Chapter 234
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Chapter 234: "Engineering Bird"
The soaring flames illuminated the midnight forest with an intense brilliance.
“Cough! Cough cough!”
The silver-gray armor tumbled chaotically across the ground like a heated tin can.
At that moment, the armor’s hands flailed wildly until they brushed against a special switch.
The helmet transformed by Fulan shot out with a "whoosh," striking the damaged life pod and rolling into the surrounding woods.
The chest of the armor swung open, revealing Fresnel, his face etched with the expression of someone who had narrowly escaped death.
His abilities had been disrupted during the impact.
Fresnel was not one to endure severe pain easily. Though the armor had absorbed the majority of the energy from the shock, the resonance within its hollow spaces left him feeling intensely dizzy and nauseous.
He temporarily lost his hearing, his vision blurred, and his internal organs felt as though they had been displaced, rendering him unable to function normally.
Struggling to free himself from the armor’s constraints, he crawled out like a wounded beast, half-collapsed on the ground, vomiting a mixture of bile and blood.
The others were in no better condition. Puppet Master Su Xiaogu remained completely unconscious, the new life pod as unresponsive as a coffin.
Beacon, jolted awake by the explosion and the loud crash, pushed open the lid of her life pod, rising like a corpse from its grave, and began checking her body for any missing parts.
She didn’t know what had struck her life pod, but she felt that the battered heap of metal had somehow saved her life.
As for Shi Jin, she lay on the ground with Wang Xiao’s body draped over her, both of them completely unconscious.
At that moment, the Fresnel team faced their most severe damage in history. If the timing had been slightly different, a First Level Green Cocoon Extraordinary Beast could have wiped them out entirely.
Beacon quickly composed herself. Surveying her unconscious, half-dead, and battered teammates, she assumed the role of temporary Captain.
Beacon soon confirmed their current location.
After an hour of frantic running, they had covered more ground than they had in the previous day, reaching the edge of the forest.
Now, they could see the distant yellowing grass leaves.
The flames from the explosion had ignited dozens of nearby trees.
These mutated plants seemed to have no knowledge of how to use water to extinguish fires, instead trembling and dancing in the flames as if performing some eerie ritual or execution.
Everyone was utterly exhausted. Without Wang Xiao’s assistance, carrying a life pod was an immense challenge, and there was no longer any need to continue fleeing.
With this realization, Beacon felt a sense of relief. She first pulled Shi Jin out from under Wang Xiao to prevent the unconscious woman from suffocating under the weight.
After injecting a syringe into Shi Jin’s arm, she quickly regained consciousness. On the other side, Fresnel, after a bout of vomiting, wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and slowly approached. The three exchanged glances, preparing to discuss their next steps.
Just then, a voice, both sharp and hoarse, came from the ground nearby:
“Hey, how’s everyone doing?”
They turned to see Wang Xiao slowly opening his one remaining eye.
His regenerative ability was still active, the charred skin on his face cracking to reveal fresh pink flesh beneath.
Wang Xiao seemed to have adjusted the focus of his abilities, prioritizing the healing of one eye to observe his surroundings.
The three quickly jogged over, surrounding Wang Xiao in the middle:
“We’re all okay. How about you?”
“I, I don’t feel very well.”
“What’s wrong? Where do you feel uncomfortable?”
“My butt hurts.”
The three people glanced toward Wang Xiao’s abdomen, and they fell silent. They then began to scan their surroundings and finally found their target on a burning branch of a tree.
“It’s okay, your butt is up in the tree.”
“……”
—
Puppet Master Su Xiaogu felt as if an invisible veil shrouded her vision.
She had fallen into a strange space, drifting in an endless void, unable to find any solid ground.
She wanted to regain control, to escape, to see everything clearly, but she could do nothing.
She continuously reached out with her hands, attempting to remove the intangible veil to glimpse the real world.
After an unknown amount of time, she finally succeeded.
As her vision began to clear, her feet touched solid ground.
Before her stretched a forest.
Su Xiaogu felt a flicker of fear toward the forest, but with trees surrounding her on all sides, she had no way out.
Fortunately, the trees here were far more beautiful than those she had just encountered. The deep brown bark and lush green leaves intertwined, offering a small sense of relief to this girl, who had never before seen a real forest.
This was the first time she had experienced such a situation.
Puppet Master Su Xiaogu’s ability allowed her consciousness to forcibly occupy another’s body. Whether the target was an extraordinary beast or something else, as long as the individual’s energy level was lower than hers and they lacked specific countermeasures, they could not resist her intrusion.
In previous possessions, she had always felt her soul was merely changing cages, like the same water being poured into differently shaped containers.
She would fill the vessel with her soul, mastering every internal structure, and then manipulate the body as her own.
But now, it was different.
It seemed her soul and consciousness had stretched to their limits yet could not touch the boundaries of this vessel. Her consciousness reassembled, and then it directly manifested in the consciousness world of the plant.
“How bizarre…”
The Puppet Master continued to walk forward. She had not fully grasped this body and could not actively detach; she could only explore for now, praying that her teammates were safe outside.
As she observed her surroundings and wondered whether her inability to exit the possession state was due to her original body being dead, she suddenly “heard” a faint, ethereal call.
Following that elusive sensation, the Puppet Master moved forward through the forest, turning around one bend after another until she finally stood before a tree.
However, when she looked up to examine the tree closely, her entire body froze.
A person—a human—was embedded in the tree.
His arms were stretched out and slightly drooping, his eyes tightly closed. Half of his body was already entwined and absorbed by the tree, leaving only the front surface somewhat visible, though some branches had begun to coil around his wrists and ankles.
The face belonged to someone the Puppet Master recognized—the Superpowered Team Leader “Nian,” who had vanished the night he received his commendation.
“You’re here.”
