Chapter 123: Flesh Machine Gun

Chapter 123: Chapter 123: Flesh Machine Gun

Ning Ye stood to the side, eyes practically gleaming as she stared at the sniper rifle in Xiang Yi’s hands — all sharp angles and sleek lines, unmistakably mechanical, unmistakably futuristic.

Something like that had a way of drawing anyone’s eye.

"Done yet?"

"Not yet."

Xiang Yi had rigged a sling onto the Spirit-Sucking Electromagnetic Sniper Rifle and swung it over his shoulder.

Then he turned his attention to the rest of the haul.

The Silent Alloy Iron Nets were almost certainly meant to work alongside the Spiritual Energy Fluctuation Absorber — tools for capturing Abnormalities.

In practice, though, they only seemed effective against physically weaker Abnormalities. Without the absorber to hobble it first, something like Shi Tie could tear through one without breaking a sweat.

Since they were Silent Alloy with no mechanical components, Xiang Yi’s Spiritual Energy couldn’t touch them. He set them aside without a second thought.

That left the EMP rocket launcher.

The launcher itself was a single-use design, but Xiang Yi had already salvaged the warhead from his hoverbike and refueled it — ready to fire again.

The EMP, though... against Xiang Yi himself, it would’ve been devastatingly effective. He was carrying a lot of electronic equipment.

Turning it on enemies was a different story. Useless against Abnormalities. Against human opponents, on the other hand... actually, that wasn’t a bad angle at all.

No telling what form the prison attack would take. If they came in with mechanized or electronic assets, this thing could do some serious work.

Xiang Yi applied a Spiritual Enhancement to the EMP rocket launcher, going with the most straightforward option available under weapon enhancements — raw damage.

He gave the results a quick look. Solid. He set it aside.

What remained of the spoils: a handful of grenades, two Spider-shaped Robots, and a Spiritual Energy Fluctuation Detector he’d found on Lu Qi.

He ran Spiritual Enhancement on everything that could take it. His mental state was still holding up well enough.

Whether it would stay that way after all the enhancements was another matter.

Xiang Yi worked through it methodically, pushing Spiritual Enhancement into every piece of equipment he could.

His head no longer ached from the drain on his Spiritual Power — he finished the whole batch with reserves still left over.

He’d recovered fully, and then some. He was stronger now than he’d been before.

"Alright — wait, no. One more thing."

He’d almost started packing up when it came back to him. "Help me log some more data. Abnormality-related this time."

Ning Ye had been endlessly curious about everything Xiang Yi had put his hands on today, watching ordinary objects transform into something extraordinary. But what kept her most hooked was whatever he was going to pull out next. "What is it now?"

Xiang Yi produced the containment box and moved to open it.

Ning Ye’s expression shifted — curious, then thoughtful — and then, all at once, she seemed to figure out what was inside. Her voice shot up in alarm. "Don’t!"

Xiang Yi turned his head and found her already scrambling to the far corner of the lab, like she was bracing for him to release something terrible into the room.

"You’ll go out and hunt Abnormalities without flinching, but you’re scared of this?"

"That’s completely different!"

Whatever was in that box was almost certainly part of a Flesh Beast. The last thing Ning Ye wanted was Abnormality residue loose in the office area outside the lab.

Xiang Yi shrugged. "Fair enough."

"Open Containment Room 2 for me, then. I’ll handle the Abnormality stuff in there."

Ning Ye hadn’t expected him to suggest that at all. A containment room — designed to hold Abnormalities — could just as easily hold a Spiritual Ability User.

Xiang Yi hadn’t really thought that far ahead. He figured he could still trust Ning Ye, and honestly, even if he did end up locked in, he had ways out.

He stepped into Containment Room 2 and opened the box. The Flesh Heart he’d collected earlier was exposed to open air and immediately began to writhe, restless and unsettled.

It had deteriorated noticeably since he’d first contained it. He needed to use it fast.

Ning Ye’s voice came through the room’s speaker system. "What is that thing?"

"You already figured it out, didn’t you? It’s a Flesh Heart."

"I knew it had to be something from a Flesh Beast, but I’ve never actually seen one of these. Nothing I’ve read mentioned Flesh Beasts producing anything like it. Can I get a closer look?"

"Make it quick — it’s dying."

Xiang Yi handed it off to the mechanical arm that extended toward him.

Ning Ye ran her examination quickly, and the Flesh Heart was back in his hands within moments.

"You said before that your Spiritual Energy can graft an Abnormality’s ability onto any mechanical device," Ning Ye said. "So what does this one do?"

"No idea. That’s what we’re about to find out."

He’d already decided to use the Flesh Heart on Shi Tie’s heavy machine gun — and had told Shi Tie to leave it in the room ahead of time.

The Flesh Heart dissolved in his hands like a pool of blood seeping into metal, slowly merging with the machine gun’s frame.

The gun’s entire appearance began to shift — its rugged mechanical aesthetic giving way to something far more unsettling, something organic.

From muzzle to stock, every surface was overtaken by dark crimson muscle tissue and pale, waxy keratin.

The keratin covering the heat vents along both sides of the receiver trembled faintly — as if the gun was breathing.

The holographic display confirmed what the outside suggested: the internal structure had been completely converted into flesh and tissue as well.

Xiang Yi had no use for it himself. He waved for Ning Ye to open the containment room door, called Shi Tie in, and told it to pick up the Flesh Machine Gun.

The moment Shi Tie reached out and gripped the handle —

The rear panel of the gun snapped open. A fleshy tendril shot out and drove itself into Shi Tie’s left arm.

The muscles in Shi Tie’s left arm seized instantly, bulging and contracting as dense slabs of muscle pushed against the skin.

Xiang Yi’s brow furrowed slightly, but he didn’t intervene.

A second tendril followed, stabbing into the same arm.

The veins along Shi Tie’s left arm stood out sharply. Vessels that should have held almost no blood were now visibly coursing with some thick fluid, surging up the arm and spreading through its entire body.

Ning Ye let out a sharp intake of breath and nearly called out to Xiang Yi — but one look at his expression made her hold back and keep watching.

Then the third tendril pierced the left arm.

Shi Tie’s entire left arm swelled outward in an instant.

The left hand — already broken twice over, partially rotted — detached from the body. Another tendril dragged it back into the gun’s housing.

The sounds that followed were wet and rhythmic — chewing, digesting. The flesh of the gun was seeping into Shi Tie’s body, layer by layer.

But this wasn’t the gun assimilating the walking corpse into itself. It was the Flesh Machine Gun assimilating itself into Shi Tie.

When the exchange of flesh finally stopped, the Flesh Machine Gun had been transformed beyond recognition.

It had fully replaced Shi Tie’s left arm — bulkier now, more massive, jet-black keratin plating spreading and thickening across its surface.

Everything savage about the Flesh Beast and the Corpse Ghost had been made manifest in that single weapon.