The Mysterious - Cristo Fusion

Less than a hundred kilometers from the North Pole, and a thousand meters down from a dimly lit military camp, lay the base of the Hell Angels Mercenary Group.

Inside a spacious storeroom, separated by thick bulletproof glass, Gu Xiechen watched two oddly shaped, multi-armed robots busy themselves around a metal crate. The storeroom, over fifty meters long and wide, had originally stored various spare mechanical parts. Now, everything had been cleared out. High-energy laser emitters were positioned in each of the four corners, controlled by a computer and constantly aimed at the metal crate from which sparks were intermittently flying.

Invisible scanning waves covered the entire storeroom. If the metal crate contained any highly toxic or radioactive dangerous materials, the base's defense system would detect it immediately.

Bore sat cross-legged beside Gu Xiechen, his hands forming a wheel-like mudra at his chest. Circles of calming Zen energy continuously seeped from his body. Like Gu Xiechen, he quietly watched the two robots work in the storeroom. After a long while, he suddenly spoke, "Let's make a bet. I don't think there's anything alive inside."

"Who knows? Maybe, perhaps?" Gu Xiechen slyly skirted the question.

Unwilling to let go of a chance to fleece a fat sheep, Bore pressed on, "How about a hundred thousand Federal Currency? I don't think any living thing would make a direct descendant of the Holsom family abandon their family warriors and flee. The Roman people are very proud; they value family honor above all else. Abandoning their family warriors and fleeing? Impossible!"

"I didn't agree to bet with you!" Gu Xiechen frowned in annoyance. The Hell Angels Mercenary Group's efficiency was too high. The bounty for killing over thirty Roman people he'd just returned from had already been deposited into his Mercenary Card account. Bore, spotting Gu Xiechen as a fresh, plump target, was determined to take a cut.

Releasing the wheel-like mudra, Bore looked at Gu Xiechen with a frown and asked curiously, "You don't seem like such a stingy person. It's only a hundred thousand Federal Currency. How about I don't treat you to a meal, is that okay?"

Gu Xiechen suddenly flashed a wicked grin. He extended his right hand towards Bore and chuckled, "Then, let's make the stakes higher, a million! My intuition tells me there's something alive inside!"

Intuition. After cultivating the Hanyuan Zhen Dian, Gu Xiechen's intuition had grown stronger, especially his Dao Embryo's exceptional perception of all life forms. He vaguely felt that there was indeed a living being inside this metal crate, so when Bore actively dug a trap and jumped in, he naturally had to push him further down.

But Bore, who had been so insistent on fleecing a fat sheep moments ago, recoiled like a startled fawn. He glanced at Gu Xiechen with a strange look, then smiled nonchalantly, "Never mind, gambling is a bad habit. Although I'm a mercenary now, I still shouldn't gamble."

Clasping his hands together, Bore recited 'Namo Amitabha' with unusual piety.

"Clever enough!" Gu Xiechen gave Bore a deep look.

The automatic door behind them opened, and the Bearded Commander strode in with several senior leaders of the mercenary group. Twisting his beard, the Bearded Commander loudly exclaimed, "Opened yet? Opened yet? Sigh, aren't those damn kids from the engineering corps always bragging? Why is it taking so long to open a box?"

A slick, oily voice came from a speaker mounted on the corner of the storeroom, "Uncle Beard, you can't blame us! This crate has thirty-six hidden locks, and each hidden lock has its own password verification. Tsk, this requires meticulous work! Don't rush!"

The Bearded Commander cursed a few times, and he and the young fellow on the speaker, whose voice he recognized as very young, started bickering.

As they were arguing, the mechanical arms of the two robots simultaneously lifted, and the lid of the metal crate slid open silently. A large amount of white mist, produced by the vaporization of liquid nitrogen upon contact with heat, erupted from the crate. Immediately, a piercing alarm echoed throughout the entire ice cap base. Shouts of surprise came from the speaker: "God, we're rich! Uncle Beard, we're rich!"

Every hair on Gu Xiechen's body suddenly stood on end. His heart instinctively began to beat faster.

One hundred beats per minute...

Two hundred beats per minute...

Three hundred beats per minute...

Six hundred beats per minute...

Soon, Gu Xiechen's heart rate reached a terrifying nine hundred beats per minute. Pure energy swept through his meridians like a hurricane, shattering the smooth flow of his Innate Qi with its domineering and powerful surge. Gu Xiechen's lean, muscular body began to swell like a balloon. In just one breath, Gu Xiechen became even more robust than Bore, who was sitting beside him. A terrifying aura faintly spread from Gu Xiechen's body. The Bearded Commander and other senior leaders of the mercenary group simultaneously took a few steps back.

Bore leaped up nimbly and exclaimed in shock, "Evil Dragon? What's wrong!"

Two extremely thin beams of blue light shot from Gu Xiechen's pupils, which had shrunk to the size of needle tips. He stared intently at the metal crate and roared, "What's inside?"

From Gu Xiechen's position, no one could see what was inside the metal crate. Only the engineers who had opened the crate with the two robots could see what was truly inside.

Just then, the oily, slick voice shouted, "It's a Christi..."

His answer was no longer needed. Everyone saw what was in the metal crate!

Two broken black arms suddenly emerged from the billowing white mist. Two invisible energy waves erupted, and the two multi-armed maintenance robots exploded with a 'boom,' scattering into countless fragments. The two black arms slowly rested on the edge of the metal crate, and a strange figure sat up from within the crate.

Its semi-transparent body was made of a material resembling crystal. Its smooth body was devoid of any hair. Its body and facial features were about ninety percent similar to a human's. Two burning, dazzling black flames blazed within its pitch-black eyeballs. Cracks were clearly visible within the person's smooth body, like the patterns of a crystal ball that had been violently shattered from the inside. Wisps of extremely fine black electrical light continuously overflowed from the depths of its body, and a thick layer of black current began to wrap around its surface.

"Cristo Crystal Person!" the Bearded Commander shouted excitedly, "Damn it, a lot of money, a lot of money! We're rich!"

"Cristo Crystal Person! Cristo Fusion, activate Cristo Fusion!" Bore stared fanatically at the seemingly broken humanoid figure.

"Cristo Crystal Person? Black?" All the information related to Cristo Crystal People flooded Gu Xiechen's mind. He shrieked, "A black Cristo Crystal Person? Damn it, this is big trouble! A black Cristo Crystal Person! Shoot, shoot, take him down! Damn it!"

Cristo Crystal People were magical beings formed from condensed high-energy crystals. Their nascent forms were flawless white. As they aged and grew stronger, their body color would gradually shift according to the rainbow spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, purple. As their body color deepened, the energy contained within their bodies would increase, and their strength would grow!

Purple Cristo Crystal People possessed strength comparable to the top fighters of Earthlings, but black Cristo Crystal People were an unheard-of existence!

The Bearded Commander suddenly came to his senses, cold sweat instantly covering his forehead. He also waved his arms and shouted, "Shoot, shoot, take this guy down!"

The high-energy lasers in the four corners of the storeroom, after a very short charging period, simultaneously fired beams of white light about a meter thick. The four high-energy lasers struck the crystal person.

The black Cristo Crystal Person suddenly stood up from the metal crate. It stared blankly at Gu Xiechen and the others behind the bulletproof glass, allowing the four lasers to hit its body.

The intense flash blinded Gu Xiechen and the others. The four lasers were completely absorbed by the Cristo Crystal Person's body. In that instant, the black crystal person became countless times brighter than the sun. The crystal person casually swung its arms towards the four corners, and four black electrical currents whizzed out, causing the four high-energy laser emitters to explode. Even more piercing alarms sounded everywhere, and dense footsteps could be heard from all directions.

The black crystal person moved. Nearly two meters tall, it stepped out of the metal crate. A faint cracking sound echoed as its foot landed, and a dozen black crystal shards fell from its body. The crystal person's face twitched, its entire body trembled slightly, and it resolutely charged towards Gu Xiechen's direction. It clenched its fist and slammed it directly onto the bulletproof glass. The meter-thick bulletproof glass shattered into powder with a deafening roar. A terrifying energy flow surged forward. The few high-ranking mercenary group leaders brought in by the Bearded Commander were engulfed by the black energy flow and were torn to shreds in the blink of an eye.

The Bearded Commander and Bore, risking their lives, unleashed their full power forward. Several black torrents shattered before them. Their arms made unbearable creaking sounds, and both of them vomited blood and retreated.

Gu Xiechen, who was already on the verge of exploding from the violent energy surging from his Dao Embryo, let out a muffled groan. He tightly closed his eyes, temporarily blinded by the intense light, and threw a punch forward purely by feel.

The black crystal person's right arm had been reduced to fragments in the previous violent strike. Its body seemed to have suffered irreparable damage. The cracks on its body multiplied by hundreds with loud cracking sounds. It forcefully pushed its left foot backward, but its body didn't move at all. Instead, the body from its left knee down exploded into countless crystal shards.

"My body!" the crystal person roared to the sky, both shocked and enraged.

Gu Xiechen's full-power punch landed on the crystal person's chest. The violent energy within him surged through his arm and directly into the crystal person's body. With a loud bang, a transparent hole was blasted open in the crystal person's chest. A large amount of viscous black liquid, like molten iron, sprayed everywhere. The temperature of these liquids was terrifyingly high, and each drop of black liquid emitted a dazzling light.

The crystal person's body disintegrated amidst continuous explosions. The crystal person wailed in despair, "Thief... Butcher..."

An immense sense of danger sent a chill down Gu Xiechen's spine, and he instinctively retreated.

But the black flames in the crystal person's eyes flared, and an extremely powerful suction force firmly bound Gu Xiechen's body. The crystal person mumbled incoherently, "Body... powerful body... I'll take it!"

A mass of black light scattered, and the crystal person's body completely vanished into the light. The scattered black liquid fragments all flew towards a fist-sized black crystal core in the void, and terrifying power that made one tremble continuously spread from the core. In just two breaths, all of the crystal person's energy was condensed into this crystal core.

Gu Xiechen let out a piercing scream. The black crystal core, wreathed in black flames, shot into his chest and merged into his body like mercury flowing into the ground.

A ball of scorching fire rampaged within Gu Xiechen's body, eventually charging into his heart. A cold, merciless spiritual fluctuation filled with overwhelming resentment surged from Gu Xiechen's heart, rushing towards his brain along his meridians.

Possess this physical body, only this single thought roared within the incomparably powerful spiritual fluctuation.

Bore opened his eyes, staring blankly as black, thunderous flames erupted around Gu Xiechen, incinerating his clothes to ash.

"Cristo Fusion? A fusion initiated by a Cristo Crystal Person? Heavens! That kid is finished!"

The Bearded Commander watched Gu Xiechen suspended in the air, spread-eagled, with tears he couldn't shed.

"Oh my god! A red Cristo Crystal Person alone costs over a billion! Sob, an orange one is at least five billion! Once, a blue Cristo Crystal Person sold for five hundred billion at auction!"

"A black Cristo Crystal Person? Black! How much is black?"

The Bearded Commander hopped around, howling, "Evil Dragon! You'll be indebted to my mercenary group for life!"

"Roar!"

After howling miserably at the sky a few times, the Bearded Commander began to dance with excitement.

"God! Jade Emperor! Buddha! Please bless his successful fusion! Let my Hell Angels Mercenary Group also have a powerful Realm Master!"

Gu Xiechen suddenly let out a sharp, unpleasant scream. Black and red flames erupted simultaneously from his seven orifices. His body trembled violently for a moment, and then the black, thunderous flames around him extinguished. Gu Xiechen, covered in black smoke, collapsed to the ground without a groan and fainted.

A sizzling sound came from the ground as the alloy floor that touched Gu Xiechen's body melted.

Ahem, comrades, as always, I have one thing to say: recommendation votes... recommendation votes, recommendation votes... (To be continued)