Chapter 570

The road ahead abruptly ended, replaced by a stretch of water blue so deep it turned black.

The off-road vehicle screeched to a halt; Ada, whose limbs had been restored via digitization, jumped out, plunged her fingers into the water, and read the data: "Water temperature 17°C, salinity 15%, pH 8.3, dissolved oxygen 9 mg/L, trace algae present. As for depth..."

Ada paused, as if releasing sonar: "Within a 10-kilometer radius, average depth 1,300 meters. Surface area unknown."

"Launch a boat and cross over."

Wu Quan also jumped from the driver's seat; the Special Affairs Bureau's standard off-road vehicles used modular design, allowing installation of propellers and watertight compartments for amphibious operation.

He called out to Abdul and Alcy, and the three swiftly used a jack to lift the vehicle and swap the tires.

Alcy removed the tires and replaced them with propellers, then asked softly: "... REX, still alive?"

"For routine missions, you can exit with a single thought. He should have returned to the real world."

Wu Quan spoke as calmly as possible, his gaze meeting Abdul's; both lowered their heads in unspoken understanding and continued modifying the vehicle.

They both knew REX was likely dead—when the mission began, all players had already exchanged information on their gear and skill sets.

REX's police radio could summon up to five waves of police reinforcements; each summon consumed additional spiritual energy.

As the off-road vehicle left the city, it passed an armed helicopter summoned by the radio—this incidentally proved REX hadn't returned to the real world immediately, hence the presence of a Sikorsky helicopter bearing Coast Guard markings.

The off-road vehicle was quickly converted into an amphibious craft; everyone boarded in silence and steered into the endless fog.

I hope REX truly made it back to the real world...

Mushroom building complex.

The Sikorsky helicopter had crashed, scattered in pieces across the ground. Several burning Chevrolet and Ford Explorer vehicles lined the roadside.

"You came from Dandong, left me a city of snow-white, want to eat Guangdong cuisine~"

"AufderHeidebluhteinkleinesBlumeleinunddasheiBtErika~"

Two songs with radically different languages and styles played from the square dance speakers; cylindrical and cubic robot servants, wearing yellow construction safety helmets, enthusiastically operated engineering vehicles, assembling temporary three-story factory buildings from piles of prefabricated reinforced concrete components.

"Why use metal scaffolding instead of bamboo scaffolding?"

Hui Yu, wearing the white safety helmet symbolizing construction leadership, stood with hands on hips and waved dismissively: "Don't you know metal frames conduct heat extremely well, while bamboo scaffolds have near-zero thermal conductivity and no melting point—you could even build bamboo war tanks, bamboo helmets, bamboo spaceships!"

Back in the day, if Cao Cao had built his boats from bamboo during the Battle of Red Cliffs, even Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu would've been exhausted trying to burn the linked iron chains.

If the Twin Towers had bamboo exteriors, a Boeing 767 would've just bounced right off."

"? What even is bamboo punk? Stop messing around."

Li Cheng rolled his eyes; at this moment, the dog-headed corpse and REX were chained to a conveyor belt bracket, while the other end held over a hundred monster corpses—

Due to his Zhu Xing Zhen Tai's body modification services, he frequently purchased supernatural biological specimens. Unlike large guilds that required procedures, approvals, and invoices, Zhu Xing Zhen Tai handled cash-on-delivery, immediate payment, and had an excellent reputation.

So much so that long-term clients would spontaneously post GG on forums: "Down a scenario, too many kills, too many corpses—what to do? Just rotate the old ones... no, wait—Zhu Xing Zhen Tai. Zhu Xing Zhen Tai is a professional official autopsy platform, on-site pickup, easy cash-out."

The refrigerators and freezers were overflowing—perfect for use here.

"Start the production line."

Li Cheng sat on a small stool beside the conveyor belt, waved his hand; a nearby cylindrical robot pulled the lever hard, causing the conveyor belt to rotate slowly.

One by one, supernatural life corpses were transported forward; Li Cheng held REX's head, connected to a life-support device, and stamped it onto each supernatural corpse in turn.

Each time he installed one, a red blotch curse surfaced on the corpse's back—even on creatures without obvious spines, like fish.

All corpses were suspended by supports; Li Cheng sat upright, his foot resting beside the Bagua Alchemical Cannon.

Three minutes. Seven minutes.

Time dripped away; none of the corpses showed any change.

"Hmm?"

Li Cheng frowned; he had dispatched a marginal drone to patrol high above, monitoring Wu Quan and the others from afar, while he remained in the mushroom complex to detect the curse's effects.

According to REX's memories, the group had discovered patterns during their six-day survival: the evil spirit appeared with higher probability when isolated, sleeping, resting, or emotionally low.

To avoid sleep, over the past six days, except for the fully mechanical Ada, even the semi-cyborg Alcy relied solely on iced Americanos, Red Bull, Gfuel, and "A Nightmare on Elm Street" sleepless capsules—more extreme than Seoul youths who slept only three to four hours daily.

"Theoretically, the evil spirit should've been summoned by now... unless..."

Li Cheng rubbed his chin, suddenly remembering something, and pressed his hand onto the first dog-headed corpse—

Mercy Soul Bestowal!

In the next instant, the dog-headed corpse convulsed violently; its brain had long been formatted, incapable of forming complete consciousness, only twitching under biological electricity.

As the dog-headed corpse trembled in place, a rhythmic sound suddenly echoed through the empty mushroom complex.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

The sound was steady and regular—like knocking, or a cane tapping the ground.

Only when a ghostly figure appeared around the corner could it be confirmed: the sound came from high heels.

She was a human female wearing red sequined dress and towering stilettos, with a voluptuous figure, shoulder-length blonde hair, and pale skin—yet her face twisted grotesquely, revealing concentric rings of teeth exposed to the air, dripping saliva endlessly.

She seemed aware of Li Cheng's power, pacing back and forth in place, never daring to advance.

Hui Yu yawned boredly; the red-clad evil spirit seized the opening, eyes brightening, vanishing instantly from its spot and reappearing behind Hui Yu, gripping her skull with hands white as death, purple bruises under the nails, and twisting with all its might.

The force of this strike reached 300 kilograms—enough to snap the neck of a large animal.

But Hui Yu... didn't move at all.

"That's it?"

Hui Yu shook her head in disappointment; at home, when she did breakdancing moves upside down, her neck bore far greater weight.

The red-clad evil spirit hadn't anticipated this; after brief shock, its palms moved like lightning—left hand plunged into Hui Yu's chest, gripping her heart; right hand pierced her forehead, reaching for her brain.

"Dumbass—I've got no heart, no lungs, and no brain."

Hui Yu stood with one hand on her hip, smirking; as Li Cheng muttered, "Is that something to be proud of?", she swung her palm and slapped the red-clad evil spirit across the face.

Slap!

The red-clad evil spirit was flung away by Hui Yu's blow, spinning like a top three times before barely steadying itself against the wall, avoiding collapse.

After this brief setback, it swiftly switched targets, vanished again, and seized the head of a cubic robot, twisting with all its strength.

But that cube drone rotated its neck one hundred eighty degrees, still staring straight at the red-robed spirit with its electronic eyes, bellowing, "Xi ba!"

Its flexible mechanical arm whipped around and yanked a police baton coated in incense ash from its waist, then slammed it down with full force.

Don't be fooled by the drone's daily chores in the toy factory—carrying cargo, sketching blueprints—it's a precision construct forged from over a dozen high-quality concepts, its strength rivaling that of an Olympic athlete. Moreover, these cube drones from Caoxian seemed to have instinctively mastered their southern neighbors' techniques, wielding the baton with masterful finesse, leaving the red-robed spirit no chance to retaliate.

Several cube drones even surged forward together, knocking the spirit to the ground and surrounding it in a circle, raining down blows—literally six strikes per second.

"Response is swift, enforcement is humane, baton angles are precise, every strike carries weight."

Hui Yu murmured in awe—the police batons used by the drones were all drenched in specially formulated incense ash from the Affairs Bureau Product, capable of physically contacting spiritual entities.

Under the storm of attacks, the red-robed spirit had no opportunity to teleport away.

"Don't kill it. Hang it up."

Li Cheng gave the order; the drones surged forward, binding the spirit's upper body with iron chains coated in incense ash, then locking it inside a pre-prepared small cell.

The cell was about one and a half meters wide and two meters tall; its walls were made of slaughterhouse-grade materials, impervious to any spiritual entity. The floor was hollowed out, beneath which sat a treadmill, while behind it mounted a copper-coin sword capable of harming spiritual beings.

As the spirit was sealed inside the cell, the treadmill activated automatically, forcing it to run forward—or be pierced by the copper-coin sword.

Tap-tap-tap-tap—

The red-robed spirit, wearing high heels, was forced into a frantic sprint, quickly surpassing Bolt, its legs moving so fast they became blurs.

"Even slaughterhouse creations must obey the law of conservation of energy."

Li Cheng said, "If a spirit's curse has a source, then that source must pay energy for every spirit. I'd like to see just how much it can pay."

With that, Li Cheng strung together all the corpses bearing the red-stain curse using a hundred-meter-long intestine taken from a hundred-armed giant. Beneath each corpse, a cell and treadmill were placed; the treadmill's base connected via wires to mechanical arms linked to the copper-coin sword. If the running speed dropped too low, the mechanical arms would slowly extend the copper-coin sword forward, forcing the spirit to maintain pace.