Chapter 724 452: Plunder 2

Looking up, he saw three people striding in.

Leading them was an old man in his eighties or nineties, leaning on a mahogany cane.

He wore a well-tailored dark suit, his silver-white hair was meticulously combed back, and he carried an air of authority.

Behind him were a man and a woman.

The man was burly, his muscular frame packed into a black suit. His sharp gaze continuously scanned every corner of the room.

The woman had neat, short hair and was wreathed in a faint white mist, clearly a Power User.

The two flanked him, one on the left and one on the right, maintaining a perfect distance—close enough to react to any sudden incident without getting in the old man's way.

Despite the scene unfolding before him,

Hu Qi remained seated, acting as if he hadn't seen them at all.

According to Kalu's memories,

the man before him was named Lier.

He seemed to be an extremely influential politician from some major country.

Due to his advanced age,

the man was getting impatient.

However, because of the instability of the Genetic Ability Potions, he didn't dare take one.

He could only urge them to hurry up and develop a flawless, harmless Genetic Potion that would turn someone into a Power User.

There were quite a few people like him.

And this man was one of their leaders.

Seeing that Hu Qi didn't even bother to stand up,

the old man tapped his cane.

He snorted coldly.

"Kalu, your father and I had a decent relationship. I should count as your elder, yet I didn't expect it would be so difficult to get a meeting with you! Ahem, ahem!"

At this point,

he coughed violently a few times.

An unhealthy flush spread across his face.

After catching his breath,

his gaze fell upon the vial of potion in Hu Qi's hand and paused, a sharp glint flashing through his murky eyes.

"What's the progress on the Genetic Ability Potion? All this time has passed. Don't tell me you still don't have results!"

However, in response to the man's query,

Hu Qi merely glanced up at him.

"Whether we have results or not, it's not like you'll be able to use them. Instead of worrying about that, you should start picking out a nice plot of land for your burial."

In his eyes,

beneath the old man's suit, within his aged skin, the blood vessels were a strange, vivid red, markedly different from the blood in the rest of his body.

'They've obviously been replaced recently.'

The heart in his chest was powerful, but its beat was out of sync with his pulse.

Its bright red muscle tissue stood in stark contrast to the surrounding layers of gray, decaying fat.

His lungs produced a faint mechanical whir with each breath, their semi-biological, semi-artificial structure barely managing to exchange oxygen.

Furthermore, the edges of his liver had an unnatural bluish-purple tinge, and a fine network of proliferative tissue was faintly visible on the surface of his kidneys.

The man's body was like a dilapidated temple, constantly being repaired to house a soul that refused to decay.

Hearing Hu Qi's words,

the old man's eyes turned sharp and cold.

"Kalu, do you have any idea what you're saying?!"

"To be honest, even if you are a scumbag, I have no interest in doing the public a service by getting rid of you..."

At this, Hu Qi shook his head.

"But since you insisted on coming here with a death wish, I'll be happy to grant it."

The moment his voice fell,

the expressions of the two people behind the old man changed drastically.

"Insolent!"

The woman in black and the brawny man stepped forward in unison.

The white mist swirling around the woman churned violently, vaguely coalescing into two snarling, bared-toothed mist wolves.

The man, meanwhile, suddenly tore his shirt to shreds, his bronze muscles glinting like metal under the lights, every fiber brimming with explosive power.

The atmosphere in the room instantly dropped to a freezing point.

—SPLAT!

The next second, however,

before either of them could make a move,

two soft sounds echoed almost simultaneously.

The upper bodies of the two Power Users vanished without a sound.

In their place, only their lower bodies remained, swaying slightly like felled, rotten trees before crashing to the ground.

THUD!

The grim expression on the old man's face instantly shattered.

He staggered back, his legs gave out, and he collapsed to the floor. A dark, wet stain silently spread across the crotch of his pants.

"Don't... don't kill me!"

His voice trembled uncontrollably.

"What do you want? Power? Wealth? I'll give you anything..."

Hu Qi couldn't even be bothered to lift his eyelids.

With a flick of his finger, the old man's withered lips were brutally pried open by an Invisible Power.

The potion floated up, the vial shattered, and the liquid, like a living thing, poured entirely down his throat.

"Guh... AARGH!"

A bloodcurdling scream erupted at precisely the ten-second mark.

The old man's skin turned a grotesque bluish-green at a visible rate, and the sickening sound of cracking bones came from beneath it.

His body twisted and contorted in agony, every inch of his skin writhing.

Countless coarse black hairs burst through his epidermis like steel needles, growing frantically.

—CRACK! CRACK!

Accompanied by the horrifying sound of bones restructuring, the withered frame rapidly inflated as if being pumped with air.

His clothes were stretched to the breaking point and burst apart, sending fragments flying.

When the final roar faded, the stooped old man was gone.

In his place stood a black bear nearly three meters tall.

Its blood-red eyes glowed with a vicious light.

"I... Have I become a Power User?"

A muffled voice rumbled from its mouth,

tinged with a hint of joy.

This powerful body was everything he had ever dreamed of.

SPLAT!

His joy didn't last more than a few seconds.

Blood began to spray from all over his body as if from torn sacks.

His entire presence rapidly weakened.

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

The violent sound of a heartbeat thundered.

And the old man let out an inhuman scream.

The old man's current Mutation was caused by a violent rejection of the transplanted organs inside his body.

Previously, special drugs had suppressed the rejection, allowing these foreign organs to coexist, however precariously, with his original body.