Chapter 195: Insufficient Genetic Soul, Darkness Lurks (I)

Just when Xia Youhui and the others had been shocked by the previously ferocious and brutal mutated beast, it had been swiftly slain in just two powerful strikes.

Chen Chu, standing at the edge of the large pit, appeared incredibly cool, but in reality, he was struggling to control his trembling legs, lest it would mar his current charismatic image. At the same time, he was also somewhat surprised by the power from activating the Elephant Fury Rune this time.

After absorbing the high-quality dragon essence and breaking through to the Fourth Heavenly Realm, he had gained the ability to materialize his physical strength, enabling him to fuse it with his true power for a more explosive combat capability. Combined with a Physique attribute that broke through 1,000, it gave his physical body a majestic vitality comparable to a colossal beast.

When the Elephant Fury Rune burned his vitality and true power, the amplification of muscle strength caused by the explosive energy exceeded the rune’s tenfold limit. It wasn’t just a larger increase; the energy underwent a transformation, becoming a raging blood flame with a destructive power that could annihilate everything.

However, with every gain came a loss. Due to the explosive power exceeding the rune’s limit, Chen Chu hadn’t had any fine control over it. In just a few breaths, his vitality had become severely depleted, with most of it getting wasted in that blazing blood flame.

It had been like a mountain torrent; once it erupted, it couldn’t be stopped. Although he had promptly dispelled the rune when he realized something was amiss, it was still going to take at least half a day to recover the depleted vitality.

This was from the rune being activated for only a few moments. If it had burned for ten minutes, like when he had slain the late-stage Blood Emissary in the Fourth Heavenly Realm, even he would have likely ended up severely injured afterward, weakened for half a month.

Of course, Xia Youhui and the others were naturally unaware of all of this.

"It's finally over." Xia Youhui dropped his heavy shield and sat panting on the ground next to the pile of level 3 mutated beasts. Having faced several frontal attacks, including from one beast at level 4, he had struggled a bit; after all, his true power was limited.

Yuan Chenghuang walked over, holding his waist in pain. "Once I get into the Fourth Heavenly Realm, I need to refine a set of transcendent battle armor first."

On his lower back, the battle armor’s sturdy alloy had twisted and deformed. If it hadn’t been for the coverage of true power at the time, it likely would have burst directly.

While Chen Chu could slaughter level 3 and 4 mutated beasts as if they were ordinary chickens, that was due to his combat power far exceeding that of Yuan Chenghuang and the others. Since they were still only in the Third Heavenly Realm, each blow from these mutated beasts was serious; if any of these beasts had managed to bite them with their ferocious mouths, it would have resulted in severe injury, if not death.

Li Meng and Liu Feng also staggered over, followed by Bai Mu, who had intercepted the beasts from a distance, and Luo Fei, who had wielded her sniper cannon to take down several beasts.

On the other end of the valley, after catching his breath, Chen Chu slowly approached Li Hao. Although he was weakened in vitality, his posture remained upright. "How are you holding up?"

The lacerations on Li Hao's body were no longer bleeding, but they were still quite severe. He shook his head slightly in response. "I'm fine. Just exhausted vitality and some internal injuries, but not fatal."

"Do you have any healing resources?" Chen Chu asked.

Li Hao shook his head, his face filled with madness. "No, I don’t need them now. The entire point of the Bull Demon Battle Body is that the more you fight, the stronger you become, and the more severe the injuries sustained in each battle, the greater the enhancement to the Battle Body after recovery. That's the essence of the Bull Demon Battle Body's motto: 'Go mad or perish.'"

Chen Chu paused slightly, surprised by the ferocity. "So you intentionally clashed head-on with that Blood Armored Beast King earlier?"

Li Hao nodded. "Yes, but this king beast's strength far exceeded that of the Golden-Backed Rampage Ape. Even if I had wanted to hold back, I wouldn’t have been able to dodge, so I had to fight."

"Weren't you afraid that I would get here too late and find you dead?"

This guy is completely insane.

Chen Chu shook his head.

Li Hao grinned. "But you did come."

"...Keep doing this and you’re going to end up dead in battle one day," Chen Chu said with a slight pause.

Li Hao shook his head, indifferent. "It doesn't matter. I knew the consequences when I chose the Bull Demon Battle Body over the Strong Bull King Battle Body. If you want to push your limits, enhance your potential, and continuously increase your combat power, you have to pay the price. It's an unavoidable rule."

No wonder this guy progressed so quickly.

Chen Chu admitted to himself that he couldn't achieve such madness. While he wasn't lacking in adventurous spirit, he still tended to be more cautious most of the time.

Among this eight-person team, Li Hao was too injured to exert himself, and while Luo Fei was also in the Third Heavenly Realm, her martial art only doubled her strength, so she couldn’t move even one of the level 3 scaled mutated beasts. As such, it fell on Chen Chu and the others to start moving the carcasses, as Li Hao rested and Luo Fei stood guard.

Li Meng and Yuan Chenghuang stood before the body of the level 4 beast whose head had been blasted open, as Li Meng clicked his tongue. "Chen Chu's strength is becoming more and more terrifying."

Yuan Chenghuang nodded. "Exactly. He seems to have awakened some kind of physical ability."

As friends who had been cultivating together all this time, they had long noticed Chen Chu's abnormality. That formidable physique couldn't possibly be cultivated through martial arts alone.

Even the Dragon Elephant Tyrant Body he practiced now, which was one of the strongest high-level martial arts, couldn't achieve that. Although it was renowned for its strength and defense, there was still a limit to its tempering and transformation of the cultivator's physique, as it couldn’t enhance speed or reaction time.

If it was truly able to create such an exaggerated increase in combat power, it wouldn't be a mere high-level martial art, but a top-level bloodline secret art.

So, similar to Xia Youhui's initial speculation, everyone guessed that Chen Chu must have awakened some powerful physical ability, including the explosive move he had just displayed earlier.

No one could be bothered to investigate this issue further, however; everyone had their own secrets, after all. This included the school authorities, who were surprised but didn't pay much attention afterward. What they did do was add an additional entry for a high-level ability called 'Physical Aspect' to his personal file.

Chen Chu, Liu Feng, and the others lined up the carcasses of the five level 4 and two level 5 beasts side by side, placing four anti-gravity disks under each body. Then, they piled up over ten level 3 mutated beasts, stacking two bodies on top of the higher level ones. The carcass of the mutated king beast suddenly became much heavier.

In addition to this, they had also obtained a level 3 Life Crystal, which Chen Chu had unabashedly accepted.

Next, they had to wait for Li Hao's injuries to heal, as they didn't have enough manpower to move the corpses at the moment.

"Oh my god, I'm so tired. Why do these mutated creatures have to be so big?" Xia Youhui rubbed his shoulders and couldn't help but complain.

Bai Mu leaned against the scales of one beast in a lazy fashion as he recovered his strength, saying, "Of course, it's because they absorb the free-floating transcendent energy."

Liu Feng stroked his chin and pondered, "Speaking of which, I did notice something."

Chen Chu walked over. "What did you notice?"

Liu Feng said solemnly, "Haven't you all noticed that almost all mutated creatures are vertebrates? Have you seen any insects?"

"

Tch,

I thought it was some major discovery," Xia Youhui said.

Chen Chu couldn't help but smile. "This issue’s been researched before. The energy that flows in from the mythical world is very special. It can make organisms evolve transcendently and become larger, and even evolve different forms.

"Compared to other animals, insects have weaker genetic structures that are too extreme to accommodate enlargement. Their weak spirits and souls also can’t bear the transcendent energy.

"So, although insects have also undergone mutations over the years, they generally stop growing after reaching about ten times their original size, which just enriches the post-mutation food chain."

"But wait, if transcendent energy can make things grow larger, why haven't humans grown bigger?" Li Meng wondered.

"This issue’s also been explained. It seems that, when human bodies evolve, subconscious restraints that aren’t present in other animals prevent sudden mutations.

"We can also practice and independently control the direction of our evolution, like how our physique undergoes directional changes after absorbing mutated beast essence. So, while humans are also evolving, they’re taking a different path.

"Of course, these things aren’t absolute. For example, Li Hao’s martial art involves enlargement, and research has shown that as some insects mutate from generation to generation, they are actually evolving and perfecting themselves. It's possible that in another ten or twenty years, some dangerous mutated creatures of the insect category will appear."

Even Chen Chu couldn't help but show a serious expression on his face at this point.

Were insects powerful? Not really; many of them could be easily crushed with just one step. However, if they were enlarged to the size of humans, and their body structure and strength were simultaneously increased, they would become even more lethal predators than lions and tigers.

This could be seen from the Sword Armored Beast after its third evolution. After absorbing, integrating, and optimizing the advantages of three types of insects, it had been invincible at the same level at the time, possessing two top-level and one high-level abilities.

Of course, the absurdity of the avatar's transformation was due to its unique evolution-related ability, so not every insect that evolved would gain top-level talents. Even so, the hypothetical future Chen Chu described made everyone's expression serious.

If the current known mutations were already so strong, what if all the insects in the world evolved into mutated beasts?