Chapter 666: Flower of Hope

Returning spear!

Mu Yang turned slightly, his three-point double-edged blade thrust out, stabbing a Heaven-point Star Person in the back, giving him a chilling shudder.

Heaven-point Star People are humanoid and also have spots similar to vital points.

With this strike, that Heaven-point Star Person died on the spot, turning into a pile of black powder, and the black great sword in his hand fell to the ground.

It was stepped on by subsequent pursuers and sank into the ground.

After landing the blow, Mu Yang did not linger, continuing forward.

"They're kinda stupid… these things… probably count as pills, indeed they have no intelligence." Ao Yulie muttered.

Even under his wise leadership, many Heaven-point Star People formed a formation, but in reality they could not adopt any tactics as he imagined.

They only pursue and kill.

The increase in numbers and their gathering indeed cause trouble for most Black Sentinel Warriors, enough to change the battle.

But against Mu Yang, who is gradually becoming less human, it doesn't work well.

If these Heaven-point Star People were smart enough, they could use a herding method to slowly form an encirclement, forcing Mu Yang into it.

Even against a hundred Heaven-point Star People, Mu Yang cannot break out of the encirclement.

However, with their intelligence nearly zero, they are now merely being walked by Mu Yang like a dog.

However, speaking of chances, frankly it's not small; in terms of stamina, Heaven-point Star People absolutely surpass humans, and over time they will eventually catch up to Mu Yang.

In fact, up to now, there has been no incident of a Heaven-point Star Person being slain after exhausting its stamina.

On the contrary, there have been many instances of them standing still in a certain place, appearing to be recovering.

Given the situation in this world, the Heaven-point Star People's motionless state should belong to the "Re-refining Elixir" process.

Inside the Eight Trigrams Furnace, medicinal power obviously permeates, but unfortunately this power cannot be directly refined and absorbed for healing injuries.

"Should we call Yang Jian to stop?"

Feeling this training method isn't strong enough, Ao Yulie secretly thought, planning to discuss with Mu Yang how to unleash greater power between life and death.

Suddenly, Ao Yulie stopped his steps and looked to the side.

There, a tall black shadow was rapidly approaching, its entire body wrapped in black streamlined armor.

It bore no decorative patterns, and on its back were six strange "pipes."

"What is this?" Ao Yulie wondered, as Dan Ling's "Non-human Test Specimen" shot forward at extreme speed, rushing into the formation of Heaven-point Star People.

The Heaven-point Star People had no hostility toward this thing, and under Ao Yulie's leadership also had no intention to attack proactively.

Only after the Non-human Test Specimen rushed in did the Heaven-point Star People begin to attack.

Six Heaven-point Star People, with their black great swords, first lunged at the Non-human Test Specimen.

Although smaller in size than the specimen, combined with their great swords, the Heaven-point Star People completely locked down the specimen's head, leaving no room to dodge.

The specimen reached out, its exaggerated palm instantly grabbing the "Screaming Heads" of the two foremost Heaven-point Star People.

It directly swung them as weapons, striking the nearby Heaven-point Star People, not only resolving this encirclement crisis.

More directly, it twisted off the heads of the two Heaven-point Star People in its hands, turning them into a clump of black powder.

Thereafter, the six black tubes on the specimen's back elongated like blooming flower buds, turning into whips with ferocious barbed hooks, lashing outward.

Several Heaven-point Star People were directly strangled into a clump of powder.

The specimen, like a tiger among sheep, in a moment injured over a dozen Heaven-point Star People.

"What devilish thing?" Ao Yulie strangely said, taking the black great sword from his back and hurling it forward.

The black great sword flew straight toward the specimen's head.

The specimen was fighting the remaining Heaven-point Star People, unable to dodge, it whipped out its black fierce whip from behind to strike the sword, hoping to knock it away.

On impact, sparks flew in all directions.

The great sword only slightly deviated in direction, not knocked away by the whip, grazing past the specimen's shoulder.

It slammed it backward, denting and breaking a piece of the armor at the shoulder, black blood seeping from the crack.

The remaining Heaven-point Star People, taking advantage of the specimen's lost balance, immediately gained the upper hand, the black great swords emitting a deep, muffled howl.

The specimen's injured shoulder arm instantly flew into the sky.

A large amount of black blood spurted from the wound.

Within less than three seconds, it was pierced through by several black great swords and held aloft.

Next, it was torn apart.

However, at the moment the great swords pierced it, the specimen likewise used its fierce whip to wound the surrounding Heaven-point Star People.

The final tally stood at twenty-eight kills, its fearless ferocity matching or exceeding that of the Heaven-point Star People.

"Stop."

Ao Yulie's low voice rang out; the surrounding Heaven-point Star People ceased killing and pursuit, giving him a path.

Walking up to the shattered corpse, Ao Yulie examined it closely.

The black armor was neither hollow nor a human body.

Rather, it was a heap of indistinct flesh.

It felt like continually stuffing flesh into a hollow sealed armor until full, reminiscent of making sausages.

Or perhaps, a lump of flesh was shaped into a three-meter-tall humanoid, then clad in a form-fitting tight armor.

It had no face, no sexual characteristics, just a humanoid shape; behind it, the six fierce whips' interiors were tangled black blood vessels.

Near the chest was a gigantic heart.

Even after being torn into three pieces, with the black blood drained, it still throbbed like a serpent's heart, constantly expanding and contracting without cease.

Besides that, the flesh contained many strange wires and crystal cores.

"It doesn't look like a creation of the Eight Trigrams Furnace."

Ao Yulie discovered that the material of the black armor was very similar to the black greatsword of the Heaven-point Star People.

It was probably also made from that black greatsword as raw material.

If it's not a creation of the Eight Trigrams Furnace, then this disgusting thing must be a product of the Homeland Guard, right?

Those messy experiments also seem to have yielded results.

The people inside the Eight Trigrams Furnace world may lack souls and not count as true living beings, but treating them merely as NPCs is also inadvisable.

Underestimating them will lead to a great loss.

Similar to the people formed from the last obsessions of Li Jing and the Ten Thousand Heavenly Soldiers in that world.

Within the world, they truly exist and possess extremely strong subjective initiative.

Even if it's "refining Yang Jian inside the Eight Trigrams Furnace," it doesn't mean everything will revolve around Yang Jian turning in circles.

In the distance, Mu Yang watched from afar but did not come over.

"What's the situation?" he asked.

"You can spot me flying in the sky?" Tang Luo descended from the heavens and landed beside Mu Yang.

Mu Yang couldn't be bothered to reply.

"Let me go check." Tang Luo walked over, and the Heaven-point Star People, under Ao Yulie's order, forcibly restrained their urge to kill.

They preserved their own lives.

After a while, Tang Luo returned: "Those should be the people you've been hunting; their experimental creations have decent combat strength—at least they can fight you to a draw."

Mu Yang silently nodded: "Continue?"

"Let's continue." Tang Luo soared into the air and vanished.

Over there, the Heaven-point Star People moved again; this time, Mu Yang did not choose to fight and retreat but actually charged straight at them.

If Ao Yulie hadn't promptly fished him out, his life would be over.

"Don't go throwing your life away," Ao Yulie said. "You'll really die."

"I made a mistake; otherwise I could have withdrawn safely," Mu Yang said, slapping a healing talisman Tang Luo gave him onto his body.

He staggered to his feet and pressed on.

Today's life-and-death battle ended, but he still couldn't rest; he had to keep moving forward.

"Running in the sunset is his youth"—Mu Yang didn't believe a word of it.

Yet through repeated tempering he grew stronger, recovering, reclaiming what he had forgotten and lost.

Mu Yang had no doubt about that.

Then let's continue—Mu Yang's heart was yearning, craving.

Meanwhile, inside the meeting hall of the Homeland Guard...

After the image of the non-human test subject transmitted by Dan Ling disappeared, the room fell into silence.

Only Dan Ling was muttering something under his breath, speaking fast, soft, and indistinct—no one nearby could make it out.

"How did it turn out?" Han Liangji's voice broke the silence.

After the third-person view showed them the appearance of the non-human, switching to first-person, watching the ensuing footage was an uncomfortable experience for everyone.

Many just watching it even felt dizzy and nauseous, utterly unable to keep up with the test subject's visual shifts.

Now their complexion wasn't great either, some turning a pallid white.

"Twenty-eight—unfortunately, it failed," Dan Ling said in a calm tone.

Twenty-eight?

That thing killed twenty-eight Heaven-point Star People, yet you call that a failure?

You should know that the strongest human warrior can only slay four or five Heaven-point Star People—that's the limit.

"It's not a failure; it charged into the Heaven-point Star People's formation and slew twenty-eight," someone said. "If there weren't so many Heaven-point Star People, killing thirty would be absolutely no problem."

The battle footage was a chaotic mess, and nobody could discern any pattern.

All they could do was make a rough judgment.

"No, the problem lies here," Dan Ling said, biting his nails and speaking unclearly. "I originally thought this thing might have a bit of combat intelligence, but judging by the situation, it's still just fighting on pure hot blood—no good, the direction is wrong."

Everyone stared at each other.

What to fear in this research? Nothing but a wrong direction.

A wrong direction—that's basically heading south while aiming north.

"Non-human, it seems, can't be completely non-human," Dan Ling muttered, lost in his own world.

Nobody dared disturb him.

Including those who originally wanted to halt the experiments at once and lock this lot up in prison—the conservative faction.

If those research results were merely strengthening and remodeling,

then they would surely not agree.

But the situation is different now; what Dan Ling showed them was not a monstrous non-human born of cruel experiments.

but hope—although this hope is a product of those cruel experiments.

But at this moment, in their eyes, a fundamental change had occurred, like a lotus blooming unstained from the mire.

A flower of hope blossoming atop a heap of corpses.

It leaves one unable to refuse.