Limb Replacement

The Bishop's once-gaunt skin began to fill out.

Six brand-new limbs sprouted, looking strong and powerful. His body grew a size larger as his muscles rapidly swelled, and his spine seemed to stretch until he stood over three meters tall!

The new limbs changed his stance. He no longer walked on two legs, instead planting his limbs on the ground like a spider before suddenly bursting through the cramped Prayer Hall!

The cold wind and rain swept inside. The clergy members closest to Li Wei and the Bishop were overcome with panic and terror!

They tried to flee the scene, but the Bishop, now a full-fledged monster, moved as swiftly as a ghost in the night!

His three pairs of front limbs seized them by the neck one by one. Amid the priests' and nuns' endless pleas and screams, he tore off their heads, then devoured their headless bodies with his mouthparts!

The head covered in dozens of pairs of eyes stared coldly at Li Wei, who stood motionless inside the building.

Every eye was filled with greedy hunger.

"No ordinary human has a body this perfect. You're an aberration, but aberrations like you don't just appear out of nowhere! Let me guess: you're the bioengineered human the Council is hunting, the one rumored to have kidnapped Feng Xuecheng's foolish daughter. Am I right?"

The Bishop's words made the deputy police commissioner, who had been lying on the ground trembling, suddenly raise his head!

First, he glanced fearfully at Li Wei's back, then turned to look at Feng Zi, who was pointing a gun at him.

Now that her identity had been exposed, Feng Zi had no need to put up with those troublesome colored contact lenses. She wiped her eyes with her hand, revealing her distinctive azure-blue eyes.

She lowered her head and met the deputy commissioner's gaze. He wore a fawning smile.

"M-Miss Feng, w-we've met before. At the welcome banquet the Council held for you..."

Before he could finish ingratiating himself, Feng Zi slammed the butt of her pistol into the back of his neck, knocking the obstructive commissioner unconscious on the spot.

When the Bishop smashed through one of the Prayer Hall's walls, Li Ming had already found the three children hiding beneath a pew. He pulled them out and took shelter with them behind the Starlight Cross.

Having dealt with the trouble at hand, Feng Zi glanced at the guild president but left him alone. Instead, she took two steps forward and stood behind Li Wei.

The Bishop, having devoured the priests and nuns, faced them in the pouring rain. Watching his actions, Li Wei couldn't understand.

"Why did you kill them? Are you planning to abandon your identity as a Bishop and spend the rest of your life showing yourself in this form?"

The Bishop seemed to smile. The corners of his mouthparts curled upward, revealing a row of sharp teeth.

"Is being a Bishop really so prestigious? The so-called Twilight believers are a bunch of fools, and that goes double for the First Pope they revere so much. Of all the sciences, biology has the greatest potential! Living things evolve, and evolution means endless progress! And what does the Twilight doctrine teach? That people should be good in this life so they can be rewarded after death?"

"What an absurd theory. If I hadn't wanted to acquire the biological knowledge held by the Twilight Church, I never would have left the Biology Institute and become a Twilight believer. And look at the result. That supposedly noble Church is nothing special. Even someone like me can become a district bishop in a major city, as long as I disguise myself well enough."

"Now I've got what I wanted. I found the Church's most crucial knowledge about biological fusion. And after coming to Sun City, I had plenty of materials to work with: tens of thousands of human bodies and hundreds of viable limbs. They helped me achieve true immortality!"

His voice grew animated, the excitement in it unmistakably boastful.

"This is the true power of science! Cells keep dividing, and that's what makes living things age. But if I have enough viable flesh to replace my own, my body will never decay! I've broken the greatest shackles holding back individual evolution! Those stubborn old fools at the Biology Institute and the idiots in the Twilight Church are nothing but relics of a bygone age!"

"The only thing I'm missing now is one final limb: the most striking, the most useful one! You're perfect for it. That little girl will do, too, more or less."

He extended his long tongue, and viscous drool ran from the corners of his mouth.

"What does being the Bishop of Twilight matter, anyway? So, what do you say? Want to merge with me willingly? I might even preserve a part of your consciousness, so you can share in this supreme glory with me!"

As the Bishop made his offer, Li Wei simply held the short sword in his hand beyond the eaves of the Prayer Hall, letting the rain wash away the bloodstains on it.

"Sorry, you're so ugly it's revolting."

The Bishop didn't seem surprised by Li Wei's refusal.

His open mouthparts let out a "cackling" laugh, and the next instant, he vanished into the rain!

The moment he disappeared, Li Wei thrust his short sword forward!

Even with his astonishing dynamic vision, he could only catch a blurry shadow charging toward him!

Then an immense force slammed into his whole body, like being hit by a speeding dump truck!

The Bishop blocked Li Wei's thrust with one of his arms. The blade seemed caught in bone, unable to penetrate any farther, while the force of the impact sent Li Wei crashing into the Prayer Hall's wall!

The wall, built only of bricks, couldn't withstand the impact and shattered on the spot. The collision also caught the guild president and the three children in its wake. Flying chunks of stone struck them, and Li Ming instinctively shielded the children with her body.

The deputy police commissioner, whom Feng Zi had knocked unconscious and left lying on the ground, wasn't so lucky. He lay directly in Li Wei's path as he was sent flying. While still unconscious, he was trampled by one of the Bishop's hind limbs. Half his body was crushed into a pulp, his intestines and organs spilling across the ground. He was dead.

The Bishop pinned Li Wei's shoulders with two front limbs and clamped another pair around his neck. After smashing through one of the Prayer Hall's walls, he pressed Li Wei firmly to the ground!

The instant Li Wei was attacked, Feng Zi pulled the bottle of medicine from her pocket. In a panic, she swallowed a pill, but instead of repairing her damaged body, it made her spit out a mouthful of blood!

This kind of aggressively restorative medicine wasn't a tonic; it was a slow-acting poison. She had taken enough of it today. If she took any more, it would ruin her body for good!

At that very moment, Li Wei spread the fingers of one hand.

The "force" belonging to the laws of nature entered his control!