Chapter 277: A Lowbrow Plot
Lin Jiayao, maintaining her second form, felt the blood crystals within her rapidly burning away.
She couldn’t maintain this state indefinitely and had to find a way to deal with the enemy before her Blood Crystals were completely depleted.
Briefly switching her consciousness, Lin Jiayao stopped her mycelium clone, which was flying towards Myanmar, and had it land on a highway with the Black Stem Fungus egg.
It was just a descended body anyway… she might as well just go all out against the enemy.
Even if she lost, she wouldn’t lose anything substantial, just a large amount of mental power.
If she won, she would eliminate a threat. If she lost and was infected, she would lose control of the descended Goldie.
As for how to retrieve Goldie’s body, that was the system’s problem, not hers.
Having decided on a self-destructive, all-out attack, Lin Jiayao took a deep breath and switched her consciousness back, regaining control of the descended Goldie.
Vibrating her black wings, Lin Jiayao stopped her ascent and focused her gaze on the disgusting Flesh and Blood Iron Maiden below.
“Buzz——”
Her wings beating rapidly, Lin Jiayao, controlling the descended Goldie, swooped down.
The golden flying insects below, under Lin Jiayao’s control, formed an arrowhead formation, charging towards the center of the monster, aiming for the fissure in its center.
“Shing—”
The golden arrow of light pierced into the fissure. Each flying insect, the moment it was about to make contact, was released from Lin Jiayao’s control, relying solely on its momentum to penetrate the flesh.
This time, Lin Jiayao’s attack was effective. Under the impact of hundreds of flying insects, a large amount of blood crystal liquid sprayed from the Flesh and Blood Iron Maiden.
There seemed to be no toxins in the crimson flesh around the fissure. The splattered liquid was normal blood crystal liquid, even the kind that the subsequent flying insects could absorb.
Just as Lin Jiayao was puzzled, Goldie’s rapidly descending body was already within five hundred meters of the Flesh and Blood Iron Maiden.
Although she wasn’t breathing, Lin Jiayao seemed to smell a strange fragrance. The moment she sensed the “scent,” her vision went black.
Without even a moment of mental resistance, Lin Jiayao’s consciousness was pulled back to her main body.
What was going on?
Lin Jiayao, lying on the bed, abruptly opened her eyes and looked at the descend interface in the upper left corner in disbelief.
She could still see Goldie’s perspective, as if the switch in consciousness was just a momentary lapse on her part.
Lin Jiayao quickly switched her consciousness back to Goldie. Goldie had already collided head-on with the Flesh and Blood Iron Maiden’s raised head, smashing into its eyeball.
“Boom—”
At the last moment, Lin Jiayao adjusted her angle of descent, hitting the eyeball sideways, creating a loud crash, and avoiding a head-first collision.
The brief loss of control just now must have been caused by the pheromones. Even now, Lin Jiayao could still smell the lingering “fragrance” around her.
As for why she suddenly regained control, it was probably because the enemy had triggered Goldie’s passive Mental Armor, suffering a powerful backlash.
Lin Jiayao pushed off with her right leg, using her hands to propel herself away, and vibrated her wings to stabilize herself in mid-air.
Now, less than two meters away from the Flesh and Blood Iron Maiden, Lin Jiayao could even see the purplish veins beneath its smooth, white, sculpture-like skin.
But it was completely motionless.
Its body was frozen, as if petrified.
Even after Goldie had smashed into its eyeball, it hadn’t reacted.
Lin Jiayao knew her gamble had paid off.
The enemy had no way to counter Goldie’s mental attack.
As long as Goldie broke through its outer pheromone defenses and got close, with the combined effects of her second form’s mental pollution and Mental Armor’s counterattack at close range, it had no way to fight back.
Other blood crystals were always at a disadvantage against mind-control type blood crystals of the same level, and this hadn’t changed even at A-rank.
As long as Lin Jiayao had enough Blood Crystals to maintain her second form, the enemy couldn’t turn the tables.
“Buzz——”
A swarm of golden flying insects, emerging from Goldie’s shadow-shrouded body, buzzed and pounced on the exposed flesh of the Flesh and Blood Iron Maiden, frantically biting and gnawing.
Soon, almost all the exposed flesh of the monster was covered with layers of golden flying insects, the “crunch, crunch” of their chewing filling the air.
Wave after wave of flying insects were released, and wave after wave of flying insects, laden with blood crystal liquid, returned to Lin Jiayao’s body, continuously replenishing her consumption.
This highly efficient devouring not only offset the cost of maintaining her second form, but even generated a surplus.
Lin Jiayao had some of the flying insects store the excess blood crystal liquid in their abdomens. This liquid would be released if the connection was severed or the insects were destroyed.
After all, no matter how much the descended body devoured, it would eventually be given to the system. She wouldn’t let the system have it for free.
At least after it condensed into Blood Crystals on the ground, Lin Jiayao could still find a chance to retrieve them.
The devouring of the Flesh and Blood Iron Maiden was proceeding smoothly. It didn’t seem to notice its life force draining away, remaining motionless, passively drawing pus from below to repair itself.
Just as Lin Jiayao thought this extermination of an A-rank would continue without a hitch, the thing she least wanted to see happened.
The surroundings changed.
At some point, Lin Jiayao had been surrounded by pink light spots, seemingly emanating from the fissure in the Flesh and Blood Iron Maiden’s center, but she hadn’t noticed them until they reached her.
The flying insects’ vision didn’t register these things at all.
Her instincts screamed danger, but Lin Jiayao’s body was paralyzed, even her wings frozen.
She could only watch as the still-working golden flying insects, and her own body, fell from the sky, sliding down the Flesh and Blood Iron Maiden, and landing in the purplish-red mucus on the ground.
As she slid past the giant fissure in the Flesh and Blood Iron Maiden’s center, Lin Jiayao saw the flesh on its left side curve slightly, the entire fissure bending into a “)” shape, like a giant, grotesque smile.
“Thud—”
Landing in the mucus, Lin Jiayao’s mind went blank. During her fall, more pink light spots had attached to her body, and Goldie’s second form had already deactivated in mid-air.
Waves of strange sensations assaulted Lin Jiayao’s mind. Although they were blocked by her mental defenses, such a continuous assault would eventually breach them.
It seemed that some of the flying insects, during the devouring process, had damaged something within the Flesh and Blood Iron Maiden’s fissure, triggering its instinctive defense mechanism.
She had been tricked…
Lin Jiayao’s vision blurred, but her mind was still clear, her control over her body just sluggish.
And to her shock, the Flesh and Blood Iron Maiden before her began to twist and distort, transforming into a blurry, human female figure, which slowly bent down towards her with a smile.
“Buzz——”
Before the next mental assault hit, Lin Jiayao forcibly activated her second form, the immense mental pressure momentarily alleviated.
There was no blurry female figure before her, only the Flesh and Blood Iron Maiden slowly bending down, and the sculpted human head approaching her.
Her second form was extremely unstable, flickering between black and gold. It seemed that if she came into contact with those pink light spots, her instincts, her consciousness, even her perception, would be gradually altered.
Lin Jiayao knew that the descended Goldie, caught unprepared, was in serious trouble. This first battle after Goldie’s evolution was going badly.
Goldie wasn’t afraid of mental attacks, close combat, or swarm battles.
But she didn’t know how to deal with this kind of pheromone interference, which seemed to be altering Goldie’s instincts.
Another reason was that Goldie’s blood crystal levels were low after her recent evolution, and the descended body could only mimic Goldie’s state at the time of extraction.
This meant Goldie had powerful evolutionary abilities, but couldn’t use them.
But Lin Jiayao wasn’t about to surrender. The Blood Crystals accumulated by the flying insects were almost enough…
“Boom—”
Seizing the moment Goldie flickered into her second form, Lin Jiayao took control of all the flying insects crawling on the Flesh and Blood Iron Maiden and had them rush towards her.
“Whoosh—”
A large number of flying insects, in a single second, tore through the viscous liquid, carrying blood crystal liquid and returning to Lin Jiayao’s body.
Replenished by the blood crystal liquid, the blood crystals in Lin Jiayao’s body surged, even exceeding the levels at the start of the descend.
While still in her second form, Lin Jiayao extended her right hand, now covered in purple bloodstains, towards the giant head approaching her.
“Thump—”
With a sound like a beating drum, three-quarters of the blood crystal liquid in Lin Jiayao’s body was instantly drained, and the Flesh and Blood Iron Maiden froze.
—But its spiritual form, still maintaining its previous movement, detached from its body and continued to bend down.
It wasn’t until it was almost upon Lin Jiayao that the Flesh and Blood Iron Maiden stopped, slowly turned its head, looked at its motionless body, and seemed confused.
It seemed unable to understand why there were two of itself.
Goldie, a distorted, black shadow, pushed herself up from the ground, while on the ground lay a golden-haired Goldie in the form of an ordinary little girl.
Finally, enough Blood Crystals… unleashing this evolutionary ability was truly painful.
That was a consumption of three-digit Blood Crystals—even though she hadn’t lost any of the Blood Crystals in her pocket, it still made Lin Jiayao feel the pinch.
Such a high consumption, without sufficient returns, would be too much of a loss…
Lin Jiayao slowly raised her head, looked at the Flesh and Blood Iron Maiden, which had given up thinking and was opening its giant mouth to pounce on her, and narrowed her eyes slightly.
She couldn’t do anything to it in the material world, but Goldie in the spiritual world…
was invincible.
“Buzz——”
A pair of mismatched, even slightly torn, twisted insect wings unfolded from Lin Jiayao’s back, lifting her and sending her flying towards the oncoming head of the Flesh and Blood Iron Maiden.
The head didn’t seem to expect Lin Jiayao to counterattack. It slowly opened its mouth, its long, blood-red tongue extending and splitting into four, spewing out a large amount of…
Nothing.
Through the phantom of the Flesh and Blood Iron Maiden, she could see a large number of pink light spots spraying from the cracks in the mouth of the huge body behind it, but these light spots were too far away.
And even if they reached her, they couldn’t touch Goldie’s spiritual form.
As long as she obliterated the Flesh and Blood Iron Maiden’s spirit before those pink light spots reached Goldie’s physical body, it would be fine.
“Zzz—”
Lin Jiayao crossed her arms before her, the black shadow twisting and connecting her hands, accumulating an immense amount of mental energy in the center.
She felt her mental power being rapidly drained, and the black sphere spinning and compressing before her grew larger and larger.
Just as the black sphere was about to expand and touch her body, it suddenly contracted into a white, bean-sized light spot.
“Boom—”
The white light spot rapidly extended in Lin Jiayao’s hands. In an instant, it had stretched hundreds of meters, like a giant lightsaber, wielded by Lin Jiayao.
The two ends of the mental “lightsaber” even clipped through the nearby buildings without causing any damage.
Lin Jiayao raised the lightsaber high, as if to pierce the dark heavens, and with a simple, unadorned upward slash,
the blade light, like a crescent moon, sliced through the phantom of the Flesh and Blood Iron Maiden, splitting it in two from the center. Its phantom began to shatter uncontrollably in this blade light.
The phantom of the Flesh and Blood Iron Maiden opened its mouth wide, its originally calm face becoming distorted, as if letting out a silent, terrified scream, but no creature could hear this scream.
It quickly twisted its phantom body, contracting the crack in its center, but it still couldn’t stop the rapid dissipation.
It straightened its body and moved backwards, trying to merge its phantom with its main body, but the two bodies seemed to exist in different dimensions. No matter how hard it tried, it couldn’t move its body.
“Ding—”
With a crisp sound, its huge spiritual phantom shattered, but its fleshy body still stood there, completely motionless.
Like an empty shell without any control, its spirit had been obliterated, leaving only the flesh.
The entire New Delhi seemed to let out a mournful wail, countless fleshy egg balls shattering, the formed and unformed zombies inside struggling to crawl out, roaring madly, and finally falling to the ground, turning into a pool of purple-red blood.
The super-infected in New Delhi were all dead, and only an ownerless A-rank empty shell remained, not yet dead…
Then could she…
A pink light spot fell from in front of Lin Jiayao.
Not good!
Lin Jiayao quickly reacted.
Goldie’s main body was still lying under the empty shell of the Flesh and Blood Iron Maiden, and those pink light spots were about to reach Goldie.
“Buzz—”
Lin Jiayao vibrated her wings and quickly returned to Goldie’s main body, canceling her second form.
The moment her consciousness returned to her main body, Lin Jiayao’s vision went black. The backlash from the huge mental consumption just now hit Lin Jiayao.
The strange fragrance enveloped Lin Jiayao again, and under the extreme mental weakness and the stimulation of the pheromones, she once again lost control of Goldie’s body.
“Buzz—”
The last bit of mental power created a flying insect that hovered over Goldie’s head, but Lin Jiayao no longer had the energy to give it the command to pierce her own brain.
After an unknown amount of time, maybe one second, or maybe a whole day, Lin Jiayao’s consciousness, like when she fell before, was forcibly ejected from Goldie’s body and switched back to her main body.
[System Warning: The host’s mental power is below the critical value for controlling an A-rank descended body and has been forcibly logged out.]
[System Warning: The host’s mental power has been slightly contaminated. Do you want to activate system surgery for treatment?]
[System Warning: The host’s mental power is below the minimum threshold for system surgery…]
Lin Jiayao, whose consciousness was forcibly switched back to her main body, felt like her body was being roasted on a fire, extremely weak, and also a strange feeling she had never had before.
Even [Hunting Rhythm] couldn’t suppress that urge, because [Hunting Rhythm] was based on Lin Jiayao’s own condition to give the best adjustment, but now Lin Jiayao’s mental state was so bad that it couldn’t be adjusted.
Goldie’s evolutionary abilities, whether for the mind or for blood crystals, were an unbearable consumption.
Now Lin Jiayao felt like she had just drunk three or four bottles of strong liquor, and her whole body felt dizzy.
She gasped, slightly opened her eyes, tried her best to support herself with her elbows, and pointed towards the insect chair.
Her current state was very wrong, she had to have the insect chair take her to a place without people to sober up.
“Yao? What’s wrong? Your eyes are so red… did something happen?”
The worst-case scenario happened.
Her sister, who was completely unaware, was awakened by her movements. Seeing her swaying state, she reached out and hugged her.
Lin Xiwan’s touch made Lin Jiayao tremble all over – she remembered the feeling of touching her sister after building the training ground and adjusting her body’s sensitivity to 200%.
The insect chair, under Lin Jiayao’s control, swayed and moved over, then softened like clay, turning into a puddle of wriggling mycelium on the ground.
What kind of third-rate light novel cliché was this… whatever.
Lin Jiayao instantly summoned the system interface, opened the Hideout, and directly clicked on the training ground.
[System Warning: The host’s mental power is too low to enter the training ground.]
Lin Jiayao, whose mental power was so strong that she wouldn’t faint, almost blacked out.
Then let her faint!
Lin Jiayao, whose Hunting Rhythm had even failed, was almost going crazy.
