Chapter 295: Divine Embryo

"Good."

At the brink of life and death, Dorian Gray understood the stakes; he snatched up the 【Soul-Returning Repair Gun】 in his hand and pulled the trigger against the skull of the motionless Sonic the Hedgehog corpse.

After the shot, Sonic the Hedgehog showed no visible change, but within the Consultation Synoptic Glasses, his brain was marked as repaired.

Qian Yanqiu tossed the 【Soul Chain】 parchment scroll to Li Cheng, who caught it, tore it open, and immediately a semi-transparent green iron chain sprouted from him, linking to every player present.

Thus, the connection was established.

"Pi Fu, big brother, we're counting on you," Ba Ji Xiong said nervously. "You've got to deliver."

"Relax—I'm good at everything, except cheating people."

Li Cheng rubbed his palms with solemn righteousness. "But before we begin, I need to run a test."

Saying this, he took off his shoes and lightly inserted a nail beneath the thumbnail of his big toe.

"Wait—"

Fu Ding Hua Long's eyelid twitched; he hurriedly asked, "Mr. Pi Fu, what are you doing?!"

"Medically, human pain is divided into ten levels: a pinprick on the back of the hand or clapping hard is about one to three; a knife cut or soft tissue bruise is about four to seven."

"Shoving a nail under the nail bed and then kicking a sofa leg reaches level nine."

Li Cheng said casually, "Above that are childbirth and testicles being pounded—level ten."

"And childbirth while your testicles are simultaneously pounded—that's level eleven."

"I need to test the Soul Chain's effect."

??

Wait, isn't this just a test? Do you have to be this brutal? Is this Guantanamo or a Siberian training camp?! And what's this nonsense about testicles being pounded during childbirth?! No male moms! No male moms!

Fu Ding Hua Long's eyelids flared wildly; he and Zhao Zijing rushed forward, desperately trying to stop him. After much pleading, they finally got Li Cheng to pull out the nail and put his shoes back on.

"Fine."

Li Cheng, visibly disgusted, pulled out a scalpel blade and sliced his own thumb, drawing a bloody line.

All players connected by the Soul Chain simultaneously developed identical wounds on their thumb tips—some bled continuously, others healed instantly.

The Soul Chain's effect was clearly instantaneous damage sharing; each person would now have to endure their share of injury alone.

Everyone saw this, their expressions varying.

Ba Ji Xiong immediately transformed into a troll with super-regeneration; Zhao Zijing swallowed a handful of painkillers; Fu Ding Hua Long pulled out two vials of healing potion, holding them to his lips, ready to down them at once.

"Get ready. I'm starting."

Li Cheng's eyes sharpened; he crouched low, rolled up his left sleeve, and plunged his arm into Sonic the Hedgehog's chest cavity, gripping the still-warm heart.

【Assemble Puppet】, activate!

The dead corpse was treated as an inanimate object; under the 【Assemble Puppet】 effect, it fused with Li Cheng's arm.

Li Cheng gripped the heart with his left hand, slowly squeezing to force it to beat again, restarting blood flow; with his right hand, he clamped down on Sonic the Hedgehog's skull and activated the temporary skill 【Extract Brain Entropy】.

I saw it.

The memory most vivid in Sonic the Hedgehog's mind before death.

【This data is top secret. Only Level-4 authorized personnel of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Special Incident Division may apply to read it. After reading, memory-sealing procedures must be undergone.】

【Species Name: Divine Aberration · Formless Conception】

【Danger Level: 5】

"Mr. Pi Fu?!"

Ba Ji Xiong's voice cracked as the memory flooded Li Cheng's mind; the Divine Aberration's form suddenly sharpened, as if the screen's protective film had been ripped away, leaping into reality.

【Background: Early last month, the FBI's Alpha Special Ops Team discovered a new Divine Aberration species at coordinates 5851, 4164, 9251 in the Battlefield Entity. It was named Formless Conception.】

【Description: Formless Conception is a supernatural entity resembling a hybrid of a sea lily and an octopus, with nearly a hundred tentacle limbs, a central disc approximately ten meters in diameter, and its entire surface covered in eyeballs.】

【Formless Conception typically remains in a state akin to the quantum observer effect, enabling instantaneous movement through spatial fissures and solid matter.】

【Formless Conception possesses a predatory instinct; observations indicate it prefers hunting creatures with advanced cognition, regardless of whether carbon- or silicon-based. Victims first sense a rapid, unexplained drop in ambient temperature; if light is present, they may see the tentacles coiling around their bodies.】

The room's temperature plummeted to over minus thirty degrees Celsius; every surface coated with frost.

Li Cheng felt numbness at his neck; every body part below his cervical spine lost control. He collapsed backward into his chair.

【Formless Conception's concealment effect interacts with its prey. The more the prey understands Formless Conception, the more it can perceive its true form. When Formless Conception fully sheds concealment, it unleashes a rule-based instant-kill strike: biological electrical chaos.】

The lethal effect, under the Soul Chain's influence, was diluted and spread thin enough to remain barely tolerable.

Dorian Gray, Zhao Zijing, Fu Ding Hua Long, and others collapsed in paralysis. Ba Ji Xiong, the strongest in vitality, convulsed violently in place.

【The corpse of a slain victim loses exactly 21 grams of mass. We still do not understand Formless Conception's feeding mechanism. Due to its concealment, long-term containment is nearly impossible; we have instead designated areas of at least one thousand hectares, periodically releasing genetically cloned humanoids provided by the Evil Science Alliance, creating artificial hunting zones to lure Formless Conception.】

【According to Deputy Project Director Dr. Brandon's hypothesis, Formless Conception is not a complete Divine Aberration, but rather the juvenile form of one.】

【"Listen, I don't agree with your theory that Formless Conception needs to hunt and feed. It's a Divine Aberration! A sin-born god that should never have existed."】

【"The gap between it and humans is greater than that between humans and ants. Do you need to eat ants to replenish energy? I say—it's just playing. Like a child idly toying with a few ants by the roadside."】

【"That irrational observer effect also resembles a juvenile god's innate defense mechanism. Just as a dragonfly's egg hatches into a nymph that can immediately prey on mayfly larvae, stonefly larvae, even small fish."】

【"I've submitted my resignation and requested transfer from this facility. I advise you: don't try to study Divine Aberrations. Don't even dream of containing it."】

【On the same day Dr. Brandon submitted his resignation, Formless Conception escaped the hunting zone and killed every employee in the facility, including Brandon. The facility initiated self-destruct, detonating an 80,000-ton nuclear bomb on-site. It remains unclear whether it was successfully destroyed.】

Different observers perceived the Divine Aberration with vastly different clarity. Dorian Gray saw it as merely a shadow; Li Cheng saw every detail of its body, even the specks on each eyeball's iris.

Unable to move anything but his head, Li Cheng spat two Bluetooth transceivers from his backpack slot, activated the 【Assemble Puppet】 effect, embedding one into his upper palate and spitting the other toward his right hand, connecting it to his palm.

The Divine Aberration's biological electrical chaos had paralyzed Li Cheng's body, but through the Bluetooth + 【Assemble Puppet】 combo, he bypassed the restriction and directly remote-controlled his hand.

Snap!

From thin air, his right hand pulled forth the Victory Flag Spear and hurled it forward, embedding it into the wooden conference table, activating its second effect: 【Flagplant Moment】.

Distant sounds of booming artillery and blaring charge horns seemed to echo; the table erupted in a brilliant ring of light. Within the circle, all negative effects were instantly purged—including the Divine Aberration's biological electrical chaos.

Li Cheng slapped his right hand against the floor, unleashing 【Death Curse Torrent】; the recoil of the water jet propelled his entire body fully into the light circle, restoring full control of his limbs. He rose to his feet and looked up at Formless Conception.

The hundreds of thousands of eyeballs on the god-sin's body turned simultaneously to fixate on Li Cheng, their gazes meeting midair.

"The Federal Bureau of Investigation's Special Incidents Division's nuclear bomb failed to kill the god-sin because the bomb itself lacks the observer effect; no matter how powerful, it cannot harm the Formless Womb at all."

"In other words, to harm the god-sin, one must use a killing method that inherently possesses observational capability."

Li Cheng flipped his palm and pulled out a scroll from his backpack slot.

【Summoning Art: Estate Guardian】

Riiip!

The scroll split down the middle, and amid a blinding white light, a spectral figure of a white cowboy appeared—wearing a cowboy hat, a vest, leather boots, and with a reddened neck.

He wore a cheerful smile, holding a revolver in his left hand and a long whip in his right; the moment he landed, he saw the god-sin hanging from the ceiling, and his smile vanished instantly.

The skin color of the Formless Womb was also black.