Chapter 263.1: Lightless Calamity Part 1

A deafening crash barreled through the cramped basement. The generator overloaded, the makeshift engine built up pressure, power surged through the transmission system, and the hydraulics released their stored force. Amid the shriek of grinding metal, scorching heat leaked from the crude exoskeleton as fierce power raced through it.

The rebar reinforcing the shoulders groaned under the strain before splitting apart, unable to bear the load. With a swing of Ji Jue’s arm, that absurdly enormous, wailing hammer came crashing down from above. A shockwave burst in every direction along with a spray of thick blood and gore, as if he had just smashed a tomato.

The aberrant that had barged through the doorway had its vision go black. Before it could even react to taking the full force of the hammer blow, Ji Jue swept the hammer sideways and sent the creature flying. It slammed into the wall with another thunderous crash, splitting cracks across the surface.

Howling in pain, the aberrant, which was basically a chaotic mass of countless limbs fused together at this point, thrashed wildly. Its limbs flailed in every direction, awkwardly propping its body back up as it rapidly recovered. It had already looked like an indistinguishable mass of mangled flesh to begin with. Ji Jue’s two hammer blows had only rearranged its features.

Now, the eyes that opened across what passed for its “shoulders,” “waist,” and even its “six legs” locked onto Ji Jue. Without the slightest warning or windup, it gathered its strength and launched itself forward.

Its speed was unbelievable. Like a phantom, it crossed the distance in an instant and was suddenly right in Ji Jue’s face. He didn’t even have time to raise the absurdly heavy hammer. His neck and head were already exposed beneath the enormous maw that split open across the creature’s chest.

And then...

Smack!

The aberrant splattered headfirst against the enormous shield that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere in Ji Jue’s other hand. The sharp spikes welded across its surface punched straight through its limbs and burst out the other side. It had practically impaled itself.

Only now, with whatever capacity for thought it might or might not possess, did the creature finally realize what the ridiculous giant shield in Ji Jue’s hand was. Wasn’t that the fucking door that had been mounted in the wall just moments ago?!

He had rigged it beforehand so that all it took was a light tug for the deliberately weakened bolts to come loose. A cable made of twisted layers of iron wire pulled the massive metal door free and dropped it into Ji Jue’s hand, turning it into a shield large enough to cover his entire body.

As for the jagged pieces of scrap metal he had welded onto the back of the door, they became the perfect gift for the aberrant.

The entire exchange happened in just a brief moment. Before the creature could even react, it found itself stuck fast on the spikes. Not wasting any precious time, Ji Jue swung the hammer with all his might. The monster bound to the hammerhead shrieked sharply, sounding almost delirious with delight, before it was brought crashing into its fellow aberrant pinned to the shield in a meteor-like collision!

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The iron door shuddered fiercely with every blow, spraying scraps of flesh in all directions.

The stitched monstrosity thrashed desperately, spewing venom and firing bullet-like spikes in every direction. Unfortunately, it could not get a single clear shot at Ji Jue. Even when the occasional bone spike did hit him, it was stopped by the sheets of metal he had strapped over his protective suit. Those metal plates had come from the barrels in the room, too.

The barrels had intact protective coatings and excellent structural integrity, built well enough to hold highly dangerous compounds. Naturally, stopping a few bone spikes was hardly a problem.

Every full-force blow tore huge chunks of flesh from the aberrant, ripped away by the wailing hammer. Tendrils even snaked out from the gaping mouths on its hammerhead, wrapping tightly around the creature. They sucked at its blood and gnawed at flesh and bone, refusing to let it escape no matter how much it struggled.

No one wanted a rival dead more than another of its own kind. Apparently, aberrants were no different.

The wailing continued without end. Mouth after mouth opened and closed as another chorus of agonized screams erupted. The enormous aberrant had nearly been smashed in half at the waist. Struggling violently, it finally snapped the scrap steel pipes and metal plates that had pierced its body. Then, with a savage twist, came the skin-crawling sound of flesh tearing apart as the creature ripped itself free from the hammer and shield.

Badly wounded, the aberrant escaped its restraints, but it no longer had the courage to attack Ji Jue, even though he was right in front of it. Instead, it scrambled wildly across the floor. An unprecedented sense of fear and panic welled up within its mind. In a fight where absolutely everything seemed wrong in the most sinister possible way, it had begun to wonder which of them was actually the creature born from aberration contamination.

The moment it realized it could not win, it abandoned the lower half of its body. Dragging a long, grotesque trail of proliferating flesh behind it, it turned and fled madly for the basement exit.

It’s trying to get away!

Ji Jue was furious. “Why are you running? Get back here!”

He had put in all that work, wasted so many materials, and finally managed to whittle the thing down to low health, and now it wanted to flee after dropping only this little loot? What happened to their fair and square duel?!

Unfortunately, Ji Jue could not catch up. The transmission system he had cobbled together in a rush was crude from top to bottom. Getting it to support the swing of that enormous hammer was already pushing it. As for the legs, simply holding up the several hundred jin of equipment was bringing them close to their limit. Asking them to provide any actual mobility would have been expecting far too much.

Ji Jue could only sigh helplessly as he stepped on the pedal beside him. Suddenly, the taut iron wire snapped. What followed was an explosion right above the doorway that no longer even had a door.

A pressurized canister hanging from the top of the frame ruptured as a sharpened, rusted nail punched through it. Thick foam burst from the canister, splashing straight across the aberrant’s face.

The pressurized canister worked almost like an aerosol can. The gray-black foam reacted the instant it came into contact with the air, rapidly hardening and sticking to whatever it touched. In less than a second, it had solidified into rigid masses that weighed almost nothing.

Just like that, most of the aberrant was encased inside and glued firmly to the ground.

The creature froze, stunned. For a moment, it simply stared. Then it instinctively struggled once, twice, writhing desperately with all its might. At last, tiny cracks began to spread through the hardened foam. Freedom was almost within reach.

Unfortunately, it was already too late. In those few short seconds, Ji Jue had dragged the heavy exoskeleton over one laborious step at a time until he stood directly before it. As he lowered his head, his pitch-black shadow engulfed the aberrant’s twisted, convulsing faces.

Ji Jue broke into a smile. He pointed at the creature and said, “Go on, run. Why aren’t you running anymore? I said ‘hello’ to you earlier, but then you tried to leave without even saying ‘goodbye.’ Isn’t that a little rude? What, you think you’re too good for me?”

The aberrant stared blankly at him. The still-exposed mangled faces writhed, as though they were about to speak, but a black shadow rapidly crossed its vision, followed by a thunderous strike. The hammer came crashing down!

“So you’re the fucker who kept knocking on my door, huh?!”

BOOM!!!

“And you’re the fucker who wouldn’t shut up?!”

BOOM!!!

“You’re the one with no fucking manners!!!”

BOOM!!!!

Amid the relentless crashes, blood rained down like a torrential downpour, accompanied by the crackle of splintering bone and mangled flesh. It splattered across Ji Jue’s handsome face, staining his smile red.

As the creature wailed and sobbed, Ji Jue could no longer hold it in and burst into wild laughter.

***

Before the floating screens inside the Myriad Transformations Tower, the proctors had fallen into a silence that seemed to stretch forever.

For a moment, Jiang Tongguang really wanted to force a smile and say something like, “Well, this isn’t so bad.” But looking at the scene in front of him, he really couldn’t bring himself to call it good. More importantly...

“What is that?” Gustav pointed at the canister above the doorway, the one that had sprayed out the foam.

Even Jiang Tongguang was not entirely sure. He narrowed his eyes and stared at it for a while. “Hmm... I think that’s the half-canister of compressed foam gel that was originally stored in the workshop.”

Like the gray tiles and the various spare parts, it had been provided as a consumable for candidates to repair the workshop and maintain its equipment.

An exam was still an exam, after all. Even Gustav was not so strict that he would dump the candidates somewhere with absolutely nothing and make them fend for themselves from scratch. They had to be given at least some basic supplies.

But that didn’t make any sense...

Gustav grew even more puzzled. “If he used the compressed foam gel here, then what did he use to patch the cracks in the workshop?”

“He used, uh... some remarkably skilled masonry work.” Jiang Tongguang pulled up the recorded footage. The moment he saw what was shown on screen, he nearly lost his composure. He rubbed his eyes several times before taking a better look. “Seriously, though, his workmanship is actually pretty damn good. He even leveled the wall surface while he was at it!”

The playback faithfully reproduced everything Ji Jue had done. He had taken fragments of gray tile, the ash left in the furnace, and even powder ground from various scrapped components. After putting the mixture through Elevation and Purification, he blended it with grease and ended up with an entire bucket of paste, which was far more than he could possibly use.

To be fair, it was convenient, and it worked well enough. But it simply wasn’t durable enough. A quick calculation would tell anyone that it could only hold for a short while... oh. He had only intended for it to hold that long in the first place.

Well, never mind, then.

After a long pause, Gustav asked, “What about the aberration contamination that leaked inside?”

Jiang Tongguang’s face twitched. He pointed at several cables connected to the wall on the screen. “He redirected all of it into the furnace and used it as a catalyst to cultivate that aberrant creature. Uh... worked remarkably well, too.”

In the ensuing silence, the two men exchanged a look, then sighed in perfect unison. What a fucking talented student. Ye Xian had really found herself a monster.

“At the very least, this proves that the Haizhou Association’s report wasn’t wrong. With this level of skill and ability...” Jiang Tongguang nodded in approval. “He really does have an enormous amount of potential.”

Even setting aside his quick reactions, his ability to modify things on the fly, his knack for coming up with unexpected solutions, and the fact that he had turned the aberrant in the furnace into a tool on the spot was enough to show just how fast, precise, ruthless, and vicious his methods were.

An ordinary apprentice would have been too busy crying if something like that happened. Who the hell would react like Ji Jue, grinning from ear to ear as if he had just struck gold?

Though, come to think of it, that was exactly what had happened. The materials had practically spawned right inside the furnace for him. If that was not striking gold, what was?

“If you told me this was his first time dealing with aberrants, I wouldn’t believe you.”

Jiang Tongguang sighed and flipped through Ji Jue’s résumé until he reached the performance evaluation written by the Spring City Recycling and Processing Department under the Haizhou Association.

Excellent. Understands the bigger picture, looks out for his colleagues, readily takes responsibility when problems arise, and possesses a certain amount of experience in handling aberrants.

At first, Jiang Tongguang had assumed this was just the usual polite praise. Wasn’t that how it always went with privileged young masters looking to pad their résumés?

What he had never expected was that the supervisor at the Spring City Recycling and Processing Department had actually been way too fucking conservative. This was what they called “a certain amount of experience”? The ease and familiarity with which he refined aberrants made him look even more practiced than Jiang Tongguang himself!

If Ji Jue had shown even the slightest sign of colluding with heretical forces, and if he had not had three masters personally vouching for him, Jiang Tongguang would have suspected that he was the direct disciple of some notorious menace from the Depths who had infiltrated the Association as a spy. Just look at those absurdly solid fundamentals, his command of ancient alchemy, and the effortless way he handled every technique.

“Good grief. Each generation really does outdo the last.” Jiang Tongguang clicked his tongue in amazement. “Hey, Gustav! I’m telling you, this kid has the makings of a lifelong prison inmate!”

Gustav said nothing. After watching Ji Jue beat the aberrant half to death, put the door back in place and repair it, then toss the creature into the furnace while apparently wondering how else he could put it to use, Gustav had lost all desire to comment.

Fortunately, Ji Jue was the only examinee whose absurdity had crossed over into outright sinister territory. Gustav could still look at the other projections to bring his blood pressure back down.