31: Slay the behemoth! Obtain the bio-fusion crystal core.

But this was exactly what Jiang Ran wanted.

"Anger makes people lose their reason, and the same goes for beasts."

Facing the sweeping giant tail, Jiang Ran did not dodge.

He raised the Pneumatic Spear Gun on his left arm once more.

This time, the crosshairs were not locked onto the wall, but onto the Worm's frantically thrashing body.

Puchi!

The alloy barbs pierced deep into the Worm's tail muscles, the barbs exploding outward to lock firmly in place.

"Since you want to play..."

Jiang Ran suddenly tightened the winch while reversing his thrusters: "...then I'll have this dance with you!"

Leveraging the massive centrifugal force of the Worm's tail sweep, Jiang Ran wasn't thrown away.

Instead, like a meteor tethered by a line, he used the momentum to rotate rapidly around the Worm's massive frame.

He carved out lethal arcs in the water.

With every pass, the vibration blade on his right arm left a bone-deep scar on that thick carapace.

One strike.

Two strikes.

Ten strikes!

This was the violent aesthetic belonging to an Abyssal Walker.

No wasted movements; utilizing the enemy's strength and the water's buoyancy, he turned the slaughter into a precise surgical operation.

In just half a minute, that once-arrogant deep-sea overlord had been sliced into a bloody mess.

Its sturdy armor was shattered, large chunks of flesh were torn open, and the dark green blood mist was so thick it was almost impossible to see the surroundings.

"That's about enough."

Jiang Ran looked at the giant Worm, whose movements were gradually slowing as it twitched in pain.

Its vital spot—the nerve center hidden beneath layers of carapace—was now exposed.

"The final blow."

Jiang Ran cut the winch line and hovered directly above the monster.

He gripped the hilt of the vibration blade with both hands, pushing the power output into the red zone.

The glow on the blade shifted from crimson to a blinding incandescent white.

"Go to hell."

With the roar of engines, he turned into a bolt of white lightning falling vertically, stabbing fiercely into the monster's head.

Puchi!

A dull but lethal piercing sound echoed through this silent deep-sea arena.

In that moment, it was as if time stood still.

The High-frequency vibration blade held in Jiang Ran's hands...

...carrying the massive kinetic energy of the fall, stabbed unerringly through the only gap in the carapace atop the Macro-Phage Worm's head, sinking in up to the hilt.

The ultra-high-frequency vibration waves released by the blade instantly exploded within the monster's cranial cavity.

It vibrated the once-tough brain tissue directly into a boiling mush.

Awooo...

This deep-sea overlord, which had occupied the museum for so long, let out the final, weak wail of its life.

Its mountain-like body convulsed violently.

Then, as if its spine had been removed, it slumped limply onto the thick fungal carpet, kicking up a large cloud of turbid silt.

It was dead.

[Target vital signs have disappeared.]

[Threat eliminated.]

The red alarm on the faceplate finally went out, replaced by a reassuring green.

Jiang Ran pulled out the vibration blade, casually shaking off the viscous dark green bodily fluids.

He wasn't in a hurry to leave; instead, he hovered over the monster's corpse and activated the faceplate's X-ray vision mode.

"For such a big fellow to grow like this in such a high-radiation environment, there must be something good inside."

Soon, within his X-ray vision, a brilliant high-energy blue spot at the monster's heart caught his attention.

"Found it."

Jiang Ran maneuvered the powered armor to land, using the Pneumatic Spear Gun on his left arm as a crowbar to skillfully cut through the carapace and muscle of the monster's chest.

Amidst a pile of nauseating rotten flesh and mucus, he dug out a fist-sized, perfectly diamond-structured deep blue crystal.

The crystal emitted a faint blue light in the dark water.

Even through the armor's gloves, Jiang Ran seemed to feel the terrifying energy contained within.

"zero, what is this?"

[Analysis result: high-density bio-fusion crystal.]

[Evaluation: This organism has long devoured the radiation energy released by the stone tablet, condensing it into this high-purity core within its body.]

[This is not only a top-tier biological material but also a key catalyst for future Lv4 nuclear reactors.]

"Good stuff."

Jiang Ran's lips curled slightly as he tucked it into the tactical storage box at the armor's waist.

This trip wasn't in vain; this bio-fusion crystal core alone was worth more than a ton of gold.

Having done all this, he turned around.

The Black Stone Tablet that had been floating in the depths of the hall was finally revealed before him without any obstruction.

Without the behemoth blocking it or those disgusting vines, the stone tablet appeared even more lonely and mysterious.

It was pitch black all over, without any reflection, as if a piece of space had been hollowed out here.

Its perfect geometric shape formed a sharp contrast with the chaotic, decaying organic world around it.

A silent sense of summoning was reaching Jiang Ran's brain through the armor.

"Are you the one calling me?"

Jiang Ran took a deep breath, adjusted his jet engines, and slowly swam over.

The closer he got, the stronger the tinnitus-like low-frequency vibration became.

When he was only half a meter from the stone tablet, he even saw the space around its surface distorting slightly.

[Warning: Contact with an unknown high-dimensional force field.]

[System firewall overloaded... Data stream is performing a reverse intrusion...]

zero's warning voice became intermittent, but Jiang Ran didn't stop. Intuition told him this thing had no malice.

Or rather, it had no concept of good or evil; it was merely an objectively existing 'program' waiting for an authorized user's input.

And at this moment, deep beneath the sea, the only one with 'authorization' was him—someone who had injected the gene medicine and was no longer a pure human.

"Come then, let me see the truth of this world."

Jiang Ran reached out his right hand, encased in black armor, and lightly pressed it against the cold surface of the stone tablet.

Buzz—

The moment contact was made, all sound vanished. The world seemed to collapse and reorganize in that instant.

The moment his palm touched the stone tablet, Jiang Ran felt as if his soul was being forcibly pulled from his body by some massive suction.

The turbid deep water, the rotting fungal carpet, the dark museum hall... all these realistic scenes instantly collapsed and shattered, turning into countless bizarre lines of light flying backward.

In their place was a boundless, pure black void.

In this void, there was no gravity, no sound, not even a concept of 'self'.

There was only a massive amount of information and data, like a violent data storm that bypassed eyes and ears...

...and poured directly into Jiang Ran's cerebral cortex in the most brutal way possible.

Ugh...

In reality, Jiang Ran's body inside the powered armor suddenly stiffened, and two streaks of blood flowed from his nostrils.

But in the world of his consciousness, a scene so magnificent it was suffocating was slowly unfolding.

It was a blue planet—

Earth.