In just a few short minutes, those mutated candidates had each displayed their unique talents, breaking through the outer spiritus barrier and marching straight in, swaggering into the base.
Why else did they say that nobody wished for a colleague's demise quite like another colleague?
Among the mutated candidates barging in, even the absolute weakest possessed a neat trick or two for handling spiritus barriers that would make anyone's vision go black.
Watching this, Ji Jue wanted nothing more than to slap himself a few times.
Fucking hell, talk about getting exactly what he dreaded...
Well then. Now the desert island Match-3 game was truly underway.
Ji Jue sighed, helplessly looking up toward the ceiling as if he could see the gloating proctors outside the simulation.
*Messing with me like this, are you?*
Inside the workshop, Ji Jue waved a hand and gave a helpless shrug.
And then, the subterranean depths violently trembled. Amid a terrifying roar, the entire underground base shook. Flames surged down the long, narrow corridor, instantly engulfing the figures charging at the very front, one after another.
And then, beneath the floor, crisp clicks snapped out.
Bouncing mines suddenly sprang up from beneath the cracks, spinning in midair before blasting out a torrential rain of shrapnel in deafening detonations.
Or, within the recessed ceiling compartments, incendiary bombs nestled between the rocks were instantly triggered, turning the hollow hall into a blazing inferno of hellfire.
Always have a contingency plan.
Always have a contingency plan for your contingency plan.
Having suffered under that old bastard Kanemoto, Ji Jue never hesitated to prepare an ultimate contingency plan on top of that whenever conditions permitted.
Aside from the numerous explosives and weapons buried at every entrance, the topmost level of the entire underground base had been reinforced by Ji Jue and designed as a designated combat zone should the outer defenses be breached.
Naturally, the surprises buried within were countless.
"Since the Association has made it clear they're throwing humanity out the window, there's no need for me to pretend to be a gentleman..."
As for these clowns in front of him...
"Daring to show off such paltry tricks before a master!
"—I see you lot are fucking courting death!!!!"
*Boom!*
Amid continuous explosions and roars, the sounds of artillery firing and machine guns strafing echoed relentlessly. Every corrupted apprentice who rushed in received the grand baptism of Federation munitions.
The thirty to forty charging in front were instantly blown to pieces, leaving not even a corpse intact.
Yet more figures grew wary, refusing to push forward blindly; in the simulation's data, they had clearly been granted considerable intelligence.
The moment they realized their advance was blocked, they sought cover and safe zones, and some even liquefied stone into mud, attempting to burrow downward.
Until, all of a sudden, the gunfire and explosions came to a dead halt.
The entire combat level fell into silence.
In the dead silence, the blast door leading to the lower level slowly ground open.
All the figures visibly froze for an instant. Retaining remnants of their original personalities and habits, some retreated warily, while others seized the opportunity, instantly darting across the fortifications and lunging straight for the entrance.
And then...
*SPLAT.*
They flew backward and slammed into the wall, plastered flat.
Or rather, they were cleanly crushed into mincemeat.
From the darkness behind the heavy doors, deep footsteps sounded. Steel clashing on steel rang out in a resounding clatter, like iron hammers beating against the heart, sending chills down the spine.
A monster of steel walked out of the darkness step by step, its frame still clinging with sticky blood and shredded flesh.
Casually, it tossed the severed half-corpse in its hand to the ground, then raised a foot.
*STOMP!*
Blood splattered.
Upon that beast-like visage of steel, blood-stained eyes glowed with red light, sweeping across the surroundings and glaring down at all the intruders.
"A bunch of clueless garbage, how dare you stand against me, how dare you challenge me?!"
At this moment, he had actually stepped out from the absolute safety of the workshop core on his own initiative...
—Hero Unit: Ji Jue, enters the fray!
The instant Ji Jue revealed himself, all the intruders hesitated no longer, sprinting forward to attack. Some had even stripped defense weapons from the fortifications at some point.
They pulled the triggers without hesitation!
Bullets pelted against the armor and fell away limply, failing to leave behind even a scratch.
And in the very center of the dark tide formed by the corrupted apprentices, the steel colossus looking down indifferently didn't even deign to react.
Only the grinding screech of metal sounded as limbs slowly unfolded from his back... Arms dismantled from an abomination, transformed by the Crucible and remodeled through Fluid Alchemy, their flesh and blood replaced by metal, scarlet quicksilver coursing through steel veins.
Dozens of abomination hands unfurled, as though a towering tree had sprung from the earth in an instant.
Except the branches were abomination arms forged from steel and quicksilver, and the boundless foliage was fingers sharper than blades and cold iron!
Now, he needed only reach out at will, and bright red, plump, juicy fruit would instantly appear upon the boughs.
Then, effortlessly, crushed to powder!
With the abomination arms attached, the hideous armor's aura instantly exploded! Skyrocketed! Surged with power!
Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!
He didn't even need to use weapons. At this moment, eighteen steel limbs of differing lengths and functions swept outward effortlessly, easily raining down devastation and slaughter.
A casual swing threw an intruder up, slamming him into the ceiling to become a heap of mush. Two arms crossed, and a rain of blood poured as a target was ripped in two from the center, or into even more shredded fragments.
When an iron fist slammed down, it whipped up a storm of concussive shockwaves in the pool of blood, rippling outward in all directions.
A massacre.
An outright massacre.
From start to finish, Ji Jue didn't hesitate in the slightest.
"How dare you covet my mushroom cultivation center, my rat-breeding facility, my water purification system, my swimming pool, and my materials...
"And my workshop!
"—Today, I shall blast every last one of you useless mongrels into slag, yeahhhh!!!"
It was practically like stepping on roaches.
The popping, crackling sounds of crunching shells never ceased.
An armored unit fighting unarmored units was easier than a muscleman bloodbathing a kindergarten; moreover, this was power armor, practically a dimensional strike using a dual-vector foil against toddlers.
Furthermore, there were the abomination hands and the blessing module Ji Jue had just installed.
Chaotic repulsion fields detonated continuously like bombs held in his palms, forming hazy vortexes. A mere sweeping strike was enough to churn up vast plumes of blood and severed limbs, grinding everything into paste.
The unarmed, gearless candidates possessed only a few artisan techniques that were useless in direct melee combat—and they were thoroughly countered by Ji Jue anyway, leaving them completely defenseless.
Their vitality and threat level had risen after corruption, but it was still far from enough; at best, all they could do was cause wanton destruction and piss Ji Jue off.
When Ji Jue stomped the last intruder to death, the entire combat floor had been stained crimson.
Corpses lay scattered in disarray.
In the dead silence, Ji Jue shook his head in incomprehension. How could a bunch of washed-up dropouts put any real pressure on him?
If I were the proctor running the exam, at the very least...
At the very least...
The instant that thought crossed his mind, Ji Jue snapped out of his daze, realizing the truth.
His expression twitched, and unable to hold back any longer, he roared:
"Fuck your mo—"
Instantly, his projection on the floating light outside the simulation was muted.
Absurdly fast reflexes.
Even with Ji Jue starting his curse on frame zero, it was still blocked flawlessly!
Jiang Tongguang blew a whistle, successfully defending his family members and his honor as a director.
Not in the least restrained by his status, he actually gloated over winning in such an absurd contest.
"Heh, just from eating the appetizer, he already figured out what spicy little show is coming next? Kids these days sure have quick reflexes."
He shook his head in admiration, his eyes narrowing.
Growing all the more expectant.
Just like the shifts brought about during ecological corruption:
The vast majority of mutated variants were nothing more than failed scrap, just like those eliminated apprentices. The only role they could serve in the system was food, or... a catalyst.
And the 'finished products' that truly grew, broke through, and completed their evolution like real abominations...
Weren't they right before their eyes?
"It's about time. Let's begin."
Jiang Tongguang waved a hand and snapped his fingers.
At that moment, among the floating lights that had returned to quiet, a brand-new change emerged.
Right now, inside the simulation, outside an observation station, the ground was a complete mess. Amid the scattered corpses of intruders, countless spiritus crystals crisscrossed like prisms, forming an impenetrable defense.
"Paltry tricks, not even worth mentioning!"
Lou Feng scoffed, glancing at the scene in his spiritus projection.
While corrupted intruders skilled in alchemy were indeed troublesome—and might have torn down his workshop if left unchecked—it took only a slight scheme to easily lure them into traps.
Thereby deploying his crystal golems to wipe them out in one fell swoop!
Having effortlessly eliminated the invasion, he elegantly raised his wine glass and took a sip of crude red wine that he normally wouldn't even deign to smell. Beneath the soft, warm light, he savored the heat radiating from the fireplace.
All that seemed missing was a lovely piece of classical music.
It was back. It was all back.
No enamel mugs, no big bowls of strong tea, no chaotic nonsense, and no brainwashing DJ dance tracks.
This was life. This was living. This was the true style of an artisan!
Begone, uncultured dogs!
Sure enough, days without that Ji guy were good days; life without that Ji guy was fucking glorious life! Without that Ji guy around, even an exam became relaxing and fun!
He was practically moved to tears.
Then, before the little pearls could fall, they froze right in his eyes.
At that moment, out in the darkness beyond the workshop, a scalp-numbing screech of grinding metal seemed to ring out, shrill and piercing. Reflected in the spiritus light, the silhouette of a titan emerged.
Yet its steel face was as savage as a beast's.
Step by step, forward.
Stepping across the perimeter line...
Yet another intruder!!!
"There's still more left?!"
He looked up blankly at the spiritus projection, and the last remnant of a smile froze completely on his face.
Beneath the illumination, that solemn and monstrous suit of power armor finally revealed its true form, unreservedly exuding a violent aura that eclipsed ordinary abominations.
Under Lou Feng's horrified gaze, arm after arm slowly unfolded—
And then, amid a high-pitched buzzing resonance, the repulsion disruption field activated!
*Gulp.*
A chill like needles in his back seized him without warning. Lou Feng swallowed hard, his fingers trembling.
*So strong!*
Yet what made him instinctively uneasy wasn't the terrifying aura upon that armor; it was this hauntingly familiar spiritus structure, this design aesthetic he would recognize even if it were burned to ashes, and this goddamn visual style that gave him nightmares with a single glance...
*No, calm down, Lou Feng!*
*You have to stay calm!!!*
*Maybe it's just a coincidence. Right, maybe it's an accident, maybe you're mistaken... maybe... maybe... your entire life is doomed to suffer at this dog bastard's hands!*
Lou Feng could take it no longer, completely shattering.
His vision went dark.
Why the fuck!
"That bastard Ji Jue, he's STILL chasing me!!!"
Chapter 268