9: First victory

Just as this punch, condensed with extreme emotion, was about to hit its target, the surging evo factor within him resonated with the armor grown from his own body with an unprecedented intensity!

A violent bio-current, incomprehensible and uncontrollable, originating from the Origin of life, erupted like a breaching flood through the meridians of his arm and the energy pathways within the armor!

Dazzling blue-white electric light exploded from his fist, no longer subtle sparks, but forming a twisted, roaring thunder snake! This thunder snake enveloped his fist, carrying a destructive aura, and fiercely pierced into the monster's chest the moment he struck it!

The monster let out the most agonizing and painful shriek since the battle began! This sound was no longer a deterrent, but filled with the extreme pain of being torn, burned, and destroyed from within!

Its massive body was struck by this punch, imbued with immense kinetic energy and terrifying electrical power, lifting its feet off the ground. It flew backward like a kite with a broken string, crashing with a loud bang into a pile of rusted machine parts a few meters away, kicking up a cloud of dust.

It struggled to get up, but its chest, directly hit by the current, was charred black, its flesh peeling back, revealing even carbonized tissue beneath.

Residual arcs of electricity, like maggots attached to bone, crackled on its body. Each flicker caused its muscles to spasm violently and unnaturally—its proud high-speed regeneration ability was completely paralyzed, as its cells were extensively destroyed and carbonized by the violent current.

Lu Jianchuan gasped heavily, his own ragged breathing echoing inside his helmet. He glanced at Uncle Li's incomplete, lifeless remains, and immense grief, like a bucket of ice water, nearly suffocated him.

He closed his eyes in pain for a moment, the light from his visor dimming slightly, then reopened them, revealing only an icy killing intent that seemed to freeze everything.

He started walking, his silver-white combat boots clanking on the oil-stained, gravelly ground, like a death knell, step by step towards the monster struggling and growling in the pile of parts.

Having suffered such a great loss, the intense pain, paralysis, and fear of that lightning power pushed the monster to extreme fury and alarm. It finally fully understood that this silver creature, exuding a similar but more violent aura, was a deadly threat!

It no longer attempted to fight head-on. Enduring the numbness and severe pain in its body, it dropped to all fours and lunged!

Its figure darted out like a phantom, no longer a straight charge, but utilizing its evolved extreme speed to perform erratic, dazzling zigzag movements between abandoned machinery, containers, and pipes!

It used the complex environment as cover, constantly evading Lu Jianchuan's line of sight, only occasionally using its speed advantage to launch swift, wind-like pounces or buzzing claw-blade scratches from Lu Jianchuan's blind spots!

Although Lu Jianchuan's strength had greatly increased and he was protected by armor, several of his punches whistled through the air, but his speed and dynamic vision were ultimately unable to keep up with this predator specialized in agility and hunting.

Several of his powerful attacks landed in empty space, his fists striking empty oil drums or iron plates with a loud clang. Instead, the opponent used its speed to leave several deep, shimmering metallic scratch marks on his armguards, shoulder guards, and chest plate before he could defend himself!

Sparks continuously flew as the claw blades scraped against the bone armor.

He was like a trapped beast with infinite strength but being toyed with, full of rage but unable to reach the elusive enemy, and this tactical disadvantage made him increasingly anxious.

During one instance when the monster swept past his left side, Lu Jianchuan misjudged again in his attempt to predict its trajectory and intercept it with a lunge!

He lunged towards a predicted point, but at the last moment, the monster made a right-angle turn that defied physics, deftly dodging past his fist!

Damn it!

Lu Jianchuan's heart tightened, but his forward momentum could not be retracted. He slammed his side heavily into a large iron shelf, covered in thick rust and taller than a man!

A huge crash echoed through the warehouse. The entire shelf groaned agonizingly, shaking violently, and rust and dust showered down.

And at the moment his shoulder, back, and arm made extensive contact with the cold, rusty iron, the silver biopolymer on the surface of his armor seemed to be reactivated by this violent collision!

At the point of contact, the blue-white bio-current, no longer controlled by emotion, flowed through on its own as a passive defense or perhaps a devouring mechanism!

Amidst the scalp-tingling crackling of electricity, the surface of the rusty iron shelf in contact with his body, under the effect of the localized high-temperature electric field formed by the powerful bio-current, visibly turned dark red, softened, and melted!

The sturdy metal seemed to turn into butter in the heat, rapidly transforming into viscous, bubbling, and smoking dark red liquid metal raw material!

Immediately afterward, Lu Jianchuan clearly felt a powerful, instinctive suction from the armor on his left shoulder, back, and upper arm where he had collided with the shelf!

The surface of the armor seemed to open countless imperceptible pores, and the molten, scorching iron liquid was rapidly drawn in, like blood returning, frantically integrating into the silver-white biopolymer armor!

This process was accompanied by the sizzling sound of high-temperature air and a strong, peculiar ozone smell, similar to rusted iron being electrolyzed.

In just one or two seconds, the area of his left side that had contacted the shelf, where the pure silver-white bio-bone armor once was, was covered and thickened by a new, slightly rough and uneven gray-black metallic layer!

This metal layer adhered tightly to the original bone armor, forming a hard composite armor. Its surface even emitted astonishing high temperatures and a dark red afterglow, making his left half appear like an iron blank just removed from a forge!

This sudden change was completely beyond his comprehension. The sense of heaviness and scorching heat from his left half was exceptionally clear, but within this heaviness was a reassuring sense of stronger protection.

Just as he experienced a slight Divided Soul due to this unexpected change!

The fast-moving monster, seemingly thinking it had found a flaw in his defense, once again attacked silently from his blind spot—the right rear—with its phantom-like speed!

Its forelimb, covered with high-frequency claw blades, shrieked as it tore through the air, aiming directly for his right neck guard, which was covered by thick composite armor but still appeared to be its original silver-white color!

Danger loomed, and Lu Jianchuan's combat instincts were quicker than thought! He almost subconsciously raised his left arm, which had just been covered with the scorching gray-black metallic layer, and sharply blocked to the right—

A piercing metallic scraping sound rang out, but the anticipated armor penetration did not occur! The monster's sharp claws did not strike the expected cold bone armor, but solidly gripped the dull, yet high-temperature, gray-black metallic layer!

Instead, it was like a red-hot knife plunged into semi-solidified asphalt; the claw blades sank in slightly but were firmly adhered!

Even more terrifying was the dreadful high temperature! Accompanied by sickening green smoke and a burnt smell from flesh and carapace being instantly charred, the monster let out an utterly genuine, extremely agonizing howl!

It instantly tried to retract its claws as if electrocuted, but the sticky, scorching metal seemed to create a brief adhesion!

Now!

Despite the vibration from the monster's claws impacting his left arm and the stinging pain like a burn from the hot metal, Lu Jianchuan clearly seized this fleeting opportunity created by the enemy's agony!

His left hand, covered with the scorching metallic layer, suddenly splayed its five fingers, like red-hot tongs, and clamped down tightly and firmly on the monster's forelimb, which was trembling violently from the burns and trying to retract! The high temperature in his palm even caused the monster's biological carapace to emit faint crackling sounds!

"For Uncle Li!! Pay with your life!"

He roared from the depths of his Soul, channeling all his strength and grief, without the slightest reservation, into that wild bio-current that seemed capable of tearing apart the Soul. Through his left hand, clamped tightly onto the monster like a branding iron, he unleashed it all into the opponent's body like a high-voltage shock!

Blue-white electric light, more violent and prolonged than any previous time, enveloped the monster's upper body like an erupting thunderstorm!

Electric snakes frantically darted and lashed, and the monster let out desperate and painful, inhuman violent tremors and spasms. Its body was completely constrained by the powerful electrical energy, all its movements forcibly interrupted, leaving only frantic trembling driven by instinct.

Lu Jianchuan's right fist muscles tensed again. On the primitive silver-white bone armor, dazzling electric arcs began to jump and converge once more, emitting crackling explosions.

He stepped back with his right leg, twisted his waist, channeling all his strength through his body, and with all the power in his current life, he unleashed a final, will-infused strike towards the monster's head, which was firmly controlled by the current and unable to dodge!

The lightning exploded a second time, illuminating every corner of the warehouse, accompanied by the dull crackling sound of a skull breaking under overwhelming force, and then the sound of a heavy object falling.

Finally, everything returned to silence.