svetikya Page 205
Page 205
Mark and Ran Bing stood side by side on the covered bridge, looking down at the brightly lit residential square below.
Today, Mark was dressed in simple combat gear and had a burly build, but his gaze toward Ran Bing was very gentle.
"It's windy here."
He wasn't good at sweet talk, but he quietly draped his coat over Ran Bing's shoulders.
Ran Bing turned her head to look at him, a hint of warmth spreading in her icy blue eyes, and she did not reject this clumsy act of care.
She leaned gently against Mark's arm and whispered, "Compared to the life I had in the lighthouse, this is what I want now, with you by my side..."
Mark tightened his arms around her slightly. "Don't worry, with the city lord here, we'll always be together."
Not far away, Mo Cheng and Erica, who had just finished training, happened to witness this scene.
"Tsk, look at the captain and vice-captain, they're truly the envy of everyone!"
Mo Cheng nudged Erica next to him with his elbow and winked.
Erica, unusually, didn't argue with him. Instead, she crossed her arms and looked at the couple cuddling on the covered bridge, a hint of envy in her eyes, and muttered, "Yeah...it's so nice."
Feixue, standing to the side, kept her head down and remained silent; she really didn't have much experience with matters of the heart.
Besides, many couples who hit it off got together and are now inseparable.
Bai Yuekui was being pursued by someone, but the suitor was beaten up on the spot and left in a sorry state.
Chen Yuan noticed this situation as well, which made him very angry. So he found Fanti and carried her back to her room.
An hour later, Chen Shen suddenly shivered, then walked out looking refreshed.
Chapter 286 Enhancing the Overall Strength of the Alliance
The Devouring Beast Plane, the Abyss Royal Court.
The sky here is a dark red that never fades, like a festering wound that has scabbed over; the blood-red clouds and crimson glow are so oppressive that they drive people mad.
The vast expanse consisted of countless thick, dragon-like veins covered with a viscous biological membrane, pulsating slowly and powerfully like the veins of a sleeping giant. The dim phosphorescence illuminated the charred black ground, making it resemble the visceral cavity of some kind of behemoth.
In the distance, those moving shadows, comparable to mountains, were all terrifying beings of imperial caliber.
In the center of this living land, on a throne made up of countless enormous, pale skeletons and still writhing flesh, sat a bud-headed humanoid monster languidly.
He exuded an unsettlingly powerful aura, as if he were deep in thought.
Suddenly, he seemed to sense the will of this dimension.
"Pfft."
The flower-bud-headed humanoid monster, with its slender body, suddenly stood up and knelt on one knee before the constantly writhing flesh throne.
He closed the dozens of blood-red eye tumors that parasitized the flower bud's head, which were constantly opening and closing, and said through mental communication: "My lord... the operation... has failed. Those humans... the technological weapons they possess have already surpassed the limits that their civilization can achieve. That steel behemoth... its power is comparable to a moving star core. The sixth-tier units we dispatched... no longer pose a real threat to them. Your subordinates deserve to die."
He finished speaking quickly and presented the scene of the devastating defeat on the Earth battlefield directly through the mental link.
After that... a brief silence fell.
It was as if the entire plane of existence had stopped pulsating for that instant.
Suddenly, a voice whose origin was indescribable resounded directly in the deepest part of the flower bud-headed monster's consciousness.
The sound did not travel through the air, but rather through a spiritual connection; the tone was intermittent.
"Your failure was... expected..."
The voice seems to be adapting to communication.
“I…have…devoured…half…of the life on this planet…”
The intermittent sound resumed:
"...Soon...soon...I will be able to...accumulate...enough power...to completely shatter...this fragile...dimensional boundary..."
The voice gradually became more coherent, and an indescribable, terrifying will, as if capable of dragging the entire spatial plane into the abyss, slowly awakened.
"...At that time...I will...be there in person..."
"...In one fell swoop...purify...them...devour...the last...life essence..."
"...Let that starry sky...become...my...warm bed..."
The sound gradually faded and eventually fell silent, but the oppressive feeling that permeated the entire plane suddenly increased by several orders of magnitude.
The flower-bud-headed humanoid monster remained in a half-kneeling position, its head bowed.
Only after that will completely subsided did he slowly raise his head. Dozens of eye tumors on the flower bud's head opened in unison, gazing in a certain void, as if they could penetrate the barrier of the plane to see that blue planet.
His slender, pale fingers unconsciously tightened, easily crushing a pulsating vine at his feet, causing viscous sap to spurt out.
……
Post-apocalyptic wasteland.
Under the protection of the Mechanical War God and with the continuous resource support from the lunar base, the joint research team led by Dr. Elena and Su Chan went through countless failures, adjustments and optimizations, and finally developed their own gene drug.
In the central laboratory of the Mechanical War God, Dr. Elena stood in front of a holographic projection, showing Chen Yuan and other high-ranking officials who had come to observe a drug that emitted a soft blue fluorescence.
"Through in-depth analysis of the essence of life, combined with the ASH evolutionary model and lunar gene editing technology, we have finally eliminated all uncontrollable mutation factors."
Elena's voice was filled with barely suppressed excitement, and Su Chan beside her nodded slightly in confirmation.
"What are you babbling about?" Chen Yuan nodded on the surface, but he couldn't understand a word of it.
"This Dawn V gene serum has reached the theoretical limit that our current civilization's technology can reach."
Elena continued, "This medicine has no side effects. It can effectively stimulate human genetic potential, greatly enhance cell activity and nerve reaction speed, and has a certain probability of awakening abilities and increasing the total amount of life essence. Apart from the energy shock during the injection process causing some pain, the probability of death from failure is only 1%."
Chen Yuan picked up the potion, sensing the stable life energy it contained, and a glint of light flashed in his eyes: "What are the specific effects, and who is it suitable for? What about people with special constitutions?"
"The effect is significant. It is expected to allow peak fourth-tier cultivators to stably break through to the fifth tier, and give fifth-tier cultivators a high probability of breaking through to the sixth tier, but..."
Elena pushed up her glasses, a hint of regret in her eyes. "It only works on those at the peak of the fifth rank and below. Above the fifth rank, the effect is negligible. The barrier of the sixth rank involves a deeper level of power, which cannot be broken through by simply stimulating life energy."
"enough!"
Chen Yuan waved his hand and said, "Immediately conduct repeated safety tests. Once the tests are passed, it will be given priority for use by all fourth and fifth-tier warriors."
Orders were issued quickly.
In no time, long queues formed in the medical area of the Mechanical War God.
Most of the soldiers received the injections one by one, filled with anticipation and a touch of nervousness.
Just as Elena had described, the process was accompanied by the throbbing pain of energy washing over the meridians, and many people screamed in agony, but no one backed down.
When the pain subsided, many members at the peak of the fourth tier, such as veteran core members like Mo Cheng, Fei Xue, and Erica, as well as the backbone officers of Jiu Chuan and the Coastal Alliance, almost all successfully advanced to the fifth tier.
Most of the members who were originally in the early or middle stages of the fifth rank, such as Fanti and Sengge, have broken through to the peak of the fifth rank, and many have even directly stepped into the threshold of the sixth rank.
It mainly depends on individual potential. Some people break through directly from the early stage of the fifth rank to the peak of the fifth rank, while others only advance one small realm.
After this incident, the number of fifth-tier combatants in the entire alliance more than doubled, and the number of sixth-tier combatants also increased by nearly seven, resulting in an explosive growth in overall strength.
Seeing the significant improvement in the combat strength of his mid-to-upper-level subordinates, Chen Yuan felt gratified. He then turned his gaze to the core members whose strength had already reached the sixth rank: Mark, Ran Bing, Cang Ming, and others...
They are the backbone of the Shadow Order, but their sixth-tier strength is currently not enough to impress anyone.
After thinking for a long time, Chen Yuan brought up the system interface, looked at the remaining 2 million+ survival points, and his eyes sharpened.
"Chen Xin, use all your points to exchange for a suitable gene potion that can upgrade me from rank 6 to rank 7."
"Brother, screening in progress... Screening complete, gene mutation drug, exchange price this time: 25000000 points/dose."
Twenty-five million per bottle? Chen Yuan frowned. The price had changed; at present, it was only enough to exchange for eight bottles.
He took a deep breath. The special shop hadn't updated with any new perfect-grade gene potions, so he could only buy them directly from the system shop, but the price was too high.
"Exchange for 8." Chen Yuan almost gritted his teeth as he gave the order.
[Ding! 20000000 Survival Points consumed, successfully exchanged for 8 Gene Evolution Potions. Remaining Points: 855300.]
Almost everything is about to be wiped out.
After obtaining the gene evolution potion, Chen Yuan considered it carefully and gave it to the eight people who needed it most.
Chapter 287 Before the Storm
The lucky ones who ultimately got this opportunity—Charles, Mark, Sal, Vera, Jock, Cangming, Xuanzhong, and Lingye—were injected with the gene evolution potion and all advanced to the early stage of the seventh rank.
With this, the Human Alliance's top combat power has been completely updated:
There are 16 seventh-level elders in total.
Late Stage 7: Xuanyuan Jing, serving as the Grand Elder of the Shadow Society.
Late Stage 7: Jinghui, serving as the Second Elder of the Shadow Society.
Late Stage 7: Chen Yuan, whose identity is the Lord of Shadows, is assessed as capable of fighting against a peak Stage 7 fighter thanks to his Nano Suit Type II and dual abilities.
Mid-stage Rank 7: Chen Hao, serving as the Third Elder of the Shadow Society.
Bai Yuekui, with the most solid foundation, was the only one who broke through to the early stage of the seventh rank by relying on his own potential and partly on the aftereffects of the perfect-grade gene serum he had previously injected. He then served as the fourth elder of the Shadow Society.
Early Stage 7: Gravekeeper, serving as the Fifth Elder of the Shadow Society.
Early Stage 7: Mark, serving as the Sixth Elder of the Shadow Society.
Early Stage of Seventh Rank: Shi Potian, serving as the Seventh Elder of the Shadow Society.
Early Stage 7: Cangming, serving as the Eighth Elder of the Shadow Society.
Early Stage 7: Ling Ye, serving as the Ninth Elder of the Shadow Society.
Early Stage 7: Barton, serving as one of the ten elders of the Shadow Order.
Early Stage 7: Charles, serving as the eleventh elder of the Shadow Order.
Early Stage 7: Thrall, serving as one of the twelve elders of the Shadow Order.
Early Stage 7: Vera, serving as one of the thirteen elders of the Shadow Order.
Early Stage 7: Jock, serving as the Fourteenth Elder of the Shadow Society.
Early Stage 7: Xuan Zhong, serving as the fifteenth elder of the Shadow Society.