"Yu Yu, your big brother raised his voice a little earlier. Don't take it to heart, okay? Put the bow down, put it down," Wu Hen said hurriedly.
Yu Yu lowered the heavy pink bow. But the next second, she seemed to become a different person. With a pitiful whimper, she threw herself into Wu Hen's arms, looking nothing like the elfin girl from a moment ago.
Wu Hen looked down at the little head buried in his chest and was at a loss for words.
So the violent act of shooting a human larva through the eye had nothing to do with gentle, tender Yu Yu, right? That wasn't you, the sweet, adorable girl?
After soothing her for a while, Yu Yu finally calmed down.
Wu Hen walked over to the dead Eye-Patterned Man and saw two white Pupil Worms nailed through the back of his head.
At that moment, he felt a powerful urge in his right hand. It was as if his hand had grown a mouth of its own, craving the high-protein snack.
"You're really hungry, huh? Even something this disgusting..." Wu Hen was utterly helpless.
He had no choice but to hold out his palm. A shadow immediately darted out from it, like a greedy Little Witch Dragon. It opened its mouth and swallowed both Pupil Worms in one bite.
Wu Hen found the sight rather familiar. Back at the cliff in Jue Town, it had disguised itself as lightning and suddenly lunged to bite Yuan You, which was in his hand. If it hadn't been so greedy, Xiao Yi would still be wandering through the sky, never knowing when it would get its next meal!
"Come to think of it, you ate Zai Wu too. A being that powerful must have been a huge meal for you. Why are you fussing over a measly little snack like this?" Wu Hen asked, puzzled.
Perhaps to make things clearer to Wu Hen, Xiao Yi suddenly split into two different energies: one Black Void, the other blue-white. They were exactly like the black-and-white lightning that had divided Jue Town in two, as Wu Hen had seen before.
The Black Void swiftly passed by Wu Hen, moving just as freely as before, until it reached his left arm.
Wu Hen looked down at his left arm and saw a solemn, sacred sword mark appear on it. It was the Holy Father's Black Miracle Death Sword!
Meanwhile, another substance occupied his right hand. It was lightning-white and lively, sometimes taking the shape of an Origin Mech Pistol, sometimes changing into the Compound Bow from earlier...
Now that it had devoured the two white Pupil Worms, Wu Hen noticed that a substance resembling mycelium and crystal whiskers had appeared on his right side. His entire arm seemed to have mutated, covered from within to without in a layer with the texture of white frost!
Wu Hen himself couldn't help staring in amazement.
"You two are twins?" Wu Hen immediately tried to communicate with the symbiotic Miracle within him.
Wu Hen glanced at the Black Miracle Death Sword on his left hand and continued, "And this one is the Holy Father?"
Then he looked at the lively, ever-changing Miracle substance on his right. "And this one is Xiao Yi?"
Suddenly, the two energies in his left and right hands rushed toward Wu Hen's chest and merged into one, taking on a form like two intersecting halves of a yin-yang symbol. The Black Void and White Ze seemed to have been one all along, inseparable from each other!
"I think I get it now. You're divided into yin and yang. Yin can change into anything and becomes whatever it eats, while yang is the domineering spirit of the Death Sword, eternal and unchanging!"
He now controlled two kinds of power. One was a basic ability: by swallowing certain materials with his right hand, he could transform them into corresponding weapons.
The other was an ultimate body art. Most of the time, it remained dormant, conserving its strength. It neither hunted nor moved about, only manifesting to slay beings on the level of Zai Wu.
"Alright, from now on, the Holy Father can rest in my left hand, and Xiao Yi can stay in my right. That way, I won't get confused and charge at some Desolate Dust Prodigy with my right hand, swinging wildly!" Wu Hen said.
Xiao Yi seemed to have no objections, so it attached its Black Miracle yang body to Wu Hen's left hand.
Seeing the Holy Father's Death Sword on his left hand, Wu Hen immediately felt much safer. He had thought he'd completely lost contact with the Holy Father.
At least it was still inside him.
"How much nourishment can these two little protein balls give you?" Wu Hen asked Xiao Yi.
Xiao Yi seemed unwilling to be underestimated. After swallowing the white Pupil Worms, it immediately radiated its sacred White Ze. A substance like mysterious fungal crystal filaments appeared on Wu Hen's arm, rapidly covering his entire right arm and turning it into White Radiance Phantom Armor...
This bizarre transformation was far more sophisticated and mysterious than the mycelium that had enveloped the Eye-Patterned Man. It made Wu Hen feel as though he'd gained a Radiant Crystal Profound Arm!
Seeing this, Wu Hen immediately thought of the Eye-Patterned Man's sharp spikes.
With a thought, Wu Hen shouted something chuunibyou: "Qilin Arm, appear!"
Sure enough, mysterious fungal crystal filaments quickly grew across his palm and, in even less time, turned into a white spike, hard as starsteel and cold as strange frost!
It truly had the domineering presence of a white Qilin Arm!
"Block!"
Wu Hen transformed it again. Soon, he saw the mysterious fungal crystal filaments on his arm grow wildly across his chest, turning into a White Radiance chestplate in an instant and covering his torso.
Seeing this, Wu Hen was overjoyed.
His right hand's ability followed his will as one, a power he could control perfectly.
Most importantly, it could grow alongside him!
"Awesome, Xiao Yi!"
"I know the power of the Death Sword in my left hand is too strong for me to wield easily with my current mental strength. But I'll work hard to get stronger and make every living thing in the Desolate Dust submit beneath us!"
He'd thought that returning to their home would simply mean reassuring his family that he was safe.
He hadn't expected to gain a Qilin Arm too. That was seriously cool!
The fire in the storeroom finally drew the attention of the sluggish office workers and the Black Shirt Organization.
By the time they went to put it out, Wu Hen and Yu Yu had already slipped out of the shopping mall amid the chaos.
The two returned to the air-raid shelter, and, just as expected, Wu Hen couldn't remember the original route through the dim underground passage.
Without the fierce girl Yu Yu to guide him, it would have taken him a day or two to find his way home!
"Why do you keep rubbing your nose? Is something wrong with it?" Wu Hen asked.
Yu Yu shook her head. Maybe her rhinitis had flared up again; the air in the shelter wasn't very good.
"I didn't expect you to be so useful when it mattered, kiddo. That shot to the eye of the insect was awesome. If I'd recorded it, I'd play it on the big screen at your wedding!" Wu Hen said.
Yu Yu was actually feeling pretty awful. She knew that man had been a monster, but she'd still shot an arrow through someone's head!
She'd never hurt a little creature before—not counting mosquitoes, flies, bedbugs, cockroaches, little spiders, locusts...
Anyway, she'd broken her no-killing streak, and it was making her feel physically sick.
And her ridiculous big brother kept bringing it up as they went along, pushing her to her limit again and again.
At last, unable to take it anymore, Yu Yu hurried ahead of Wu Hen, walking backward as she signed furiously. She was so angry she looked like a female Hokage forming hand seals.
"Hey, why do you think that thing wanted to destroy the medicine warehouse?" Wu Hen finally turned serious and discussed the question with his sister.
"You like mystery and detective stories best. What's your theory?"
"It looks like there's a group of people responsible for destroying all the medicine in this city... If I were an alien, and I wanted to destroy every last bit of medicine in a city, I'd have only one reason: to spread a virus throughout the whole city!" Yu Yu analyzed.
"That's what I think too." Wu Hen nodded.
Yu Yu felt a little disappointed. She'd hoped her brother would praise her.
"The question is, why would they do that? What good would it do them to make everyone in the city sick? Don't they need to stay alive too?" Wu Hen still couldn't figure it out.
Even if they were mutated people, they still had to live in human settlements.
"Unless they're from the Desolate Dust," Yu Yu said at once.
"I think so too." Wu Hen nodded again, agreeing with his sister's analysis. "But how did they get in? Surely the Nuwa Divine Terminal isn't an unprotected device without even a firewall."
It was true that the Holy Father was dormant.
And it was true that the Nuwa Divine Terminal had cut off Wu Hen's connection to the Black Miracle Death Sword.
Could Desolate Dust creatures really have descended into this human settlement?
Or was the boundary between this world and reality growing ever more blurred?
They returned to the Tropical Pavilion and entered their private room.
Yu Yu immediately searched out some medicine to treat their father Wu Yingting's wounds.
Their mother, Yu Yi, had already prepared food, so Wu Hen could finally eat his fill.
Xiao Yi enjoyed the meal too. It seemed that eating could also replenish a small amount of the energy it needed. What was the principle behind that? Maybe the simple joy of having a hearty meal.
The space was small, but having his family together made Wu Hen feel content.
Wu Yingting didn't know much about the Desolate Dust, but he did know that most Awakened among humanity had been recruited, while the authorities were also searching for Awakened who were still out there.
"Take the school, for example. There are Order Maintenance Personnel there. Out of several thousand students, there are bound to be a few Awakened. They'll be taken away. As for everyone else, including those who've lost consciousness, I'm afraid they'll be left to fend for themselves," Wu Yingting said.
Wu Hen nodded. He knew the authorities must be searching for people who could help the Nuwa Divine Terminal. If the terminal couldn't hold out, everyone was done for!
"I've also heard that Spirit Sense is something like a little sprite. It has no physical form, but it deliberately transfers itself to people who are better at adapting and responding to harsh environments. So if you want to awaken or grow stronger, you have to fight and kill those Desolate Dust creatures more often," Wu Yingting said.
"Achoo!" Yu Yu sneezed.
Wu Hen's gaze fell on Yu Yu involuntarily. He noticed that her nose was bright red.
Putting aside the mycelium ability, the Eye-Patterned Man he'd killed seemed to have had a powerful sense of smell...
He remembered that after killing Meiqing Muxiu and Fengyun Youcun, he'd gained their hearing. That fit with the theory Wu Yingting had told him: "Spirit Sense seeks a good host to dwell in."
Now his younger sister Yu Yu, who couldn't speak, had always had a keen sense of smell. She'd just gone through a battle like that, and her nose had been bothering her several times...
"Yu Yu, focus and smell which bag I put my underwear in. We left home in a hurry, and I can't remember where I packed it." Wu Hen raised his eyebrows and put her to the test.
Sure enough, Yu Yu turned into a young female Hokage again!
Whether she'd awakened or not was anyone's guess, but she was about to unleash her Planetary Devastation.
Before you continue