r18novel Chapter 155 The Secret Beneath the Passage! The Abbot's True Face!
Chapter 155 The Secret Beneath the Passage! The Abbot's True Face!
The air in the passageway was even more murky than upstairs, filled with a pungent smell of formaldehyde and rusty metal.
Jiang Ming walked to the edge of the passage and looked down.
Several dim magic lamps were embedded in the metal wall, illuminating a spiraling, rusty iron staircase leading downwards.
"Brother Jiang, something feels off down there." Chen Qi peeked out, instinctively lowering his gun. "What's the deal with this monastery? The upper floors have a medieval style, but how come they've even built this industrial-style underground passage?"
"The Church of Radiance's healing center doesn't seem to treat people properly," Jiang Ming sneered, stepping directly up the iron staircase.
The heavy leather boots echoed hollowly as they stepped on the rusty iron plate.
Marlowe followed at the back, cowering and clutching the [High-Energy Flesh Engine] tightly with both hands, as if afraid someone would steal it.
"Boss, should we just call it a day while we're ahead?" The goblin's voice trembled. "This place even has boss-level mechanical monsters like this; who knows what even more monstrous things are lurking down below. Let's retreat now, find a place to lie low for the full 72 hours, and we can still beat the game!"
Jiang Ming didn't even turn his head: "If you want to hide, then stay up there. Nobody's stopping you."
Marlowe immediately shut up.
Leaving him alone in that factory littered with severed limbs and broken bodies is less reassuring than staying with Jiang Ming.
The three of them walked down the stairs for about five or six minutes before finally stepping onto solid ground.
Before us lies an extremely spacious underground space.
Unlike the rudimentary flesh-processing plant mentioned above, this place looks more like the laboratory of a mad scientist.
Two rows of huge cylindrical glass petri dishes were neatly arranged on both sides of the hall, filled with turbid green liquid.
In each petri dish, there was a dismembered and pieced-together corpse.
Some human torsos had four beast legs attached to them, while others had their orc heads sewn onto a mechanical base. Tubes of varying thicknesses were inserted into these monsters, connecting them to a complex pipe system on the ceiling.
Chen Qi felt a chill run down his spine and his stomach churn.
"What the hell is this?" He suppressed his nausea, raised his gun, and aimed at the nearest petri dish.
"Don't fire randomly." Jiang Ming raised his hand and pressed down on Chen Qi's gun barrel. "These things aren't quite dead yet."
He walked up to a petri dish and looked through the thick glass at the monster inside, which had been stitched together with six arms.
The monster's chest was rising and falling slowly, and bubbles occasionally rose from the green liquid.
【Sleeping Sutured Aberration Variant (Lv.25·Elite)】
[Status: Dormant/Incubating]
There were two whole rows, with at least forty or fifty petri dishes.
If all these things were released, even Jiang Ming, with his current equipment and skills, would have to put in a lot of effort.
Marlowe was no longer afraid. He ran to a nearby iron table piled with miscellaneous items and began rummaging through it.
"Boss! There's something here!"
The goblin excitedly held up a thick leather notebook stained with black dirt.
Jiang Ming walked over, grabbed the notebook, and opened it.
The paper was yellowed and brittle, covered with frantic handwriting, some of which was even written in blood.
"The year 142 of the Glorious Calendar, the day of the Red Moon."
The third day of the outbreak.
The holy water has lost its effectiveness, and so has the divine magic.
Those infected believers began to undergo irreversible physical changes.
The goddess of light has abandoned us.
No! I can't abandon them.
Since the gods are powerless, then I will save them!
I dissected the first mutated corpse.
Fantastic!
That vibrant growth of flesh and blood, that neural structure that defies pain...
This is not a plague, this is evolution!
By combining these evolved flesh and blood with machinery, we can create a perfect, immortal body!
Today, I sent the vice president to the furnace of flesh and blood.
His bone density increased threefold!
Tomorrow, I'm going to throw those hypocritical paladins in too...
The diary ends abruptly here; the following pages were all torn out.
Jiang Ming closed his notebook and tossed it casually onto the table.
"The abbot of this monastery is a complete madman." Chen Qi leaned closer for a look and felt a chill run down his spine. "He used everyone in the monastery for human experiments."
"A madman is easier to deal with." Jiang Ming took out the [Soul-Binding Black Iron Chain] he had synthesized earlier from his storage card and wrapped it around his left arm.
"Where there is a strong obsession, there is a weakness."
No sooner had he finished speaking than a piercing alarm suddenly blared from the depths of the hall.
Red warning lights flashed wildly all around, and the once quiet laboratory instantly erupted into chaos.
"Click—click—"
The surfaces of the huge glass petri dishes on both sides began to show dense cracks.
The green liquid inside churned violently, and the dormant stitched aberrations opened their eyes, their scarlet pupils staring intently at the three people standing in the center of the hall.
"Holy crap! We've been spotted!" Chen Qi exclaimed in shock and immediately cocked the gun.
Marlowe was so frightened that he crawled under the iron table, covering his head and trembling.
"Bang!"
The nearest petri dish shattered with a crash, spilling green liquid mixed with glass shards all over the floor.
The six-armed mutant let out a shrill roar and pounced out from the shards of glass. It was incredibly fast, and its six arms, each holding a rusty scalpel, a bone saw, and a hammer, came crashing down on Jiang Ming’s head.
"Good timing."
Instead of retreating, Jiang Ming advanced, unleashing a terrifying power of 37 points in an instant.
He didn't even draw his sword. With a sudden swing of his left arm, the thick black iron chain lashed out at the deformed creature's chest with a piercing whistling sound.
"Bang!"
A dull thud rang out, and the mutated creature's massive body was sent flying backward, crashing heavily into the wall behind it.
But the level 25 elite monster was extremely resilient. It struggled to get up, and before it could even stand up, Jiang Ming was already in front of it.
With a sudden, powerful, axe-like downward slam, his right leg slammed into the mutant's head.
"Snap!"
The monster's neck was crushed, and its head twisted at a bizarre angle behind it, killing it instantly.
[Defeated a Stitched Aberration (Lv.25 Elite) that is above its level, gaining 20000 experience points.]
Just then, more petri dishes shattered one after another.
Five or six mutants surrounded them from all directions.
Taking advantage of the moment when Jiang Ming was killing his companion, one of the mutants pounced from the side and slashed Jiang Ming's chest hard with its rusty bone saw.
"when!"
Sparks flew everywhere.
The bone saw cut into the Crimson Knight Heavy Breastplate without leaving even a white mark.
The "Pain Reflection" effect is triggered instantly!
Dark golden runes suddenly lit up the surface of the breastplate, strongly recommending "School Survival Through Time: I Can Synthesize Everything!" A powerful, invisible shockwave of soul energy surged directly into the mutant's body through the bone saw.
"Aww—"
The mutant let out a bloodcurdling scream, and the arm holding the bone saw exploded into a cloud of blood mist. Its massive body was shaken back several steps and fell into a two-second "soul shock" state of paralysis.
Jiang Ming sneered and drew the [Hellfire and Thunder Prison] from his back.
"Overload!"
A violent burst of lightning and fire sword energy erupted from the blade.
He gripped his sword with both hands and unleashed a powerful, windmill-like sweep, cleaving the stiff, deformed creature in two at the waist!
"Chen Qi, don't hold back your bullets, shoot their joints!" Jiang Ming shouted as he charged toward the remaining monsters.
"Understood!" Chen Qi, holding his rifle and using an iron table as cover, began to fire precise shots.
Armor-piercing rounds struck the mutants' knees and wrists, not fatally, but severely limiting their mobility.
Jiang Ming was like a tiger among sheep amidst a horde of monsters.
With an absolute strength suppression of 37 points, coupled with the abnormal damage reflection and defense of the [Crimson Knight Heavy Breastplate], he completely gave up dodging and let the monsters' attacks fall on him.
Every attack that hit him would trigger a counter-attack and a stun, followed by Jiang Ming's merciless fatal sword strike.
In less than three minutes, all six mutants that rushed out were wiped out, leaving the ground littered with mutilated and charred corpses.
"Phew..." Chen Qi put down his gun and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. "Brother Jiang, your new armor is amazing. You can stand here and let them hit you and they'll still bounce off and kill you."
Jiang Ming wiped the blood off the blade without saying a word.
His gaze passed over the corpses scattered on the ground and looked into the deepest part of the laboratory.
There was a huge double lead door with a biohazard symbol painted on it, signifying extreme danger.
The alarm just now came from behind that door.
"Click".
A dull mechanical unlocking sound came from inside the lead door.
Immediately afterwards, the two heavy lead doors slowly opened outwards.
An extremely strong, nauseating smell of blood mixed with the odor of some kind of chemical agent gushed out from under the door.
Accompanied by heavy footsteps, an extremely large black shadow slowly emerged from the darkness behind the door.
The lead door was fully open.
The monster that emerged was nearly four meters tall and as large as a moving mountain of flesh.
It has no skin; its entire body is made of scarlet muscle fibers, with huge muscles piled up like rocks, and yellowish-green pus flowing from its surface.
Most chillingly, its right arm was completely transformed into a giant chainsaw two meters long, while its left arm was a thick metal cannon barrel.
Inside the monster's chest cavity was a transparent bulletproof glass shield, inside which was submerged a still-beating human brain.
【Stitched Abomination - War Beast (Lv.29 - Boss Level)】
[Danger Level: Extremely High]
[Characteristics: Pain Immunity, Frenzied Slicing, Plague Gas.]
"What the hell is this thing?!" Chen Qi gasped and instinctively took two steps back.
The oppressive feeling of this monster is even more terrifying than that flesh-reaping machine from before.
"roar!"
The Stitching Abomination let out a deafening roar, and the giant chainsaw on its right arm instantly started.
"Buzzing—"
The ear-piercing roar of chainsaws echoed through the empty underground laboratory.
It strides forward with its powerful legs, like an out-of-control heavy tank, charging directly towards Jiang Ming.
With each step, the stone slabs on the ground were crushed to pieces, and the entire hall trembled violently.
"spread!"
Jiang Ming shouted and transformed into a blur, quickly dodging to the right.
Chen Qi reacted extremely quickly, performing a tactical roll to hide behind another row of petri dishes.
The suture abomination's charge failed to hit anyone; instead, it crashed into the row of glass culture dishes behind where Jiang Ming had just been standing.
"Boom!"
Five or six huge petri dishes were smashed to pieces, and green liquid and the deformed corpses inside were scattered all over the ground.
The Abomination didn't care about any of that. It suddenly turned its massive body around, and the metal cannon barrel on its left arm was aimed at Jiang Ming, who was moving.
"laugh--"
A thick, green plague gas shot out from the cannon barrel, instantly enveloping an area of several meters in radius.
When the toxic gas came into contact with the metal shavings on the ground, it immediately made a "sizzling" corroding sound, and even the iron plates were corroded with pits.
"Hold your breath!" Jiang Ming immediately held his breath, pushed off with his feet, and leaped backward out of the gas zone.
However, this level 29 boss monster clearly possesses a high level of combat instinct.
Just as Jiang Ming leaped into the air, the giant chainsaw on Abomination's right arm, carrying violent kinetic energy, swept directly towards Jiang Ming's waist.
The speed was too fast and the range too large; it was impossible to use any leverage to dodge while in mid-air.
Jiang Ming gritted his teeth, gripped the [Hellfire and Thunder Prison] with both hands, and held the broad blade horizontally in front of him.
"clang!"
The chainsaw's wildly spinning teeth slammed into the greatsword, sending sparks flying.
An extremely terrifying impact force traveled along the sword.
Jiang Ming felt a numbness in his arms, and his whole body was sent flying like a kite with a broken string, crashing heavily into the wall in the distance.
"Brother Jiang!" Chen Qi shouted anxiously, immediately picked up his rifle, and started firing wildly at the glass dome in the Abomination's chest cavity.
"Jingle bells!"
Armor-piercing rounds only leave a few faint white spots on bulletproof glass; they cannot penetrate it at all.
"Never mind me, hit its legs!" Jiang Ming slid down the wall, spitting out a mouthful of bloody saliva.
If it weren't for his 37 points of strength to withstand that attack, and the fact that the [Crimson Knight Heavy Breastplate] absorbed some of the kinetic energy, an ordinary player would have been cut in half long ago.
He glanced down and saw a deep white scratch on the surface of his breastplate, but it was not damaged.
"The damage reflection effect didn't trigger?" Jiang Ming frowned slightly.
He quickly realized that the chainsaw was a continuous physical cut, not a single high-burst impact, and the counterforce field would have difficulty concentrating and reflecting this dispersed kinetic energy back.
Tactics must be changed.
Attracted by Chen Qi's gunshot, Hatred turned around and strode towards where Chen Qi was hiding.
"Trying to leave?" Jiang Ming sneered and suddenly waved his left hand.
The Soul-Binding Black Iron Chains shot out like venomous snakes, precisely wrapping around the abomination's left ankle.
"Come back here!"
Jiang Ming planted his feet firmly on the ground, exerted force from his waist, and unleashed his full power of 37 points.
The abomination, which was running wildly, suddenly stopped with its left foot, and its huge body instantly lost its balance, crashing to the ground with a "boom", creating a large crater.