Chapter 309: A Sense of Beauty

Oh, badass, there's this kind of containment method too.

Li Cheng's eyes lit up; the backpack slot forbade loading living creatures, and spatial devices that could hold living things all had various restrictions—either limited capacity, or access requiring considerable time.

Fu Ding Hua Long's technique of entering paintings was convenient, practical, and stylish—this was also the benefit of being in a national-level guild: a clear and complete power system, with dedicated think tanks, logistics, and medical teams coordinating and planning behind the scenes.

After putting away the macaque painting, Fu Ding Hua Long used the same method to store the hyena and the corpses of the other six players into the paintings, one by one.

Everyone was an unlucky bastard dragged into the Killing Ground; watching their own kind die like this inevitably stirred some grief of shared fate. When the time came, bringing them back to the real Earth to be buried was still better than dying in another world.

After cleaning up the scene, the group continued climbing upward along the lingering perfume scent; Father Andre volunteered to hold up the copper lantern and walk at the very front.

"Speaking of which, Brother Long, besides door gods and weapons, can you paint other things?"

Li Cheng took off the medicine bottles on his body one by one; seeing the atmosphere too oppressive, he found a topic and said, "Nothing weird, just Tifa, D. Va, Chun-Li, Lara, Resident Evil's Lady Dimitrescu, Mary Rose."

??? That's not weird stuff?

"Ahem, Mr. Pi Fu, you can call me by my full name or Hua Long; calling me Brother Long feels kinda weird."

Fu Ding Hua Long's eye twitched; after thinking for a moment, he said, "How should I put it, my ability is rather complicated. Objects drawn with the brush don't possess self-awareness or intelligence, so there's no way to talk about a soul. It's more like an extension of my imagination and subconscious.

Also, because they're ink, they only manifest physical traits when attacking."

Li Cheng nodded. "Got it, still paper dolls."

"Yes. Maybe I have to wait until my painting skill reaches the divine realm before I can paint things with souls. Just don't know if that day will ever come.

To some extent, I should be grateful for the Killing Ground's arrival."

Fu Ding Hua Long said with a bitter smile, "These days AI technology is developing too fast, dragging the art industry into a rat race too. If I hadn't joined the Mobile Task Force, I'd probably be worrying about graduation and job hunting right now."

"Who says it isn't."

Bai Ji Xiong, who had taken the form of a border collie, sighed. "Back in my day, it was graduation equals unemployment."

"Huh?"

Everyone turned to look at him upon hearing this; Bai Ji Xiong's power system was Druid, with the prerequisite being a love of nature and of animals and plants.

Generally, they came from forest rangers, agricultural experts, zoology experts, or at the very least veterinarians and pet doctors.

These professions shouldn't really be impacted by AI technology, right?

"I studied civil engineering in college."

Bai Ji Xiong shrugged and let out a world-weary sigh. "Right after graduation I went to a construction site—revising blueprints, drawing walls, writing construction plans, pulling 007 overtime, stopping coworkers from fighting at KTV, watching a tower crane collapse, digging through a national defense cable, stumbling onto a Han dynasty tomb, being posted to Africa, watching hippos, crocodiles, and giraffes bare their teeth, drinking and socializing with local leaders, getting kidnapped by militants, catching malaria, then grabbing a bucket and running back home.

Thinking about it now, I probably will never forget those eight months."

Hearing this, even Father Andre, who was always stern and serious, couldn't help turning his head to look at him. "Those eight months of yours were quite fulfilling."

"It's alright, the past is the past."

Bai Ji Xiong's expression turned solemn. "The perfume scent concentration changed, it's right ahead."

The group tacitly turned off their lights at the same time, put on night-vision goggles, and raised their guard. Zhao Zijing released telekinesis, spreading it over the floor ahead to muffle their footsteps.

Ahead was an oval-shaped large space even more spacious than the hydroponics room and embryo room combined; right at the center, suspended by over a hundred steel cables, hung a massive steel cone—

This thing was called a tuned mass damper, commonly used in high-rise buildings and bridges, able to absorb the swaying energy of stairs in strong wind environments, suppress structural swaying, and protect the building.

The tip of the cone-shaped damper pointed downward, and the surrounding ground was covered in a puddle of green slime.

Dorian Gray and Camus lay in the slime like flies stuck to a flypaper, their chests and bellies gaping open, organs completely missing; the two were barely clinging to life solely through their respective signature skills.

The third abducted player wasn't so lucky—eaten clean, not even a head left. Andre flipped open his priest robe, drew six cross short swords from the armed belt in the lining, wedged them between his fingers, and said in a low voice, "Don't go over, it might be a trap."

"I know."

Zhao Zijing took out two bottles of micro life potions from her backpack slot, used telekinesis to push them through the air, and poured them directly into Dorian Gray's and Camus's mouths.

As the lowest-grade Killing Ground potion, the micro life potion couldn't rapidly grow a full set of internal organs, but it was enough to grow a heart and lungs, letting Dorian Gray briefly regain the ability to speak.

"Don't come over!"

Dorian Gray lay on the spot, rasping out hoarsely and piteously, "It's on top of the damper!"

On top of the damper?

Li Cheng activated the 【Assembled Puppet】 special effect, connected the Bluetooth transceiver into his body, and simultaneously tossed out a wireless surveillance camera.

The camera traced an arc through the air, sweeping over the top of the damper; the top of the steel cone was not flat, but recessed inward by a section.

In the middle of the shallow pit lay the withered corpse of a six-armed, three-headed aberrant monster, along with an oval egg-shaped object nearly one and a half meters long.

The eggshell was dark green, already cracked, and the contents inside had vanished without a trace.

Oh no.

Looking at them one by one—

The "Nezha" that was just thrashing about like it was dying is just dead like that? Anything out of the ordinary must be a demon; good thing I have the Liangyi Blade.

Liangyi Blade, give me a hack!

Oh, forgot I just used Special Effect Two, the three-hour cooldown isn't over yet.

Then never mind.

The other players present only noticed the subtle change in Li Cheng's expression, his gaze gradually sharpening.

This was the first time they had seen Li Cheng this serious; the oppressive, murderous atmosphere spread silently, and everyone held their breath—except Camus, whose lungs hadn't grown back yet.

Tap tap tap.

Crisp footsteps rang out from the depths of the darkness; a tall figure slowly stepped out from around the corner and appeared in everyone's line of sight.

It was a monster brimming with an eerie, otherworldly quality; its form resembled a skinned, emaciated human, with bat-like membranes of skin between its arms and torso, and bird-like feet,

The upper half of its skull was missing, replaced by horns extending out to both sides.

Fu Ding Hua Long's pupils suddenly contracted—beautiful. After seeing the aberrant monster, the first word that spontaneously surfaced in his mind was beautiful.

This wasn't because he was pursuing some so-called highbrow Western aesthetic, but rather based on a pure judgment of the beauty of biomechanics.

Bees don't need mathematics to build hexagonal honeycombs; sunflowers have no nerves yet still form flower disks conforming to the Fibonacci sequence.

Over billions of years of evolution, organisms instinctively pursue and optimize stability and adaptability,

Trees resist wind force and gravity through their thick trunks and branching limbs; the human vascular tree, based on the same biomechanics, grows in the same way.

The diameter-to-length ratio of trunks and branches, and of main blood vessels and capillaries, share a startling similarity.

In the Fu-Pin painting dragon-eye view, every inch of muscle and every bone of this aberrant monster displays the evolutionary beauty of biomechanics.

*Snap. *

The aberrant monster stopped its steps and raised the missing head of the third player, and from the severed neck came a hoarse human voice.

"Peace."

(End of chapter)