Chapter 268: You're Not a Modified Human, You're Not Even Human

That voice echoed in the air, carrying a strange metallic texture, and there was not a single ripple of emotion in its tone.

Strange and cold, as if the speaker was not the person from just now, but some non-human monster.

The peeper's heart sank; the voice from the fog was unsettling, giving no indication of stopping or making peace.

He stood with feet side by side, shoulders uneven, in a side-facing stance, hands raised in a defensive guard before his chest, his right eye flashing blue light madly.

His retina kept zooming in; as a gust of wind blew, white mist brushed against the human-shaped outline against the wind, revealing a deathly white, eerie, featureless... face?!

That metallic voice came from behind that face: "Modified Human? I never said I was one."

The peeper's pupils contracted, his gaze vigilant yet confused: "Your entire face has been implanted and reconstructed like this, and you still stubbornly refuse to admit you're a Modified Human?"

He shifted his gaze to scan below that faceless face.

Twisted bone spurs pierced through from his shoulders, blooming like two thickets of thorns guarding his cheeks.

Below the thicket were two rows of ferocious ribs, their surfaces blasted pitted and dented, with a cracked gap at the center, but strangely...

That gap writhed faintly, growing and healing like living flesh and blood visible to the naked eye.

The peeper's face froze, utterly astonished: "An Implant Body is self-repairing?"

The peeper's mind was in chaos; what he saw exceeded his understanding of Modified Humans, seeming instead like a more thorough... reconstruction?!

"What was that kind of reconstruction called?"

Alarms blared wildly in the peeper's mind; he had never seen that kind of reconstruction, only felt he had heard of it somewhere, yet now he simply could not recall it.

Then he heard that cold metallic voice continue to echo in the air:

"I'm not like you; I won't just stuff any random junk parts into my body."

"To be honest, I quite like the human shell; it has a kind of natural rhythm..."

The peeper's throat was dry; some lubricating machine oil surged up from his throat, irritating his esophagus.

With the cold metallic voice, the white mist completely fell to the ground, revealing a pair of strange bone claws stepping on the ground; on the bone claws, ring-shaped bone plates covered his ankles and knees, flashing with piercing cold light in the darkness.

Blue light in the peeper's right eye flashed as if about to overflow his eye socket; he readjusted his focal distance, looking at the humanoid monster before him whose body was 80% covered in bone, with almost no flesh left connecting, his mouth unconsciously gaping wide as if it could fit a fist.

The metallic-textured voice continued, still cold as ice, but with a hint of eerie discussion of truth:

"Modified Humans look like hybrids of flesh and machine, neither human nor ghost, not conforming to my aesthetic; I have always believed that natural, original parts are the most beautiful form of life, what do you think?"

The peeper widened his eyes; this non-human monster before him plunged him into deep shock, fragments of memory slowly piecing together in his mind.

He vaguely remembered that once, following his company on a business trip, he attended a small but high-standard academic conference.

At that time, walking down the corridor, he happened to hear a young scientist inside a room expounding his theory.

He peeked in through the door crack at that time; the speaking man was very young, not well-known, many people in the room did not recognize his theory, mostly refuting him.

Many years later, he saw that young scientist's face again through television; the other had transformed into a Star Scientist of the Sixth District.

It was said that recently he would come to the Nine Districts as a guest to attend some academic conference.

He could not remember the exact words spoken in that room back then, only remembered the general meaning:

Implantation is merely the starting point of the path of reconstruction, but no matter how far this path extends in the future, mechanical reconstruction can never be thoroughly perfect.

Because this path has a fatal flaw—machine and flesh are each foreign to the other, machine is dead, flesh is alive, and between death and life there always exists an insurmountable boundary, unable to be truly fused and reconstructed.

So, the most thorough, most perfect reconstruction must seek inspiration from the Curse of the Evil Sacrifice!

The peeper's mind went blank for an instant; he hurriedly bit his tongue with his teeth, and the bloodiness spreading in his mouth brought him back to his senses.

He stared fixedly at the non-human monster before him with his right eye, lips trembling, stammering: "You... you really aren't a Modified Human!"

He paused, feeling the CPU in his head was about to burn out, almost smoking.

He took a deep breath and said coldly: "You're not even human ah ah ah—"

The peeper felt his worldview had been insulted; he laughed angrily in rage: "You, a monster that isn't human, are here lecturing me, saying I'm neither human nor ghost, do you think that's appropriate?!!"

Feng Mu's gaze turned cold; the reason he talked nonsense with the other was not for idle chat, but to wait for the shattered bones in his chest to regrow, and now, the shattered bones in his chest had almost recovered.

"I kindly educated you on the beauty of life, yet you turn around and slander me as not human?"

Feng Mu's voice was cold; he most hated others slandering his "humanity"; he sneered ferociously: "You don't know good from bad!"

The echo of the previous sentence still lingered opposite, but the last "bad" character carried an evil wind, rushing into the peeper's ear.

"So fast, nearly twice as fast as before; is it because his true body was fully revealed, and his strength and speed were completely released?"

The peeper was horrified, feeling his left eye blur; his right eye's virtual frame barely caught a string of blurred shadows.

This time, all those shadows were a heart-pounding pure white; dense bone spurs layered upon each other, making the electronic eye unable to distinguish the figure's shape for an instant, let alone lock onto which one was the real body.

The peeper's ear twitched, and goosebumps rose on his face.

He dared not hesitate; he hurriedly hunched his waist, his raised right hand poised to strike, and swung toward the side.

Pfft!

A muffled sound, as if the air had been dented by a heavy fist; the ferocious white shadow on the right was instantly pierced through, as fragile as foam, shattering apart.

"Where are you looking, is it your blinking eye that says I'm not human?"

The sinister bone mask was almost pressed against his cheek; the chill emitted from the 【mask】 was like the biting cold wind of winter, drilling straight into his breath.

In those sinister eyes, malice and intense killing intent were unhidden, making the peeper feel as if his scalp would split open on the spot.

That gaze was not a human wanting to kill another human, but some terrifying carnivorous monster greedily eyeing the... food on the plate!!!

(End of Chapter)