Chapter 248: Man-Made

"This race has not been collected!"

"Extracting the extraordinary characteristics from its body will grant 10,000 merit points."

The final two sentences transmitted through, making Li Yu feel the difference in the Demon Star Order once again.

In the previous conquests of the strange realms, those tasks from the Demon Star Order were merely inducements.

Now, they were explicit.

It wanted resources, it wanted everything!

All Order Holders were, in reality, just tools, mercenaries.

But knowing was one thing; compared to the two divine artifacts whose power was unimaginably terrifying, participants from both camps were insignificant pawns that could be discarded.

Either submit, or be erased.

Li Yu knew this point too, so after grumbling a little in his heart, he shifted his attention back to what was before him.

He first deliberately restrained his Qi, hiding in the high sky.

Immediately after, he scanned everything within the terrifying sea of excrement below with a serious expression.

There was no need to look closely at those filth; the most worthy of attention were naturally the 【Excrement Eaters】, also known as the Maggot-Man race.

After a few breaths, Li Yu understood the general situation of this entire tragic and horrifying sub-human race:

They lived entirely within the sea of excrement and had a division of labor within the race, such as the meat-maggot men who purely ate excrement and filtered the essence, the yellow-maggot soldiers who had evolved some armor and special abilities... and most importantly, the Maggot Mother.

The entire race seemed to be providing for the Maggot Mother, feeding her the food that the maggot men had filtered and which was less heavily polluted.

And the Maggot Mother was responsible for reproduction.

"This bizarre circulatory system has likely been going on for many years."

"Although the Excrement Eater race is completely unaware of their own situation and does not realize their own tragedy."

"But that 【Maggot Mother】 at the head seems different?"

"She likely retains some instinctive consciousness and is trying to give birth to offspring with awakened intelligence."

When this thought emerged.

Li Yu's gaze fell upon the very center of the sea of excrement.

There, a floating island formed by a large amount of solid filth stood, and on the island lay a mountain-like Maggot Mother.

She had no limbs, and her main torso was shockingly made of fat, bloated, and unsettling maggot flesh.

But other organs, such as the head and face, still bore traces of humanity.

While eating food, she was constantly popping out eggs from her rear, all of which were brainless maggot men.

Yet, within her transparent and enormous abdominal sac, one could vaguely see maggot eggs that were many times larger than the others, which she kept wrapped in her belly, delaying their birth.

The forms of the offspring within those eggs were also quite distinctly different from those meat maggots.

With Li Yu's keen eyes, he naturally guessed the reason in an instant.

"After undergoing tragic modification, a remnant of human consciousness is trying to find a way to survive and re-evolve in this extremely harsh environment?"

While muttering in his heart, Li Yu also fell into a dilemma and hesitation.

If he didn't know the truth!

If he just thought of these as demons, he would have been able to strike.

Slaughter an 【Excrement Eater】, take the extraordinary characteristics, and 10,000 merit points would be in hand.

But now that he knew, he couldn't bring himself to do it.

Although the "indigenous humans" of this dead star were not the same humans as him, Li Yu, or even the original body in Ten Thousand Blessings City.

If a genetic test were performed, there might not even be a kinship.

Li Yu's wandering thoughts did not last long, because the next moment, war and conflict broke out without warning.

The sea of excrement below was suddenly attacked.

The perpetrators were a group of "bird-men," or rather, bat-men, who were unimaginably ugly.

Externally, they looked like giant bats with four arms, each arm and their flanks connected by membranes, which they could spread to fly.

They possessed strong, sharp claws and a hideous, terrifying human face uncovered by skin.

When they flew over like a dark cloud, the polluted noise they made together caused Li Yu, who was hiding in the shadows, to feel his blood boil and a sense of great disgust.

In his mind, a prompt was triggered again:

"Congratulations to the Order Holder for discovering one of the target races: Bat-men."

"The predecessor of this sub-human race was human warship pilots, who were eventually modified into this appearance."

"The Modifier race added some pollution to their life essence, causing them to feed specifically on their 'own kind,' among which their favorite food is the Maggot-Man race."

"This race has not been collected!"

"One portion of extraordinary characteristics can be exchanged for 10,000 merit points."

Li Yu had no time to complain about the Modifier race being too dangerous.

Below, the war broke out.

Initially, it was a one-sided slaughter; the bat-men would grab one with each claw and begin to feast on the plump and fleshy bodies of the maggot men in the air.

But soon, the bat-men also encountered a counterattack. First, there were "excrement spears" projected upward; as long as one was touched by even a little, even if just scratched, they would quickly be polluted, rot, and fall into the sea of excrement.

Later on, it further angered the Maggot Mother.

Her abdominal cavity stopped laying eggs, and instead, a massive, yellow, turbid mist that almost covered the top of the sea of excrement surged out from within.

Even Li Yu's expression changed drastically upon seeing this.

In his mind, a premonition arose:

"An extremely filthy object; once touched, I will also be polluted."

"My perfect, glass-like Longevity Body will rot and fester."

This premonition made Li Yu immediately ascend to dodge.

The luck of those bat-men was not so good; the speed at which the turbid mist spread was unimaginable.

In an instant, the bat-men who had come to forage suffered heavy casualties, with only a small portion escaping.

When the turbid mist dissipated, the sea of excrement began to clean up.

"Phew!"

"That's fine, it saves me from having to force a slaughter."

"Although both sides are already pure demonic evil things, in essence, they are still tragic humans; there was no need, and I really couldn't bring myself to do it."

"That Maggot Mother can preserve the continuation of her race and has also evolved a large number of special abilities, such as the yellow turbid foul mist, hypnotic calls... in my perception, she seems to have control over the sea of excrement; if converted to a human cultivator, her sequence is not low."

"Although it wouldn't be difficult to kill her if I wanted to."

"But since I can scavenge the corpses, there's no need to take action. I can't be fighting in a sea of excrement; if I were to be dragged into it and defile my Longevity Body, that would be a huge loss."

As this thought settled, Li Yu transformed directly into a formless sword light.

Trying his best to avoid the "Maggot Mother," he dropped to the edge of the sea of excrement in an instant and, silently and without a sound, snatched away the corpses of one maggot man and one bat-man respectively.

Both were elite small bosses, and there was movement within their bodies.

On a small hill in the barren land away from the sea of excrement.

Li Yu endured the disgust, extended a finger, and tapped on the corpses of the two sub-human races.

Now was the time for the extraordinary characteristics to be extracted.

Not only were there violent changes within their bodies, but the secrets contained within could not be hidden from Li Yu's methods.

No dissection!

No detailed medical records of the modification surgery!

But his own Daoist medical skills had become increasingly proficient after ascending to a Longevity Daoist.

Before long, he already had some understanding of the essence of life modification in his mind, and he even felt the train of thought of that 【Modifier race】 from afar.

Pursuing evolution like the followers of the Ancient Sages?

Some secret, grand goal?

No, neither.

"Cruel and perverted!"

"This so-called Modifier race clearly possesses life modification technology that can be called 'divine arts,' yet they haven't used it for exquisite, extraordinary modification and creation."

"Their starting point: is to torture for amusement."

"Therefore, the methods and processes are very crude, devoid of any aesthetics, and completely unreasonable."

"In all likelihood, they produced many defective products."

"That these two sub-human races can survive and reproduce is probably because their ancestors had a relatively firm will to survive."

When Li Yu reached this conclusion, different extraordinary characteristics indeed gradually precipitated on the surfaces of the two corpses. A filthy maggot egg and a bat pearl.

They could be consumed or used to refine medicine.

Their respective effects were also very crude and useless.

Like the bat pearl, after eating it, one would gain abilities such as "night vision" and "membranous wings," at the cost of developing some special desires that could not be removed.

Li Yu did not put them into his storage pouch but chose to offer them as a sacrifice directly.

The next moment, 20,000 merit points were credited directly.

But there was not a trace of joy on his face, and the reason was simple.

As a Longevity Daoist, Li Yu's perception of the "fleshly body" was extremely keen.

That contact just now was enough for Li Yu to glimpse, and even empathize with, some cruel and horrifying scenes.

At the same time, one could vaguely infer secrets and information that were completely invisible on the surface.

Not a single mistake, not a single omission, reading through every single piece of content!

"The race of Modifiers must have already left this Death Star of Desire."

"Because those maggot-men and bat-men both show signs of massive autonomous evolution in their bodies, clearly having not been subjected to torture or interference for a long time."

"The perverted race has departed, but this zone of anomalies is still at 【Nightmare Difficulty】, which shows that a great many threats still exist."

Li Yu's eyes were filled with caution and wariness.

At the same time, there was also a look of helplessness.

He had already discovered it!

This Death Star of Desire was too large.

He even felt that it might truly be as large as the Earth of his past life.

Because after he descended, he had been unable to establish contact with Hongdou.

One must know that after this pair of master and servant underwent spirit-mending, their heart-souls and machine-souls already possessed a marvelous connection.

Even if separated by a thousand miles, they could still sense each other.

But now, there was nothing at all.

This meant that Hongdou's drop point was very far from him.

"The two factions combined only dropped twenty people."

"On a planet as large as Earth, it is indeed not easy to run into each other."

"However, we will still meet within seven days."

Li Yu's judgment was also quite reasonable; although there were only twenty people, they were all high-sequence powerhouses.

At the very least, they were Sequence Five.

If they traveled at full speed, they would soon bump into each other.

It wasn't possible at this stage, naturally, because everyone was still exploring with extreme caution.

After all, it was Nightmare-level difficulty; if one was not careful, let alone Sequence Five, even Sequence Four could die suddenly.

For the sake of safety!

Li Yu next transformed into an intangible sword radiance, following his intuition to choose a direction to begin his exploration.

While moving forward, he pondered:

"Among the three main quests, the most difficult one is probably deciphering the truth."

"If all the 【Sub-human races】 on this planet are in the form of maggot-men or bat-men, with no writing and no records, then it is very difficult to restore the whole truth through means like archaeology."

"Even if I use the Truth Bubble, I can only glimpse a part of it; after submitting it, I fear the completion rate won't be high, and the merit points won't be worth it."

"Huh?"

The thoughts in his mind were still flickering when a scene suddenly appeared ahead that left even him stunned.

The word "horrifying" was no longer enough to describe it.

At this moment, Li Yu only felt that the "race of Modifiers" were truly lunatics who were perverted to the extreme.

That's right!

He had encountered a new sub-human race again.

Right there on the barren land ahead, extremely abruptly, stood piles of magnificent yet eerie buildings.

They were massive and towering.

There were pyramid shapes, square shapes, or long, narrow shapes.

All were man-made wonders.

And, they were "man-made" in the literal sense.

Even from a distance, Li Yu could clearly see that these buildings were distinctly stacked from individual "flesh bricks."

Each flesh brick was, in reality, a person.

The surface was clearly human skin, and it still retained some organs such as "eyes," "mouths," and "noses."

Even though Li Yu had endured and observed many perverts.

At this moment, he could not help but give rise to intense killing intent.

"Even things like mass graves or monuments of skulls are a hundred times better than this scene."

"This kind of unfathomable, terrifying hobby is rare even among Evil Gods."

What made Li Yu utter this lament was some things he sensed after gradually drawing closer.

When looking from afar, it was only a suspicion.

After getting close, it was confirmed.

It didn't even require his high intuition; as long as one wasn't blind, one could see the eyes on those flesh bricks blinking from time to time.

"Every single flesh brick is alive."

"They... don't all still have consciousness, do they?"

Li Yu asked in his mind, but deep down, he was already somewhat certain.

At the same time, he had no choice but to get closer and closer.

Even though he had bumped into a new sub-human race, the prompt tone of the Demon Star Order had not sounded once.

It was very clear that this was because Li Yu had moved far away from the "drop point," and the Demon Star Order had no authority to know anything outside the drop point, requiring Li Yu, this tool, to explore it himself.

For example, the tens of thousands of sub-humans before him who had been modified into flesh bricks and stacked into wonders.

"How many sub-humans are here?"

"What do they rely on to survive?"

"And what are they called?"

Numerous doubts, accompanied by intense killing intent and pity, rose up together.

And very soon, they received partial answers.

Because as Li Yu drew closer, he suddenly realized that there were many graffiti marks on the "outer walls" of these man-made buildings.

There were both words and pictures.

The race of Modifiers possessed highly advanced technology, so naturally, even the graffiti was exquisite and orderly, like industrial blueprints.

Although the methods were extremely cruel, it was clear that something like a laser had been used to permanently engrave them onto the surface of those human skins.

With Hongdou not by his side, he could not decipher the alien script.

But as for the pictures, anyone with eyes could see them.

The content was exceptionally rich.

A large portion of it was, shockingly, the entire process of how these "flesh-brick people" before him were created through modification.

Besides that, there were also some torture scenes and various experiments.

"Every flesh brick is a person."

"They can no longer move a single inch; their flesh and souls have been folded into bricks, and the outer layer of human skin has undergone multiple modifications, allowing them to maintain signs of life by absorbing any nutrients, rainwater, sunlight, or even invisible radiation from the air."

"Likewise, they can also feel every bit of pain."

"Every one of them retains intelligence, thought, and perception."

With every sentence that emerged in Li Yu's mind, his mood grew a degree heavier.

(End of chapter)