"Does it hurt?"
Pei Du's body stiffened slightly, and then he forced out an almost cruel sneer, grabbing her wrist that was touching the wound. His force was not strong, but it was unquestionable: "This injury won't kill you." He turned to look at the dim crown on her head, "What about you? How does it feel to be betrayed by your own 'child'?" His tone was full of a hint of cold mockery, but it seemed as if he was confirming her condition.
Xu Shuangyao's eyes dimmed instantly, and bitterness spread across her tongue. "...It hurts," she whispered, her voice so soft it resembled a sigh. "It hurts more than...any physical injury." The pain of being completely rejected by the creation she had poured her heart and soul into, the pain of shattered faith, penetrated deep into her bones.
A brief silence permeated the dark, damp pipes, filled only by the slow gurgling of sewage and the distant, muffled explosions amplified by the twisting pipes. The crimson countdown numbers hung in the depths of my consciousness, beating coldly:
98:47:19… 98:47:18…
At that moment, Xu Shuangyao's gaze stumbled over Pei Du's right hand, which was gripping her wrist tightly. The wound on that hand, left by the previous attack on the Fungus Corpse Warlord, had turned pale in the sewage, the flesh tumbling. However, her pupils suddenly constricted!
At the edge of the wound, beneath the skin, faintly visible were a few extremely fine, dark red lines like capillaries! The color of the lines... the winding shape...
They are exactly the same as the cultured tissue samples in her laboratory that have been contaminated by the core of the main fungus and are undergoing irreversible mutations!
"Your hand!" Xu Shuangyao screamed in shock, violently breaking free from Pei Du's grasp. Ignoring the icy cold of the sewage, she lifted his injured right hand and brought it close to her. Under the faint phosphorescent light of the pipe wall, a few dark red lines appeared faintly between the pale, curled flesh, pulsing slightly like a living thing, revealing a terrifyingly strange aura.
The Crown of Thorns… the power of the Fungus Lord… Pei Du forcibly mobilized the power of the crown to fight, and the violent force was eroding his body! Accelerating his transformation!
Pei Du saw it too. He silently stared at the dark red lines on his hand, like the mark of a curse. His face was expressionless, only a hint of cold understanding flashed through his eyes. He had long known the price.
Xu Shuangyao raised her head, tears streaming down her face without warning, mixing with the dirty water and blood. She looked at the crown of thorns on Pei Du's forehead, gleaming with a faint crimson glow, and her voice broke with despair. "It's eating you... Pei Du... the crown I made... it's eating you!"
A huge sense of guilt and fear instantly gripped her. She had forged this "key" with her own hands. It was she who had dragged Pei Du into this deadly vortex! It was she... who was hastening his destruction!
Pei Du looked at her tear-stained face. That face, usually calm and even somewhat indifferent, now contained only helpless despair and bottomless pain. He was silent for a few seconds, then suddenly reached out his curse-marked, bloodstained hand and used his fingertips to roughly, almost violently, wipe away the tears and blood from her cheek. His movements were stiff, yet carried an unmistakable strength.
"Why are you crying?" His voice was still hoarse, but less cold than before, with a hint of almost cruel calmness. "Let it eat."
He paused, his gaze piercing the thick darkness of the pipe, as if he saw the ultimate enemy. The corners of his mouth slowly curled up into an almost ferocious arc:
"After you eat me, I'll gnaw on its bones!"
The cold declaration echoed in the polluted air, carrying with it a kind of madness and... commitment to mutual destruction.
Xu Shuangyao's tears stopped flowing. She stared blankly at the burning, almost destructive light in Pei Du's eyes. It wasn't a consolation, it was a declaration. It was the fangs of a beast cornered, baring at the hunter.
Just then—
“Buzz!”
An invisible, deep vibration, as if emanating from the depths of the earth, penetrated the thick pipe wall without warning, instantly engulfing the two men! It was stronger than any before! Rusty iron filings and slippery moss rustled down the pipe wall. Simultaneously, the countdown numbers hovering in the depths of their consciousness suddenly flickered and distorted wildly!
00:00:05… 00:00:04… 00:00:03…
Reset to zero!
The piercing, soul-shattering alarm sounded not from the outside world, but exploded directly from the depths of their brains! It was not a sound, but a pure spiritual scream! It was like billions of steel needles piercing their brains at the same time!
"Ah--!" Xu Shuangyao and Pei Du screamed in pain at the same time, hugging their heads tightly, feeling that their entire skulls were about to explode at this horrific scream!
Even more terrifying changes are coming!
The crowns of thorns atop their heads, those two crowns shimmering with a faint, dark red glow, suddenly erupted with an unprecedented, dazzling crimson light, like the core of the sun! The light instantly engulfed everything within the pipe! The light wasn't static; instead, it violently squirmed and expanded like a living thing! The metal thorns wrapped around the crowns seemed to come alive, twisting and extending madly!
“Click… click…”
A teeth-grinding sound of metal tearing was heard!
Under their horrified gazes, the two previously separate crowns of thorns, enveloped in a crimson glow, violently collided and fused together like two lumps of molten lava! Countless thorny vines entwined and twisted frantically, emitting a heart-pounding "crunching" sound, as if forging the ultimate torture instrument!
An irresistible huge suction force derived from the instinct of life burst out from the fused crown!
"No——!" Xu Shuangyao only had time to let out a half-desperate scream before her body was pulled uncontrollably by the force and slammed into Pei Du!
Pei Du was equally unable to resist. The two of them were as if grasped tightly by an invisible giant hand, and they suddenly collided face to face!
At the moment their bodies collided——
“Puff! Puff!”
The fusion completed, transforming into a larger, thorn-wrapped, twisted, and ferocious twin crowns like venomous snakes, suddenly descended! At the base of the crowns, dozens of dark red thorns, sharp as serpent fangs, pierced the skin at the back of their necks without hindrance and pierced their spines fiercely!
“Ughh ...
Indescribable pain! Beyond the limits of the flesh! It was the excruciating agony of having one's soul torn apart, forcibly penetrated, and shoved into a scalding iron! The two screams overlapped agonizingly in the crimson-lit tube! Their bodies spasmed and convulsed violently from the unbearable pain, as if pierced by a high-voltage current!
Pei Du felt his eyes turn bloodshot and his consciousness on the verge of shattering in a torrent of intense pain. He felt his consciousness being forcibly dragged and sinking...
Sinking into a cold, liquid darkness...
He "saw"...
A huge cylindrical culture chamber with flashing blue indicator lights, immersed in ice-cold life-support fluid.
In the incubator, a naked "person" was suspended.
That face… pale, young, eyes closed, as peaceful as if in deep sleep…
It was...himself!
Pei Du!
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