Chapter 418: Seven Sins

The heavily armored truck's engine roared, and whenever it encountered an obstructing building along the way, it simply rammed straight through it, or blasted it open with shells.

A trail of sparks and lightning, just like a Michael Bay (director of *The Rock* and *Transformers*, also known as "sell-a-print Bay" and "Boom Bay") film, as it barreled past several corners.

Only when it reached a kitchen did Blood Xue Shi Paoxiao finally step on the brakes, bringing the heavily armored truck to a screeching halt.

This place resembled the large kitchen of a high-end hotel—beige ceramic floor tiles, clean and tidy; stainless steel equipment gleaming brightly; gas stoves, freezers, range hoods, and everything else one could need.

Li Cheng swept his gaze across at a glance. The stainless steel spice cabinet held white sauce, brown sauce, and Italian red sauce; the cupboard held fresh tomatoes, eggplants, and carrots; and the wine cabinet displayed all manner of red wines, their vintages all stuck at five years prior.

This was a French restaurant, and at the far end of the restaurant squatted a mountain of flesh.

The mountain of flesh was pale in color, filling the entire corridor completely, leaving not the slightest gap.

"wtf"

Binary Tree sent out a drone, raised it high, and fired a laser to scan. "The f*ck is that a person?!"

In the lower right corner of the tunnel lay, in plain sight, a swollen, enormous human head—comparable in size to an African savanna elephant.

Because of the excessive fat on the face, there was no way at all to tell male from female, young from old. One could only see that, at the mouth area, a specially made breathing mask was being worn.

The "mountain of flesh," curled up in a lying posture, blocked the corridor. Its fat arms hugged a giant oxygen tank the size of a roof beam, paid no attention whatsoever to any outside noise, and squinted its eyes as if sleeping.

【Stage Three Mission Objective: Eliminate "l"】

The forged system prompt tone rang out at just the right moment, and the expressions of everyone present changed. Clearly, this mountain-of-flesh l, just like the horse-headed man s, was also an anomalous existence within the secret realm.

Red Spider said nothing and raised two pistols.

"Don't wake him up just yet."

Binary Tree kept the drone hovering in silence, jumped down from the vehicle himself, and carefully released green data streams to scan the mountain of flesh.

A blue whale can grow that large because, in the sea, the water provides buoyancy. A normal human scaled up to that size would be crushed by their own body weight in minutes.

Sure enough, the scan results showed that the mountain of flesh's skin was hard to wound with blade or sword, its muscle strength rivaled composite fibers, and its bones were far harder than steel.

Its entire bodily structure was more than enough to support it standing up—or even walking, running, and leaping.

It could, as easily as a human petting a cat, knead a Tiger tank into a ball and flatten it.

A Tiger tank is a cat, after all.

"This mountain of flesh is l?" Blood Xue Shi Paoxiao's brow furrowed slightly. "Why isn't it reacting at all?"

"The drone detected neural activity in the brain. It's sleeping."

Binary Tree said quickly, "Black-clad woman h, suit-wearing baby e, horse-headed man s, mountain of flesh l—let's provisionally treat the anomalous existences as the same level. This mountain of flesh l is at least lv32, or even higher.

It's even better that it's asleep. The question is how to deal with it."

As he spoke, Binary Tree sprayed a bit of analgesic mist onto the surface of the mountain of flesh—roughly the area of the left thigh—then transformed his own right hand into a data knife and carefully excised a small piece of flesh.

That bit of flesh, compared to the mountain of flesh, was roughly equivalent to dead skin. Yet strangely, the wound healed at tremendous speed, and the cut-off flesh turned to flying ash.

"I understand now."

Binary Tree stepped back a few paces and said, frowning: "The horse-headed man s from the last stage required you to lock eyes with it and find a way to endure for ten seconds. For this stage, there are roughly two solutions.

One, wake the mountain of flesh l, communicate with it, and get it to shift itself so we can pass.

Two, kill the mountain of flesh l, blast the corpse apart, and keep moving." "The anomalous existences in the secret realm don't share a unified behavioral logic. Black-clad woman h refused to communicate, but horse-headed man s was perfectly capable of a normal conversation,"

Blood Xue Shi Paoxiao's eyes narrowed slightly. "If we don't have to fight, of course that's best."

"Mm, let me try and see if I can communicate with it."

Binary Tree's legs transformed into green data, and his whole body floated up into the air. He arrived beside the mountain of flesh's head and shouted loudly: "Hello! Hello? We're just passing through—would you mind shifting yourself a bit?"

The mountain of flesh sensed nothing and remained dormant. Unwilling to give up, Binary Tree moved a bit closer and raised his volume to shout.

Perhaps the sound was too loud and disturbed its sweet dream, or perhaps the sound waves set rolling waves of flesh rippling—the mountain of flesh slowly opened a slit with its left eye, and then,

Hum—!

A fat, segmented arm, like that of the Michelin Tire Man, lashed out like lightning and struck Binary Tree dead center.

The latter reacted extremely fast, instantly converting his own body into data form,

However, the mountain of flesh's plump palm carried some unknown force of its own. It made contact with the already-datafied Binary Tree and sent him flying with a heavy slap,

His whole body shot across the spacious kitchen, slammed into the wall at the far end of the corner, and smashed out a huge crater.

"Cough!"

The green-datafied Binary Tree slid slowly down from the wall, spewed out a great pile of code, and swayed unsteadily as he regained his footing, a chill running through his heart.

Fortunately, he had switched his life-form in time—otherwise he would already have been slapped into a cloud of blood mist.

The mountain of flesh still showed no extra reaction, slowly withdrew its fat arm, and sank back into dormancy.

Since the other side had struck first, there was nothing left to agonize over,

Red Spider twisted his neck, and from his shoulder blades, armpits, and ribs, six arms sprouted, each hand gripping a rifle, sniper rifle, shotgun, or other firearm.

Eight arms in total—perfectly matching his Spider name.

Blood Xue Shi Paoxiao was equally decisive. He sat in the cab, maneuvered the heavily armored truck into reverse, and reserved enough distance for a sprint and acceleration.

He was about to step on the gas and pilot this Extreme Dao Emperor Weapon · Dayun Hundred-Ton King into a charge.

"Wait a moment."

Li Cheng raised a hand to stop the two of them and said, thoughtfully: "The names of all the anomalous existences in the secret realm are single letters—has that made any of you think of anything?"

Gray Rain raised a hand. "They're half-siblings born from the same mother—the letters stand for their respective biological fathers."

"No, it's possible the names represent their attributes. Like... the Seven Deadly Sins."

Binary Tree seemed to think of something and said, his brow tightly furrowed: "The horse-headed man s craved seeing others in awkward, shameful moments—it might be *shy*, or *shame*.

This mountain of flesh l lies motionless, doesn't even want to breathe on its own, and has to rely on a respirator.

It might be *lazy*."

"What?"

A look of confusion surfaced on Red Spider's face. "Aren't the Seven Deadly Sins supposed to be lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride?

If I remember correctly, the Latin for laziness is 'acedia,' and in English it's 'sloth.' Not 'lazy.'

"Moreover, if the horse-headed man corresponds to Shame, and the Flesh Mountain corresponds to Sloth, then what do the woman in black and the baby in the suit correspond to?"

"Not sure for now."

Li Cheng spread his hands. "Still, if the Flesh Mountain really is Sloth, then getting past it will be a lot easier for us."

(End of chapter)