Chapter 252: The Price: Three Million Lives

【Cost: Three Million Lives】

The air solidified in that instant.

Three million.

It's not merely a number; it's enough to fill countless cities with mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

If it were the old Ouyang Feng, the moment he saw this figure he might have drawn his sword and shattered that demonic bottle.

But the one standing here now is merely a gambler whose soul has been burned dry by desire.

"Heh......"

A low, guttural syllable rolled from deep in his throat, like a rusted gear forced to turn.

Ouyang Feng picked up the slip of paper, his fingers tracing the Blood Characters, without a tremor, only veins bulging from overexcitement.

In his once ash‑gray pupils, a near‑mad red now flared.

"Three million?"

He lifted his head, scanning the dilapidated, dim room, his gaze piercing the walls as if seeing countless ant‑like lives bustling throughout the city.

"Don't even mention three million."

"Even if it's thirty million... what does it matter!"

At that moment Ouyang Feng thought he would have to kill that many people himself.

However, there was no sign.

The pale‑blue porcelain bottle suddenly ceased trembling.

Then.

"Ehh—!!"

Ouyang Feng threw his head back, emitting a shocked, painful, inhuman wail.

He felt every bone inside him scorching, as if thousands‑degree magma surged through his marrow. Especially the vertebra on his back that once belonged to the Fierce Ghost, now fully revived.

It was no longer satisfied with merely parasitizing.

It intended to turn the tables.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

The rapid snapping echoed through the cramped living room. Ouyang Feng's Black Combat Suit, the Federation's pinnacle of technology, was instantly torn apart by internal pressure, shredding into countless ribbons.

The human back skin was ripped apart completely.

No blood spilled.

In its place, countless ghastly white Bone Spikes sprouted like a post‑rain thicket of thorns, wildly extending in every direction!

This is a body no human could possess.

Below, Room 402.

"How long are you going to keep shouting? Can you let me have a moment of peace!"

The man hurled the ashtray in his hand to the floor, glass shards scattering. The woman opposite him, eyes reddened, hair disheveled, screamed hysterically: "Find the fox spirit if I'm annoying you! I can't live like this!"

The quarrel sounded especially harsh in the late‑night Tongzi Lou.

The man, irritated, tugged at his tie, about to retort.

Pfft.

A strange sound rang out.

Like a heated blade slicing into butter.

The man froze.

He lowered his head, staring at his chest in disbelief.

A segment of bone, ivory‑white with a hooked tip, silently pierced the floor and precisely penetrated his chest.

No blood.

Because the instant the Bone Spike touched his flesh, his body began to melt.

Skin, muscle, organs softened like wax under high heat, flowing down the Bone Spike in a frenzy, then merging with its surface patterns.

"Uh... help..."

The man opened his mouth to call for help, but his vocal cords had already turned to bone.

The woman opposite him stared in terror, watching her husband turn into a clump of rotten flesh hanging from a white bone pillar within a second.

Before she could scream.

From the ceiling, several equally ghastly white Bone Spikes dropped, instantly piercing her skull.

Their bodies quickly withered and reassembled.

Moments later.

The quarreling couple vanished.

In their place, the two thick Bone Spikes sprouted two faintly pulsating human‑faced flesh tumors. Those two faces retained their living anger and terror, forever frozen together, becoming nourishment for this horrific bone forest.

Room 302.

A warm candlelit dinner.

"Baby, come, open your mouth, ah—"

The young mother lifted a spoon, smiling as she coaxed the child in the high chair. The child giggled, reaching for the spoon.

Clack.

The spoon fell to the floor.

The mother was about to bend down to pick it up.

The floor bulged without warning, as if a massive creature were turning beneath the ground.

The cement floor cracks.

Countless fine, fungus‑like white bone spikes gush out from the fissures, instantly filling the entire room.

The dining table is overturned, the Candle goes out.

In the darkness, only a few muffled "pup‑pup" sounds are heard, the noises of flesh being pierced.

The child's laughter abruptly stops.

A few seconds later.

That warm little home is completely reduced to a dead zone.

That mother‑and‑son pair have already vanished.

In the center of the dense bone thicket that has sprouted from beneath the floor like a canopy, two completely distorted bodies hang. Their limbs have regressed, the torso fused with white bone, leaving only two heads that can barely be recognized as their original forms.

On that child's head, unfinished rice porridge still clings.

His eyes remain open, but his pupils have dilated, staring hollowly at this hellish tableau formed by his mother and the neighbors.

The corridor of Tongzi Lou comes alive.

The once mottled, peeling outer wall skin begins to ooze viscous dark‑red fluid, a biological tissue formed from the plasma of the devoured mixed with building materials.

The rusted sewage pipes turn into pulsating vessels, emitting a gurgling "gudong‑gudong" transport sound.

The steps of the Stairwell soften, becoming a kind of wrinkled intestinal wall.

And the source of all this lies on the Fifth Floor.

All of it is on the man named Ouyang Feng.

At this moment, he can no longer be called a "human."

His feet have long vanished; his lower half has entirely turned into countless thick bone roots, deeply embedded in the Reinforced Steel Bar concrete structure of the building, merging with the whole edifice.

His spine is like the trunk of a towering tree, breaking through the Fifth Floor's roof, stabbing straight into the heavens.

Countless pallid Bone Spikes radiate wildly from him in all directions, turning the entire building into a massive "egg" made of white bone and flesh.

"Power......"

Ouyang Feng's upper body is naked, his skin displaying a semi‑transparent jade‑like sheen.

He spreads his arms, like a king embracing the world.

His perception follows those Bone Spikes, extending to every corner of the building.

He can "see" the drunk nailed to the wall downstairs gradually cease struggling.

He can "hear" the final sigh of the solitary elder on the Second Floor as the Bone Spikes devour him.

He can "taste"......

The sweet, trembling taste when those vibrant lives are transmuted into pure energy.

Each person's death becomes a warm current that flows along the Bone Spikes into his body, repairing his imperfect genes, filling the endless chasm of his greed.

Is this… the taste of evolution?

Ouyang Feng closes his eyes, a near‑divine look of rapture appearing on his face.

It's wonderful.

Compared with this all‑controlling, all‑devouring great power, my former human self is nothing but a ridiculous Clown.

"Not enough......"

He murmurs, his voice resonating through the whole building, rolling like a muffled thunder on a stormy night.

"Three million......"

"There are only a few hundred people in this building...... still far from enough......"

Accompanied by his will.

The already thoroughly demonized Tongzi Lou begins to writhe violently.

The once solid concrete walls become like elastic skin, constantly bulging and contracting, emitting a nauseating "ba‑chi" sound.