The open space in front of the laboratory building was vast. More than a dozen Level 4 superpower users had once again closed in around Jiang Le, attempting to block his path.

However, from Xiang Da’s perspective, he could barely make out how Jiang Le was moving; he only saw Jiang Le’s figure dart past the guards like a ghost, his fishbone knife either piercing their chests or slashing down at their heads. Combined with the bites of the mutated wolf, which had suddenly transformed, the two of them didn’t give these Level 4 superpower users a chance to unleash their abilities. In just a few seconds, only corpses littered the ground.

Xiang Da’s gaze met Jiang Le’s, and he saw clear hatred in the other man’s eyes. He felt a twinge of confusion, not understanding what past connection this sudden intruder might have with him.

But looking at the corpses strewn across the ground in front of the lab building, Xiang Da thought with a sense of resentment: Regardless of whether there had been any past grievances, there certainly were now.

In that split second their eyes met, Jiang Le’s figure leaping into the air was clearly reflected in Xiang Da’s pupils. His astonishing vertical leap made him look as if he were almost flying, heading straight for Xiang Da with unwavering precision.

Something burst out of the laboratory building with such ferocity that it sent a terrifying tremor through the staircase. Immediately afterward, a massive figure shot out from within, intercepting Jiang Le as he lunged toward Xiang Da. After the two collided with a thunderous crash in midair, Jiang Le was sent flying backward and caught by Xiao Lang. He stood up from the wolf’s back, his arm visibly dislocated from the impact.

Standing on the top floor, Xiang Da clapped his hands excitedly at the sight, cheering for the giant crocodile: “Way to go!”

Jiang Le, his face expressionless, supported his dislocated arm with his other hand; not only was that side of the arm dislocated, but some of the bone had even fractured.

However, under Xiang Da’s gaze, Jiang Le shrugged, and that side of his arm snapped back into place at an incredible speed; the bleeding stopped almost instantly, revealing his astonishing regenerative ability.

The mutated giant crocodile landed, its gaze fixed firmly on Jiang Le and Xiao Lang, then charged toward them once more. Its footsteps crushed the landscape tiles on the ground, sending up a crackling sound and a cloud of dust.

Xiao Lang’s eyes were fixed intently on the giant crocodile. Setting aside the instinctive urge to fight among mutants, the very second the crocodile struck Jiang Le, countless thoughts of tearing the creature to pieces had already flashed through Xiao Lang’s mind.

Jiang Le leaped off the young wolf’s back, and the giant wolf immediately charged at the giant crocodile. The two beasts lunged, bit, and wrestled together.

The giant crocodile’s claws and teeth tore through the wolf’s fur, while the wolf’s fangs pierced deep into the crocodile’s flesh. The battle between the beasts was primal and brutal, driven solely by a furious desire to attack and the determination to kill the other.

Jiang Le picked up his fishbone knife again, intending to take advantage of the situation to launch another attack on Xiang Da. However, whenever Xiang Da was in danger, the giant crocodile would disregard the course of the battle and its own predicament, ignoring the wounds the giant wolf had torn into its body, and furiously intercept Jiang Le’s offensive moves.

After this happened two or three times, Jiang Le realized something was amiss.

Xiang Da’s superpower had nothing to do with beast taming, and even among superpower users with beast-taming skills, very few could control a beast to the point where it would disregard its own life and death like this.

But in any case, unless he dealt with the mutated giant crocodile first, Jiang Le would find it difficult to kill Xiang Da outright. Jiang Le turned his attention to the giant crocodile, his gaze icy. Killing it was no different from catching a fish—it wasn’t his first time.

The battle between the giant crocodile and the young wolf was no longer a 50-50 fight. Although both were Level 5 mutants, a mutant beast raised in a laboratory by simply feeding it nucleus crystals could not be compared to a mutant wolf that had survived several major battles and retained its untamed wildness.

It had high stats but lacked combat experience; though its movement speed was fast, its attacks were reckless and lacked strategic thinking.

As the mutated wolf’s fangs tore open its flesh, exposing the foul-green flesh beneath, the young wolf didn’t linger in one spot. Instead, it swiftly shifted its stance and angle of attack, moving to another position to breach the giant crocodile’s defenses once more.

Jiang Le capitalized on the wounds the young wolf had inflicted, using his fishbone knife to repeatedly pierce the giant crocodile’s body, creating bleeding holes that gradually outpaced its ability to heal.

Combined with the attack from both front and rear, it took no more than ten or so minutes for the mutated giant crocodile to show signs of exhaustion, its counterattacks becoming visibly sluggish.

Only then did it show signs of wanting to flee, but when it looked up at Xiang Da, he was brimming with impatience: “Fight! You can’t even hold your own now—what good are you?”

The giant crocodile had no choice but to turn and try to attack again, but the disparity in strength was simply too great for it to put up any real resistance. After yet another failed lunge, its limbs—with the leg bones now exposed—could no longer support its weight. It collapsed to the ground, clinging to life with labored breathing; it didn’t even fight back when Jiang Le stood atop its head.

Without hesitation, Jiang Le used his fishbone knife to pierce straight through the giant crocodile’s skull, scooping out the gleaming nucleus crystal, which clattered to the ground.

Xiang Da gripped the stair railing tightly, grinding his teeth in rage, but showed no intention of fleeing: “Damn it, send me a few more!”

Noise erupted once more from within the laboratory building. A mutated tiger roughly the same size as Xiao Lang, a mutated eagle with a wingspan of over ten meters, and a mutated python nearly a hundred meters long burst out of rooms in different sections, all charging toward Jiang Le and Xiao Lang, who had just finished a battle.

All three of these mutant beasts were Level 5, and their ferocity was nothing short of remarkable. Even without Xiang Da’s orders, the moment they laid eyes on a Level 5 mutant beast like Xiao Lang, they would instinctively be driven by the urge to devour and evolve.

The battle with the giant crocodile had been nothing more than a warm-up. Jiang Le and Xiao Lang stood back-to-back, covering each other’s blind spots to ensure their safety. Tiger paws and wolf claws clashed in midair; their taut muscles betrayed terrifying strength, and the beasts’ roars shook the very soul, instilling a deep-seated fear in many.

Standing on Xiao Lang’s back, Jiang Le leaped directly onto the mutated tiger as it charged. Sensing his movement, the mutated tiger rolled to try to shake him off. Jiang Le’s cultivation dish shot out blood vines at lightning speed; countless vines wrapped around the mutated tiger’s head, forcing it to divert its attention to fend off the vine restraints with its claws.

The mutated eagle screeched as it dove down; its sharp talons were just inches from Jiang Le’s head when he raised his fishbone knife to block them, leaving deep gouges in the blade. Several vines of the blood vine shot upward along Jiang Le’s fishbone knife, swishing twice as they attempted to wrap around the mutant eagle’s talons and restrain its attack.

However, they succeeded for only a few seconds before the mutated eagle violently broke free.

Taking advantage of this opening, the mutated python opened its mouth. In addition to its terrifyingly long, sharp fangs, its throat was lined with dense, irregularly spaced protruding teeth. As its throat contracted, it would undoubtedly grind any prey it swallowed into pulp.

Taking advantage of the lull while Jiang Le and the Mutant Eagle were locked in a standoff, the Mutant Python attempted to swallow him whole. As it lunged forward, it didn’t even acknowledge the Mutant Eagle’s presence. With a clang, it struck—and if Jiang Le hadn’t dodged just in time, he would have been caught in its jaws.

The Mutant Eagle was half a beat too slow; several of its feathers were torn off by the Mutant Python’s fangs, prompting Xiang Da, who was watching from a distance, to curse, “You idiot! Don’t you know who you’re supposed to bite?”

Jiang Le leapt to dodge into a flower bed, but the mutant python’s massive jaws followed like a shadow. The concrete flower bed was flattened between its teeth as if plowed, as it pursued Jiang Le, completely ignoring the terrain.

Jiang Le studied the snake’s attack patterns, constantly shifting his position as he darted between the flower beds. No matter where he went, the giant mutant python stayed right on his heels, yet it failed to notice that Jiang Le’s jumps were circling around a central point, gradually narrowing his range until he leaped directly onto the snake’s tail.

Although his contact was only fleeting, the mutant python—blinded by its pursuit—overlooked the fact that the spot where Jiang Le had just been standing was part of its own body, and swallowed its coiled tail whole.

The texture of flesh was different from the concrete bricks of the flower bed. Mistaking Jiang Le for its prey, the mutated python, almost unable to contain its excitement, wriggled its throat, clamped its teeth down hard on its own tail, and then—crushed it!

As the excruciating pain it had inflicted on itself shot through the tip of its tail, the mutated python was unable to stop in time. Its hundred-meter-long body was severed by its own tail bite, and the muscles at the break point contracted, convulsing violently in agony.

The blood vine, which had been lying in wait in the corner, seized this opportunity to swarm forward, burrowing into the mutant python’s body through the severed tail. Its paralyzing venom seeped into the python’s flesh, gradually bringing its initial violent thrashing and lashing to a halt.

The mutant python’s thick skin acted as a barrier against the blood vines; no matter how hard it tried to expel them by force, it was unable to do so due to the obstruction of its flesh and skin. After one final convulsion, several vines successfully emerged from the mutant python’s eyes and mouth, slithering forward to the front of its body and even poking its head with their vine-like tails.

The mutated python may not have been completely dead, but it no longer had the strength to resist the attempts by these Level 4 blood vine offshoots to extract its nucleus crystal.

The nucleus crystal of yet another mutated beast dimmed. Xiang Da could no longer bring himself to smile, but he still didn’t leave. He simply turned to Ying Huaming and said, “Go get ready to release it.”

Ying Huaming accepted the order and left, while Xiang Da continued to turn his gaze toward Jiang Le.

The death of the mutated python eased the tense situation on the battlefield, giving Jiang Le and Xiao Lang more time to focus on dealing with the mutated eagle and the mutated tiger.

However, precisely because of the mutant python’s death, the remaining two mutant beasts had clearly become more cautious. As if responding to some command, they no longer blindly sought to deliver fatal blows or kill with a single strike, but instead adopted a strategy of attrition, aiming solely to wear down Jiang Le and Xiao Lang’s stamina.

No matter how high-level the mutated beasts or superpower users might be, their stamina is still limited.

Jiang Le was well aware of this and could see through the two beasts’ tactics; the more they acted this way, the more he knew he had to speed things up.

Once again, he became entangled with the mutated tiger as they tore at each other and rolled across the ground. The wolf and the tiger both sank their teeth into each other’s necks; as their fangs sank deeper, the terror of having their vital organs pierced grew ever more intense. The mutated tiger was the first to falter, pulling back its claws and teeth in an attempt to retreat. Yet when it met the mutated wolf’s gaze, all it saw was murderous intent.

This murderous intent, devoid of any fear of death, was pure madness—an attitude of “I don’t care if I die; you might as well die with me.”

Seeing no hope of escape, the mutated tiger was forced into a do-or-die stance. It raised its paw, intending to claw out the mutated wolf’s eye sockets, but in the blink of an eye, a fishbone knife suddenly thrust between the two beasts, blocking the attack.

The bone blade vibrated and flashed before the mutated tiger’s eyes; the blade then shifted direction, slashing horizontally straight toward the area above its eye sockets.

The fish bone and the tiger’s bone collided; the golden pupil was sliced open by the blade, and blood spurted out, trickling down the gash on the fish-bone knife and onto the ground. The bone knife became lodged in the tiger’s bone, leaving it temporarily unable to move forward or back. Jiang Le simply abandoned the bone blade, leaping onto the mutant tiger’s head and using his own hands as weapons, delivering a series of blows with his elbows. The thunderous crash of bone against flesh rang out alongside the mutant tiger’s agonized roar. The area that had repeatedly absorbed the blows could no longer withstand even a single more strike; the tiger’s skull caved in at the top, exposing the brain matter and shattered bones within.

The wolf’s fangs had torn away half the flesh and brain from the side of the mutant tiger’s neck, exposing the raw, dripping interior.

Jiang Le panted, his gaze icy. While the mutated tiger was still struggling, he had already plunged one hand into its brain; with a casual stir, he felt the nucleus crystal inside. Applying pressure with his fingertips, he severed the connection between the nucleus crystal and the meridians, and with a click, he wrenched it out.

The mutated tiger lost the strength to resist and collapsed to the ground, exhausted.

At the same moment, the Flying Eagle’s talons struck—Xiao Lang threw itself in front of Jiang Le, using its body to brace the blow. Instantly, several blood-soaked wounds appeared on the wolf’s body, revealing the bones beneath.

Jiang Le pulled the fishbone knife embedded in the tiger’s bone from its socket, stood up, and looked toward the flying eagle. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Xiang Da finally lose his footing; he turned and left the top floor, his figure flickering in and out of view in the stairwell before hurrying down the long corridor, glancing back every few steps as he fled the scene.

The mutated eagle tried to hold off Jiang Le single-handedly against three opponents, but it ultimately couldn’t hold out for long. During one of its charging attempts to block him, the young wolf anticipated its landing spot and pinned it down with a fierce tackle.

Without the advantage of flight, the Mutant Eagle’s defenses were weak; Xiao Lang snapped its neck with a single bite.

Outside the laboratory building, aside from the corpses of the mutated beasts littering the ground, there was no one else to be seen. There might still be some Level 3 or 4 mutants inside the building, but none had appeared.

The surroundings suddenly fell silent.

Logically speaking, Xiang Da seemed to have run out of options, but Jiang Le instinctively sensed something was amiss. Soon, Jiang Le’s hunch was confirmed: the ground beneath their feet began to shake violently. Then, cracks began to appear in the previously smooth surface; rocks were flung into the air, and the ground tilted, as if something were about to burst forth from beneath the earth.

The ground was being pushed apart in concentric layers from the center outward. Jiang Le and Xiao Lang were forced to retreat until they reached the porch of another building, completely exposing the open area in front of the laboratory building.

A powerful aura of mutation surged forth from beneath the ground, and as the soil collapsed, the creature finally revealed its full form: a Level 6 mutant turtle as tall as a two-story building and roughly the size of a basketball court.

With a trump card like this up its sleeve, no wonder Xiang Da had remained so unflappable at first.

The mutant turtle’s gaze was sharp, locking directly onto Jiang Le and the mutant wolf at his side. Yet it did not rush to attack; instead, it slowly opened its mouth.

Immediately, a massive, undeniable suction force erupted from its mouth, violently yanking Jiang Le toward it almost before he could react. Jiang Le tried to dodge, but the disparity in their strength was like an ant shaking a tree; his body was instantly hurled into the air, along with the debris—including the rubble and flying sand and stones from the destroyed house behind him—and sucked into the mutant turtle’s mouth.

Jiang Le raised his fishbone knife, intending to stab the mutant turtle’s upper jaw to use the force as leverage against being swallowed further. However, the knife left no mark whatsoever inside the mutant turtle’s mouth, and Jiang Le was swept directly into its stomach by that immense suction.

The mutant turtle’s stomach was filled with corrosive liquid. Almost the instant Jiang Le made contact, he felt excruciating pain; his skin immediately turned red. Had it not been for the defenses of a Level 5 superpower user, he would likely have been corroded into a pool of pus the moment he touched it.

Jiang Le frowned, trying to enter his farm space right there, but the bud-like markings on his skin had been corroded by the liquid, becoming distorted and indistinct; to his surprise, they showed no reaction at all when he touched them.

Jiang Le could only try to break out from the inside, but it was futile. Turtles are naturally highly defensive animals, and this was even more true after mutation. Even as a fellow Level 5, Jiang Le might not have been able to breach its defenses, let alone with the level suppression currently in effect.

Only a small amount of the air the mutated turtle had just sucked in remained in its stomach; the rest was scorching, foul-smelling slime. This slime had spread almost to Jiang Le’s waist and swayed ceaselessly as the mutated turtle moved, occasionally splashing onto Jiang Le’s body.

If he didn’t get out of there quickly, Jiang Le wouldn’t last much longer.

Sounds from outside couldn’t penetrate the stomach, so Jiang Le could only judge the mutant turtle’s direction and possible movements by the swaying of its gastric fluids.

Fortunately, the blood vine was still there. It extended more than a dozen vines from its growing dish, using the suction cups on them to cling to the mutant turtle’s stomach wall, temporarily lifting Jiang Le out of the gastric fluid. However, after only about ten seconds, the vines would melt away due to corrosion from the putrid liquid, and the blood vine would send out a new batch of vines, repeating the cycle over and over.

As for Xiao Lang, Jiang Le could still sense through the bond between master and pet that it had not left the outside.

Xiang Da watched the location of the laboratory building through his binoculars. When he saw Jiang Le being swallowed by the mutated turtle, his heart, which had been in his throat, finally settled back into place.

As for the mutated wolf outside, Xiang Da had no intention of killing it.

With the situation now reversed, Xiang Da led Ying Huaming and several guards back toward the laboratory building.

The mutated turtle kept its mouth shut and remained where it was, while the mutated wolf repeatedly failed in its attempts to break through its defenses. Xiang Da sneered, “All right, be a good boy. From now on, I’m your master.”

Xiao Lang ignored Xiang Da’s words; there was only one thought in its mind: rescue Jiang Le—Jiang Le must not die.

However, the gap in power between it and the mutated turtle was glaringly obvious. How could it bridge such a chasm? In its panic, the wolf’s eyes caught sight of several Level 5 nucleus crystals scattered on the ground.

The wolf’s body flickered as it swiftly swallowed the nucleus crystals, then forcibly triggered its mutation upgrade while fully conscious.

The reason evolution is typically conducted in a dormant state is to prolong the process, minimize pain, and reduce the likelihood of backlash. Forcing the evolution meant compressing this process, which would multiply both the pain and the risks.

Xiang Da stared wide-eyed as the mutated wolf used just a few fifth-level nucleus crystals to forcibly trigger its evolution in such a short time, and he cursed, “That beast doesn’t want to live! Kill it before it evolves!”

Although the mutant turtle’s defenses were strong, compared to the 5-star potential mutant wolf, it would lose all advantage if the level disparity were eliminated. Agony surged from every inch of its flesh, causing the giant wolf to instantly lose control of its limbs and collapse limply to the ground.

The mutant turtle before him looked at the giant wolf with some confusion, but still obeyed Xiang Da’s order and launched an attack.

It opened its mouth, intending to bite through the mutant wolf’s neck while it was too weak to resist, but the moment it did, the mutant wolf had already risen to its feet.

Within a matter of seconds, the mutated wolf’s form changed rapidly; new claws and fangs sprouted from its flesh. The mutation occurred so swiftly that faint cracks began to appear in the nucleus crystal within its body.

The young wolf grit his teeth against the agony of the forced mutation, regained control of his limbs, and—battling the pressure of the ongoing transformation—just as he barely reached Level 6, dodged the mutated turtle’s attack, leaped onto its back, and sank his sharp claws into the gap between the shell and the turtle’s body, digging in with all his might.

Inside the mutated turtle’s body, Jiang Le could only feel a tremor run through its body, followed immediately by a sudden, immense force that sent vibrations up from the top of its shell.

It was Xiao Lang. Jiang Le’s mind, which had been somewhat clouded by oxygen deprivation, cleared for a moment. Even though he was now in a desperate situation, Xiao Lang’s presence kept him from completely losing his will to survive.

The mutant turtle struggled violently, stretching its neck to look back and try to bite the giant wolf on its back, but no matter how it attacked, it couldn’t deter the giant wolf’s determination to tear it apart.

The giant wolf’s limbs were riddled with countless wounds from the mutant turtle’s bites; they were so bloodied that the leg bones were clearly visible. Yet no matter how the mutant turtle thrashed and bit, the giant wolf had only one action: to forcefully pry open the mutant turtle’s shell.

Finally, the connection between the shell and the flesh grew increasingly tenuous. The wolf’s claws reached into the mutant turtle’s neck, their tips piercing the slightly weaker skin and flesh there, and it forcibly tore the neck away from the body.

The mutant turtle’s head flew off at an angle, and its wildly flailing limbs were brought to a sudden halt.

The young wolf flipped the turtle over, tore a large hole in the mutant turtle’s body, and finally ripped open its stomach, where he finally saw Jiang Le, his eyes half-closed and wrapped in a blood vine.

Ignoring its own wounds, the giant wolf stuck out its tongue to lick the putrid fluid off Jiang Le’s body, then urgently nuzzled his cheek with its snout.

Breathing in fresh air once more, Jiang Le’s consciousness gradually returned. He raised his eyes to see a Level 6 mutant wolf and roughly understood what had happened. Using Xiao Lang’s strength to help him up, he said to Xiao Lang, whose face was filled with anxiety, “I’m fine.”

Jiang Le stroked the wolf’s head. Seeing that Xiao Lang seemed unharmed, his gaze immediately shifted to Xiang Da, who was preparing to flee. The fishbone knife had already been dissolved by the mutant turtle’s gastric juices, but that didn’t matter.

At that moment, Jiang Le’s eyes were fixed solely on Xiang Da’s figure as he tried to flee.

As for Xiang Da, whether it was the mutated wolf willing to risk its life to save its master or Jiang Le, who had managed to survive so long inside the mutated turtle’s belly, both were no different from ghosts to him.

With all means of self-defense gone, helplessness and fear flooded over him.

“Run, run fast! Pull me out of here!” he muttered to himself. Spotting Ying Huaming ahead of him, he tried to get Ying Huaming to drag him along. But at that very moment, Ying Huaming couldn’t care less about him; instead, he saw Xiang Da as nothing more than a tool to buy time.

“Brother Xiang, I’m sorry. In a matter of life and death, once I escape, I’ll tell them it was all because of your negligence in decision-making that led to the destruction of the research institute. That way, you’ll only have to atone with your life, right?”

After saying this, Ying Huaming turned and ran toward the main gate of the villa complex.

Xiang Da watched his figure disappear, the footsteps behind him growing ever closer. He stumbled and fell to the ground, unable to get up, and had no choice but to turn around and face Jiang Le.

As arrogant as he had been before, he was now just as humble and submissive.

“Brother, let’s talk this out. What happened earlier was all a misunderstanding—it was all a misunderstanding!”

Jiang Le said nothing. He kicked Xiang Da to the ground, planted his foot on Xiang Da’s head, but didn’t take his life right away. Thinking there was still room for negotiation, Xiang Da immediately added, “As long as you spare my life, today’s incident is all water under the bridge!”

“Wipe the slate clean?” Jiang Le found it ridiculous. “At a time like this, do you really have the right to talk to me about wiping the slate clean?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Xiang Da saw Jiang Le unleash the blood vine. The vine coiled like a snake in midair, slithering toward him. He was so terrified he nearly wet himself, but when he thought of the leverage he held, he still felt a glimmer of confidence that he might survive.

“You don’t know who my cousin is, do you? As long as you let me go, I can get my cousin to drop the matter. But if you kill me—aaaaaah!”

Before Xiang Da could finish his sentence, the blood vine had already pierced his flesh. Abandoning its usual corrosive nature, the blood vine transformed into extremely fine tendrils that burrowed into Xiang Da’s body from all over, slithering through his blood vessels and beneath his skin. The tendrils bulged from Xiang Da’s face and emerged from his five orifices; to deliberately prolong his agony, they avoided attacking his vital organs.

Xiang Da felt a tearing sensation in his eye sockets; in his field of vision, he could clearly see the vines writhing against his eyeballs.

Under such excruciating pain, blood-tinged foam welled up in Xiang Da’s throat; the sharp, corrosive sensation eating away from the inside out made him wish he could die right then and there.

“My… my cousin… huff, huff…” He could no longer form complete sentences.

Jiang Le watched the pain and hatred in Xiang Da’s eyes as time and space shifted, reversing their positions. Revenge brought him little satisfaction, but it did bring a sense of relief.

Jiang Le pressed down hard with his foot. With a splatter, Xiang Da’s head turned into a pool of blood and foam.

Meanwhile, Ying Huaming, who thought he had escaped, showed a look of joy at having survived when he saw the gate to the villa complex. However, just as he was about to step through the gate, several vines suddenly blocked his path.

A Level 4 blood vine against a Level 4 superpower user—the superpower user stood no chance. The superpower users following Ying Huaming in an attempt to flee met the same fate.

After a desperate struggle, the superpower users fell one by one. Ying Huaming was tightly bound by the blood vines. Feeling the numbness spreading through his body and his life force gradually ebbing away, he peered through the gaps in the vines at the vibrant trumpet-shaped flowers in the air. In the gentle breeze, they continued to sway, even exuding a sense of lighthearted joy.

Only then did Ying Huaming see clearly that the flower buds had been pierced by the blood vine’s tendrils; this vast defensive net had long since been transformed by the blood vine into a death cell for its prisoners.

From the moment Jiang Le set foot in the research institute, he had no intention of letting any of them walk out alive.