6: Adapter

The echo of the gunshot still hummed in the warehouse. “Xiao Lu! Lu Jianchuan!” Li Ming suppressed the tremor in his voice, roaring softly as he warily held up his gun, scanning the profound darkness around them, and quickly moved toward Lu Jianchuan, who was slumped on the ground.

Lu Jianchuan suddenly snapped back to reality, scrambling up onto his hands and feet, his face bloodless, his lips still trembling: “Uncle... Uncle Li... W-what exactly was that thing?!” “How the hell should I know!” Li Ming cursed, a rare occurrence, grabbing his arm with surprising force, his voice squeezed out from between his teeth.

“I don’t know! And how many times have I told you! Don’t touch it! Don’t investigate! There are specialized people to handle this! But you brat just wouldn’t listen! Do you see now? Is this damn thing something you should mess with?!”

“I was wrong... Uncle Li, I was truly wrong...” Lu Jianchuan rambled incoherently. The overwhelming fear had completely erased his previous stubbornness, leaving only dread and obedience.

“Stop talking nonsense! Hurry up and go! Get out of this damned place! This must be reported immediately!” Li Ming dragged him along. Back to back, the two cautiously shuffled step by step toward the direction they remembered coming from—the warehouse entrance.

The warehouse was almost pitch black; only Lu Jianchuan’s phone, whose light seemed to have dimmed slightly after being dropped, stubbornly provided a small, dim yellow halo, barely illuminating a few meters around their feet.

The surrounding darkness was so thick it felt tangible, like a living entity that could pounce and devour them at any moment. “Un-Uncle Li, it’s too dark...” Lu Jianchuan’s voice was tearful. “In those horror movies, at times like this... something bad always happens...”

“Shut up! Don’t you dare jinx us!” Li Ming hissed, his heart pounding in his throat, his knuckles white from gripping the gun too tightly.

In his decades of work, he had never encountered a situation like this. All his experience and courage seemed utterly ineffective against this completely unknown horror.

*Click.* An extremely faint sound, like crushed gravel being stepped on, came from the shadow of a pile of discarded molds to their left.

“Over there!” Li Ming reacted instantly, his muzzle whipping around! Almost simultaneously, Lu Jianchuan’s phone beam instinctively followed—The moment the light swept past! A hulking shadow, covered in dark, dull Bone Armor, flashed like a ghost across the edge of the halo, moving so fast that it left only a blurry afterimage and a subtle hum in the air before quickly vanishing into another patch of darkness.

Both men held their breath. *Whoosh—Clang!* Immediately afterward, a high empty oil drum to their rear right was violently knocked over by something, letting out a jarring clatter! Li Ming and Lu Jianchuan spun sharply to the right again, their light beam and muzzle moving in unison, but they only saw the drum rolling due to inertia; the dark shadow had already disappeared.

It was all around them. It moved through the darkness, using the complex terrain to hide itself perfectly. It was no longer roaring, but the silent, subtle sounds coming from different directions, and the occasional glimpse of its inhuman silhouette caught by the phone beam, created psychological pressure far more suffocating than a direct assault.

It was like a patient, apex predator toying with its prey, using this omnipresent sense of oppression to wear down their nerves, trapping them firmly within this steel maze.

Cold sweat beaded on Li Ming’s forehead. He clenched his jaw tightly and whispered, “Stay close to me! Don’t shine the light around wildly! We’ll slowly move out!” But they both knew that until they completely escaped this darkness, the monster could launch a fatal attack from any angle at any moment.

Meanwhile, in the darkness of Lu Jianchuan’s pocket.

Han Chengyu was completely startled by the continuous gunfire and chaos outside. “System! What’s going on?” he immediately demanded. [Warning: High-intensity evo factor reaction and continuous physical conflict detected. A special creature, evolved by the factor, appears to have emerged externally. Based on behavioral patterns and energy characteristics, its pre-evolutionary base should be human, but the current evolutionary direction shows severe deviation. Specific physiological structure requires close-range scanning confirmation.]

“What? In that case, is it dangerous?”

[Extremely dangerous. Based on the current situation, it possesses the mobility to evade bullets, which your current Aptitude Holder cannot possibly fight using conventional means. This System recommends that you immediately complete the armor architecture and finalize the adaptation process. Otherwise, if the Aptitude Holder directly triggers autonomous evolution in a crisis, since the factor within him has been directionally activated, he will no longer be able to bind with the armor System, leading to evolutionary path conflicts and unpredictable abnormal reactions.]

“Hurry up! Get it done now!” Han Chengyu cried out anxiously.

Outside, the pressure of death intensified abruptly.

The monster clearly retained its pre-evolutionary intelligence. It was no longer satisfied with intimidation and began using everything in the warehouse as a weapon. A heavy empty oil drum was violently hurled from the shadows, striking the container next to the two men with a whistling sound, creating a deafening crash and sending fragments flying. “It... it’s throwing things!” Lu Jianchuan’s voice was laced with despair.

Li Ming tried to cover Lu Jianchuan’s retreat, but his own foot caught on debris, causing him to stumble and nearly fall. This vulnerability was instantly seized by the hunter in the dark! The figure, buzzing with high-frequency vibrations, lunged like lightning, its vertical pupils locked onto the unbalanced Li Ming, its Bone Claws aiming straight for his vital spots!

“Uncle Li!!” Lu Jianchuan’s eyes were splitting with rage. Seeing a small oil can that had been thrown nearby, he grabbed it without thinking and charged toward the monster with a roar, attempting to stop it with a clumsy collision!

But his action was meaningless against absolute speed and strength. The monster, whose arm was covered in Bio-Steel Bone, casually swung it. “Bang!!” With a dull thud, the oil can and Lu Jianchuan were violently flung away, slamming heavily onto the ground several meters away. Lu Jianchuan’s chest tightened, his throat tasted coppery, and searing pain shot through his left arm.

Just as he was thrown out, the wristwatch that had been tucked in his pocket flew out due to the impact, and with a *click*, it fastened precisely onto his trembling left wrist.

The next moment, an anomaly occurred! The metal watchband suddenly contracted like something alive, tightly wrapping around his wrist bone! The deep blue light band in the center of the watch face flared brightly!

“Argh!” Lu Jianchuan felt a burning pain in his left wrist. He realized in horror that the watch was tightly locked onto his hand, refusing to budge no matter how hard he tried to tear it off!

“System! Hurry! Bind him!” Han Chengyu roared in his consciousness. “The architecture is still reporting errors? Don’t worry about it! Immediately help me delete the erroneous parts we can delete, modify the ones we can modify, and get it running the fastest way possible! It doesn’t matter if the functions are weaker, just save his life first!”

[Instruction received. Initiating Emergency Optimization Protocol. Scanning architecture... 37 non-fatal conflicts and 12 energy circuit errors found.]

[Commencing optimization plan: Deleting “Shoulder Thruster Wing Module,” “High-Frequency Particle Blade Generator”... Simplifying “Leg Reinforcement Circuit”... Reconstructing “Core Energy Conduction Matrix”...]

[Warning: Optimization will result in a 42.7% decrease in overall armor performance, and some preset functions will be permanently lost.]

[Optimization complete. Forcing final architecture execution... Architecture approved! Commencing deep linking and adaptation with target life form...]

[Adaptation Protocol, commencing.]