Hunter of Mysterious Creature-Chapter 439 - 64: "Reaper" Lucas (Part 2)

"Is just the protective suit not enough?" Sun Hang asked.

"There were some accidents in the early years that I don't want to mention, so we'd rather go through a bit more trouble to ensure safety as much as possible," Yuri sighed, "especially when dealing with these extremely dangerous entities."

The two showered in the isolation liquid for about five minutes before Yuri pushed open the final gate to B423.

It was a room enveloped in high-luminosity light— the ceiling, walls, and floor were all white. After Yuri closed the door, the pure white walls and the door instantly merged into one, making it impossible to see the seam between them with the naked eye.

There were no lamps in the room, as the pure white walls themselves were the source of light, turning the entire room into a shadowless space, much like an operating table with shadowless lights.

Suspended in the center of the room was a two-meter-square fully transparent box, filled with a clear liquid inside, where a slender, naked man was curled up, eyes closed.

On the man's back were eight inverted glass cups, resembling a cupping therapy at first glance.

But upon closer inspection, you would find that the edges of these eight glass cups actually all cut into the man's skin... Rather than saying they were inverted on the man's back, they were more like "growing" on the man's back.

Inside each glass cup, a long copper-colored needle was fixed at the cup's bottom, with the other end directly inserted into the man's body. Every few seconds, a cloud of purple-black mist would gush from the edge of the needle hole into the cup, swirl around inside before being absorbed back into the man's body.

"Is this cupping therapy?" Sun Hang wondered, "What is that purple-black stuff?"

"Condensed and materialized 'life force,'" Yuri said, "or rather, the life force 'materialized' by Lucas's ability."

"So that's what the unseen and intangible life force looks like?" Sun Hang nodded slightly, "But, I have to say, this color always gives off a villainous vibe..."

"It was originally supposed to be as crimson as blood, but in the 'Inhibitor Liquid', it appears oxygen-deprived purplish-black," Yuri said.

"Inhibitor Liquid?" Sun Hang asked, "Is it similar to the 'Beastification Inhibitor' that Mr. Wang... uh, 'Night Slayer' injected?"

"In principle, they are quite similar, both products of memetic reverse engineering," Yuri nodded.

"Alright, can you continue with the story of this guy?" Sun Hang said, "I'm quite curious, how did he become a phenomenally dangerous entity... What phenomenon is this? The phenomenon of embodied life force? Or the phenomenon of that purple-black stuff entering and exiting his body?"

"That was a high-difficulty hunting mission, and the target was a plant-type dangerous entity located in the Southern Border Swamp Area," Yuri sighed and narrated slowly, "The reason I didn't directly answer your question earlier is that in that mission, the target entity bore a high resemblance to Chimera 17..."

"Was that plant-type entity also hatching?"

"That wasn't the case, the closest point between the two was that they both possessed extremely abundant life force," Yuri said, "That was a vine lurking beneath the swamp, nearly hunting to extinction all the creatures in that area—including dangerous entities—and its own strength kept enhancing through successive hunts and feedings. The Dubhe Tower was worried that the entity's strength would get out of control, posing a threat to the towns surrounding the swamp, so they decided to send Lucas to hunt the entity."

"And then?"

"Lucas completed the task, but..." Yuri said, "As I mentioned earlier, Lucas's ability isn't merely to weaken the target's life force, but to absorb... meaning, he absorbs the lost life force of the target into himself. At that time, there were some doubts raised within Dubhe Tower, suggesting that if the absorbed life force exceeded Lucas's threshold, it might lead to uncontrollable consequences... But since Lucas had completed many missions and hunted numerous highly powerful entities... more people believed that such a risk didn't exist—after all, Lucas was merely absorbing life force, not the entity's memetic properties, and his own infection progression wouldn't increase due to excessive absorption of life force..."

"So, on this mission... did he fill himself up to the brim?" Sun Hang asked following the story.

"...The vine entity's size exceeded our expectations," Yuri nodded, "We originally thought its mass wouldn't surpass two hundred tons, but no one anticipated that the part detected by the instruments was just the visible tip of the iceberg on the swamp's surface... In fact, the vine entity's body had already occupied more than ninety percent of the swamp's space... The swamp, besides a surface layer of seven to eight meters of silt, was entirely filled by this vine entity below."

"How deep was the swamp?"

"According to measurements taken afterward, the swamp's deepest part was as much as one hundred seventy meters deep... In fact, it wasn't even a swamp anymore but a massive underground cavern corroded by the corrosive liquid secreted by the vine entity," Yuri said.

"Then after realizing things were off, couldn't Lucas be stopped?" Sun Hang asked again.

"That's what we thought at the time... But for some reason, no matter what the command center said, Lucas ignored them completely, let alone stopped absorbing the life force of the vine entity... We weren't sure whether at that time, his ability had already spiraled out of control, or he was unwilling to give up the task from a subjective standpoint."

"I think it's likely the former."

"I think so too... I know Lucas very well, he is a very calm person, never acting on impulse and never disobeying orders from superiors. Besides, he had already refused to communicate with the rear at the time, which was definitely not normal," Yuri continued, "In that situation, we couldn't interrupt the absorption process without harming Lucas... After forty-one hours of absorption, the vine entity's life signs completely vanished, and its memetic properties started to disintegrate, but Lucas fell into a very bizarre state."

"How bizarre?" Sun Hang asked.

"His body seemed unable to withstand the immense life force he had absorbed, and those compressed 'materialized' life forces kept jetting out from his pores, only to be reabsorbed... just like the process you see in the 'pressure relief cups.' We tried to send someone to approach him, but anyone sent out would begin to rapidly expand like a balloon a few meters away from him, eventually exploding into a mist of blood."

"Burst from being filled with life force?" Sun Hang asked.

Yuri nodded, "Around Lucas, a large amount of unevolved life force was still leaking... Although insignificant compared to the materialized life force entering and exiting his body, it's more than enough to fill an ordinary human to death... What's more terrifying is that at that time, we couldn't find a way to prevent this life force from entering the body; neither protective suits nor mecha vehicles worked. As long as you approached a certain range, you would be filled explosively."

Yuri paused for several seconds before continuing, "Afterward, we found that Lucas's own infection process accelerated sharply, soon breaking through the danger threshold... On the ninth hour after the vine entity was confirmed eliminated, Lucas himself was also judged as 'completely transformed into an entity.'"