Chapter 176: Biological Experiments

A fusion on the biological level?

How could a puppet made of metals and Origin Formations possess self-recovery abilities?

What kind of sick joke was this?

However, the truth was right in front of him. Two dark black puppets leapt forwards, their armblades glinting under the moonlight.

Their combat style was quick and forceful, and their strength and speed were both first-rate. Their only drawback was that they probably only really had one offensive move, which was to constantly slash at their opponents with their armblades. However, when paired with their seeming invincibility, they really were quite a pain to deal with.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Duan Jiangshan continued to unleash the next four stances of the Mountain-Shattering Eight Blades, knocking the puppets to the ground four times. However, the puppets got right back up.

“Dammit, are these guys impossible to kill?” Duan Jiangshan howled.

“Nothing is impossible to kill,” Su Chen replied. “However, as long as the nucleus installed in their bodies is still there, they will be able to repair themselves.”

“Didn’t you say that they had self-recovery abilities? Why do they still need a nucleus to power themselves?” Duan Jiangshan replied.

“Because they are puppets. Shouldn’t they have energy nuclei?” Su Chen countered.

Duan Jiangshan couldn’t retort. He struggled for a moment and then yelled, “This is pissing me off!” as he sent another blade strike.

Yue Longsha and Yu Mengnan were tickled pink by this exchange. They stood to the side casually and observed without interrupting.

In the end, it was still Ji Ruoyu who said, “Seniors, please hurry up! We don’t have much time before the void will completely collapse.”

Su Chen assented. “It seems we can’t wait for them to expend all their energy...... This type of puppet has never appeared in the history of the Arcana Kingdom, which means that they aren’t completed products. They most likely have a critical flaw.”

“What kind of flaw?” everyone asked.

Su Chen muttered to himself as he continued to beat the puppets back, “This kind of flaw shouldn’t be hard to detect, and it shouldn’t be hard to exploit. Otherwise, they would still be useful to manufacture and produce...... If that’s the case...... what other techniques haven’t we tried yet......”

His eyes suddenly lit up. He stared intently at the dark-black puppet and sent a consciousness blast at it.

This simple consciousness-level attack was easily irresistible by anyone who had even average willpower. Even commoners would be able to shake it off to some degree, but when the dark-black puppet was struck by such a basic attack, it stopped moving and swayed slightly before toppling to the ground.

This time, it didn’t crawl back to its feet.

“What the hell is that!” Duan Jiangshan was stunned.

Yu Mengnan also sent out a consciousness blast on his end. The puppet that Duan Jiangshan was battling also fell over.

“So they’re weak to consciousness-type attacks,” Su Chen said.

“Why do these puppets fear consciousness-type attacks?” Duan Jiangshan was completely befuddled.

Puppets should be inanimate objects; it didn’t make sense for them to be susceptible to consciousness-type attacks, which only affected living beings.

“That’s because they’re not just puppets...... they’re puppets that have been augmented with life force,” Su Chen replied.

He chopped down with his hand as if slashing a blade, cutting open one of the puppets’ bodies. Inside, he could see a number of organs and a few strange mechanical components.

Su Chen’s analysis was correct. These puppets had been specially modified such that it was hard to say whether they were living organisms or puppets at this point.

An instant later, a shocking scene unfolded in front of them.

Everyone watched as the two puppet corpses began to quickly melt into slag, very quickly turning into a puddle of yellowish murky water. Only a pile of mechanical components and an Origin Crystal, which served as the power core, remained.

Su Chen picked up the Origin Crystal and inspected it. It was a high-tier one, harvested from at least a lord-class Demonic Beast.

It seemed that these puppets weren’t cheap to manufacture.

These puppets were expensive to make, yet they had such a massive flaw. No wonder they had never seen the light of day.

He tossed the Origin Crystal to Ji Ruoyu. “You can have this. It should be worth a considerable amount. I’ll keep all of this stuff for myself.”

He stowed away the puppet components, planning on taking them back with him to do some research on them.

Without those two dark-black puppets blocking their way, the group walked through the large room and were greeted by a massive open space.

They were in a massive research lab.

Upon walking in, they could see that glass vessels were scattered everywhere.

Making glass vessels during the time of the Arcana Kingdom was somewhat of a complex task, and they often went for a high price. However, this research lab was filled with them.

Inside the vessels were all kinds of biological specimens.

𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

There were cow heads, horse bodies, deer antlers, turtle shells, half-human-half-wolf specimens, eagles with the head of a horse, and many other bizarre abominations.

They saw a human with a handsome face and a clear, distended stomach. Beneath the translucent skin, they could see eight tentacle-like non-human lifeforms within the stomach.

They saw a Ferocious Race individual’s head separated from the rest of its body with countless strange tubes protruding from it. It looked like the Ferocious Race individual was being kept alive by these strange tubes; the individual’s face was contorted in pain.

They even found a Craftsman Race specimen. This race possessed an even weaker physique than the Arcana Race, but their hands were incredibly agile and precise. They were born with six fingers, and each finger could bend at an absurd angle, moving independently of one another. Now, however, a pair of wings unique to the Feathered Race were protruding from this Craftsman’s back. The massive wings enveloped his small body. It really was quite a shocking sight.

Without exception, these lifeforms had all died.

They had been dead for nearly thirty-six thousand years.

However, their bodies were preserved and hadn’t decayed because of the Origin Formations.

“This...... What is this?” Yue Longsha and Yu Mengnan asked in shock. As the two females, they were unable to take it any longer.

“It seems like they should be some kind of experiment,” Su Chen replied. He was no stranger to using live subjects for experimentation, but he couldn’t do things in such a cruel, callous manner such that the experiments could still scare people even after tens of thousands of years.

“What kinds of experiments need to be taken this far?” Duan Jiangshan was stunned as well.

“No matter what the original plan was, the master of this place already failed,” Su Chen replied.

“How do you know that?”

“No matter how brutal the experiments seem, there is often a mighty and grand ambition driving them. From the vessels, it seems like these experiments were for some kind of lifeform-altering study. It’s probably that they were trying to create a new race. From this standpoint, they may have been trying to determine the substance of life itself. Or perhaps they were trying to find some way of improving the Intelligent Races. But regardless of what their goal was, we haven’t seen any results in our world. From this, we can assume that their research didn’t succeed.”

Unlike Yue Longsha and the others, who only noticed the grotesque appearances of the specimens, Su Chen’s research experience helped him immediately grasp the crux of the issue.

“No matter how cruel the experiments, there is always a grand ambition behind them...... Is this how a mad scientist thinks?” Yue Longsha murmured as she glanced at Su Chen.

Within Su Chen’s research lab in the stone mountain, the Ferocious Race youths’ expressions were frozen in fear and anguish. Everyone had a deep, subconscious fear of Su Chen, the mad scientist, at this point.

At this point, Yue Longsha finally began to understand a little bit of what went on in Su Chen’s head.

Su Chen replied, “That’s not wrong. However, my experimental subjects are always those who wanted to kill me. To my enemies, I never show mercy.”

“Then remember those words. No matter what, don’t expand your circle of test subjects,” Yue Longsha said straightforwardly.

Su Chen laughed in response, “Of course. Don’t worry about it. I know not to lose sight of myself. No matter what, I will always abide by my own principles. These principles will serve as a kind of protection for me.”

He thought for a moment, then added, “In any case, it seems like this world has a shortage of everything but enemies anyways.”