Chapter 194: Blood Flower
The Surging Lightning Flagship Model had a Fire Crystal, Green Frost Stone, and a crystalized neurosphere from a Terror Dragon embedded in it. If Meng Chao injected spirit energy in it, he could affect the atomic electron sh.e.l.l and change the properties of the saber.
Meng Chao had his spirit energy flow from his 1,024 branch meridians and the eight main meridians to the saber. The Fire Crystal was the first to shine in a dazzling light. The saber turned an orange red while it burned hot. With one slash, Meng Chao left behind a sizzling burn on the Will o’ the Wisp Dragon’s neck.
Then, the Green Frost Stone shone with a cold, chilly light. It reduced the temperature of the saber to -100 degrees Celsius. It froze up the water molecules in the air, and pieces of ice from the blade fell to the Will o’ the Wisp Dragon’s wound.
The Surging Lightning Flagship Model was made using Special Alloy No. 3642 and the tailbone powder from a Thundertail, which made it strong enough to withstand the instant change from high temperature to low temperature.
But the Will o’ the Wisp Dragon was a creature of flesh and bone. There was no way it could withstand the constant change of temperature with a difference of thousands of degrees Celsius.
Since heat caused things to swell up and cold shrank objects, its cells burst, and its bones and flesh became incredibly brittle.
Through the fine control given to him by the 1,024 branch meridians, Meng Chao switched between using the Fire Crystal and Green Frost Stone several times in just a few seconds.
It was as if he was repeatedly bending a metal wire. In the end, when the metal wire reached its limits of metal fatigue, he used the principle of causing things to expand in heat and making things shrink in the cold to maximize the fragility of the Will o’ the Wisp Dragon’s body.
At that moment, the crystalized neurosphere from the Terror Dragon shone with fierce light.
“Demon Subduing Slash!”
The spirit tattoo on Meng Chao’s arms seemed to shoot out of his arms and surround the blade. Then, through the additional power given to it by the crystalized neuroshere from the Terror Dragon, it shot three meters forward.
It looked like a huge blade that could kill a Terror Dragon. With just one slash, Meng Chao cut into the wound he had been repeatedly attacking all this while and beheaded the Will o’ the Wisp Dragon cleanly, as if he was cutting a piece of paper!
His muscles had gathered strength before he launched the attack, and with the spirit tattoos providing an outline, he felt like he had matchless strength.
Regardless of whether it was the Four Great Kings of Agricultural University’s martial arts course or the even stronger specially recruited students, when they saw this, they felt a storm rage in their hearts, and they were incredibly shocked. All except Wu Wu, that was.
But that was not the end.
After the Will o’ the Wisp Dragon was beheaded, it did not die. Instead, something crawled out of the stream of blood gushing out from its abdominal cavity. It looked like a man-eating flower’s bulb, but also like a mutated organ. It let out hissing sounds as it swung its numerous tentacles and went to bite Meng Chao’s neck.
But Meng Chao seemed to have been expecting this change. Right when he lowered the tip of the Surging Lightning Flagship Model to the ground, he brought it up, and with an upwards thrust, he stabbed the crimson flower covered in flesh and blood. Even his hilt almost sank inside.
His spirit energy surged madly. The low temperature spirit energy magnetic field hidden in the Green Frost Stone froze the b.l.o.o.d.y flower and the Will o’ the Wisp Dragon’s carca.s.s into ice statues. Even the tentacles that looked like b.l.o.o.d.y vines stopped raging and became slow and stiff.
Meng Chao stopped attacking. He let go of the saber hilt and squatted down slightly, allowing a tentacle covered in spikes to graze past the top of his head.
He flung his water-resistant fighting trench coat to the back and brought out two mini submachine guns that were about the size of the handguns at his waist. But even though they were tiny, they were still stronger than handguns. Meng Chao aimed at the frozen b.l.o.o.d.y flower and fired all the bullets at it in one go.
Blood and flesh flew in the air. Nectar spilled all over the place. The b.l.o.o.d.y flower screeched as it was torn apart and shredded to pieces.
But Meng Chao was still worried. He would not allow the b.l.o.o.d.y flower the chance to come back to life. His hands went to his legs, and with a move that made Han Xing let out a gasp of admiration, he switched to new cartridges.
He emptied three cartridges before he threw away the mini submachine guns and arrived next to Xie Feng and Sun Ya to pick up his backpack. From it, he took out a silver-white liquid nitrogen spray and returned to the mangled carca.s.s of the Will o’ the Wisp Dragon. He first removed the two Surging Lightnings from its body, then sprayed liquid nitrogen over it for a full half a minute. Then, he finally sighed in relief, and a faint smile appeared on his face.
His movements had been as smooth as those of a butcher working in a flow production. It shocked everyone.
Then, he opened his fighting trench coat and brought out nearly one hundred dissection and harvesting tools tightly packed together to cut up the Will o’ the Wisp Dragon’s carca.s.s. His actions were as smooth as those of a butcher cutting up an ox.
Even though many people knew that Meng Chao had a background in harvesting, this was a Grade Three superbeast. It was also a mutated and unidentified version. It contained incredible value and countless secrets. It should be transported back to the base so that the monster experts could examine it carefully. But he... just harvested it?
The group surrounded him and watched him move as if he was performing magic tricks. He brought out all sorts of cold-storage cans and airtight bags from his military backpack, which was beginning to resemble a bag full of treasure. He categorized the Will o’ the Wisp Dragon’s claws, fangs, brains, bones, and organs and sealed them up with familiar motions.
The students felt their mouths go dry. They did not know what to say.
Suddenly...
With a hiss, a few b.l.o.o.d.y vines that had not been completely frozen up shot out like a viper at Meng Chao’s face from the depths of the Will o’ the Wisp Dragon’s abdominal cavity.
Meng Chao did not even blink. He poked them gently but quickly three times with his forceps and caught them. He snapped them off and put them into his bag.
The group sucked in sharp breaths. Shao Jianqing could not help but ask, “You’re harvesting a Will o’ the Wisp Dragon here? Isn’t it... too dangerous?”
And he was being a little careless about it!
He was just a one-star superhuman, yet he was forcefully harvesting an evolved version of Grade Three superbeast. If he did not do it properly, the monster materials would mutate again at any moment, and the carca.s.s would turn into a biochemical bomb!
Meng Chao was focused on his task, so he did not even look up. “This superbeast might be dead, but its cells are still very active. If I don’t harvest it immediately but freeze it with super low temperatur to send it back to the base, it might rot away or explode, and its research value will be largely diminished.”
“How do you know how to harvest a Will o’ the Wisp Dragon?” Shao Jianqing asked hesitantly.
“I’ve seen it before.” Meng Chao paused for a moment, then added, “In a book.”
The group was speechless. He just read a few textbooks and monster harvesting manuals and dared to work on a mutated Will o’ the Wisp Dragon? They did not know whether they should admire his courage or break out in cold sweat because of his audacity.
“What is this?”
Shao Jianqing gasped and pointed at the fragments of the b.l.o.o.d.y flower that Meng Chao had frozen up and put into a cold-storage storage device.
“This is a Blood Flower. It’s the reason why the Fire Feather Dragon became like that,” Meng Chao explained. “Even though it’s called a Blood FLOWER, it’s actually a strange lifeform similar to a fungus. It likes living as a parasite in monsters, and it can improve the functions of monster cells. It’s similar to the zombie virus you usually find in human bodies.
“But this thing is even more terrifying. It can excrete a unique substance that can twist the genetic chain, so a creature will display all sorts of terrifying and monstrous states.
“Usually, when the host is still alive, the Blood Flower is in a state of hibernation. At first glance, it’s no different from a normal parasite, but it secretly absorbs the host’s energy to stay alive. Once the host dies, the Blood Flower is ‘activated’. It takes over the host’s body and makes it enter a much more powerful second stage of life.
“This is why the Fire Feather Dragon experienced a corpse transformation right after it died and turned into a Will o’ the Wisp Dragon.”
The group looked at each other and could see the puzzlement in each other’s eyes.
“I’ve only heard about Blood Gra.s.s before. They’re really powerful creatures that resemble fungi and can live on as parasites in many monsters. I also know that they’re the main reason as to why monsters experience corpse transformations.” Shao Jianqing frowned a little and said, “But a Blood Gra.s.s’s nature isn’t supposed to be this fierce!”
“Monsters are evolving, and pseudo-fungi parasites are also evolving. Blood Flower is the evolved form of the Blood Gra.s.s, but of course, it’s far from it’s fully evolved state.” Meng Chao sighed. “Not far into the future, perhaps we will face more monsters with Blood Flowers residing in them as parasites. This war is far from over!”
“You’re... Meng Chao from Agricultural University’s martial arts course, right?” Xu Sheng crawled over with his mechanical prosthetics which were in the shape of a spider fighting vehicle.
He was still shocked, but he said, “Thanks for saving me just now. I owe you one. But I noticed that when you released your final, major move, the Will o’ the Wisp Dragon suddenly swelled up, and it could not even put its limbs on the ground. It could only watch you as you swung your saber on its neck. What happened?”
This was something that the others could not understand, either, but it was the key that decided the battle.
If the Will o’ the Wisp Dragon hadn’t suddenly swelled up as if it was about to explode, Meng Chao would not have had so much time and would not have been able to calmly create his spirit energy magnetic field to release Demon Subduing Slash.
“I injected something into its body.” Meng Chao retrieved a syringe from a hidden spot on the Will o’ the Wisp Dragon’s carca.s.s.
No one noticed when he had stabbed the syringe into the spot that was at the back of the Will o’ the Wisp Dragon’s thigh, which was directly under its b.u.t.t.
“What’s that? Poison?” Xu Sheng was puzzled. What sort of poison would be that powerful?
“It’s not poison. It’s the blood of the heart from thirty Blade Shattering Pythons,” Meng Chao said. “I was out hunting just now, and I ran into thirty Blade Shattering Pythons, so I gathered the blood of their hearts while I was at it. It’s a coincidence that I got to use them on the Will o’ the Wisp Dragon.”
The group then came to an understanding.
The Blade Shattering Pythons’ heart blood contained a lot of spirit energy. If it were carefully modified, it could be turned into gene medicine and high-calorie nutritional fluid. If taken at suitable amounts, it was a great supplement that could improve cultivation.
But if someone had the heart blood of thirty Blade Shattering Pythons injected into them before it was modified, the rampaging spirit energy would act like a flood and crash into the organs and limbs until they were destroyed. Even the Will o’ the Wisp Dragon’s powerful body was not able to withstand it, so the effect was much better than that of poison.
“But how did you gather the blood of thirty Blade Shattering Pythons’ hearts ‘in pa.s.sing’?” Shao Jianqing, Xu Sheng, and Han Xing were puzzled.
Blade Shattering Pythons might just be normal monsters, but when there were thirty of them, they were very difficult to deal with as well.
Shao Jianqing and the others were confident that they could kill thirty Blade Shattering Pythons, but they were not certain that they could keep the pythons’ hearts in perfect shape to gather their heart blood.
Their puzzled gazes went to the Four Great Kings from Agricultural University’s martial arts course as they stood behind Meng Chao.
The Four Great Kings scratched their heads.
Forget about appraising Meng Chao’s methods, they did not even know how to describe it.