Merit

Merit

"You're too slow."

Mu Xiao heard An Rongru's hurried footsteps behind him. Without waiting for her to speak or looking at the terrified expression she showed to the outside, he calmly said, "Leave those living dead outside to you. They're actually very weak. As long as you attack with grenades and the laser gun, you'll have more than enough to protect yourself. As for that big thing on the ground, its energy buffer is nearly finished. You can use it as soon as you pick it up. I'll deal with that most troublesome mutant."

As he spoke, Mu Xiao turned into a blur. With a flick of his hand and a sweep of his blade, he severed the heads of several lunging zombies in succession, giving An Rongru a brief moment to process his words.

"This..." An Rongru's mature, beautiful face was filled with shock. But when she saw those hideous, ghostly faces, she was startled into closing her eyes instinctively. She raised her hand and fired wildly, sending beam after beam of light shooting out.

"Idiot! Open your eyes! If you can't do it, use the bombs!" Part of Mu Xiao's attention remained on her. Seeing how terrified she was of dying and that the zombies were nearly upon her, he had no choice but to use telekinesis to lock several zombies in place. The consequence was that the guard mutant's heavy punch struck his body, sending him flying like a sandbag.

This was a punch the guard mutant had built up momentum for. Combined with the full boost to its combat power at night, its physique had come extremely close to the strength of the second level of the "peak" realm.

Yet when the guard mutant's punch hit Mu Xiao, a faint glimmer flashed imperceptibly across his chest. The Steel Mechanical Inner Armor he wore played its defensive role, offsetting part of the blow's force. But most of the remaining force still made his chest feel tight, panicked, and painful, while a trace of blood rose in his throat.

Without the Mechanical Inner Armor, the guard mutant's punch might very well have made Mu Xiao cough up blood.

"I understand!"

Hearing Mu Xiao's words, An Rongru knew he was watching over her safety and felt slightly reassured. But when she saw the zombies had already crashed through the motorcycle sports car blocking the entrance, there was no time to open her backpack and take out grenades. She immediately picked up the Thunderbolt Cannon from the ground, rapidly retreated, aimed at the motorcycle sports car, and viciously pulled the trigger.

A beam of energy as dense as thunderfire blasted directly into the motorcycle sports car. The Thunderbolt Cannon's violent energy collided with the energy inside the vehicle like a spark striking the earth, producing a massive impact. A thunderous, earth-shaking explosion erupted through the night!!

A scorching wave swept in all directions like a storm. The energy stored in the motorcycle sports car was like gasoline, igniting a towering pillar of flames that shot into the black night. In an instant, it swallowed more than half the zombies. The remaining zombies were struck by the aftershock of blazing energy, their bodies bursting into flames. It seemed they would not last long before turning to ash.

The deafening explosion sent both Mu Xiao and the guard mutant reeling. At such close range, they each endured a fiercely expanding blast wave of fire and were flung away, tumbling across the ground.

An Rongru did not fare well either. She had never expected the explosion to be so huge. The blast rattled her mind, while the scorching energy around her filled every breath with searing heat. Her head swelled painfully, and she nearly blacked out and fainted.

Fortunately, she knew the danger was not over. Gritting her teeth, she held on and slowly crawled back to the grenade backpack. She took out grenade after grenade, throwing one whenever she saw a zombie, while raising her laser pistol toward the entrance.

But at that moment, a rich spring of Evolution Force poured into her body. Her bloodline genes began to boil, filled with a comfortable, joyous sensation. Her body felt as though it had been immersed in a hot spring, nourishing every damaged cell. Very quickly, she recovered her vigor, all negative conditions vanishing completely. Her senses felt refreshed, and her vision became clear again.

She was bewildered, not knowing what had happened to her.

If it had been Mu Xiao, he would have immediately understood. Her bloodline genes had resonated; it could be said that she had leveled up several times in a row.

"When a woman gets vicious, she really is not to be provoked..."

Mu Xiao climbed to his feet with his face covered in dirt and sand. Looking at the guard mutant, which had yet to get up, he immediately knew this was an excellent chance to attack. But if he rushed over, he might not make it in time.

In the split-second instincts of battle, Mu Xiao condensed all his telekinesis into an invisible force and poured it all into the high-frequency vibrating electromagnetic saber. With a faint whistle, the saber shot through the air. Its blade merged into the night, piercing forward at an unbelievably swift and sharp speed like lightning, straight through the guard mutant's head.

The mutant twitched faintly once, then showed no further reaction.

When a mass of pure, warm Evolution Force merged into Mu Xiao's body and raised him to twenty-one gene resonances, he came back to his senses and realized that he had killed a mutant with twenty-eight gene resonances at night so easily.

Thinking back on it, Mu Xiao examined the surrounding situation and immediately understood why the guard mutant had taken a beat longer to regain consciousness.

After the mutant had sent Mu Xiao flying with its heavy punch, it had not followed up to press its advantage. Instead, it had sprinted toward the entrance of the security hall, intending to kill the weakest one, An Rongru, first. It wanted to consume her flesh and blood to increase its strength, then better kill Mu Xiao, this troublesome opponent.

Unfortunately, the guard mutant did not get its wish.

At that exact moment, An Rongru fired a shell at the motorcycle sports car, causing a massive explosion. The guard mutant was hit head-on by the impact of the huge blast triggered by the rampaging energy. Its body was immediately sent flying backward like a kite with its string cut, and its head suffered a violent impact that knocked it unconscious.

Mu Xiao, on the other hand, had been knocked away by the mutant and thus displaced from the area where the explosion was most powerful. Naturally, his injuries were not as severe as the guard mutant's.

"You brought this on yourself." Mu Xiao sighed emotionally. Looking at the guard mutant's corpse, he saw an "Ability Source" emerge as expected. He had also gained additional Original Source. Added to the Original Source from the zombies he had killed earlier, the total was extremely abundant.

He now had two choices for improvement. One was to comprehensively enhance his "talent potential," which would help with future cultivation. The other was to specifically improve his comprehension of "mechanics." His "mechanics" was already on the verge of a breakthrough, and there would be many places to use this ability next. Thus, he did not hesitate much before converting all of his Original Source into comprehension of mechanical knowledge.

A refreshing, cool breeze swirled through his brain, clearing away stray thoughts. Within the pure and empty sea of consciousness, only strings of program data flowed and circled like water, generating countless tiny thoughts of wisdom. Yet these thoughts resembled both components and machinery, actively merging into one another...

Mu Xiao's enlightenment in reality lasted only an instant, but within his mind, it was as though he had undergone a long period of learning.

"The improvements are getting slower and slower..." Mu Xiao clenched his fist and clearly felt that his body had strengthened somewhat after leveling up. However, the effect was nowhere near as great as strengthening through an "Ability Source." Every optimization and improvement of his bloodline genes brought a certain increase in physique, and sometimes even produced special enhancements with effects as significant as those from an "Ability Source."

As his number of gene resonances increased, his most important "Mind Force" also improved slightly. Yet there was still a vast gap before he could break through a realm through cultivation and achieve a major increase. After all, this was only the beginning of realm cultivation. If he wanted to use "Mind Force," his trump card, ahead of time, strengthening his physique was indispensable. If his physique was strong enough, he could withstand a small portion of Mind Force's power.

The blazing energy fire released by the motorcycle sports car still burned fiercely, illuminating a section of the luxurious villa district. The zombies lurking in the darkness had all been exterminated, leaving only waves of eerie, chilling howls in the far distance, like wind and ghosts.

Such a huge disturbance here had most likely drawn other monsters closer.

"Quickly clean up the aftermath. If another mutant comes, we won't be afraid, but this night will definitely become busy enough." Mu Xiao swiftly spread his spiritual power, sweeping up the blood pearls from the zombies, then walked to the guard mutant's corpse. He glanced at the grayish-white ball of light resembling a tangled bundle of thread. This was the "Ability Source" dropped by the guard mutant.

"No wonder this guard mutant could lock onto us. So it had this ability." Mu Xiao recognized at a glance that it was the spiritual-type ability, "Life Detection."

This ability was somewhat superior to Mu Xiao's spiritual detection. It could clearly determine the strength and weakness of all living organisms, detect life forms over a wide range, and even penetrate hidden auras—in other words, barriers that concealed one's vitality and made one appear like an inanimate object without any aura.

Mu Xiao's was pure spiritual power, fully capable of evolving any spiritual-type ability. Since he possessed "Mind Force," it did not matter whether he enhanced it or not, because innate abilities could be directly comprehended without being raised to the ninth realm. He could cultivate source power or secret techniques from them, and as his realm improved, the power of his innate abilities would also rise.

If it was an ability obtained through external means, such as the "mechanics" ability gained by killing mutants, or the current "Life Detection" ability, then it had to be gradually raised to the ninth realm and become compatible with one's bloodline soul before its mysteries could be comprehended and cultivated.

Therefore, as long as Mu Xiao cultivated and comprehended "Mind Force," his spiritual power would naturally develop various effects. Telekinesis was the same.

Of course, if Mu Xiao absorbed this Life Detection Ability Source now, his spiritual power would certainly evolve this ability faster, perhaps even with an enhanced effect.

However, he did not intend to use it himself. The spiritual power of Mind Force was already sufficient, and cultivation was only a matter of time. By then, it would be able to evolve many abilities. Besides, this was not the only Life Detection Ability Source; he could absorb one the next time he encountered it.

Moreover, this ability was more suitable for An Rongru, who was weak and lacked the ability to protect herself.

Besides, An Rongru had contributed greatly to this battle. By sheer luck, she had blown up the motorcycle sports car containing thermal energy, causing the guard mutant to endure the enormous impact of the explosion and temporarily lose consciousness. Indirectly, she had helped Mu Xiao tremendously, allowing him to kill the guard mutant so smoothly.

So she deserved much of the credit. By both reason and sentiment, Mu Xiao would not deprive her of it. Besides, he had already absorbed the "Evolution Force Source" and "Original Source." The guard mutant's heart was also one of his Blood Energy Sources, as were the blood pearls hidden in that heart. He had taken almost all the benefits already.

If he also snatched away An Rongru's credit, that would be rather unscrupulous.

When his psychic power had harvested all the blood beads from the zombies and returned, Mu Xiao sensed something rapidly approaching from afar. He immediately grabbed the mutant guard's corpse in one hand and rushed toward the security hall.

As long as the "ability source" remained within the corpse, it could move along with the body without fear of being lost during transport. But if the source went unabsorbed for too long, it would dissipate into the air and turn into energy particles.

"It's me. Don't panic and fire." Mu Xiao sensed An Rongru aiming at the entrance. Knowing the ground was littered with grenades and bombs, he wasn't afraid of incoming beams of light—what he feared was that this woman would go ruthless again and hurl a few bombs at him. That was something he truly couldn't endure.

"Is everything outside all right now?" The moment An Rongru saw Mu Xiao, her beautiful eyes overflowed with tenderness, as though her heart had softened.

When a woman had been saved several times by a man—especially when she had been in despair, in such a dangerous world filled with the unknown and stripped of any sense of security—having someone who brought her hope and safety to rely on, it was only natural for her to feel affection and gratitude toward him, and for feelings to bloom in her heart.