132: Only monsters can tame monsters! Inject the irradiated sea lizard serum!

Time seemed to freeze.

Exactly seventy-two hours had passed since that dark red [Primordial Gene Serum] was injected into Jiang Ran's body.

Three days.

For the vast deep sea outside.

Three days was but a blink of an eye; the tides hadn't even completed a few cycles.

But for the two people inside the black iron's medical pod, these three days felt as long as three centuries.

That heart-pounding red high-danger alarm finally stopped.

At this moment, the medical pod was excessively quiet, with only the low, monotonous hum of the life support system echoing in the air.

“Beep... beep... beep...”

The heart rate monitor, which had been jumping frantically, had now turned into an extremely slow but incredibly powerful green wave.

It only beat once every full minute.

But the blood-pumping pressure represented by that single beat was ten times that of a normal person.

“Is he still alive?”

From the corner came Old Chen's dry, raspy voice.

This usually energetic helmsman was now unshaven, with sunken eyes, curled up on a simple folding chair.

His hands were still tightly clutching that string of prayer beads used for blessings.

“Alive.”

Su Qingyu stood before the control console; her state wasn't much better.

Her originally meticulous white coat was full of wrinkles, and those eyes, usually rational and calm, were bloodshot.

She hadn't closed her eyes for three days, her gaze never leaving that massive life support tank.

“But his current state...”

Su Qingyu paused, looking at the rows of data on the screen that completely exceeded the scope of human physiology, her tone complex:

“It's more like... 'hatching'.”

Through the thick bulletproof glass of the medical pod, the hair-raising sight inside was clearly visible.

The pale green restoration fluid that had originally filled the chamber was completely dried up, or rather, it had been entirely absorbed.

In its place was a massive, dark red oval object.

It was a 'cocoon'.

During the gene restructuring process, necrotic cells and coagulated blood were expelled from Jiang Ran's body.

Mixed with a high concentration of biological gel, they had formed a hard outer shell several centimeters thick on the surface of his body.

The surface of this shell was pitted and uneven.

It presented a dark red hue similar to dried lava, looking both disgusting and possessing a primitive, savage vitality.

He was curled up inside this blood cocoon, cut off from all contact with the outside world.

“This thing looks really sinister...”

Old Chen swallowed hard; he had watched Jiang Ran transform from a person into this state with his own eyes:

“Sister Su, do you think... when this shell breaks, the thing that crawls out will still be our boss?”

“Or... will it be a Sea Lizard with a human face?”

This was the greatest fear in both their hearts.

That serum originated from a radiation monster.

That domineering gene, while capable of repairing Jiang Ran's shattered DNA,

could not be guaranteed not to take over and consume Jiang Ran's humanity.

“I don't know.”

Su Qingyu shook her head honestly.

Her fingers gently brushed against the cold glass mask.

As if she wanted to see the form of the soul inside through that thick blood cocoon:

“This is a gamble.

The stakes are his life and his 'species'.”

“If he wins, he will become the progenitor of a New Humanity.”

“If he loses...”

Su Qingyu's hand dropped to the sidearm at her waist, a pained but determined cold light flashing in her eyes:

“Then I will personally help set him free.”

Just then.

“Crack.”

A very faint, yet thunderous crisp sound in the dead silent pod suddenly erupted from that dark red blood cocoon.

“It moved! That thing moved!”

Old Chen, like a startled rabbit, suddenly sprang up from his chair, backing away until his back hit the cabin wall.

Su Qingyu didn't speak.

But her body was as tense as a drawn bow, her right hand tightly gripping the handle of her sidearm, her knuckles white from the excessive force.

Her gaze was locked onto the mutating blood cocoon, not even daring to breathe.

“Crack— Crack—”

The sounds of shattering became more frequent, like cracks rapidly spreading across the surface of a frozen lake.

On that dark red outer shell that was originally hard as iron, eye-piercing cracks quickly ran through the whole structure.

Through those cracks, one could faintly see that no liquid flowed out; only a faint, warm white steam was rising.

“Bang!”

Suddenly, a hand—

A pale, slender, yet incredibly explosive hand pierced through the thick cocoon shell from the inside without warning.

The movement was clean and efficient, as easy as tearing through a layer of wet cardboard.

Next, that hand grabbed the edge of the opening, and the fingers suddenly tightened.

“Rip—”

Accompanied by a tooth-aching tearing sound, the blood-colored hard shell that had trapped Jiang Ran for three full days was forcibly torn in half by him.

Large chunks of dark red scab fell like withered leaves, revealing the curled figure inside.

“Hoo...”

A long, deep breath sounded.

Jiang Ran slowly sat upright from that pile of foul-smelling fragments.

He was bare-chested; those terrifying purple-red bruises, bleeding pores, and festering skin that had covered his body before he fell unconscious

had now completely vanished without a trace.

He lowered his head, looked at his hands, and then tried moving his neck.

“Crack, crack.”

His cervical vertebrae emitted a series of crisp popping sounds.

It didn't sound like bones rubbing together, but rather like the crisp clicks of precision metal parts engaging.

“This feeling...”

Jiang Ran clenched his fist, a hint of unbelievable astonishment flashing in his eyes.

The expected weakness of recovering from a major illness did not appear.

On the contrary, he felt an unprecedented sense of 'lightness'.

That feeling was like someone who had carried a hundred-pound burden for twenty years suddenly dropping all their baggage;

or like someone wearing a heavy, old-fashioned diving suit suddenly breaking free from the iron can and merging into the sea naked.

With every breath, the oxygen in the air was instantly pumped into his blood by some highly efficient mechanism;

with every heartbeat, surging power was precisely delivered to the tip of every muscle fiber.

That mortal shell, which used to groan under an unbearable burden at all times, was gone.

In its place was a brand new vessel, longing for release.

Jiang Ran slowly raised his head, his originally pitch-black eyes now appearing exceptionally clear.

He looked at the two people who were already dumbfounded, a faint curve appearing at the corner of his mouth:

“I think the result of the gamble is out.”

“I won.”

...Seeing that Jiang Ran could still speak human words,

and although that face was a bit pale,

his features were still the familiar ones, without any scales or fangs growing out.

Old Chen's heart, which had been in his throat, finally settled back into his stomach.

“Scared me to death... scared me to death...”

Old Chen plopped back into his chair, gasping for air and wiping the cold sweat from his forehead:

“Boss, when you crawled out of that red shell just now, I thought an Alien was about to be born.”

Su Qingyu didn't speak, but her fingers, which had been tightly gripping the gun handle, finally relaxed.

She stepped forward quickly, not immediately performing a complex examination.

Instead, she first handed over a handheld mirror used to observe wound healing.

“Look at yourself.”

Her gaze was a bit strange: “Some changes aren't in the data, but on the skin.”

Jiang Ran took the mirror.

The mirror reflected a face that was both familiar and somewhat strange.

The features were the same features.

They had even become more profound and three-dimensional due to the 'remodeling' of these few days, as if they had undergone some fine-tuning.

But the biggest change was in the skin.

Before, Jiang Ran's skin was a healthy bronze, with the roughness of long-term exposure to the sea.

Now, his skin tone presented an almost sickly cold white. That whiteness didn't look weak.

Instead, it possessed a hard texture like white porcelain or cold jade.

Looking closely, it was even hard to find any pores.

“This texture...”

Jiang Ran extended a finger, gently stroking his cheek.

The sensation from his fingertip didn't feel like soft flesh, but rather like a layer of extremely high-density bioceramic, or some kind of high-molecular polymer.

“Your epidermal cells have all keratinized and crystallized.”

Su Qingyu explained from the side, her tone carrying a hint of amazement:

“Although it still looks like human skin.

In reality, its density and toughness are twenty times that of an ordinary person.

Now, even if you slashed it hard with a scalpel, you probably wouldn't even leave a white mark.”

“Not only that.”

Jiang Ran put down the mirror. He felt that it wasn't just his skin that had hardened.

There was also a scorching power dormant deep in his blood vessels, eager to move with his heartbeat.

“What... is that?”

He subconsciously raised his right hand, grabbing the alloy handrail next to him used to secure the medical pod, and then his five fingers suddenly exerted force.

"Creak—"

The solid steel pipe, five centimeters in diameter, was easily crushed and twisted in his palm like playdough.

But even more shocking was the anomaly that occurred at that moment.

As his strength erupted, dark gold patterns suddenly lit up beneath Jiang Ran's skin, which was originally as pale as snow.

"Hum..."

These patterns were not chaotic; they displayed a highly regular geometric beauty.

They looked like some kind of precision integrated circuit, or like totems on the walls of an ancient temple.

They wound up along the muscle lines of his arm, spreading all the way to his neck.

The dark gold light flowed slowly under his skin, as if what flowed inside was not blood, but molten liquid gold.

The moment these dark gold lines emerged, the electric charges in the surrounding air seemed to be drawn in, emitting a slight crackling sound.

"This is..."

Old Chen watched, dumbfounded. "Tattoos? When did you get them?"

"They're not tattoos, they're 'Energy Circuits'."

Jiang Ran let go, and the twisted steel pipe hit the ground with a clang.

As his power retracted, the eerie and magnificent dark gold patterns also slowly faded, receding back beneath his pale skin.

He looked at his palm, his gaze becoming profound.

"Before, I used my nerves to connect to the battleship; I was a passive recipient."

"But now, this body itself is a high-energy conductor."

Those dark gold engravings were the proof of his evolution.

It was a 'high-voltage power grid' that a mortal body was forced to grow in order to carry the power of a god.

Normally, he just looked like a pale, handsome young man.

But once he entered a combat state and those dark gold totems lit up, he was the true... King... of this deep-sea battleship. "Besides my hands, there's also this."

Jiang Ran raised his finger, lightly tapped his temple, and then slowly closed his eyes.

That strange tingling sensation didn't just exist in his muscles and skin.

A more intense discomfort was concentrated behind his eyeballs.

His optic nerves seemed to be undergoing a violent restructuring.

Accompanied by bursts of slight stinging, it felt as if countless tiny insects were weaving a new neural network there.

"Whew..."

He adjusted his breathing in the darkness, trying to control that brand-new perceptual instinct.

A few seconds later, he snapped his eyes open.

"Hiss—"

Su Qingyu, who had been staring at him, gasped and subconsciously took half a step back.

In that instant, she no longer saw a pair of human pupils.

Jiang Ran's originally black, circular pupils were now rapidly contracting and elongating under the pressure of his muscles.

Finally, they settled into vertical slits emitting a cold golden light—slit pupils.

Those were the eyes of an apex predator.

And in Jiang Ran's vision...

The originally colorful world had completely shed its hypocritical skin at this moment, revealing its most essential form.

Colors disappeared.

In their place was a brilliant world composed of temperature and energy.

He turned to look at Old Chen beside him.

In his field of vision, Old Chen was no longer a middle-aged man in greasy overalls.

Instead, he was a humanoid heat source emitting an orange-red glow.

He could clearly see inside Old Chen's chest, where a heart so red it was almost purple was beating powerfully.

That was the place with the highest temperature in the entire body.

He could see dark red blood flowing through the arteries to every part of the body.

He could even see the sweat rapidly accumulating under the skin of Old Chen's forehead due to nervousness.

"Thermal vision..."

Jiang Ran murmured softly, then with a slight thought, the muscles in his eyes underwent another subtle deformation.

His vision switched again.

This time, the color blocks representing temperature faded, and lines became sharp.

His gaze pierced through the thick metal wall of the medical pod in front of him as if it were a layer of gauze.

He saw the dense arrangement of wiring inside the wall.

He saw the meshing of gears inside a cleaning robot that was automatically patrolling the corridor next door.

He could even see all the way through to the structural support columns of the deck below.

All cover was rendered useless before him.

"My god..."

Old Chen was being stared at by Jiang Ran's emotionless golden slit pupils.

He felt naked, as if even the color of his underwear had been seen through.

He couldn't help but shiver. "Boss, don't look at me like that, it's creepy."

"Sorry, I'm still adjusting."

Jiang Ran blinked, and those fearsome slit pupils slowly dilated.

They returned to being normal human circular black pupils, and that terrifying pressure disappeared with them.

But the smile in his eyes grew even more intense.

"Is this the world in the eyes of that Sea Lizard?"

Jiang Ran recalled the feeling of being targeted by that monster in the deep sea back then.

The sense of despair, of being unable to escape its lock whether hiding behind rocks or in the silt, was because of this.

"No secrets, no blind spots."

Jiang Ran looked toward the command cabin, his gaze seemingly piercing through layers of obstacles to look directly at the deep ocean.

"In this vision, the world is no longer a maze."

"But a massive, naked... hunting ground."

..."The changes in your eyes and skin are just the surface."

Su Qingyu interrupted Jiang Ran's exploration of his new vision.

She projected the latest blood analysis report between the two of them, her voice carrying a tremor mixed with fear and fanaticism.

"The true qualitative change is happening in the mitochondria of every one of your cells."

"Look at this."

She pointed at the rows of dizzying data on the screen.

"Your cell membranes have developed a special 'lattice-like' mutation. This structure has extreme resilience against physical impact, but what's even more terrifying is its attitude toward radiation."

"Before, high-energy radiation particles would break your DNA chains."

"But now, your cells will actively capture these particles like predators."

"And convert them into bio-energy to maintain your body's functions."

Speaking to this point, Su Qingyu took a deep breath and gave a conclusion sufficient to shake the entire medical world.

"In other words, you have now acquired a [Complete Radiation Immune Constitution]."

"Even if you walked naked into a running nuclear reactor right now..."

"Or went swimming at the bottom of that nuclear blast crater just now, not only would you not die, you would actually feel like... you were soaking in a hot spring."

"In fact, if you're hungry, taking a couple of bites out of a nuclear fuel rod might replenish your strength better than eating a meal."

Old Chen's face turned green hearing this. "Eating nuclear waste? Is... is he still human?"

"It's not over yet."

Su Qingyu suddenly grabbed a sharp scalpel from the operating table.

Under their startled gazes, she slashed Jiang Ran's arm without any warning.

"Ssh—"

With a soft sound, the tough skin was sliced open, and bright red blood just began to seep out.

But in the next second...

A faint wisp of white steam suddenly rose from the wound.

The muscle tissues on both sides seemed to have their own consciousness, as countless granulations wriggled and intertwined frantically.

In just the time it took to blink twice...

The wound vanished.

Not even a scar was left; the skin was as smooth as before.

"[High-Speed Regeneration]."

Su Qingyu dropped the scalpel and looked at the smooth arm. "As long as your brain and heart aren't instantly destroyed..."

"As long as you still have energy reserves in your body, most physical damage can be self-healed in an extremely short time."

"Regenerating severed limbs isn't impossible either."

If one ignored his appearance...

The current Jiang Ran, in terms of physiological function, was no different from a small 'bio-reactor' draped in human skin.

He was living nuclear energy, a walking radiation source, an immortal monster.

"Is this... a blessing in disguise?"

Jiang Ran looked at his unharmed arm and felt the power surging endlessly within him.

Once, he was the weak point of this ship.

The stronger the black iron grew, the more fragile he became, always at risk of being crushed by that massive power.

But now, the shortest plank had been replaced with a piece of the hardest alloy steel.

"Not only did I not die, I evolved."

Jiang Ran slowly clenched his fist, the dark gold patterns under his skin flashing once more. An unprecedented ambition burned in those deep eyes.

"This is how it should be."

"Only by becoming a monster am I worthy of piloting this monster."

He casually grabbed a black combat suit from the nearby rack and pulled it on briskly, covering those inhuman features.

The moment the zipper was pulled up, he returned to being that cold human Commander.

"Let's go."

Jiang Ran strode toward the hatch, each step steady and powerful, carrying a fearsome pressure.

"The crew has been waiting long enough."

"To the K-19 Sea Area."

This time, nothing can stop us again."