Chapter 1 A New Experience

As long as you've been on the job long enough, you're bound to encounter new experiences beyond imagination—Hao Ren deeply understood this point.

He had fought the First Born, battled guardian giants, clashed with soldiers and magical beasts from other worlds, and even confronted the planetary will of Ior. But he never imagined that one day he would fight a super-gigantic Vivian. The bizarre unfolding of this battle was unexpected; the blood gushing from a certain organ of the First Born was still continuously replenishing the gigantic Vivian, making her stronger every minute. This incomprehensible, bizarre existence was undoubtedly the "other self" Vivian had mentioned before, but why she had become like this seemed unclear even to Vivian herself.

A low, strange rumbling echoed throughout the space, and everything around them vibrated with the sound. The battle shook the foundations of that giant organism, and its tremors were transmitted to all the First Born's tentacles connected to it. In the intense stimulation, these enormous biological tissues convulsed instinctively, making the scene bizarre and terrifying. Countless giant tentacles, as if trying to bind the giant organism in the center during a storm, reached towards the center of the battlefield from all directions. Yet, every movement of the crimson giant caused everything to spiral further out of control.

The giant female figure moved expressionlessly, using instinct to eliminate the "harmful targets" in her eyes. Howling, blood-red storms constantly coalesced around her, pouring towards Hao Ren and his group wave after wave, as if without end. The blood-red storm contained an almost mournful sound, like human screams. Even from a hundred meters away, they could feel a negative emotion piercing into their souls, crushing them along with the storm.

Hao Ren and the others had retreated in haste to a kilometer away from the giant organism. Because they didn't understand the enemy's abilities, they had cautiously chosen to create a safe distance before choosing a tactic. But now, they were deadlocked with the enemy at this distance.

Hao Ren frantically dodged a wave of attacks. The blood-red storm brushed past his body. Although his shield blocked the physical damage, he still felt a burst of dizziness and trembling coming from the depths of his heart.

Every attack from this strange enemy carried an equivalent mental assault, and the range of the mental attack was even greater, making it almost impossible to defend against.

After barely stabilizing himself, he immediately raised his gun and launched a counterattack. A bright blue light bullet instantly struck the giant female's chest, creating a penetrating hole in the heart area. However, just like every previous attack, a part of her body crystallized, shattered, and fell off. Within seconds, new blood surged in from all directions to fill the wound.

"Besides the head, the heart isn't a weak point either," Hao Ren shouted in frustration. "So, what exactly is the principle behind this thing?"

"She probably doesn't have any vital points," the data terminal was perhaps the most mentally stable one on the scene. It was immune to mental attacks, and it had been analyzing what the giant female was since the beginning. "She doesn't have a main body either. This terminal has detected that the liquid mass is fused with all the surrounding tissues. It's just 'flowing' out through a leak point here. Unless we can blow up the entire planet, she's endless!"

Hao Ren also realized this. He was not only attacking the giant female's body, but also the mass of connective tissue beneath her. However, the "blood" inside the connective tissue seemed to be endless, constantly repairing the damage. This "blood" was clearly not from the internal reserves of the tissue. He looked at the crisscrossing tentacles, which should be the pipes supplying the blood. "What about blowing those things apart?"

Vivian immediately shouted, "No, that will only stop this monster from appearing here, but she might transfer to any location inside the planet and be reborn—then she'll be completely out of our control."

Lili scurried back and forth in the distance, dodging the attacks of the blood-red storm. Her combat abilities were now completely useless, so she could only yell with a stomach full of anger, "Bat! Do you even know how to fight this thing?!"

Vivian pondered hard, her gaze still fixed on the mass of connective tissue. "According to the scenes I saw in the blood crystal stone, the other 'me' walked into this place back then, so if I can get inside…"

At this moment, the endless blood-red storm suddenly stopped for a split second. Hao Ren subconsciously looked into the distance and saw that the giant female in the center of the battlefield had suddenly raised her hands high, opening her mouth as if letting out a silent roar, and the large amount of blood sea floating around her instantly rippled. However, no sound came from any of this. Hao Ren froze for a moment, then suddenly shouted to remind everyone, "Retreat! Guard your minds!"

The next second, the silent storm descended in the silence.

The giant female formed from blood silently howled. Some invisible, powerful force swept across the battlefield like a hurricane, which was another intangible mental attack. Hao Ren felt his brain go blank for a moment, as if it had died from a lack of blood. Then, a massive amount of meaningless information was violently stuffed into it. Everything he saw was severely distorted, and the entire world formed a chaotic vortex that seemed to swallow people. For a moment, Hao Ren seemed to see Lili wielding her claws and slashing at him, and he was almost uncontrollably about to counterattack. But this moment quickly passed, and he broke free from a whole host of negative states, such as mental illusions, mind control, and sensory distortion. What he saw before him regained stability, with only waves of throbbing pain lingering in his brain.

Vivian mk-ii's silent howl had ended, and a large amount of corrosive blood mist rushed towards everyone again.

"A full-field mental crush every five minutes. If this keeps up, someone will go crazy," Hao Ren shook his head vigorously, then pushed Nangong Sanba away: the latter took a few seconds longer to recover from the mental confusion and was almost hit by the blood mist. "Lili! Take Sanba and meet up with Hesperides and the others. Vivian and I will find a way to charge into the 'mountain'!"

Lili shouted loudly, "Are you really planning to go in? We finally managed to retreat from over there!"

"I trust Vivian's intuition," Hao Ren said, looking up at the endless chaotic sky. There were a large number of First Born's tentacles growing crisscross in the mist-covered high altitude, and now those tentacles were twitching with an increasingly obvious amplitude. "The battle here has already stimulated these things. We can't delay any longer, or the fluctuations will sooner or later spread to the surface—the ancient spirits' lullaby might not be able to suppress it."

Lili looked at the giant female figure in the distance, who was calmly staring back with an unhurried attitude. However, from that expressionless liquid face, it was impossible to see the other party's emotions, or even whether the other party had the same sanity and thoughts as humans. Lili knew that she was not good at dealing with enemies who used magic and mental attacks, so she nodded vigorously. "Understood, be careful."

Hao Ren gave a sound of acknowledgment, grabbed Vivian, and prepared to set off. At this moment, Lili called out from behind, "Bat!"

Vivian turned her head. "Hmm?"

"This is your fault!" Lili waved her claws and shouted loudly, "You have to explain what this is when the time comes!"

After saying this, she grabbed the dizzy Nangong Sanba and quickly evacuated the scene. Their retreat direction was an "island" several kilometers away from here, where several tentacles fixed a piece of xenomorphic underground rock, which was the remnant of the planet that the First Born had not yet digested. The Hesperides trio, who were injured in the previous battle, had already retreated there. Nangong Wuyue was also there. Lili and Nangong Sanba could receive treatment as long as they retreated to the island.

Hao Ren and Vivian turned around and charged back towards the center of the battlefield.

The giant female with Vivian's appearance had noticed the two little bugs rushing towards her. She had no emotional fluctuations about this, just slightly lowered her body and poured more attacks onto these insignificant little invaders.

Her figure was like a demon god, wielding an indescribable terrifying storm in the center of the battlefield, but without any emotions that humans could understand. Seeing this situation, Vivian had the most complicated feelings. "How exactly was this formed?"

Hao Ren opened his shield to protect Vivian as they moved forward. He watched the enormous enemy continuously enlarge in his field of vision, feeling very strange. He wanted to say something to ease the tension between himself and Vivian, but after holding it in for a long time, he only said one sentence: "Vivian, looking at it from this angle… your face is really big."

Vivian couldn't help but laugh. "You really know how to… I guess you know how to adjust the atmosphere."

"I think we should give this guy a name," Hao Ren said, seemingly relaxed, while enduring the waves of throbbing pain in his brain as he looked at the mountain-like opponent. "After all, it's such a unique enemy. How about calling her Vivian mk-ii?"

Vivian's expression was strange. "Get lost, what kind of crappy name is that!"

"Then let's call her Demon God Vivian." Hao Ren looked ahead. At this distance, the gigantic Vivian brought him an even stronger sense of oppression, almost making him have the illusion that he was really fighting against a demon god. The ubiquitous blood-red storm was long impossible to avoid. It was now pouring onto his shield at full force, and he and Vivian were only a hundred meters away from that connective tissue.

Advancing became increasingly difficult.

A burning pain came from all parts of his body. Hao Ren noticed that his skin was decomposing in the blood mist, and a faint silver light was flickering in the flesh beneath his skin, rapidly repairing the damaged tissues—but it couldn't keep up with the rate at which his body was being decomposed by the blood mist.

The shield broke, but they had also successfully broken through the final obstacle.