze wasn't looking at enemies, nor was it looking at his own kind.

It was looking at a group of ants waiting to be slaughtered.

Chen Feng's heart sank to the bottom. He watched the figure slowly walking toward them, his fingers subconsciously reaching for the most primitive alloy dagger at his waist, one that lacked any electronic components.

Trouble is brewing.