Chapter 473: Siphoning and Replenishing

The underground battle dragged on for a long time; Xie Jingyan only knew that his arms were so exhausted they could barely be raised, yet a force within him kept urging him to keep swinging his blade.

The violet long hair was stuck together by blood and sweat, clinging to his face and neck.

His clothing was torn in several places, and beneath each tear lay a wound that was slowly healing.

Xie Jingyan's Aberrant Arts made his recovery speed far greater than a normal person's, but the itch and pain that mingled as the wounds healed were more unbearable than the injuries themselves.

Sha Yu Feng moved to his side, the muzzles of his twin pistols still exhaling faint blue smoke.

"Miss, isn't your Aberrant Arts a bit excessive?"

His tone was tentative, but mainly Xie Jingyan's Aberrant Arts were indeed beyond imagination.

Not far away, several deep‑green vines burst from the ground, coiling around the hind leg of the nearest Aberrant Species.

The Aberrant Species fell to the ground, struggled a few times, the vines tightened on its leg, dark‑red fluid seeped from its wound, and its body began to wither.

The flesh collapsed from the bones, the eye sockets sank, teeth loosened; within seconds a once‑sprightly beast turned into a shriveled corpse.

The vines only then released the corpse and kept searching for other prey, and Xie Jingyan's breathing visibly steadied.

Xie Jingyan was siphoning the life of these Aberrant Species and feeding it back to them.

The hidden mastermind had pre‑stocked so many Aberrant Species here in advance, hoping to wear them out to death, but under Xie Jingyan's Aberrant Arts, they feared a war of attrition the most.

The mechanical phoenix‑tail butterfly perched on Die Yuzhe's shoulder; the Rune circuitry on its wings had completely dimmed, the butterfly was broken, and his Aberrant Arts power was at least halved.

And he was never good at close combat; most of the stamina Xie Jingyan fed him was spent on fleeing.

He found a moment to shove a special‑effect pill into his mouth, ignoring its bitterness and swallowing it whole.

Obviously, Xie Jingyan had anticipated this situation.

He knew that when his ability siphoned an Aberrant Species' life, the life essence he fed back contained a Mutation, so he simply packed a large number of pills into his bag.

He had just found the right moment, using the two as a wave of 'Scattered Medicine Boy'.

Xie Jingyan's twin blades swung for the last time, the blade slashing an Aberrant Species' throat; the creature fell at Sha Yu Feng's feet, twitched a few times, then went still.

Sha Yu Feng did not look down at it; his muzzles still pointed forward, aimed at the last few Aberrant Species in the darkness hesitating whether to pounce.

The few Aberrant Species glanced at the corpses of their kind on the ground, then at Sha Yu Feng's blue‑smoking muzzles, and finally chose to turn and flee.

These Aberrant Species still seemed to retain some animal instincts.

Sha Yu Feng did not pursue; he could only cling to every second to rest.

His gun was a Rune weapon, each shot draining his internal energy; although he could squeeze his own life to convert into power, he never imagined the trump card could one day serve as a normal attack.

It can only be said that Xie Jingyan's Aberrant Arts fit perfectly; the life essence he fed them was exactly the hardest to replenish, and although it was tinged with a Mutation, it was negligible compared to the former.

Xie Jingyan sheathed his short blade and looked at the butterfly perched on Die Yuzhe's shoulder.

The butterfly's wing bore a long crack, stretching from the wing root to the tip, a scar from being torn apart in mid‑air due to overload.

He extended a finger and lightly tapped the wing tip; the phoenix‑tail butterfly's wing quivered, and its antennae twitched, as if responding to his touch.

It looked just like a real butterfly.

"Can it be repaired?" Xie Jingyan asked.

Die Yuzhe shook his head, his hand hovering above the butterfly's wing, looking especially pained.

"This was made by my former boss," Die Yuzhe whispered, "no one can fix it."

Sha Yu Feng slipped his gun back into his waist, brushed dust off his trousers, and let out a cold sneer.

"Stop being melodramatic; you still call her 'boss,' and I think she's already regarded you as a trouble to be eliminated."

So ironic—the repeated calls of 'Regiment Leader' and 'boss'; in Lingxiao's eyes, they were a scourge destined to be eradicated sooner or later.

The reason they were brought under his command was mostly just for tighter control.

He said that Lingxiao's temperament could never tolerate living in such a gutter; emotions only occasionally brushed them off there.

On the contrary, they were easily deceived by her few words and even defended her.

Xie Jingyan didn't know what the two had endured before being assigned as his bodyguards, but the situation was urgent; they had to find a way back to Heavenly Dome City and could not linger here.

Who knows if the Aberrant Species' blood scent might attract even bigger trouble.

"If it's around here, perhaps we can look for an abandoned freight elevator."

Xie Jingyan was quite familiar with the Dome's layout; after all, taking the other side up the mountain to the summit was a decent option, but it would take a lot of time.

A few years ago, when Heavenly Dome City was first being built, the Dome had erected a freight elevator nearby that reached the sky, but it was later abandoned due to excessive energy consumption.

The three of them continued forward guided by Xie Jingyan's hazy memory, soon passing through dense forest and finding an abandoned factory.

The factory had been deserted for a long time; perhaps Aberrant Species had once fought there, leaving everything in ruins.

"This way," Xie Jingyan turned, gesturing to Sha Yu Feng and Die Yuzhe, then slipped sideways into the crack.

Beyond the crack lay a narrow passage; rusted pipes were embedded in the walls on both sides, and at the passage's end stood a huge vertical shaft with a metal ladder, the ladder corroded beyond recognition.

Sha Yu Feng tried to reach the ladder, but as his weight pressed down, the section he touched snapped immediately.

"So this is…" Die Yuzhe looked up at the bottomless vertical shaft, "the elevator shaft you mentioned earlier?"

This seemed overly dilapidated; although the elevator car was right before them, setting aside whether the device could still operate, even if it did, wouldn't the car simply fall from mid‑air?

This time there were no plants below to serve as a friendly cushion.

"My Aberrant Arts should be able to reinforce these chains."

Xie Jingyan glanced at the structure above the elevator car, and using his vines to extend along the chains, he reasoned that if he wrapped the entire chain system, even if the chains broke, his vines could substitute their function.

He had just absorbed too much energy and was fretting about having nowhere to vent.