Damn it! Let's smash the darkness together!-Chapter 1279 - 155: Chongdu’s New Mother

Only now did the monster’s true appearance fully come into view:

It had a humanoid form, with a spine curved backward like an arthropod’s, and extraordinarily long arms covered in highly granular protrusions. Its fingers were replaced by praying mantis-like biological alloy claws—these were the very weapons that had previously crashed into Xu Shu’s forehead, now regenerating serrated new blades visibly at the break.

Under the skin membrane of its back, it had six pairs of wing-like proliferating bone spikes. The dark red muscle fibers twisted and squirmed like cables, with each tendon bursting with radiating fluorescent mucus with every move.

The overall look was like a combination of mantis, bat, skull, and human.

Moreover, it possessed a large insect-like mouth apparatus, with four jawbone petals hanging with smoking crystalline clusters. From deep in its throat, a mass of ghostly blue light flickered through the semi-transparent neck skin, trembling like liquid—clearly the gland that had just been able to spray corrosive venom.

The most nauseating feature was a tumor-like organ in its chest and abdomen area, exposing a dense matrix of compound eyes, forming contorted human faces—some in pain, some sneering, some howling—twisting and squirming, leading one to uncontrollably suspect whether these people were trapped inside its body. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

However, the corrosive liquid it secreted seemed ineffective against Taoist talismans; no matter how much it struggled, the talisman array suspended in the air remained unmoved.

Seeing this, everyone was slightly relieved and stepped forward to observe.

"Is this... this supposed to be an assistive fighter?"

"It doesn’t look very friendly..."

Everyone began to murmur.

Xie Xiaochan chuckled: "It doesn’t matter if it’s not friendly; we just need to control it for a moment, then toss it in to fight for us. What’s most important in an assistive fighter is strength!"

"Well, that makes sense. Just by looking at it, you can tell it’s incredibly powerful." Yan Shan wholeheartedly agreed.

Seeing his teammates assess the creature on the ground, Xu Shu observed for a moment, then twitched the corner of his mouth:

"Oh dear, why is it her?"

"What?" Xie Xiaochan, beside him, hadn’t heard clearly and asked.

"Oh, I think it looks okay, not very strong." Xu Shu solemnly commented.

"..." Everyone gave him speechless looks.

Not very strong? It looks like it’s at least Third Rank Late Stage, doesn’t it!

Xu Shu, however, insisted somewhat: "It’s really a bit weak. You see, that boss in the arena has third-tier peak strength, right? This creature would be nothing, probably dead in a few hits. How can it buy us time?"

Xie Xiaochan smiled at his words: "Perhaps I didn’t explain clearly before? Actually, the assistive fighter doesn’t need to face Qi Lixiang directly. After entering the secret realm, the challenges will be arranged from low to high based on strength, allowing the assistive fighter to gradually challenge other arena masters of first to third rank, and the score will be settled to open the next boss fight in limited time. So this assistive fighter isn’t necessarily killed on the spot; we can take it out afterward to kill monsters and extract crystals."

"Uh..." Hearing the last sentence, Xu Shu fell silent, then became suspicious, "With so many rules, who ensures they’re followed?"

"The secret realm has such measures, not easily explained. You’ll understand when you enter!" Xie Xiaochan said as she continued to affix talismans onto the monster.

They needed to further seal the creature to ensure it could be safely taken into the secret realm without breaking free mid-journey and causing harm.

"Alright~"

Seeing this, Xu Shu silently moved aside, his thoughts beginning to stir.

He was worried about taking this monster to its death, not due to any sudden compassion or a desire to avoid harming the innocent, but after fully seeing the monster, he was astonished to find it was an acquaintance.

And not just any acquaintance but one deeply connected in bloodline over seven months.

Yes, the creature before him was in fact Arthur’s biological mother in the strictest sense.

That one who was supposedly the first and most powerful monster to be mutated by "荷光辐射," codenamed "Apocalypse Zero One," previously devoured countless lives during the continent-wide ’zombie frenzy’ disaster as a terrifying biochemical mother body!

Of course, the "most powerful" title must be put in quotation marks.

Because in the Legendary World view of [ruins of the dead], transcendent forces do exist, only hidden behind the scenes unbeknownst to the world.

Interestingly, the codename of this biochemical mother body matches the array name of the Salvation Army Knight in reality.

But evidently, this is just a coincidence and not important.

In any case, despite this being another touching mother-child reunion, Xu Shu felt no excitement at seeing (one of) his mothers.

He was even calmer than when meeting Xidao Aili, for seeing Ai Li earlier had made him somewhat angry, but now he felt almost like looking at a stranger.

The reason is simple: Arthur is an "experimental product" created by a group of mad and unscrupulous scientists, said to be a "corpse embryo," merely a development inside the biochemical mother body’s body serving as an incubator.

Don’t be fooled; numerous researchers participated during Arthur’s birth process, aiding this mother body greatly, but it has little relevance to Arthur himself.

The saying "borrow a womb to raise a child" fits this situation.

So, even though this is the mother body in which Arthur grew for seven months, Xu Shu holds no feelings towards it.