Chapter 498: Deformees
Ting, ting, ting, ting!
The silver light shot through more than ten levels of metal fences and hit everywhere at the stairwell that was dozens of meters tall.
The anti-monster grenades hanging above the metal fences were adjusted until to be very sensitive. When the silver shooting stars crashed into them, they exploded immediately.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The stairwell immediately turned into a burning chimney.
Many of the ambushers hiding on the stairs or in the corridor had not been prepared for the impact wave and the shrapnel raining down on them. They were badly battered and fled with their hands covering their heads.
Meng Chao ran up the stairs under the cover of fire, and in just two steps reached the second floor.
There were a few robbers lying in ambush on the second floor.
They were all fearsome people who had taken Deification Capsules, so they had temporarily gained supernatural abilities and were burning their lives to gain great power.
But even they bled from their orifices because of the impact from the anti-monster grenades’ explosions and were dizzy.
Before they knew what was going on, Meng Chao rammed into their chests like a stone thrown by a tornado.
He first broke their tendons and bones, making them cough up blood. Then, he dragged them up by the necks and threw them down the stairs.
Once he threw some six robbers, the robbers on higher floors finally realized what was happening and lifted their guns to fire blindly downward.
The bullets created sparks all over the stairs and walls as they ricocheted in the narrow space.
Since the flames and smoke blocked everyone’s sight, no bullets managed to hit Meng Chao.
The ricochets reduced the speed of the bullets, so even if they landed on him, they only scratched an itch for him.
And the robbers who were firing madly had exposed their whereabouts.
Meng Chao occasionally acted like a human-shaped lizard and stuck himself to the ceiling with his limbs pointed skyward while he moved silently at high speed. At other times, he acted like a huge bat and hung upside down above the robbers to break their necks.
Most of the robbers did not even have the time to scream in pain before they were tossed to the bottom of the stairwell like torn-up gunny sacks.
In just a short half a minute, Meng Chao reached the fifth floor.
When he broke the nineteenth robber’s ribs with a punch and grabbed the person to toss him down the stairwell, he suddenly saw a white arc in the darkness.
Meng Chao was momentarily stunned.
The person had controlled their breathing, heartbeat, presence, and even vitality magnetic field to the point that they could not be detected and calmly laid in wait in a corner, thus escaping Meng Chao’s sight.
This could not be a normal robber. They were an elite.
Meng Chao narrowed his eyes and charged at the snow-white arc.
When the arc grazed his neck, his feet landed heavily on the stairs. He moved half a meter to the right, reducing the relative velocity between him and the arc to zero.
And by using the force he created when he moved sideways, he swung his right arm again like a whip. Five harvesting blades locked down on the person’s vitals like five shooting stars.
Ting, ting, ting, ting!
The person acted just like he did. They did not dodge but moved forward.
However, they did not use superfast, speedy movements within a super small area to negate Meng Chao’s attack. Instead, they used a sturdy shell to block the attack from the five blades.
The five silver shooting stars tore off the person’s cloak, revealing a glossy armor made of scales.
They should be human. Their eyes also shone with the complicated light unique to humans.
But the person’s vitals were covered by a thick layer of scales that were as sturdy as metal. The person also had a powerful tail that was as thick as a crocodile’s. At first glance, they looked like a huge reptilian which walked on two feet.
‘A villager of Leprosy Village! One of the descendants of the zombie virus infectees!’ Meng Chao immediately realized who they were.
No. That was not all.
The person’s deformation was not that simple. They were not just the child of a mother infected by the zombie virus, which unlocked the gene fragments that had been slumbering for billions of years in the womb, which made them mutate to the point that they no longer looked human.
Based on the dark flames surrounding them, the person had also taken the Deification Capsule and it had further changed the structure and function of the mitochondria in their cells, causing the great power that had always been incredibly unstable to come out in the most violent way possible.
Whoosh!
All this might seem to have taken a lot of time to figure out, but Meng Chao finished processing things in an instant, and during that instant, the ambusher who looked like a standing crocodile had already arrived in front of him and swung their tail.
The end of the tail had dozens of sharp bulges. Some of them even had sawteeth or spikes that were shaped like hooks. If that thing hit Meng Chaos’ face or neck, his skin, bones, and half a kilogram of flesh would be torn off.
Meng Chao could only retreat, but he hit a greasy mound of flesh behind him.
When he turned around to look, he saw yet another person deformed by the zombie virus.
This one was more than three meters tall, and the width of their shoulders was more than two meters. They weighed at least 350kg, and every time they took a step, the staircase trembled, causing Meng Chao’s heart to jump to his throat. He was worried that in the next second, the stairs would collapse.
The person’s facial features were completely buried under layers of fat. Only creases were left, and they formed a hideous smile.
While the person was fat, they were not slow. Right after Meng Chao crashed into them, they caught him.
Meng Chao had reached Heaven Realm, so he was far stronger than the deformee who took the Deification Capsule, but they were like an indomitable pile of mud. No matter how much Meng Chao hit them, the force was distributed to all parts of the body through the semi-liquid fat. Meng Chao could not even touch the bones, let alone destroy the joints.
Before Meng Chao could figure out a way to break free, with a whoosh, the fat excreted from the greasy deformee pores started burning.
This was not self-immolation. It was similar to a unique spirit energy magnetic field.
It was like the racial skill of fire-type monsters. Without being injured, they could burn their enemies to a horrible state.
The crocodile-human, who had a tail resembling a morning star, swung it toward Meng Chao again.
When the “morning star” was only half an inch away from Meng Chao’s nose tip and his Black Soul’s defenses were reduced because of the large amount of burning fat from the mountain of flesh, cracking, explosive sounds came from Meng Chao’s body. At that critical moment, his joints dislocated at the same time, and his bones shrank inwards, causing him to shrink by half. Finally, he was able to escape the arms of the burning mountain of flesh.
Bang!
The crocodile-human could not stop in time. The tail slammed into the chest of the burning flesh mountain, and even if that person had abnormally great defenses, they were forced to retreat a few steps from the attack.
Meng Chao seized the chance to roll forward. He pushed his hands against the floor and delivered a heavy kick with both of his legs at the crocodile-human’s fibulas.
After two loud cracks, the crocodile-human screamed and fell to the floor.
Meng Chao sensed hot waves behind him getting close again. He did not even turn his head around and rammed his right fist into the floor. With a loud crack, the reinforced concrete supporting the stairs cracked.
Earlier, when the anti-monster grenades hanging above the metal fences exploded, they had already affected the overall strength of the staircase.
Now, when Meng Chao slammed the floor like a pile driver with a spirit energy-fuelled Demon Subduing Pole, more than one hundred cracks instantly appeared on it.
The raging and burning flesh mountain stepped on the heavily damaged staircase, and because they weighed more than half of a ton, the staircase was finally unable to support all of them. It collapsed, and a terrifying, huge hole appeared between the fifth and sixth floor.
The burning flesh mountain fell to a landing between the fourth and fifth floor and got so angry that they shouted, but they could not climb up for a period of time.
Before Meng Chao could catch his breath, a fierce, long howl charged at him from above. The powerful gust pierced his Black Hole and left two bleeding wounds on his chest.
It was Ghost Spirit Song Yu.
At that moment, his spirit energy had filled his blood vessels, and he activated the rampaging energy deep in his cells. He tore off all of the masks he wore in the past and became something entirely different.
His eyes bulged out like eyebulbs, and his frontal bone protruded out. When he snapped his jaw close, it looked like the sharp beak of a huge predator. His limbs became long and thin, and his fingers and toes evolved as well… No, it would be more accurate to say that they had degenerated to the point that they were now shining claws and hooks.
His wings seemed to be wider and thicker than earlier.
The bloodstained edges also became sharper.
Even though there was limited space in the stairwell and it was not suited for falcon-type monsters to glide and dive, his wings could cover the sky and shake off thousands of sharp feathers at once. Now, they were like a meat grinder that sealed off the space in which Meng Chao could move.
Under Song Yu’s cover, the crocodile-human got to their feet again.
When Meng Chao had kicked their calves, the kicks had only managed to crack the bones. They were not completely broken.
Besides, that person seemed to be very used to crawling on their hands, knees, and tail. Their movements were not affected by his attack.
The burning flesh mountain might not be able to climb up because they were between the fourth and fifth floors, but they continued rubbing their palms together to form large, blinding fireballs.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Song Yu fired hundreds of sharp feathers that were like scalpels at Meng Chao.
With unbelievable agility, the crocodile-human used their limbs to charge at Meng Chao.
The burning flesh mountain also tossed fireballs at the spot where Meng Chao was.
When Meng Chao was forced into a corner of the staircase and seemed to be unable to avoid their attacks, he suddenly did something none of them expected.
He poured his spirit energy into his legs, and like an ordnance penetrator, he blasted the stairs under his feet until they broke. Just like how he had sent the burning flesh mountain falling, he fell on his own between the fourth and fifth floors from the space between the fifth and sixth floors.
The feathers, tail, and fireball instantly missed their target. They only created dazzling fireworks above Meng Chao’s head.
As for Meng Chao, with a jump, he arrived in front of the burning flesh mountain.
This person had just thrown a fireball, and their spirit energy magnetic field was cooling down.
Due to their overlapping fat, their vision was obscured, and they did not notice that Meng Chao had moved like a phantom and arrived in front of their body.
And in the earlier fight between them, Meng Chao had already gained a deep understanding of the burning flesh mountain’s defenses.
He placed his hands on the person’s stomach and released the full power of Ripple Force. His muscles trembled at a super high frequency, and the waves that came out were each stronger than the last. They rammed into the burning flesh mountain’s fat.
He did it not to destroy the burning flesh mountain’s organs, but to destroy their balance.
Then, with a gentle push, he sent the burning flesh mountain off the stairs, making them plunge to the bottom of the stairwell, which was dozens of meters below them.