125: Chapter 125 Waste

One thousand times, ten thousand times, one hundred thousand times.

Finally, it was a success. One person survived; he awakened a Superpower and could spew flames from his palms.

They thought they had found the secret to Superpowers and could mass-produce Espers.

But they were wrong, because they had discovered something even more terrifying: a virus.

There was a virus in his body, a virus with extreme transmissibility and high mutation rates.

That virus existed in his blood and his cells.

They could have stopped, but they didn't.

Because they believed that the virus was the key to Superpowers.

They began to study the virus, extract the virus, and purify the virus.

They injected the virus into human bodies and then observed.

At the beginning, it could still be controlled, suppressed, and treated.

But one time, an accident happened.

A laboratory employee accidentally knocked over a test tube, and the virus leaked out from the test tube.

Like a bomb, it exploded instantly.

The virus spread through the air, through blood, and everywhere it could spread.

People infected with the virus died, then stood up and turned into zombies.

They were no longer human, but monsters.

They could not think, speak, or feel fear; they could only eat.

The zombie crisis broke out.

Ultimately, it took people several years to clean up the zombies.

But the virus did not disappear; it remained in the air, in the water, and in the soil.

It was omnipresent, pervasive, and impossible to eradicate.

Hundreds of years later, the virus mutated.

It was no longer fatal; it became mild and quiet.

It hid in people's bodies, waiting for certain people's bodies to resonate with it.

When resonance occurred, the human body's cells would be activated, and the primal energy would awaken.

That person would awaken a Superpower.

The memory ended.

The hall fell silent; no one spoke, no one moved.

They saw the fog, saw that person, saw humanity's selfishness, saw the madness of the experiments, saw the leakage of the virus, saw the birth of the zombies, and saw the origin of Superpowers.

Night Owl's voice came through: "So… Superpowers come from the virus…"

Lu Zhiyi echoed: "Superpowers… are the aftermath of the catastrophe…"

The Circus clown laughed: "Hundreds of years of suffering… Hundreds of years of death…"

"Just to let us awaken Superpowers?"

The leader of the Twelve Zodiacs looked at the mural: "What about him… How much longer must he remain bound…"

"Should we let him out?"

"Let him out? Are you crazy? If we let him out and he kills us all, what then?"

"Exactly… Instead of letting him out, we might as well keep him locked up and maintain the status quo…"

Just as everyone was discussing this, a red light suddenly shone from that person's chest.

There, a red gemstone was forming.

Everyone's eyes were fixed on that gemstone, their eyes flashing with greed.

That gemstone might be a forbidden artifact, perhaps the source of Superpowers, or possibly the thing countless people had been searching for over hundreds of years.

Whoever gets it might be able to possess all Superpowers and become the next "God."

A person dressed as an acrobat was the first to rush out, reaching toward the gemstone.

Just as his fingers were about to touch the gemstone, a silver sword light flashed by.

His hand flew off, blood spraying from the severed end and splashing onto the mural.

"Ah… My hand… You… You…"

Lu Zhiyi said coldly: "No one is allowed to move. This gemstone belongs to the Holy Court."

But no one listened to her; a fireball flew from behind her.

Lu Zhiyi's sword drew a circle in the air, the fireball was deflected, hitting the wall, and gravel flew everywhere.

An ice blade flew from her left, she drew another circle, and the ice blade was shattered, falling to the ground.

A stone spike fell from the ceiling, smashing toward Lu Zhiyi's head.

Lu Zhiyi dodged to the side, seemed to step on something, lost her balance, and stumbled back a step.

In that instant, someone rushed over.

It was a senior manager from the Miracle Company; his Speed was like a golden lightning bolt, so fast that everyone's eyes couldn't keep up.

He snatched the gemstone from the wall: "Hahaha… I got it… I got it…"

The moment it was in his hand, a dark red light shone through his fingers.

Then, his body shriveled up instantly like a fruit drained of its moisture.

His skin turned from its normal color to a grayish-white.

Blood oozed from every pore of his skin and was instantly sucked away by the gemstone.

The scream lasted for a fraction of a second before coming to an abrupt end.

His body turned into a dried corpse.

Everyone took a step back.

No one dared to go up and grab it, and no one dared to get close to the gemstone.

Wang Lin also looked at the gemstone: "Interesting. This thing seems to be able to absorb blood."

Suddenly, the ground shook violently.

Stones began to fall from the ceiling; the walls and the ground began to crack, and countless Tentacles stretched out.

Like snakes crawling out of hell.

Someone was wrapped around the ankle by a Tentacle and dragged into the crack; the screaming came from underground, getting further and further away, until it finally disappeared.

Someone had their head bitten by a Tentacle; with a crack, the head was gone, and the body fell to the ground.

Someone had their arm sucked by a Tentacle, and the flesh on the arm fell off piece by piece, revealing the bone inside.

The monster walked out from the deepest part of the temple, its whole body covered in Tentacles.

They hung down from its body like hair, swaying in the wind like willow branches.

Its eyes were red, pulsing along with the light of the gemstone.

When the gemstone flashed, its eyes brightened; when the gemstone dimmed, its eyes dimmed.

It let out a low growl from its mouth…

Night Owl's voice was urgent and fast, like someone giving orders: "The gemstone is controlling this monster!"

"Either destroy the gemstone or kill this monster!"

Is it better to kill the monster? Or is it better to destroy the gemstone?

While everyone was pondering, the monster's Tentacles whipped toward the crowd like a rainstorm.

There were too many Tentacles, lashing out from all directions and all angles.

Some were whipped away, some were wrapped up and dragged into the cracks.

Blood was flowing, flesh was flying, and bones were shattering.

Various Superpowers hit the monster, like raindrops hitting a stone; it was useless.

Those attacks were just like scratching an itch to the monster.

The guardian beast at the door had not eaten for hundreds of years and was extremely weak.

But he was different; from the moment the temple opened, he had been feeding continuously…

Now it was not afraid of fire, not afraid of ice, not afraid of thunder… not afraid of anything.

It was Level 8, the guardian of the temple, the last defense of the Umbrella Corporation.

No one could defeat him.

The losses were becoming increasingly heavy.

The ground was covered with corpses, and blood pooled into small streams on the ground, flowing toward the gemstone.

The gemstone grew brighter and redder, like a real heart.

The monster's eyes also grew brighter and more frantic.

Seeing that the losses were becoming increasingly heavy, everyone finally intended to destroy the gemstone.

But their attacks landed on the gemstone, yet the gemstone remained motionless, without even a single crack.

Night Owl's voice was low: "We can't break it… We can't break it…"

Lu Zhiyi asked: "Then what do we do… Is there any other way?"

No one could answer; no one knew what to do, they could only wait for death.

Watching the people around him dwindle, Wang Lin cursed under his breath: "Trash."