Chapter 286: Celestial Human Form

Wind ceased, trees stilled.

In the high sky, Lin An stared at the moon glowing red before his eyes.

At a height of a hundred meters above ground, the zombies' howls below had lessened greatly; at this distance they could be ignored.

In the distance, the pitch-black buildings lay utterly silent.

Looking down, a corner of the city occasionally burst into a ball of fire, vanishing in an instant.

Dense black dots wandered along the streets; in the pitch-black night, a few huge black shadows flickered by.

He felt some sentiment, some loneliness.

After the apocalypse, probably few people left in humanity observe the world from this angle.

The consumption of the Sky-Step skill was not too great; Lin An simply stood in the air to check his remaining equipment:

「Thought Nail (blue Equipment, off-hand weapon type, spirit Equipment)」

「Equipment attribute: Spirit +3」

「Equipment effect: After using spirit power to launch Thought Nail, it deals spirit power*1.2 damage and adds Spirit Toxin effect. 」

「Spirit Toxin: After poisoning, it continuously reduces the enemy's spirit power, and causes sluggishness, dullness, interruption of skill casting, etc., negative effects. 」

「Equipment evaluation: The poison nail fused with Titan's rotting aura often plunges enemies into torment and pain. 」

「Note: After launching Thought Nail, it can be automatically reclaimed. 」

The equipment's effect can only be said to be not bad; it's equivalent to an extra skill.

To other Awakened Ones it might be considered a supreme treasure, but to him it's really somewhat useless.

The effect of spirit power toxin is indeed good, but in his hands it basically cannot be unleashed.

Under full-force burst, enemies that cannot be instantly killed will likely just run away.

Lin An's combat style has never been a drawn-out battle.

Either you kill me instantly, or I kill you instantly with one strike.

Forget it, let's just make do with it for now to stay alive.

If it really doesn't work, give it to Wen Ya; she happens to have no offensive means.

Controlling a single nail in battle really doesn't suit his combat style.

As for others, their spirit power is lower one by one; presumably only Wen Ya can use it.

After putting away the Thought Nail, Lin An merely glanced briefly at the white scale armor.

It's roughly equivalent to the Suturer's Body, a weakened version.

After all, one is a mutant from the peak of the Second Level, the other from the high stage of the Second Level; the gap is still considerable.

This scale armor can be given to Zhang Tie.

Shield, Steel Body, Bear Transformation, Scale Armor.

With four-layer defense, Xiong Hanzi can be fully forged into the strongest tank warrior, saving Lin An from sometimes having to take off his equipment and give it to Zhang Tie to resist enemies.

Several consecutive aerial rushes.

After testing the Void Step a bit, Lin An casually walked down from the night sky.

Quite satisfied.

Although the Void Step's attributes are slightly inferior, its effects and bonuses are quite practical; it truly lives up to being blue equipment.

In aerial combat, the fourth-stage exclusive ability, unexpectedly, has now been mastered by myself.

Although it's a weakened version, at this stage it can still produce quite good effects.

Gao Tian watched him walk down leisurely, unable to speak for a long while.

Feeling suffocated, he cautiously glanced around, then lowered his voice:

「Lin Dui... 」

「Are you really human? 」

Lin An:......

Too lazy to bother with Gao Tian's random thoughts, Lin An eagerly opened his attribute panel.

After advancing, he had never checked his talent.

The most important thing, tucked away at the bottom, is his habit.

「S-rank Talent: Celestial Human Form (False, lacking fourth-rank energy core support)」

「Celestial Human Form (False): When activated, all attributes +4, enhances the five senses, allows perfect execution of all skills and combat means. 」

「Talent Trait: After activating Celestial Human Form, you can gain strength boost from others' positive emotions; this boost ignores gene lock limits and rank limits. 」

「Talent Description: Lacking a fourth-rank energy core to complete it, at this stage only by absorbing positive emotions can one gain enhancement. After completion, the second effect is activated. 」

「Positive Emotions: joy, hope, awe, shock, respect, admiration, fervor... 」

「Note: Current spirit power can sustain Celestial Human Form for -9 seconds. 」

An enhanced version of combat instinct? The consumption is also greatly reduced...

Just that.

No combat skills?

Lin An has always doubted his own talent.

Normally, talents come with skills; especially after advancing to the Second Level, ordinary Awakened Ones usually have at least two attack skills, at minimum one.

But his talent has advanced twice, yet it still looks like a support type.

What about the new skill? Was it simply merged together?

Slightly disappointed.

Lin An originally still thought that upon reaching the Second Level, he should at least give himself an attack skill, right?

The upper limit of an Awakened One's attack output largely depends on their skills.

Like the elemental Awakened Ones at the base.

If their mental power is calculated at 10 points, they will usually deal more than 1× damage under skill amplification, and top performers can even reach 2×.

Thus they break through attribute limits, gaining the means to match zombies and mutants.

In the Heavenly Human form, 【perfect execution of skills and combat means】...

What does this explanation refer to?

After previously activating my battle instinct, I was already perfect enough.

Under massive data calculations, every angle and attack method reaches the limit.

No strength is wasted; efficiency is extremely high.

Isn't this already perfect?

Doubts arise in my mind, especially regarding drawing power from positive emotions.

Could it be that I still have a crowd of onlookers cheering me on during battle?

Just thinking about that scene, Lin An felt a bit strange...

He was fighting for his life up front, while behind him Zhang Tie excitedly shouted, "Captain Lin is awesome?"

Not quite understanding what the changing talent actually is, Lin An simply decided to test it out.

The rooftop platform was empty; after looking around, he simply targeted the neighboring eight-story residential building.

Under the night sky, Lin An silently activated his skill:

"Heavenly Human Form!"

A low shout, different from the previous dark-gold psychic energy.

This time the psychic energy burst out like dazzling white light, thick as substance, covering the whole body before gradually fading.

In an instant, time seemed to stop flowing.

With his senses heightened, Lin An felt, in a daze, as billions of information streams surged from the void.

The faint sound of wind, water flowing inside pipes, tiny insects crawling in wall cracks...

Unusually slow, Lin An slightly turned his head, and beside him Gao Tian seemed in his consciousness to become a stream of information made of data.

Almost without pause, he felt as if he could predict Gao Tian's next move.

"Hoh—"

Lin An gazed blankly at the familiar yet strange time before him, as if everything around him were under his control.

With each exhale, the originally faint breathing sound shook the soul.

Every one of his movements left an afterimage, as if time had become a slowly scrolling scroll.

Without thinking, everything he perceived was as clear as the palm of his hand.

Material, molecular arrangement, temperature, weight.

All information seemed to be labeled on matter.

Lin An instantly understood what he had become.

Is this the world as seen by near-divine beings or omniscient ones?

No secrets, no unknowns.

Unlike the slowness Lin An perceived, Gao Tian stared in shock at Lin An bursting with dazzling white light; the holy-gold psychic energy felt like standing inside a grand cathedral.

The pressure emanating from Lin An's whole body almost made him kneel.

All that could be seen was Lin An drawing a long sword from his ring beyond his reaction limits and then swinging it.

The sword's instantaneous burst of speed was almost too fast to leave a trace on the retina.

The shooting sword instantly turned into a white-hot blade net that pierced the entire residential building in 0.1 seconds.

Clearly there was an impact, yet not a sound could be heard.

Half a second later, the gray-white residential building crumbled like a suddenly shattered mirror into dust on the ground.

"Gurgle."

From activating the skill to striking, it took less than the blink of an eye.

Gao Tian stared blankly at the dust beneath his feet, his whole body trembling.

Is this an illusion?

What about such a huge residential building? How can it just be gone?

He stiffly turned his head with difficulty, just catching sight of Lin An turned to the side.

Under his golden pupils, he seemed non-human.

"What's wrong?"

Lin An looked expressionlessly at the suddenly trembling Gao Tian and asked softly.

His voice was merely a tremor like from the void, devoid of any emotion, like a system.

In a daze, Gao Tian felt as if he were directly facing a deity.

"Captain Lin..."

"You still say you're human..."