The perfect creature's skill tree worked just like the vampire's: an innate skill could be unlocked every ten days.
The problem was that this tree held hundreds of thousands of skills. He couldn't possibly unlock them all in a short time, which meant he had to be selective and prioritize the more important abilities.
Take "Super Stomach," for instance—that would almost certainly cure his indigestion. And "Super Taste" would likely stop food from tasting like chewing on wax.
After all, he was only seventeen. There was still a vast world of delicacies waiting for him to sample. Losing his sense of taste and digestive ability had stripped away more than half of life's pleasures. Now that an opportunity had presented itself to make up for that loss, he naturally had no intention of passing it up.
It was only twenty days. He could afford to wait!
After checking the changes within his body, he looked up at the battle in the distance. Relying on fists alone made it terribly difficult to beat the perfect creature to death—in fact, it was practically impossible.
The creature possessed an ability called "Photosynthesis," remarkably similar to his own "Light Eater." As long as light surrounded it, it would continuously regenerate stamina, though the ability offered no feeling of fullness.
Even though Hu Weijie's interference had left it heavily injured in the explosion, as long as that ability remained active, Gong Qian's attack frequency was not enough to finish it off for good.
On the other hand, while Gong Qian possessed abundant stamina and terrifying power, she couldn't unleash her full might indefinitely.
Once fatigue set in and her strikes slowed, it would be the perfect creature's turn to counterattack.
Yu Xian knew full well that if Gong Qian were left to duel the creature one-on-one without outside interference, even in its gravely wounded state, the final outcome would be the creature turning the tables on her, not Gong Qian slaying the creature.
The thing was just that horrifying—practically a legendary champion of refusing to die.
Yu Xian pulled out his phone and dialed the number for the head of Qilin Headquarters. He had always had direct access to Yu Lie, having received the director's number during their very first meeting.
Still, unless there was a major crisis, so long as the captain or vice-captain was out in front handling things, he would never bypass the two of them to contact the director.
Reaching out now was a necessity. Relying solely on Gong Qian and a few small fry like them—none of whose offensive power even measured up to the Wolf rank—they could fight until the end of time without ever taking down this creature.
"Xiao Yu?" Yu Lie asked as he picked up the call.
Yu Xian straightened his posture and said, "Director, it's me. I have an urgent matter to report."
Once Yu Lie gave his approval, Yu Xian concisely recounted the entire operation: their encounter with the perfect creature that had devoured Hu Weijie, how they awakened Hu Weijie's consciousness, and how, with his cooperation, Yu Xian had successfully sucked blood to acquire the creature's memories.
A perfect creature?
The Evil-Slaying Squad's mission was truly fraught with twists and turns.
Listening to Yu Xian's report, Yu Lie was rendered momentarily speechless by the situation they were in. Yet once he grasped how terrifying the perfect creature was, he immediately realized the sheer scale of the threat such an entity posed to the nation.
Only one had been produced this time. What about the next?
If monsters like this could be mass-produced, the consequences would be unthinkable.
***
Silver City, Five-Star Grand Hotel.
Scott was still asleep when darkness suddenly crept in, plunging the entire room into a pitch-black abyss. Scott snapped his eyes open, rose, and knelt on the floor, saying respectfully, "Master, what are your orders?"
"Qilin found the perfect creature first. Under no circumstances must they be allowed to kill it!" a cold voice rang out from the shadows.
Scott frowned. "But Master, with my strength alone, I'm afraid I cannot retrieve it."
"In ten minutes, Nightwing will support you. Make it quick—take back the perfect creature and retreat immediately," the shadow said in a deep voice.
A direct clash with Qilin's forces?
Scott drew a deep breath and bowed his head. "As you command, my master!"
In truth, the reason the news had spread so fast was largely because clashes at the Dragon-rank caused enormous upheavals. Yu Xian and the others hadn't set up a boundary formation like the one in the quarantine zone, so even the outskirts of Silver City could feel the ground trembling faintly.
With every punch Gong Qian drove home, the sound reverberated across great distances. Had Scott not been asleep, he probably would have noticed the commotion long ago.
The surrounding darkness dissolved, returning Scott to the hotel room.
He pushed himself up from the floor, donned his trench coat, wrapped himself tightly in black bandages, and swiftly slipped out through the window.
Leaving Silver City behind, he arrived at an abandoned village outside town. A masked man bearing two large cleavers on his back stepped out from a dilapidated house.
"Let's move."
The man cast a glance at Scott and spoke with chilling brevity.
***
Meanwhile, Yu Xian hung up the phone and waited calmly for reinforcements.
Since Gong Qian couldn't handle the perfect creature alone, the simplest solution was to bring in more hands.
For instance, Jin Dajun—who was still dealing with Deimos's corpse—the Tiger-rank naval senior colonel stationed along the coast, and the Wickedness-Cleaving Squad, which had just arrived in Rongcheng: summon every last one of them.
With those people arriving as backup, resolving the perfect creature would be well within reach.
Since there was little left for him to do here, he could quietly ponder his own situation.
He conjured a bubble, climbed inside, and began reviewing his condition. So far, he had sucked blood three times in total. The first had been at Nora's urging, when he drank artificial blood.
That time had only caused blood drunkenness, granting him no skill trees whatsoever.
The second had been Pangu's Blood, which not only perfected his vampire abilities but also granted him Pangu's skill tree and a second heart.
Now came the third: he had obtained the perfect creature's skill tree and grown a third heart.
In other words, sucking blood had a high probability of granting him his target's skill tree.
This clearly wasn't an ability vampires originally possessed, yet he couldn't tell whether it was an innate trait he had carried since turning into a vampire, or a special ability derived after absorbing Pangu's Blood.
Furthermore, did this work on all living beings?
If it did, could he suck the blood of any creature and directly acquire their abilities?
Take Qingniao, for example—if he drank her blood, would he also be able to turn into a little bird?
Then there was another question: would his hearts keep multiplying?
He already possessed three hearts, two of which were beating with steady thuds. If things continued like this, wouldn't he end up sprouting a whole cluster of hearts?
A bizarre image even flashed through his mind: his hearts hanging together like a bunch of grapes, where each grape was a beating heart.
Suddenly, his brow knit slightly as his attention snapped toward a specific bubble. Just a fraction of a second ago, that microscopic bubble, concealed against the ground, had been stepped on.
Because he could perceive the internal space of every bubble with absolute clarity, he was certain that the material pressing down on it was synthetic rubber!
In other words, it wasn't an animal—a person had just passed over it.
That bubble was situated between Xingniao Airport and Silver City. Only their Evil-Slaying Squad was on the airport side, which conversely meant someone was approaching Xingniao Airport from the direction of Silver City.
An enemy?
In truth, Yu Xian already had his answer the very moment the thought crossed his mind.
After all, none of the reinforcements he had called were coming from Silver City. Anyone approaching from that direction could only be an enemy.
Chapter 64