Chapter 276: At a Loss
“Crack—”
“Crackle, crackle, crackle—”
As the golden insect swarm descended upon the giant, cylindrical Flesh and Blood Pillar from all directions, the human-headed bats surrounding it exploded one after another, creating a purplish-red rain of blood around the pillar.
But Lin Jiayao’s golden flying insects, seemingly oblivious to the bloody rain, plunged straight into it.
Ten thousand meters above, Lin Jiayao’s golden right eye glowed brightly as she focused all her mental power.
In her vision, each flying insect, while maintaining its forward trajectory, subtly adjusted its movements, dodging the countless drops of poisonous blood raining down from above and in front.
It was like simultaneously playing a bullet hell game with thousands of flying insects, each insect having only one life.
Through her previous targeted practice, Lin Jiayao had honed her micro-control of the flying insects to this level.
“Buzz——”
After passing through the poisonous blood zone, almost all the golden flying insects glowed brightly, the combined buzzing shattering the windows of nearby buildings.
The golden flying insects, reduced to blurs, streaked towards the giant fleshy pillar, leaving golden trails in their wake.
“Thud—”
“Gurgle—”
The fleshy pillar, which had been swelling since the beginning, abruptly burst open under this violent assault.
Torrents of pus and blood gushed out like a waterfall, engulfing most of the golden flying insects.
Lin Jiayao quickly withdrew the remaining insects, raising them to a lower altitude of about two hundred meters.
Almost the instant they were bathed in the poisonous blood, Lin Jiayao lost control of those golden flying insects, as if the data stored on a computer had been deleted without a trace.
The giant fleshy pillar, which had swelled to almost one hundred and fifty meters from its initial one hundred, rapidly contracted as it spewed poisonous blood, like a punctured water balloon.
It was then that Lin Jiayao finally realized why this giant fleshy pillar had seemed so familiar.
She now remembered what it resembled.
A giant version of those densely packed egg sacs on the ground—a massive, purplish-black, fleshy egg.
But now, as the pus and blood within the giant egg drained, its purplish-red outer skin deflated.
Like a large curtain draped over a sculpture, the shape beneath could be vaguely discerned.
It seemed to be a hundred-meter-tall monster… its top rounded, its body elongated, but the details were obscured by the outer skin.
Just as Lin Jiayao controlled the golden flying insects, wanting to get a closer look, she suddenly sensed a strange vibration.
One of the golden flying insects’ vision locked onto something small emerging from the deflated fleshy skin.
It was a golden flying insect, but with deep purple patterns.
After crawling out of the stacked flesh and skin through the opening, the flying insect gently vibrated its wings, then raised its head and looked towards the swarm above.
Infected?
“Buzz——”
The infected flying insect, with a speed almost matching the golden flying insects, flew towards the golden swarm in the sky, reaching them in an instant.
To avoid contact, Lin Jiayao quickly dispersed the golden flying insects, but the infected insect wasn’t targeting them.
It was heading straight for Lin Jiayao, ten thousand meters above.
“Buzz——”
Countless infected flying insects crawled out of the fleshy skin and swarmed towards Lin Jiayao, their wings buzzing.
The insects that had been under Lin Jiayao’s control just moments ago, upon contact with the infected blood, instantly turned against her.
Those were insects created by the A-rank Goldie.
Could even A-rank insects be infected?
Lin Jiayao frowned slightly, a sense of unease settling in.
An A-rank specializing in infection? This was terrifying… There seemed to be no effective countermeasure.
Even sending Mask over might be useless. The enemy might not even have bones, and the infection seemed effective even against skeletal zombies.
Fortunately, she was currently controlling Goldie. Even if infected, the system would automatically recycle the body when the descend time ended. She wasn’t too worried about Goldie.
Now, she just needed to figure out how to deal with the golden flying insects swarming towards her.
They seemed to be a thousand meters away, but Lin Jiayao only had seconds to react.
Running was out of the question; she knew how fast her own flying insects were.
Under Lin Jiayao’s control, Goldie’s skin began to pulsate, her golden hair turning black.
A dark shadow rapidly spread across her body, distorting her form.
The insect wings behind Lin Jiayao dissolved into black light, and, having lost her wings, she plummeted from the sky towards the swarm.
And below, besides the infected insects flying towards her, the fleshy curtain covering the unknown monster was splitting open.
“Whoosh—”
The infected insects rapidly closed in on Lin Jiayao with a sharp whistling sound, but as they approached, their rapidly vibrating wings froze, until they were completely immobile.
They fell from the sky like dead insects, plummeting towards the ground along with Lin Jiayao.
Even when infected, the flying insects could only be controlled by mental power, and Goldie’s second form could sever the connection between the flying insects and the monster below.
With the connection severed, the flying insects were just empty shells. Even infected, they couldn’t harm Lin Jiayao.
The moment Lin Jiayao severed the connection, the monster covered by the fleshy curtain on the ground seemed to sense something and began to struggle frantically.
It seemed to have seen Goldie’s main body through the flying insects’ vision, which triggered its agitation.
“Rip—”
The entire fleshy curtain was torn open from the center, sliding down and landing heavily on the pus below.
Lin Jiayao, plummeting from the sky, finally saw the monster clearly through the golden flying insects circling above it.
This monster… Lin Jiayao couldn’t find the words to describe this blood crystal.
This hundred-meter-tall, A-rank blood crystal had a human-like head, neck, and shoulders, smooth and pale white, like polished marble.
It didn’t move, just stood there like a giant statue.
But from the collarbone down, its body defied any human comparison.
Its massive torso was oval-shaped, with deep purple, layered, tumor-covered frills like those of an abalone.
Its back was covered in rough, hard, purplish-red skin, but its front was smooth, white, fleshy red, the flesh everted, revealing a seventy-meter-long fissure in the center.
Even its head had very feminine features—long hair formed from layers of flesh.
From any angle, this torso and head, lacking arms and legs, resembling a fleshy Iron Maiden, showed no signs of offensive capabilities.
It didn’t even have teeth.
The head, like a white marble sculpture, slowly lifted with a “crack, crack” sound. Its face was also sculpted into a human-like shape, though its eyes lacked pupils.
And it wore a Mona Lisa-like smile, silently watching the insect swarm in the sky and Lin Jiayao falling towards it.
It didn’t attack, but simply raised its body slightly, its glistening red flesh and the fissure within facing Lin Jiayao, as if opening its arms for an embrace.
No… something was wrong.
Having slaughtered countless blood crystals, Lin Jiayao knew that when a powerful blood crystal appeared harmless, it simply meant she hadn’t discovered its abilities yet.
A torso lacking offensive capabilities only meant it wasn’t a blood crystal specializing in close combat.
The lack of mental interference or attacks didn’t mean it had no way to counter her.
Lin Jiayao was now only three thousand meters away from the fleshy Iron Maiden below, but she no longer intended to get closer for a mental attack. Instead, she spread her wings and hovered in mid-air.
Lin Jiayao’s mind raced, reviewing all the abilities she had encountered and the events that had transpired.
Egg sacs, pus, flesh pillars, fleshy Iron Maiden, incubation… incubation?
An ability she had seen in the retain evolution interface before came to mind.
[Reproductive Pheromones Lv.1].
This was an ability Lin Jiayao had chosen before, for lack of better options.
This ability, which Lin Jiayao considered utterly useless, with the sole function of stimulating sexual desire, was obtained from a Water Monkey zombie that hatched from an underwater egg sac.
And the egg sacs that hatched the Water Monkeys in the Ganges River, the ones used as food by the lower classes of India, were very similar in appearance to the egg sacs created by the zombie in front of her… their abilities shared the same origin.
Reproduction, proliferation.
These two words were the key to the A-rank’s evolutionary ability.
When she obtained that ability, it was only blue.
If the Water Monkey zombie and the A-rank blood crystal in front of her shared the same origin… then its ability must be an incredibly enhanced version of the Water Monkey zombie’s.
Approaching it rashly might expose her to its pheromones, turning her into a mindless breeding machine.
Although her powerful mental strength could resist the pheromones’ influence, they would still disrupt her judgment and increase her mental consumption.
And Lin Jiayao didn’t know the range of its pheromone release—this wasn’t something she could avoid by simply holding her breath.
Because…
Goldie was also a zombie that used pheromones.
The main method Hive Zombies used to control other zombies was synergistic pheromones, and Goldie was particularly adept at this. So, Lin Jiayao knew better than anyone the effects of pheromones on blood crystals.
This was a real hot potato… It was fortunate that Goldie had evolved to A-rank first. If it were A4, she would probably have to use a massive amount of Blood Crystals for a long-range bombardment.
Lin Jiayao ascended, propelled by her wings. At the same time, she controlled the golden flying insects circling the fleshy Iron Maiden, directing them closer.
The flying insects weren’t living creatures. Their connection to Goldie was purely mental. Pheromones wouldn’t affect these “weapons.”
As they descended, the golden insect swarm simultaneously shed their golden carapace plates, revealing the spiral patterns on their abdomens.
Blood Crystal Synergist.
The swarm released a large amount of Blood Crystal Synergist. This invisible pheromone slowly diffused, quickly reaching the giant recipient.
The moment it came into contact with the Blood Crystal Synergist, the marble-like head of the fleshy Iron Maiden trembled violently, then raised its head even higher.
Although it couldn’t make any expressions, it seemed to be reveling in the surrounding Blood Crystal Synergist, its raised head and violently twisting torso betraying its pleasure.
“Stop.”
After the Blood Crystal Synergist enveloped the entire fleshy Iron Maiden, Lin Jiayao issued the first, simplest command.
The fleshy Iron Maiden’s body continued to writhe and contract, seemingly unaffected.
Lin Jiayao frowned. Her Blood Crystal Synergist seemed to have no effect on the other party. This was the first time she had encountered this.
Even when Goldie was still D-rank, fighting against the much stronger Corn Cob, using pheromones could still interfere with it.
Damn… the other party was simply acting on instinct, not a blood crystal that could be reasoned with. She couldn’t touch it, couldn’t get close, and if she used long-range attacks…
Lin Jiayao thought of the super infection that had almost spread throughout half of India and abandoned the idea of wearing it down.
Unless she could burn hundreds of Blood Crystals, all used to release Annihilation Pupils, otherwise, if she couldn’t kill it in one go, her attacks wouldn’t even be as fast as its recovery.
This was definitely the most difficult opponent Lin Jiayao had ever encountered.
The other party had no intelligence and definitely couldn’t be turned from enemy to friend like the Eyeball Cube. But if she left it alone, the super infection would cause a huge loss of Blood Crystals.
She couldn’t get close, couldn’t wear it down, and couldn’t leave it alone. It was like a malignant tumor rooted in the earth, corrupting the land with its pus and blood…
No, wait.
From a certain perspective, wasn’t it just frantically hoarding Blood Crystals, accumulating power for its final evolution?
This was her “competitor.”
Lin Jiayao looked up at the star-studded sky.
Facing such a disgusting opponent, she seemed to be at a loss.
