The massive pig was sliced into countless pieces in the blink of an eye, the blades moving with such terrifying speed that they were little more than a silver blur. The scene turned bloody and messy in an instant, the sharp scent of raw iron and gore filling the small, sterile room as remnants of the carcass settled into a heap.
"Are you sure the mutant vampire leeches won't get chopped to death too?" Jing Shu sounded a little worried, her eyes fixed on the crimson carnage.
"They won't. They are basically immortal. At most, their bodies get cut into a few pieces, but they will recover after a while by infusing themselves through their antennae. Just like what you saw before. This trait is both their strength and their weakness." The staff member stood by the controls, his gaze steady. "You can think of it like a cicada shedding its shell. After they mate, they pump all their nutrient fluid and bodily fluid into a newly formed body. They keep producing new bodies that suit them. No matter how many times they are chopped up, they can live on without any loss. But their weakness is that they can't reproduce the next generation."
The staff member sighed again and shook his head, his shoulders slumping slightly.
Jing Shu on the other hand, suddenly thought of a lot of things, especially those creatures she ran into in the United States during the competition. Those were immortal too, or even more twisted. In the end, Xiao Dou had eaten them clean while pooping at the same time.
But those things were disgusting, and the price for immortality was way too high. They were nothing but rotting corpses with no chance of being tamed. They were just piles of meat made up of trillions of bacteria that kept themselves alive, smelling of stagnant water and old decay.
So Jing Shu's curiosity toward the mutant vampire leeches grew, her interest piqued by the possibility of a cleaner, more controlled form of resilience.
"Alright, once the space shrinks, we can take them out." The staff member grew even more cautious and reminded her, "Never let these leeches get close to you. Don't give them any chance. You must raise them in a completely sealed environment."
The large space began to shrink like four bulldozers pushing inward from every direction. Metal plates groaned as they slid together, and soon, all the chopped pig pieces were pushed into a narrow, cramped space.
The mutant vampire leeches seemed to sense danger and started frantically absorbing the broken meat.
The chunks of meat shriveled up visibly, the moisture and life force sucked out of them until they were nothing but leathery remnants.
The staff member removed all the dried husks of meat, leaving behind two soft creatures that were much smaller than the original leeches. Their whole bodies were covered in fine, twitching antennae. They no longer looked like shell-less snails. Even though they had been chopped up, their bodies filled back up through fluid infusion, smoothing out into solid shapes.
It looked magical.
And at this moment, when she looked at them again, they didn't seem scary at all. Jing Shu even felt they looked better than the huge ones she saw earlier.
Maybe it was because they didn't have weird bumps. Maybe it was because their pure black skin didn't look nasty but instead had a sleek, polished feel, like dark jade or high-end leather under the harsh laboratory lights.
The staff member placed the two mutant vampire leeches inside a sealed glass container and handed it to Jing Shu with a very serious expression.
"This glass container is a special instrument. Normally, you just open this latch to feed them. But no matter what, don't ever let curiosity make you release them. Once they latch onto you or burrow inside your body, there's no way to get them out. Not even surgery can remove them. Once that happens, all that waits for you is death."
He had personally watched several teammates die after being sucked dry by these leeches.
Because of their traits, even if someone was fully anesthetized and emergency surgery began, even if they cut off the entire piece of flesh the leech was in, or even sawed off the entire leg, it still didn't help.
"Once they start feeding, or even just inject their fluid into the target's body, billions of tadpole-like particles will swim throughout the body in no time. They will be ready at any moment and will sacrifice themselves to fill up the leech's new body with nutrients. If you force them apart, the mutant vampire leech will go berserk and drain every bit of energy until it turns the target into a dried corpse. But if they are well fed, they can go a long time without eating. We tested it. Even without any food for three months, they survived."
The staff member recalled his darkest memories. Fear flickered in his eyes, his pupils shrinking as he looked at the glass jar. These things were devils.
Jing Shu raised a brow. "Damn, they are that strong?"
"Remember everything I said. If you don't, the only outcome is death, and it will be miserable."
Jing Shu nodded like a pecking chicken, her movements quick and repetitive. "Thank you, thank you. I will be careful."
She accepted the two ugly black creatures. They looked harmless now, curled at the bottom of the container, but according to the staff member, they were the most dangerous beings here.
Jing Shu's eyes began to gleam. It seemed this trip to the capital wasn't a waste at all. As for the real value of these creatures, she shook the glass container lightly, watching them roll. That depended on how well she could make use of them.
The staff member jumped in shock and quickly steadied the container, his hands darting out to catch it. He had never guessed this woman would be so reckless. He warned her again, "Be careful."
"Alright, alright." Jing Shu put the container inside a box. The moment she closed the lid, she stored it inside her space.
The staff member was right. With something this dangerous, storing them anywhere else was much less safe than keeping them in her space. Inside the space, she was the only ruler. She could study them as much as she wanted without any risk of escape.
Jing Shu's expression grew distant. Almost all her attention was already inside the space, observing the black shapes. As for the confidentiality and liability forms she had to sign outside, she completed all of them on autopilot, her hand moving across the paper while her mind was elsewhere.
When she finally walked out of that heavy, prison-like place, the cold air of the capital hit her face. The driver uncle waiting at the door greeted her. "All done?"
Jing Shu snapped out of it and smiled, nodding.
"Then let's go." The driver uncle turned back to the car, then glanced at her again, his eyes lingering on her hands. "Huh, I was only gone for a bit, and you changed into new gloves? They look nice and thick. I should get a pair for my girl too. She gets frostbite every winter."
"Right? They really feel thick. I guess I won't have to worry about frostbite anymore." Jing Shu lowered her head, smiling at the mutant vampire leeches wriggling in her palms, their bodies radiating a strange, steady warmth against her skin.
Even she hadn't expected that this trip to the capital, aside from getting tons of items, rewards, and even the pharmaceutical rights, would end with her getting what was supposedly a top-tier dangerous creature that could masquerade as a self-heating glove.
Of course, the self-heating glove was only one of the mutant vampire leech's features. This little trick was something she had just discovered.
Wearing gloves powered by mutant vampire leeches was basically like giving herself extra insurance. She spent a long time thinking about how to use them to fill in the gaps in her combat strength and daily life.
So now let's to talk about what had just happened inside the space.