Chapter 674: The Ancestor's Gift (63)

Preliminary Medical Magic is like damage control on a warship; ruptured hulls can be temporarily plugged, broken pipes can be temporarily connected, and burning compartments must be timely isolated from oxygen to ensure power can still be transmitted. But all of this is temporary, temporarily ensuring the ship can still float on the sea; the direction of effort must be to struggle to sail the ship back to the port dock, where a factory overhaul can truly give it a chance to survive. Relying on damage control to sustain the body and avoid sinking is a low-probability event with extremely stringent time constraints.

The barely connected pipes could burst at any moment, and the holes in the hull are truly holes. The broken hole in Du Zhengyi's body had long since exceeded the limit of what he could repair himself, and he was not that skilled at damage control either. Blood began to flow from the damaged areas, the flow rate increasing, and soon a small pool of blood accumulated beneath his feet. He increased his own hematopoiesis ability, which would cause irreversible damage to his organs, but since he had already reached this point, there was no need to fear such damage.

Du Zhengyi's body swayed, he stumbled forward a step, and finally crouched down, one hand supporting him on the ground. Blood flowed continuously from his body, and he subconsciously calculated how much blood a person—to be precise, a Mage—could actually lose from their body while using Magic enhancement.

Du Zhengyi moved forward another step, seemingly out of instinct to stand up, but it only made more blood flow out. If this were elsewhere in the Seal Land, perhaps those creatures responsible for cleaning would have been triggered again, but this Core Zone was isolated from the entire system and was much more plain and simple. His right knee touched the bloodstains on the ground, his left hand supported him on the floor, and his right hand clutched his abdomen, as if he had reached the final moment of his life. If left alone, he would soon be like a fresh, broken ship, sinking into the Pacific Ocean of his life without having fought many major battles.

If left alone...

He knelt on one knee on the ground, right in the center of his own pool of blood, looking as if his injuries had flared up and he was on the verge of death. A ripple appeared on the mirror-like surface of the blood pool, like a light soul brushing past the river of the underworld. At this very moment, Du Zhengyi erupted; the knee that had been touching the blood on the ground thrust upward violently, his body leaping up with great force. The hand clutching his abdomen held a black blade, the tip of which accurately pierced through the invisible body, while his left hand firmly gripped that body's throat. The ghost, unable to break free from the restraint, manifested on the blade; its body was run through, and Du Zhengyi twisted the hilt, churning out a fatal void in the opponent's abdomen as well.

"Giving it back to you." Du Zhengyi let out a scoff.

A pair of turbid eyes belonging to a middle-aged Mage looked at him in astonishment, and a body clad in equipment also appeared within his grasp. Du Zhengyi could not describe that equipment; it looked like a very sloppy suit of armor half-wrapped around the body. The claw-shaped blades worn on the hands were quite exquisite, but the helmet was only a half-piece; other than that, the rest was crudely made of just frames, looking somewhat like human exoskeleton equipment. Based on Du Zhengyi's knowledge of Progenitor Mages in the Qionglin, this looked like a prototype from a Progenitor Mage's laboratory; even in the era of the Progenitor Mages, this was not a finished invention.

"Idiot. Du Zhengyi is about to die, what need is there for you to launch another attack." Clownfish cursed, his voice carrying a trace of undisguised shock.

"Because he is a true High-Reaction Mage; seeing that I was heavily injured and had no ability to fight back, he couldn't suppress his desire for bloodlust. Human nature is very difficult to control and change, even if you can influence his thinking. It seems that even if you hang out with the Lotus Burners, you don't understand High-Reaction Mages very well." Du Zhengyi said.

The Mage struggled, trying to launch a counterattack despite his heavy injuries; his claw-shaped blades hummed as if charging up, but Du Zhengyi crushed the cartilage of his throat, released the blade with his right hand, and accurately found a probe inserted directly into the brain on the half-helmet, pulling it out without mercy.

With a shrill scream, the Mage's body convulsed violently. Du Zhengyi discarded him, and the high-intensity optic nerves left overlapping images of the chaotic body movements on his retina.

He had an intuition that Clownfish was also looking at that miserable, dying corpse.

Indeed, because Clownfish continued speaking. "Too brutal, you pulled out a part of his nerves. But you are right, he is a High-Reaction Mage, killing is his pleasure, his Consciousness World is both disgusting and dislocated, I have no way to be completely in sync with him."

Du Zhengyi slowly sat down; the strengthened muscles had provided speed and force for his recent actions, and now the muscles were twitching slightly. The battle was over, but he could not lower the intensity of his nerves as he had in the past. He assessed his body; it had reached the final moment and could not withstand any major changes. Lowering the intensity would also lower the hormone levels maintaining his consciousness, only making him die faster.

Clownfish was no longer busy stealing; he seemed to have been watching Du Zhengyi the whole time. It was as if he were guarding against Du Zhengyi launching an unpredictable, fatal blow at him, and also as if he were guarding against Du Zhengyi suddenly dying, causing the Seal Land to accelerate its closure.

"You were bleeding on purpose." Clownfish suddenly said, "There was something else in the blood, forming a conductive liquid layer; the invisible man's sole quantum field had an observable interference wave with the liquid layer."

"To be honest, I don't know what you are talking about." Du Zhengyi said.

"You can see the trajectory of quantum tunneling, that doesn't surprise me. But with that bit of Radiation effect, you have no way to accurately predict the position of an invisible man."

"I just discovered that contact makes him visible." Du Zhengyi said.

"Quantum entangled states require environmental isolation on a macroscopic scale; any molecular-level collision will trigger decoherence, which is to say, contact makes invisibility impossible. Honestly, I don't really understand it either; the human physicist I found to help told me that, I can only barely understand it. The Progenitor Mages used quantum mechanics to create the invisible man's wearable equipment; I found these devices, but their operation is not yet stable. Human scientists helped me a lot, at least this stuff works now. No Mage can get any advantage in the hands of an invisible man; he is almost invincible and has done many things for me. I didn't expect these things to be so vulnerable in front of you... what did you mix into your blood?"

"I don't know. I just vaguely felt it would be useful. Whether it's you or me, our source is the Progenitor Mages; creating a conductive solution commonly used by Progenitor Mages is not a difficult task for a Mage. Other Mages just didn't think of it in time." Du Zhengyi said in a low voice. He began to feel dizzy, but he realized he could still calmly talk to Clownfish. Perhaps it was because everything was about to pass; whatever the world after death was like, he could not interfere and had to let go.

"You trust Luo Qi too much."

Perhaps because his condition looked very serious and he had entered his final moments, Clownfish's speaking speed suddenly increased. Du Zhengyi's consciousness was still there, but he did not know when he had fallen to the ground. He lay flat on the ground, his split pupils were already useless, and he began to lose his visual nerves.

"Since you trust Luo Qi, you should know how I could possibly be Luo Qi? I am not your friend. You have too many useless, soft-hearted tendencies."

Du Zhengyi did not react at all, and Clownfish stood silently beside him. A slight popping sound came from the air, and two figures flashed into the Core Control Room.

Luo Qi looked in horror at the bloodstains all over the floor, his panicked gaze falling on the motionless Du Zhengyi before hurriedly moving away. His half-open mouth made him look like a silly child matching his age; he looked up at the mist, as if trying to pierce through the mist to see the person inside, "I want to..."

Mahjong pushed him aside and rushed toward Du Zhengyi, the doctor's instinct making him ignore the danger of Clownfish.

Luo Qi's throat was as dry as if someone had choked off his voice, "... I want to kill you!"

Clownfish said nothing; Luo Qi's will did not even have time to contend with him before he disappeared into the air, leaving this space.

Luo Qi gasped, restraining his panicked emotions, looking in vain at the blurry shadow as it disappeared without a trace. He looked at the surrounding bronze branches and leaves, looked at the bronze patterns, looked at that huge, disgusting jelly brain, but just did not dare to look down at the busy Mahjong. The blood on the ground stuck to the soles of his shoes; the hurried glance when he first appeared had let him discover that this was all Du Zhengyi's blood, and he was standing in Du Zhengyi's blood, trembling all over.

Just now, Mahjong's Medical Entanglement had sent out a pull; he knew something had happened, but he had not expected this scene. It shouldn't be like this; Du Zhengyi had indeed been in critical condition, but they should have had time, and it shouldn't be like this... this bloody and cruel. He wanted to kill Clownfish; that damn fish had harmed Du Zhengyi twice, as if one critical condition wasn't enough, as if one deadly form wasn't enough...

"Luo Qi!"

Mahjong kicked him, and he jumped up violently, only then realizing that Mahjong seemed to have called him many times.

"Mahjong..." he called out with great expectation. But what he saw was Mahjong's unusually sad and indignant face, and his heart fell to the bottom; the doctor's usually unserious face had never been so normal and heavy. He did not use any Medical Magic, he did not use any Magic, he just looked at Luo Qi.

Indignation disappeared from Mahjong's face; as their eyes met, the doctor's expression turned into sympathy and unbearable pity. That sympathy almost killed Luo Qi.

"You talk to him, Luo Qi, he can still hear a little right now." Mahjong said, and added hesitantly, "I'm sure he can still hear."

"I know." Luo Qi said, saying it numbly, "Let me try."