"So you're not idiots after all."
Scarface and Baldy didn't reply to Xiang Yi. They just swung their Mining Guns with even more force, trying to instantly subdue him.
They weren't trying to kill him, but at the very least, they needed to incapacitate him.
They both knew it was impossible to escape from a Mining Laser Gun. Turning to run meant certain death.
Their only option was to turn back and fight Xiang Yi—a desperate gamble for survival.
But they had still underestimated Xiang Yi's reaction speed.
The instant the two of them moved, Xiang Yi had already raised his Mining Gun and pressed the activation button.
Under his expert control, a blood-red laser beam swept across at a low angle.
The two men instantly let out miserable howls and collapsed to the ground.
Unlike Long Ge and the others, their legs weren't directly burned off by the laser. Instead, their muscles twisted and knotted, and large numbers of blood-colored crystals inexplicably grew between the gnarled tissues.
The rocky ground where the laser had passed, however, was scorched black as expected from a normal laser strike.
This was the unique effect of the Mining Laser Gun, specially modified with the Blood Crystal material.
'Looks like I made the right choice.' The properties of the Blood Crystal material had indeed had a positive effect on the laser's lens.
Xiang Yi released the trigger, and the coil rotor gradually spun to a halt.
A new panel for the Mining Gun floated into view.
["Blood Crystal" Civilian Portable Mining Laser Gun]
[Energy Core: "Earth Core" Civilian Tritium Fusion Micro-Reactor]
[Firing Module: "Blood Crystallized" Mining Laser Lens Array]
[Cooling System: "Frigid" High-Concentration Water-Cycle Cooling Unit]
[Control System: "Micro-Hive" Parallel Centralized Control System (Sub-unit)]
[Frame Type: "Prospector" Universal Alloy Frame (Simplified Version)]
[Additional Attachment: Energy Equalization Output Limiter]
The changes on the panel weren't that significant, but the actual effects were incredibly eye-catching.
"The moment I said I was going to use you as tools for my prison break, you should have realized I planned on killing you both."
"I have to say, you're quite the actor. I almost thought you'd genuinely misunderstood me."
"But you were still a little too hasty. Suddenly taking two steps forward... were you afraid I wouldn't notice you were up to something?"
"You should have at least waited until I finished modifying this Mining Gun. My reaction time might have been even shorter then."
Xiang Yi's words reached their ears, but they seemed to be in too much agony from their legs to react at all.
After struggling for a short while, Baldy went into shock from the pain and lost consciousness.
Seeing this, Xiang Yi walked up and kicked Scarface, knocking him unconscious.
Xiang Yi didn't know if knocking someone out before they went into shock from pain was actually helpful, but it didn't matter.
What mattered was that Xiang Yi finally had material to feed the Blood Crystal.
This was his goal.
He had volunteered to inspect the equipment the day before and had planted a hidden flaw.
The next day, he volunteered for the repair job, came here, and lured his fellow inmates deep into the mine tunnels alone.
And finally...
...it had all led to this.
Xiang Yi slung the Mining Gun onto the pack on his back, grabbed Baldy's protective suit, and began dragging him deeper into the mine.
A few minutes later, Xiang Yi returned to the spot and dragged Scarface into the dark depths as well.
Scarface, who had just been knocked out, suddenly regained some consciousness. The pain had robbed him of the ability to struggle, and he could only force out a weak, feeble question. "You... why... are you doing this..."
"I told you. To escape."
Which is easier to escape from: a stable prison, or one in chaos? The question answered itself.
And what could plunge a stable prison into utter chaos in a short amount of time? Xiang Yi's answer was the Blood Crystal—or to be more precise, the Blood Crystal Worms.
What would happen if the Blood Crystal Worms got out of the mine tunnels and into the densely populated inmate residential area on the lower level?
What if they reached the middle levels, or even the outer shell of the prison?
Xiang Yi didn't actually know, but he knew that only chaos would give him a chance to escape.
Besides, he had to think about more than just escaping; he had to consider what came after.
He wouldn't worry about the distant future, but he needed to plan for the short term. For instance, what would he eat and drink after he got out?
He needed some startup capital. He had to take something of value from the prison with him.
After some thought, his focus returned to the Blood Crystal.
He would try to contain some of the Blood Crystal Worm Eggs.
They would serve as both a weapon and the capital he'd need to establish himself after he left.
Soon, Xiang Yi had dragged Scarface over to Baldy's body. He could already hear a faint rustling sound.
Wasting no time, he used the Laser Gun to carve out a sharp stone shard. He then used the shard to slice open the two men's protective suits and cut into their flesh.
The smell of blood immediately filled the narrow tunnel, and the rustling from the darkness seemed to grow agitated.
Xiang Yi backed away a fair distance, took the Mind Pulse Generator out of his pack, and placed it on the ground to ensure no Blood Crystal Worms would bypass the two bodies to attack him.
From the darkness, ugly, twisted maggots gradually emerged. They crawled toward the wounds Xiang Yi had intentionally made, burrowed beneath the two men's flesh, and began to repeat the process they had performed countless times before.
Feeding, laying eggs, slaughtering, and assimilating.
Amidst the Blood Crystal Worms' cannibalistic frenzy, the flesh and blood of Scarface and Baldy were gradually converted into granular, blood-colored eggs.
Xiang Yi, meanwhile, used this time to go back and retrieve Baldy's Mining Gun. He then used his Spiritual Energy to remove all the internal modules, leaving only the outermost frame.
He approached the corpses, holding the activated Mind Pulse Generator and the Mining Gun frame.
The adult Blood Crystal Worms felt the stimulation of the Psychic Pulse and scurried out of the flesh, fleeing into the darkness.
This allowed Xiang Yi to seize the opportunity to scrape some of the Blood Crystal gravel from the two mangled corpses and place it inside the Mining Gun frame.
Then, Xiang Yi activated his Spiritual Energy again, using the metal from the modules he had just removed to completely seal all the gaps in the Mining Gun frame, turning it into a metal container.
Some of the Blood Crystal Material also began to integrate with it, forming a quarantine membrane of Blood Crystal on the container's interior.
This modification wasn't done through the panel; there was no such option available.
But just because it wasn't on the panel didn't mean Xiang Yi couldn't do it.
The panel wasn't the entirety of his Spiritual Power. It was merely a manifestation of his Spiritual Energy, an existence that helped him better understand his own power, not limit it.
As the Blood Crystal quarantine membrane completely sealed the container, the worm eggs inside, now lacking flesh to consume, fell into a dormant state.
Blood Crystal, successfully contained.