Less than a hundred kilometers from the North Pole, a thousand meters beneath a dimly lit military camp, lay the base of the Hell Angels Mercenary Group.
Inside a spacious warehouse, Gu Xiechen watched through thick bulletproof glass as two strange multi-armed robots worked around the metal box. The warehouse was over fifty meters long and wide. It had originally stored scattered mechanical parts, but everything inside had now been cleared out. A high-energy laser emitter had been installed in each of the four corners, and the computer-controlled emitters remained aimed at the metal box, from which faint sparks were flickering.
Invisible scanning waves covered the entire warehouse. If the metal box contained any highly toxic or radioactive hazardous materials, the base's defense system would detect them immediately.
Prajna sat cross-legged beside Gu Xiechen, his hands forming a wheel-like seal before his chest. Rings of calming Zen essence continuously seeped from his body. Like Gu Xiechen, he quietly watched the two robots at work. Only after a long while did he suddenly say, "Want to make a bet? I don't think there's a living creature inside."
"Who knows? Maybe there is, maybe there isn't?" Gu Xiechen slyly evaded the question.
Prajna refused to let go of this chance to fleece a fat sheep. He pressed on relentlessly. "One hundred thousand Federal Currency? I don't think any living thing would make a direct member of the Holsom family abandon his family warriors and flee in the middle of battle. Roman people care deeply about appearances. They value their so-called family honor above all else. Abandoning family warriors to escape? Impossible!"
"I never agreed to bet with you!" Gu Xiechen frowned irritably. The Hell Angels Mercenary Group was simply too efficient. The bonus for killing more than thirty Roman people had been transferred to his Mercenary Card account the moment he returned to base. Prajna had immediately set his sights on Gu Xiechen, this freshly emerged fat sheep, determined to carve off a piece of him.
Prajna released his hand seal and looked at Gu Xiechen with a frown. "You don't seem that stingy. It's only one hundred thousand Federal Currency. How about I don't make you treat me to anything?"
Gu Xiechen suddenly revealed an evil smile. He extended his right hand toward Prajna and laughed. "Then let's raise the stakes. One million! My intuition tells me there's a living creature inside!"
His intuition had grown stronger and stronger since he began cultivating the Hanyuan Zhen Dian. In particular, his Dao Embryo possessed an extraordinarily powerful sensitivity toward all lifeforms. He vaguely sensed that there really was a living creature in the metal box. Since Prajna had voluntarily dug a pit and jumped into it, Gu Xiechen naturally intended to kick him while he was down.
Yet Prajna, who had just been pestering him to fleece the fat sheep, shrank back like a startled deer. He gave Gu Xiechen a strange look, then smiled serenely. "Forget it. Gambling is a bad habit. Even though I am a mercenary now, gambling is still unacceptable."
Pressing his palms together, Prajna devoutly recited, "Namo Amitabha."
"Clever enough," Gu Xiechen said, giving Prajna a long look.
The automatic door behind them opened, and the Bearded Commander strode in with several senior officers of the mercenary group. Tugging at his thick beard, the Bearded Commander shouted, "Is it open yet? Is it open yet? Aren't those little bastards from the engineering corps always bragging? Why has it taken them so long just to open a box?"
A slick, flippant voice came from a speaker mounted in the corner of the warehouse. "Uncle Beard, you can't blame us for this! There are thirty-six hidden locks on this box, and every one has its own password verification. Tsk, this is delicate work that takes time! Don't rush us!"
The Bearded Commander laughed and cursed a few times, then began bickering back and forth with the young-sounding fellow in the speaker.
While they were still arguing, the mechanical arms of the two robots exerted force at the same time. The lid of the metal box slid open soundlessly, and thick white mist produced by vaporizing liquid nitrogen gushed out. Immediately afterward, shrill alarms rang throughout the ice-cap base. A crowd cried out from the speaker, "My God, we've struck it rich! Uncle Beard, we've struck it rich!"
Every hair on Gu Xiechen's body suddenly stood on end, and his heart instinctively began beating faster.
One hundred beats per minute...
Two hundred beats per minute...
Three hundred beats per minute...
Six hundred beats per minute...
Very quickly, Gu Xiechen's heartbeat reached a terrifying nine hundred beats per minute. Waves of pure energy swept through his meridians like hurricanes. His smoothly circulating Innate Qi was shattered by the tyrannical torrent of energy. Gu Xiechen's lean, muscular body expanded like a balloon. In the time it took to breathe once, he became even more powerfully built than Prajna, who was sitting beside him. A terrifying aura faintly spread from Gu Xiechen's body, and the Bearded Commander and the other mercenary leaders all took several steps back.
Prajna sprang nimbly to his feet. Staring at Gu Xiechen, he cried out, "Evil Dragon? What's wrong!"
Two thin blue beams shot from Gu Xiechen's pinprick pupils. He stared fixedly at the metal box and shouted, "What's inside?"
From Gu Xiechen's position, no one could see what was inside the metal box. Only the engineers operating the two robots from afar could clearly see what the box contained.
The same slick voice from before cried out, "It's a Cristo—"
They no longer needed his answer. Everyone had already seen what was inside the metal box!
Two mangled black arms suddenly stretched out from the billowing white mist. Two bursts of invisible energy erupted, and the two multi-armed maintenance robots exploded with a boom, scattering countless fragments everywhere. The two black arms slowly rested on the edge of the metal box, and a strange person sat up from within.
Its translucent body was made of something almost like crystal. Its smooth body had not a single hair, and its physique and facial features were ninety percent similar to those of a human. Two glaring black flames burned fiercely within its pitch-black eyes. Clear cracks covered its immaculate body, resembling the fractures spreading through a crystal sphere after it had been violently struck from within. Fine black arcs of electricity continuously seeped from deep inside its body, and a thick layer of black current gradually coiled around its surface.
"A Cristo Crystal Person!" the Bearded Commander cheered loudly. "Fuck, that's a fortune, a fortune! We've struck it rich!"
"A Cristo Crystal Person!" Prajna stared feverishly at the battered-looking figure. "Cristo Fusion! Cristo Fusion activation!"
"A Cristo Crystal Person? A black one?" All the information Gu Xiechen knew about Cristo Crystal People surged into his mind. He shrieked, "A black Cristo Crystal Person? Fuck, this is huge! A black Cristo Crystal Person! Fire! Fire! Kill it! Fuck!"
Cristo Crystal People were miraculous lifeforms condensed from some kind of high-energy crystal. Newly born juveniles were flawless white. As they aged and grew stronger, their body color gradually changed according to the rainbow spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, and violet. As their colors deepened, the energy contained within their bodies grew stronger, as did their power!
A violet Cristo Crystal Person possessed strength comparable to that of Earth's most elite fighters, while black Cristo Crystal People were unheard of!
The Bearded Commander suddenly came to his senses. Cold sweat instantly covered his forehead, and he waved his arms as he shouted, "Fire! Fire! Kill this thing!"
After an extremely brief charge-up, the high-energy lasers prepared in the warehouse's four corners simultaneously fired beams of white light over a meter thick. All four high-energy lasers struck the crystal person.
The black Cristo Crystal Person suddenly stood up from the metal box. He stared blankly at Gu Xiechen and the others behind the bulletproof glass, allowing the four lasers to strike his body.
The intense flash blinded Gu Xiechen and the others. All four laser beams were completely absorbed by the Cristo Crystal Person's body, and in that instant, the black crystal person became countless times brighter than the sun. He casually waved his arms toward the four corners, and four streaks of black lightning shot out with a howl. The four high-energy laser emitters immediately exploded. Even more piercing alarms rang out continuously, while dense footsteps sounded from every direction.
The black crystal person moved. Nearly two meters tall, he stepped out of the metal box. A faint cracking sound accompanied his foot hitting the ground, and more than a dozen black crystal flakes fell from his body. His face twitched. His entire body trembled faintly as he charged resolutely toward Gu Xiechen. He clenched his fist and drove it straight into the bulletproof glass. With a tremendous crash, the bulletproof glass, over a meter thick, exploded into powder. A terrifying torrent of energy surged forward. Several senior mercenary leaders brought in by the Bearded Commander were swept up in the black energy current and torn to pieces in the blink of an eye.
The Bearded Commander and Prajna risked their lives to launch full-force strikes. Several black torrents shattered before them, but their arms let out creaks of unbearable strain as the two men spat blood and staggered backward.
Already on the verge of exploding from the violent energy surging out of his Dao Embryo, Gu Xiechen let out a muffled grunt. With his eyes tightly shut from the blinding light, he threw a punch forward purely by instinct.
The black crystal person's right arm had been pulverized in that previous violent attack. His body seemed to have suffered irreversible damage, and hundreds more cracks appeared across it amid loud cracking sounds. He forcefully kicked backward with his left foot, but his body did not move at all. Instead, everything below his left knee exploded into countless crystal fragments.
"My body!" The crystal person threw back his head and roared in shock and fury.
Gu Xiechen's full-force punch struck the crystal person's chest. The violent energy within his body rushed through his arm and straight into the crystal person's body. A loud explosion rang out. A transparent hole was blasted through the crystal person's chest, and thick black liquid resembling molten iron sprayed in every direction. The liquid was terrifyingly hot, and every drop emitted a blinding radiance.
The crystal person's body began to come apart amid a series of explosions. He howled in despair, "Robbers... Butchers..."
An immense sense of danger chilled Gu Xiechen to the bone, and he instinctively retreated rapidly.
But the black flames in the crystal person's eyes abruptly surged. An overwhelmingly powerful suction force tightly bound Gu Xiechen's body. The crystal person muttered indistinctly, "Body... powerful body... seize it!"
A mass of intense black light spread in all directions. The crystal person's body completely turned intangible within the light, while the black liquid that had scattered everywhere flew toward a fist-sized black crystal core suspended in midair. Waves of terrifying power spread continuously from the core. In just two breaths, all of the crystal person's energy had condensed into that single crystal core.
Gu Xiechen let out a miserable scream. The black crystal core, trailing surging black flames, shot into his chest and merged into his body like spilled mercury.
A blazing fireball rampaged through Gu Xiechen's body before finally crashing into his heart. A cold, merciless mental wave filled with towering resentment surged from his heart, following his meridians straight toward his brain.
Seize this body. Only that one voice thundered within the incomparably powerful mental wave.
Prajna opened his eyes and stared blankly as black lightning and fire burst from Gu Xiechen's body, burning his clothes to ash.
"Cristo Fusion? A fusion initiated by the Cristo Crystal Person itself? Heavens! This kid is finished!"
The Bearded Commander, meanwhile, looked as though he wanted to cry as he stared at Gu Xiechen floating in the air with his limbs spread wide.
"My God! A red Cristo Crystal Person alone sells for more than one billion! An orange one costs at least five billion! A blue Cristo Crystal Person once sold at auction for five hundred billion!"
"A black Cristo Crystal Person? Black! How much is a black one worth?"
The Bearded Commander jumped and wailed, "Evil Dragon! You'll have to work for my mercenary group for the rest of your life!"
"Awwooo!"
After howling toward the sky several times, the Bearded Commander began waving his arms excitedly again.
"God! Jade Emperor! Buddha! Please let him successfully fuse! Let the Hell Angels Mercenary Group have a powerful Realm Master too!"
Gu Xiechen suddenly let out a sharp, grating scream. Black and red flames simultaneously spewed from his seven orifices. His body trembled violently for a while, then the black lightning and fire around him suddenly went out. Gu Xiechen, smoking all over, collapsed to the ground without making a sound and fainted.
A sizzling sound came from the floor. The alloy flooring in contact with Gu Xiechen's body melted.
Uh, comrades, the same old request—recommendation votes... recommendation votes, recommendation votes... To be continued.
Before you continue