The research institute was shrouded in fear. Several senior researchers personally appointed by the Emperor had once seen Si Jinyan on the verge of completely losing control.
To prevent the previous mistake from happening again, they had made thorough preparations this time...
Yet Si Jinyan, who had been calm until then, seemed to have suddenly been provoked by something. Abnormally, he broke free of his restraints and violently struck the glass chamber walls.
Physical restraints could no longer confine Si Jinyan.
Just as the Mermaid inside the extraction chamber broke free of the shackles around his tail, another scene that shocked and terrified everyone unfolded.
Only half of Si Jinyan's body had been covered in scales, yet the scales suddenly began to spread and grow. The scales below his waist and abdomen crept upward. The dark patterns flowing beneath the skin of his formerly human upper body transformed into hard scales, while his fins also began to change. The sharp translucent fins on either side of his tail grew even sharper...
An elderly, highly qualified researcher recorded the scene in terror and excitement.
Ever since seeing Si Jinyan, he had devoted his life to studying creatures like this—such terrifying, powerful, beautiful creatures.
He held the recorder with trembling hands. In the final frame, the monster's golden pupils fixed on him.
The old researcher met the monster's gaze, and shudders spread through his body. Fear imprisoned him where he stood. His limbs were stiff, leaving him unable to move as he stared at the monster. Then he saw—a pair of enormous translucent "wings" unfurl from the monster's back, each "wing" more than half the length of its body.
It defied science, defied physiology, and brimmed with the bizarre, the absurd, the horrifying...
If he survived, he would remember this scene every night.
Only then did the old researcher realize that, in their past research, they had grasped only the tiniest fraction of a creature born with such an "evolution" ability. His breathing quickened.
But the next second, the tail that had already broken through the glass chamber coiled around his neck and snapped off his head as effortlessly as breaking a dead branch.
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After being shot, Chi Li forced himself to move beside a tree trunk. He leaned against it, slowed his breathing, and listened for movement behind him, but the loss of blood still made his consciousness increasingly hazy.
Chi Li's breathing gradually steadied, but his heart began beating faster and faster. There was a familiar warmth, as though he were wrapped in a sphere of water...
Then he suddenly remembered the accident he had encountered along the Empire's coast. When his consciousness had blurred then, he had experienced the same thing.
Before he had time to consider why, his consciousness was dragged deeper...
In a sea of mist, he saw someone walking toward him.
Before he could make out the person's face, he completely lost consciousness.
When Chi Li woke, everything before him was a hazy white, and his mind had yet to fully return.
A few seconds later, his vision cleared, and he abruptly met a pair of golden pupils.
Si Jinyan's former golden vertical pupils had been replaced by complete golden pupils. Every emotion in his eyes was hidden, leaving only a beastlike, dangerous gaze.
The unfamiliarity of Si Jinyan's appearance made Chi Li's heart clench violently. He shouted, "Si Jinyan?!"
It was as though he had truly become a ferocious beast.
Fine silver-black scales covered his neck and cheeks near his ears. His short black hair had become long silver-black hair, and his scale-covered arms trapped Chi Li between the edge of the pool and his body.
They seemed to be in a hot spring pool somewhere inside a cave.
Chi Li did not know how Si Jinyan had found him, nor how he had discovered this place. The only thing Chi Li could be certain of was that Si Jinyan's current appearance was one stage of his uncontrolled beast transformation.
Chi Li's heart pounded wildly. He did not even dare struggle too much. His legs were coiled by the tail, his skin pressed against hard scales that could leave bloody scratches with the slightest carelessness. This was far beyond Si Jinyan's previous loss of control.
Chi Li remembered the bullet that had entered his chest before he lost consciousness. The wound no longer hurt as badly as before; his injury had eased greatly.
In surprise, he reached for his back, but before he could touch the wound, Si Jinyan seized his wrist and stared at him with dark eyes.
Chi Li frowned tightly and returned Si Jinyan's gaze with wariness. He could not communicate with Si Jinyan, nor could he guess what Si Jinyan would do next. He could only remain completely alert.
The air felt suffocatingly still.
The silver-black strands hanging at Si Jinyan's side slowly moved toward Chi Li. By the time Chi Li realized it, the silver-black hair had already wrapped around his wrist like tentacles.
The boneless, soft sensation was no less horrifying than the first time he had touched the tail. The strands seemed conscious, scrambling to coil around Chi Li's neck and creep toward his mouth.
Witnessing this with his own eyes, Chi Li was shocked and afraid, his scalp prickling. Yet Si Jinyan continued to stare steadily at him, like a predator with everything under control.
When the "hair" further extended into Chi Li's mouth like sprouting vines, Chi Li's breathing turned rapid, his heart thudding frantically as his eyes widened.
"Si Jinyan..."
He murmured Si Jinyan's name, trying to shake off the terrifying "hair," but those sounds were quickly drowned out as well.
Chi Li was completely bound. Even his sight was blocked, leaving only darkness before his eyes.
The next second, he felt something enter the wound in his back where the bullet had struck. Something smooth, warm, and tentacle-like slipped through the millimeter-wide opening, wrapped around the bullet that had grazed his heart and lodged in his flesh.
Had his view not been obstructed, Chi Li would have seen that the monstrous Si Jinyan had his lips pressed against his wound.
The monster's mouthparts entered the vulnerable wound and removed the bullet within. The hard bullet made from Scale was effortlessly bitten apart by Si Jinyan.
Si Jinyan crushed the bullet with a gloomy gaze, and the scent of Chi Li's blood and flesh made his pupils contract excitedly at once.
Chi Li did not know that the beast within Si Jinyan, the one that represented desire, had fully emerged as his beast transformation progressed. The Si Jinyan before him would completely follow his own will, following the instincts buried deep within him that Si Jinyan had always suppressed.
Those sealed memories and subconscious thoughts had always been searching for someone. When Chi Li appeared, his subconscious excitedly locked onto him—whenever Si Jinyan had made a decision, the scales of reason had tilted toward Chi Li again and again.
A moment later, Chi Li felt that "long hair" probing deeper. He could not even utter a single word, only stare desperately wide-eyed at the darkness before him as every sensation was infinitely amplified.
Stinging pain, shudders, unbearable...
As if he had fallen into a bottomless abyss, only indistinct movement and broken sounds gradually remained amid the rising mist.
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