CHAPTER 441: CHAPTER 409: RELIEF

Round two, begin.

Li Cheng’s human appearance completely disappeared, his height soared to 2.8 meters, muscles swelled, bones proliferated, and horns shot up to the sky.

His chest, abdomen, hands, and legs were all covered with a reflective, black chitinous shell.

This shell, inherited from the beetle genes, had a microstructure with uneven surfaces, selectively reflecting light to present an almost rainbow metallic texture.

Zing!

From his arm burst two Mantis Arm Bone Blades, scraping against each other to produce a teeth-gritting screech.

The ruined clothes, burst from the transformation, hung on the barbed shell, and caught fire from the flames remaining after an aphid explosion.

The red beetle grinned silently, its large mouth filled with double ring-shaped sharp teeth.

Chimney-like vector nozzles on its back erupted once more, providing fierce thrust, propelling the beetle with unbelievable speed for its size in a zigzag airborne sprint.

Clang clang!

The bone blades clashed with the scythe, metal against metal, sparks flying.

Li Cheng stepped back half a step, his barbed feet cracking the tiles, digging into the ground.

The red beetle understood the player’s treacherous tactics all too well, leaving Li Cheng no chance to lock on to it. The vector nozzles on its back suddenly increased their output,

pushing it to flip rapidly over Li Cheng’s head, the four blades plunged and twisted together, while its long tail flung out, stabbing towards Li Cheng’s neck.

With both hands occupied, Li Cheng summoned the long-neglected Sea Shark Type Single Soldier Exoskeleton from the inventory bar with a thought.

He purchased this item when he first reached Lv10, spending nearly a thousand game coins.

As his level increasingly rose, the single soldier exoskeleton, initially meant for elite soldiers in reality, was used less and less, until now.

Click,

Under the special effect control of [Assembled Puppet·Modified], the single soldier exoskeleton’s interface directly connected to Li Cheng’s nerves, as if directing an arm.

The mechanical arm clamped onto the long tail in mid-air, the alternating motor spun until it smoked, doing its utmost to counter the beetle’s monster power.

Realizing the long tail couldn’t directly smash Li Cheng’s head, the red beetle instantly changed tactics, its tail squirming and the tip blooming like a flower, spraying a large amount of green acid.

Even the liquid metal from Gray Rain couldn’t resist this acid, its corrosiveness was evident.

Just a small splash caused a pungent smoke to rise from the floor tiles, dissolving and liquefying.

At the critical moment, the armor on Li Cheng’s front exploded actively, like a tank’s reactive armor, preemptively shielding the splashing acid.

If only Jose hadn’t seen "One Step Away," otherwise, the red beetle, having absorbed his memory, would definitely say, "Junior, we were taught by the same master, can’t break this move!"

Thud!

The red beetle landed heavily, at the moment of impact, the chimney on its back activated again. But this time it wasn’t fire, it was smoke.

Billowing smoke surged out, spreading throughout the basement, obstructing vision, muffling sound, and erasing the beetle’s presence.

Damn, isn’t this my [Fog Concealment Skill]?

Li Cheng had a peculiar expression, armor pieces popped out from the back of his cheeks, covering his mouth and forming a breathing mask,

and with a snap of his fingers, he simultaneously activated the [Fog Concealment Skill], releasing fog to further reduce visibility.

The fog filled the air, the basement turned pitch black, even the sound of concrete collapsing from violent explosions was significantly reduced.

"Your gaze has been trying to lock on to me."

A muddy, hoarse voice came from within the smoke, presumably the red beetle’s original voice, "I’ve dissected Jose and some other humans’ heads.

Human eye movements consist of saccades and fixations. Saccades average 20-40 ms at a speed of 600°/s, too fast to gather effective visual information.

The fixation time ranges from 80-600ms, with a 1-2 degree view, providing the brain with 50% effective visual information.

Humans with a Constitution and Perception Attribute greater than or equal to 12 can overcome instincts to some extent,

and gather effective visual information during the brief intervals of saccades. Yet, the information collected is not as good as from fixations.

During the fight, you would rather not use fixation, maintaining high-frequency saccades, locking the central fovea on my torso rather than my head.

In other words, you likely have a high-powered skill or item that requires locking on my specific position to activate.

Furthermore, even after witnessing my strength, you didn’t withdraw from the killing field with your magic pet, back to Earth.

This proves that in your plan, you still have confidence in killing and devouring me, indirectly confirming that skill or item is indeed a finishing move."

"You’re responding quickly,"

Li Cheng said expressionlessly, "I just so happen to have a [Heaven and Earth Separation Star Instant Prison Kill Dragon Ascension Sword] on me, if unleashed, even gods will tremble."

"I’m skeptical of this."

The voice of the red beetle fluctuated between near and far, "This name sounds like something made up..."

Before the word "made up" was fully said, a void suddenly appeared within the thick fog.

The beetle’s sickle-like forelimb sliced through the fog towards Li Cheng, but was blocked by something.

That was... Steel and Victory Flag Spear, to be precise, it was the Steel Banner Spear fused with Li Cheng’s right arm.

The flag spear, originally like a long spear, became quite small after he expanded his height once more, just enough to fit within his arm.

Li Cheng took a step forward, leaning his body, all his muscles tense, and with monstrous strength forcibly bent the Steel Banner Spear,

[Special Effect: Counterattack Moment] was suddenly activated, and the red beetle flew backward at a speed even faster than when it came, slamming into the wall, creating a huge dent,

This level of impact naturally couldn’t cause much harm to it, but...

A nylon fishing line, at some unknown point, had adhered to its body via the Steel Banner Spear.

No longer needing vision to lock on, the fishing line itself was the best guide.

Float! Engine!

The engine on Li Cheng’s chest lit up with a faint glow, his entire being transformed into a meteor, fiercely bombarding along the direction of the fishing line.

The already ruined basement now collapsed profoundly, and within the enveloping smoke and dust, a narrow tunnel comparable to a subway tunnel was forcibly gouged out from the thick rock layer.

Li Cheng stood at the end of the tunnel, still maintaining his charging posture.

Plop, plop.

Chunks of flesh, originally belonging to the red beetle, adhered to him, fell off one after another, but there was no joy in his eyes.

The flesh volume was off.

The red beetle’s tonnage was even heavier than Gray Rain, yet the blood and flesh here, combined with the chitin armor, only totaled about 300 kilograms.

"So, this is your trump card."

An eerie voice came from the ruins of the basement, as the flesh of the red beetle spoke while re-integrating.

Upon discovering the fishing line, it decisively tore itself into pieces, severing the connection between the torso and limbs, sacrificing the torso to preserve the rest of the body.

As a high-level Insect Lord Demon infected body, the red beetle long ago extracted a gene sample from an alien octopus creature, deploying its brain in a distributed manner.

Aside from the main brain located in the head, each limb contains enough neurons to think independently.

At this moment, the fungal carpet on the third underground layer completely dissolved, transforming into primal flesh and merging into the beetle’s body.

The newly born red beetle stood up again, its size even larger than before, its two sickle-like forelimbs exaggerated like those of the Thunder Beast in StarCraft.

"Hehe,"

Seeing this, Li Cheng raised his hand to cover his forehead, suddenly laughed with relief.

The red beetle did not question Li Cheng’s laughter — in the previous [Floating Engine] impact, Li Cheng absolutely didn’t hold back,

After meticulous calculation, the red beetle concluded it could completely endure another [Floating Engine] blow with its massive body, and regenerate.

It no longer maneuvered to evade but used its legs to push against the ground and, propelled by the vector nozzles, charged into the tunnel, its two sickle-like limbs crossing to plough through loads of earth.

Trapped at the tunnel’s end, there was no retreat,

Li Cheng took a deep breath and shouted, "Unification!"

"Here it comes, here it comes!"

Activating the [Subtle Spirit Raid] skill, the shadowy Gray Rain floated down from the building, through the rock layer, and embraced Li Cheng from behind.

Gray Rain transformed into a liquid metal form, covering Li Cheng’s surface, overlaying his black armor with a metallic shield.

The armor wrapped around his entire body, except for a small space left at the neck.

In the Insect Form, although the nearly nine hundred kilograms of burden was heavy, but not to the point of being unbearable,

Li Cheng silently took out a bizarrely thick animal syringe from the void, comparable to a 300ml cola bottle.

The syringe was filled with crystalline, transparent blood plasma flecked with gold threads, the Qilin Blood obtained from the Immortal Court Lawyer task.

An inexplicable aura spread and transmitted along the tunnel,

The red beetle instinctively sensed impending danger, and its back vector nozzles increased speed once more,

"Fifteen seconds remain."

Murmuring to himself, Li Cheng directly plunged the 300ml animal syringe into his neck, pressing the injector all the way down.