Chapter 589: Violent Aesthetics

While they were still discussing who would go over there, Chi Jinan had already stepped into Fang Zhiyan's view.

He followed the winding rocky path to an underground tunnel, but instead of wandering aimlessly he headed toward the direction the little robot had been exploring before it was shattered.

The space where Fang Zhiyan was must be huge; the little robot was shattered almost as soon as it entered, yet the map near the doorway revealed a massive arc.

Chi Jinan pushed open the door at the end, his right hand hanging by his side, Blood Crystals sprouting inch by inch from his palm, the scarlet crystals emitting faint crackling sounds in the air like a starving beast grinding its teeth, awaiting the hunt.

Chi Jinan saw the interior; Fang Zhiyan stood at the opposite end of the massive circular arena, behind him countless silver‑white tentacles extending outward, swelling to such a size they nearly filled the entire underground space.

The tentacles writhed along the console, and a particularly thick one was being used as a stool beneath Fang Zhiyan's rear.

He could not discern what the experimental apparatus actually were, only the black liquid continuously gushing from cracks between the tentacles, streaming across the floor.

Meanwhile the suction cups on the surface of the silver‑white tentacles thrashed wildly, emitting slick, wet sounds as they endlessly swallowed the black liquid.

So disgusting.

Fang Zhiyan lifted his gaze toward Chi Jinan, his blood‑red eyes behind the lenses narrowing slightly.

Though it's a pity Ying Duo didn't come, using Chi Jinan to pass the time isn't bad either.

Chi Jinan had no intention of exchanging idle words with Fang Zhiyan; he stepped forward, and the ground erupted around his foothold in a spiderweb‑like fissure.

In the same instant, Blood Crystals burst forth from his right hand, elongating into a blood‑red great scythe as tall as he.

Before the scythe blade could descend, several dark‑red arcs flashed in the air, darting toward Fang Zhiyan ahead of the weapon itself.

Fang Zhiyan remained still, but a tentacle that had been crouched in the corner devouring black liquid moved on his behalf.

A silver‑white tentacle swung in from the side, its tip precisely blocking the scythe's center; the silver skin clashed with the scarlet crystals, detonating a semi‑transparent shockwave that blew fungal‑mycelium debris from the ceiling of the underground space downwards.

Chi Jinan's scythe was deflected by Fang Zhiyan, but at the moment the weapon was knocked away he released his right hand, letting the scythe fly free and shatter into dozens of Blood Crystal Fragments.

Then he flicked his left hand, and the fragments re‑condensed mid‑air, spearing toward the bases of Fang Zhiyan's tentacles from all directions.

Fang Zhiyan raised an eyebrow; another tentacle swooped down from above, its broad silver‑white fan sweeping the Blood Crystals away as if swatting flies.

Some sharply angled Blood Crystals did manage to pierce Fang Zhiyan's tentacle skin, but the suction cups instantly exuded a viscous translucent fluid that enveloped the crystals, and within a few seconds the Blood Crystals were completely digested.

"Manipulating crystals formed from coagulated blood," Fang Zhiyan analyzed calmly, "the advantage is their mutable forms, with virtually no blind spots in range or angle, but the drawbacks are equally obvious."

This wasn't Fang Zhiyan's first encounter with Chi Jinan, but now he could only lament not having met Chi Jinan earlier; otherwise he would certainly have been interested in Chi Jinan's abilities.

His gaze fell on an unhealed wound on Chi Jinan's right arm; in an atmosphere saturated with high concentrations of Mutation factors, fighting Fang Zhiyan there was no different from battling in a poison‑gas chamber—a pure case of chronic suicide.

Chi Jinan was irritated by Fang Zhiyan's contemptuous stare, and casually poured a bottle of holy water over himself, letting the remaining drops coat the surface of his right‑arm wound.

The blood spilling from his wound did not fall to the ground; at the moment it left his body it solidified into Blood Crystals, which he seized, forming two short blades in his hands.

He reversed his grip on the twin blades, lowered his body, and in the next instant launched himself outward.

Fang Zhiyan finally shifted a step, seemingly by coincidence evading Chi Jinan's attack, but Chi Jinan never fixated on weapons; when the twin blades missed, he instantly released the hilts, the two short blades clashed and exploded in midair, turning into a net woven from Blood Crystal filaments that draped over Fang Zhiyan's head.

Fang Zhiyan's two tentacles simultaneously sprang up from behind, pinning the Blood Crystal net; the net threads tightened into the tentacle skin, silver‑white fluid seeping from the pressure marks, but the tentacles recoiled, flinging the entire net along with Chi Jinan away.

When Chi Jinan hit the ground, he dropped to one knee; the net had already been dispelled in midair, his left hand braced on the floor while his right hand re‑condensed a single‑handed long blade.

He rose from the ground with a slightly unsteady motion, yet still moved deftly and swallowed a concentrated holy water capsule.

Chi Jinan rose again, ready to launch another attack, when Fang Zhiyan noticed his eyes.

Those eyes, originally jet‑black, were now turning red bit by bit.

Each time Chi Jinan condensed Blood Crystal, those eyes reddened a little, and in stark contrast his expression remained flat and indifferent, as if split by jealousy.

As if he were watching his own temporal choices with a cold, detached gaze.

Fang Zhiyan's interest was piqued; he had seen countless cases of Mutation Out of Control, and if he were to resume his previous experiments, Chi Jinan would certainly be an ideal test subject.

Chi Jinan was pursuing something, and that pursuit was devouring him.

Fang Zhiyan withdrew the twitching tentacles, gathering them behind him; he tilted his head, the lens reflection obscuring the upper half of his face, yet his mouth twitched upward.

"You have been cursed by your own deity."

Chi Jinan slashed a blade into the wall of tentacles rising before Fang Zhiyan, the Blood Crystal longsword penetrating half an inch before a suction cup clamped it, preventing withdrawal; he simply detonated the longsword within the tentacle, blasting the tip of half a tentacle into a silver‑white fragmentary flesh flower.

Fang Zhiyan thought, perhaps Chi Jinan had been here long ago? Or maybe his parents had?

A few years earlier, before the Undead appeared, although Mutation had been silently expanding, it was relatively calm; the Church and the Dome's development proceeded smoothly.

At that time, they still had the capacity to explore the Eternal Silent Abyss more thoroughly.

Yet even if the Mutation then seemed "peaceful," anyone who came here and made contact could not emerge unscathed.

Chi Jinan surged forward again, this time his attack frequency more than doubled.

The Blood Crystals no longer maintained a single weapon form; his tactics had wholly abandoned defense, each strike a true mutual annihilation.

Two of Fang Zhiyan's three tentacles were brutally cut off; the silver‑white stumps twitched on the ground, pierced by Blood Crystal Fragments.

Blood Crystals intertwined with the silver‑white tentacles—this is Chi Jinan's naked violent aesthetic.