Chapter 328: Four God-Given Items

At the same time, the other end of the city.

Underground mall.

The entrance here can no longer be called an entrance.

More precisely, the steel-frame passageway that once held a sign for the 'B1 floor food court' now resembles the esophagus of some giant creature.

Crimson flesh walls spread from the ground, wrapping around the handrails of the escalators, the tracks of the rolling shutters, and even the fire sprinklers on the ceiling.

All man-made objects were enveloped in a layer of damp, capillary-veined tissue membrane, its surface irregularly rising and falling, wriggling every few seconds and emitting a slimy water sound.

The air was hot.

It wasn't the dry heat of summer, but the kind inside a steamer—humid, stuffy, fishy; each breath felt like something oily was coating the lobes of the lungs.

Lin Fan stepped on the slime-covered ground, descending level by level down the escalator that was now unrecognizable.

With each step of his sneaker sole, the flesh wall would spasm violently like a snake stepped on its tail, then secrete more dark-red liquid from the footprint.

He didn't mind.

The azure flame in his right eye flickered, illuminating the view about three meters ahead. Enough. The red dot on the radar was directly below, less than fifty meters away.

The mall's B1 floor.

More precisely, it was the former B1 floor.

When Lin Fan had finished the last step and lifted his head, his footsteps paused for about 0.5 seconds.

It wasn't from being frightened; he needed half a second to process what lay before him.

The spatial structure of the entire B1 floor remained— the outlines of pillars, floor tile seams, the remnants of a 'Zhou Heiya' sign in the distance— faintly discernible.

But every surface was covered in living tissue; the ceiling had become a vast dome festooned with umbilical-cord-like tubes, the ground bulged with countless swellings, inside which something curled up......

People.

Or rather, things that were once people.

They were wrapped in translucent flesh membranes, posed in various ways—some curled like fetuses, others with limbs splayed and fixed to the flesh wall; facial features remained, allowing one to tell male from female, old from young, but their bodies had fused with the surrounding tissue. Their chests rose and fell; some mouths were open, throats exhaling thin, mosquito-like breaths.

Alive.

All alive.

They were welded into this flesh-and-blood edifice as components, powering it and enabling its growth.

"Heh——"

Laughter echoed down from the center of the dome.

A bald man sat cross-legged, floating in midair; beneath him was a lotus woven from intestines and fascia. He was bare-chested, a white crystal the size of a mung bean embedded in his chest, the skin around it melting and solidifying like wax, forming a nauseating ring of scar patterns.

He tilted his head, looking down at Lin Fan.

"Another delivery guy?"

The bald man's voice was cheerful, tinged with an excitement that gave one goosebumps, like a child unwrapping a new toy.

"Do you know where the best part of this thing is?"

He patted the lotus beneath him, and the whole dome trembled.

"Living people are more useful than dead ones. Dead, they're just a lump of protein; alive, they have emotion, fear, pain—these are the finest fuel. Look at them——"

The bald man pointed at the half-fused bodies on the wall, his voice full of an artist's pride.

"Thirty-seven of them. Men, women, old and young. I spent two days embedding them one by one; this work is more exhausting than renovation. But...... what a delight! Absolute delight!"

Lin Fan didn't respond.

He just stood at the bottom of the escalator, hands in his pockets, posture relaxed as if strolling through a supermarket.

The blue flame in his right eye neither expanded nor contracted; it remained calm.

The bald man's smile faded a little.

He had seen those who weren't afraid of death, but never this kind—not fearless, but utterly indifferent to him.

"Kid, are you deaf?"

"No." Lin Fan finally spoke, his voice a little hoarse, as if he hadn't drunk water in a long time.

"Counting."

"Counting what?"

"Thirty-seven." Lin Fan's gaze swept over the writhing human silhouettes on the wall, his voice flat with no inflection, "You just said thirty-seven."

"So?"

"Nothing."

Lin Fan lowered his head, glanced at his sneakers. Blood water stained the uppers; the lace on his left shoe was loose. He didn't bother to tie it.

"Just checking how many times I should cut you later."

The bald man's pupils constricted.

The next second, he launched an attack.

The dome, walls, and floor exploded; thick flesh tentacles surged from all directions, each as thick as an adult's thigh, covered in spiky bone protrusions, accompanied by a tearing, fishy wind, they swept toward Lin Fan's position to crush him.

Twelve.

Launched simultaneously from twelve directions.

The speed was such that an ordinary person couldn't even blink in time.

Lin Fan stood in place.

He didn't move.

His hands remained in his pockets.

When the tentacles struck two meters in front of him, the ground split open.

It wasn't a physical shattering; the floor tiles, flesh walls, and everything solid were liquefying into an extremely cold, black, bottomless water.

Black Water spreads outward from beneath Lin Fan's feet, faster than the tentacles.

The copper ring buzzes and rotates half a turn on his right index finger, completely rewriting the very notion of "ground" for the entire B1 level.

The moment the tentacle pierces the Black Water, a layer of gray‑white frost forms on its surface.

Within half a second the frost thickens, cracks, then refreezes.

Twelve tentacles freeze simultaneously in midair, unable to move.

Yet they do not break.

The bald man sneered, "Is that it? My stuff can regenerate—"

He didn't finish the sentence.

In the exact center of the Black Water, the surface bulged into an arc.

Something was rising from below.

First, hair.

Wet, non‑reflective, all‑covering black long hair surged silently from beneath the surface, like seaweed pushed by a current. The strands spread at extreme speed, covering most of the water surface within a few breaths, dense and layered.

Then the face.

A pale, bloodless young girl's face rose slowly from the water. Her features were delicate, and her eye sockets were two bottomless black voids.

Ling Xinyu.

Lin Fan channeled the entire energy of that Divine Gift—a red crystal—into it, and simultaneously pushed the copper ring's environmental‑rewriting power without reservation.

The two forces overlapped.

Xin Yu's form began to change.

Her black long hair was no longer soft strands—each hair became straight, rigid, its edges sharp enough to refract light. The number surged from thousands to tens of thousands, then to an uncountable mass, exploding in the air like magnetized iron sand and filling the upper half of the B1 level.

And from the two hollow eye sockets, something gushes out.

Not blood or tears.

It is a liquid—pitch‑black, viscous, so cold that contact with air instantly crystallizes it into ice—spouting from the two black holes, flowing down her cheeks and dripping into the Black Water.

With each drop, the water surface freezes outward, forming a ring of black ice.

The temperature plunges.

Water vapor in the air instantly condenses into fine ice needles that hover midair. The capillaries on the flesh's surface first constrict, then burst, and the exuded blood freezes before it can flow, becoming dark‑red ice shards.

Around the survivors embedded in the walls, black ice weaves precisely, freezing only the tissue belonging to the flesh nest and not touching the living at all.

The bald man's complexion finally changes.

He wildly drives the white crystal on his chest, and new flesh buds proliferate frantically on every severed tentacle cross‑section, trying to use regeneration to brace against the assault.

They are indeed growing.

The speed isn't slow.

But it's useless.

Xin Yu moves.

Not movement. Expansion.

The black hair that fills half the space straightens simultaneously, each strand vibrating at a frequency beyond naked‑eye detection. Energy infused by the red crystal grants them a rate far beyond normal, while the copper ring's rewrited extreme‑cold environment freezes the severed flesh as it breaks, completely sealing any chance of regeneration.

The cutting begins.

No sound.

The frequency is too high, so high that the air cannot even transmit the vibration.

The bald man only sees the scene before him shatter.

The tentacles shatter. The dome shatters. The flesh lotus shatters. The blood‑flesh nest he took pride in, painstakingly crafted over two days, is sliced into thumb‑nail‑sized fragments in under three seconds.

Each piece of flesh, the instant it separates, freezes solid, becoming dark‑red ice debris that flutters down from the sky like an extremely disgusting hailstorm.

A single strand of hair sweeps across the bald man.

"Ah!"

The bald man falls from midair, crashing onto the black‑ice‑covered ground; everything below his waist disappears. The cut surface freezes into a blue‑black hue, with no blood flowing out.

He opens his mouth to scream, but only a sound of bursting bubbles emerges from his throat.

Creak—creak.

The sound of sneakers crushing ice shards, step by step, neither fast nor slow.

Lin Fan walks over.

He lowers his head, looks at the half‑body still convulsing, squats, and gently flicks the opponent's chest white crystal with his hand.

The crystal falls, landing in his palm.

The fourth one.

Lin Fan stands, slips the crystal casually into his hoodie pocket, as if it were a candy.

Behind him, the Black Water recedes slowly. The survivors embedded in the walls, as the nest collapses, fall to the ground one after another—some coughing, some crying, some merely lying trembling. Alive.

Thirty‑seven, not one missing.

Xin Yu's advanced form also fades. The sky‑filled steel‑needle‑like black hair softens again, shortens, obediently retracts, and finally becomes the outline of a girl with a ponytail.

Her hand wraps around Lin Fan's forearm, her face rubbing against his cuff.

The movement is as light as a cat's.

Lin Fan lifts his other hand, pats her crown. The hair is icy cold, yet very soft.

Xin Yu smiles silently, her two pitch‑black eye sockets curving into crescents.

Weird to the extreme. So gentle to the extreme.

Lin Fan withdraws his hand, pulls a phone from his pocket. On the radar map, his cursor has already stacked four layers.

But many red dots are still flashing.

They lift their foot toward the Exit, the sneaker soles crushing the broken ice, creak—creak.

The faint blue flame in their right eye is much brighter than when they entered.

It's not because they're excited.

It's because that promise, which began on a whim and has become gradually clear, is one step closer to being fulfilled.