Feeling the powerful wind and pressure that was like Mount Tai pressing down on him, Zhou Ziwei felt like he couldn't breathe. The big guy's strength was really terrifying. Zhou Ziwei had no doubt that if he dared to take the big guy's pounce head-on, then... the only thing waiting for him would be to leave a mess of flesh and blood on the ground.
Even if Zhou Ziwei doesn't confront the big guy head-on, he probably won't fare well if he's even slightly grazed by the big guy's powerful attacks at close range.
Zhou Ziwei didn't want to, and dared not, take the risk. So, just as the strong wind from the falling boulder was already scraping the skin on his face and neck, Zhou Ziwei suddenly opened his arms and roared loudly. Instantly, a dense spiritual power, like an out-of-control river tide, emanated from every pore of his body, almost instantly filling every corner within a five-meter radius.
This is a simplified, scaled-down version of soul overwriting—only under this wondrous state can Zhou Ziwei be confident enough to subdue the big guy without harming himself and successfully erase his soul memories…
Erasing the soul's memories is the most crucial point. Zhou Ziwei doesn't want to wait until he subdues this big guy, only to have to constantly worry about his loyalty, whether he will betray him, or whether he will stab him in the back. If that's the case, he might as well just get rid of this big guy now.
Erasing soul memories was something Zhou Ziwei was already quite adept at. Whether it was Xiao Mei back then or the mercenary he had just used for experiments, they were both people whose soul memories had been erased by Zhou Ziwei.
Although they exhibit symptoms of dementia, this dementia is precisely caused by the loss of a large amount of spiritual memories.
Xiao Mei's condition was the most serious at the time; she had even forgotten the most basic human needs and instincts, such as eating, drinking, and relieving herself. As for the mercenary that Zhou Ziwei used for the experiment, Zhou Ziwei deliberately controlled the degree of his disability so that the guy would not become a deep idiot.
Otherwise, Zhou Ziwei could serve a beautiful but idiotic woman and help Xiao Mei bathe and undress... but he has no interest in serving a Vietnamese mercenary like this.
However, accurately and effectively erasing the giant's soul memories would be impossible in less than a few seconds, and spending even a few seconds near this berserk giant would be an act of suicidal behavior.
That's why Zhou Ziwei released a miniature version of his soul cover at this moment. Under the soul cover, Zhou Ziwei was like a god. In this state, it wasn't too difficult for him to hold his own against the big guy for a few seconds.
A few seconds later, the burly man's frenzied movements suddenly stopped. His expression was blank, his actions mechanical, and he was devoid of any spirit, like a soulless walking corpse.
Zhou Ziwei exhaled, drawing back all the soul power he had released and which had been somewhat depleted, into his body. Only then did he look at the large, motionless figure standing before him like a clay sculpture and grin bitterly.
Zhou Ziwei realized that he was indeed ruthless, almost on par with the Japanese back then. First, he used an unknown substance to catalyze a perfectly normal person into a monster whose size and strength increased several times over. Then, he used a secret method to erase the person's soul and memories, turning this crazed guy into a complete idiot... In other people's eyes, this ruthless guy must be quite a terrifying monster!
Looking at the large man in front of him, who had completely stopped moving, with a憨态可掬 (endearing and simple-minded) expression, and who no longer possessed any madness or lethality, Zhou Ziwei sighed heavily.
Simply erasing this guy's soul memories is only the first step. Zhou Ziwei doesn't want to keep such a big idiot to raise, so he needs to help him repair the damage to his soul next.
Zhou Ziwei has found a way to repair the soul's trauma, but he is not sure if it will really work. He will have to wait and see how the sleeping test subject reacts after he wakes up.
Furthermore, Zhou Ziwei estimated that repairing soul trauma is not the same as repairing soul memories; there should be a fundamental difference between the two.
Those whose soul memories were destroyed by Zhou Ziwei's brutal methods will inevitably suffer some degree of soul trauma, and it is precisely because of this soul trauma that they find it difficult to relearn some human instincts.
Zhou Ziwei estimated that once he completely repaired the wounds on their souls, their memories would also return to a state like that of a newborn baby.
By then, their memories will be like a blank sheet of paper, untouched by any marks. In this case, whoever has the most contact with them will have the strongest influence on them.
Although their memories are still blank like those of a newborn baby even after their soul trauma has just been repaired, their intelligence is no different from that of an adult, and their ability to learn and accept things will become increasingly rapid.
If Zhou Ziwei were willing to invest a little more to replenish their soul power, their progress in intelligence would certainly be even greater than that of ordinary people.
Of course... these are just Zhou Ziwei's inferences at the moment. We will only know the truth once the experiment is completed.
Zhou Ziwei first led the big guy aside and found a relatively safe place for him to stay alone. Then he looked at the mercenary who had taken two weakened soul beads. Although he was still unconscious, his complexion was quite good, and he would occasionally show a silly smile or a worried expression in his sleep.
Seeing these expressions, Zhou Ziwei's confidence increased greatly. You see, this poor guy whose soul and memories had been erased was a fool who couldn't even cry. How could he possibly make such vivid expressions?
To prevent the children and some of the still-unconscious mercenaries from causing trouble after waking up, Zhou Ziwei simply had Xiaowenzi prick each of them with a needle. That way, if they weren't woken up by special means, they could sleep for three days and three nights without waking up.
The reason Zhou Ziwei is still keeping those dozen or so mercenaries alive is to prepare to continue experimenting on them.
After all, Zhou Ziwei didn't know if using the Soul Bead in this way would actually work. Everything was uncertain until the person woke up, so he could only wait. If he accidentally killed both of the test subjects, he would need to find two more people from those dozen or so mercenaries...
Sigh... This is truly inhumane...
Zhou Ziwei secretly despised himself, then ran to the main cave and stared blankly at the passage leading to the mysterious spring in the mountain's interior.
He knew this secret could not be leaked, otherwise it would definitely be studied by countries around the world, and maybe someone would even build another Base 731 just for these springs... It was one thing for Zhou Ziwei to be inhumane, but he dared not let people in government departments follow him in being inhumane, otherwise it would be a terrible disaster for humanity.
Therefore, Zhou Ziwei had to keep this secret spring hidden no matter what.
However, since he had used Soul Pearls as explosives when digging the passage, blasting it all the way in, concealing it would be quite a headache. Moreover, the concealment would have to be seamless. If people could tell that there was originally a passage inside, but it had been blocked... Although it's not certain that anyone would be so curious as to dig open the blocked cave to take a look, there might be such idle people in this world, and Zhou Ziwei dared not be careless.
So it seems that blowing up the entrance with explosives is definitely not going to work. Letting the big guy show off his violent aesthetics would be quite interesting, but... the big guy is still in a daze right now. Even if ten beautiful women were to do a striptease in front of him, he probably wouldn't react at all. Zhou Ziwei has no way of commanding that guy to do such a complicated thing.
Unfortunately, the Soul Bead can only decompose matter after it explodes, but it cannot restore it. Otherwise... if the Soul Bead were used to restore the decomposed stone powder back into rock, wouldn't this place be perfectly concealed?
However, Zhou Ziwei also knew that such a thing could only be fantasized about in his own mind and could never be realized. Decomposing matter is always much easier than reducing it, just as destruction is always easier than creation.
Hmm... since there's no way to restore creation, let's just continue destroying!
Zhou Ziwei looked up at the stalactites hanging naturally from the high ceiling of the cave, and a strong urge to destroy surged within him... However, if he were to destroy anything... he would first have to leave behind all the gold and silver treasures left by the Storm Mercenary Group. Otherwise... if the cave were to collapse completely, it would be difficult to find the belongings carried by the five leaders of the Storm Mercenary Group. In any case, carrying those bottles of milky white spring water wouldn't allow him to pass through Vietnamese customs safely. He would have to smuggle himself in, or if all else failed, he might as well just take the helicopter and run away...
Volume 1, Rebirth of a Prodigy, Chapter 262: The Creation of a Master
The secret passage of this cave leads all the way to another very desolate valley behind the mountain.
Storm Valley is surrounded by mountains on three sides, but this place where the helicopter is hidden is surrounded by mountains on all four sides.
If you had to walk here from the ground without going through the secret passage, it would definitely be quite difficult.
The most important thing is that once the news of the Storm Mercenary Group's annihilation spreads, this place will no longer be safe, and someone will definitely come here to investigate. So Zhou Ziwei simply took the helicopter and took all the gold and silver treasures of the people inside. He then flew the helicopter to a very secluded place more than 30 kilometers away from Storm Valley and hid it there.
Although the journey was not short, it was a straight-line distance with few obstacles on the road. Zhou Ziwei increased his speed, and it only took him less than twenty minutes to get back to Storm Valley.
Twenty minutes is more than thirty kilometers, which translates to more than one hundred kilometers per hour.
This speed is nothing special if it's a car, but if it's achieved by a person running on foot, especially in a remote mountain forest where there are no roads... then if word got out, it would probably shock the whole world!
Upon returning to Storm Valley, Zhou Ziwei sensed the soul memory information transmitted by the little mosquito; the mercenary into whom Zhou Ziwei had inserted two weakening soul beads had awakened from his coma…
Zhou Ziwei was overjoyed upon hearing this and quickly quickened his pace, running into the cave. There he saw the tall, thin mercenary sitting alone in a corner, his arms wrapped around his shoulders, his eyes warily scanning the surroundings.
Upon seeing Zhou Ziwei walk in, she gasped in surprise and instinctively shrank into a corner, her eyes filled with fear and confusion.
"Who...who are you? Don't come any closer!" the mercenary shouted in a panic, picking up an automatic rifle from the side. However, he had clearly forgotten how to use a gun, and was actually holding the barrel with his hand while pointing the butt at Zhou Ziwei.
It can even talk!
Zhou Ziwei was slightly taken aback when he saw that although the mercenary spoke somewhat haltingly, he still clearly expressed his meaning in Vietnamese.
He originally thought that after the soul memories were erased, the ability to speak would also be lost. Even if the mercenary took two weakened soul beads and his soul was repaired, the lost language should not be able to be regained through repair.
Could it be that... he directly obtained the memories of that soul's past life through the remnant soul memories contained in the Soul Pearl?
If that were the case, wouldn't it mean that after losing his own memories, the mercenary gained the memories of his companion? In that case... he would most likely treat Zhou Ziwei as an enemy. In that case, all of Zhou Ziwei's efforts would be in vain. He didn't want to keep an enemy who hated him by his side. Zhou Ziwei would never do such a foolish thing as raising a tiger to cause trouble.
However, Zhou Ziwei couldn't make a hasty conclusion as to whether the mercenary had truly obtained the relevant memories from those two soul beads.
Fortunately, he still has quite a few soul beads on him. Whether these soul beads contain soul memories or not, we only need to test them to find out.
An ordinary soul bead contains at most a dozen or so units of soul power. For an ordinary person, this soul power would easily burst their sea of souls, but for Zhou Ziwei, it is nothing more than a drop in the ocean.
Not to mention that his current sea of souls was already somewhat empty, even if it were full now, with his total capacity of nearly five thousand, he could absorb a dozen more soul powers without any danger.
To verify the effect of the Soul Beads, Zhou Ziwei swallowed three Soul Beads in one go, one of which was a high-quality Soul Bead formed from the condensation of three souls.
As soon as the Soul Pearls entered his stomach, Zhou Ziwei immediately felt that the three Soul Pearls seemed to be attracted by the Sea of Souls, and began to fluctuate rapidly. In a short while, they suddenly broke apart, turning into wisps of gray-black mist that followed the nerve threads and drilled into Zhou Ziwei's Sea of Souls.
Zhou Ziwei carefully separated this wisp of soul power from the other energies in his sea of souls, and then quickly sensed what was contained within this newly added soul power...
Without Zhou Ziwei's careful examination, it was discovered that these soul powers were just simple soul powers, without any attached soul memories.
Moreover, the soul power contained in these soul beads was somewhat mixed and impure, and was not on the same level as the soul power that Zhou Ziwei had purified and absorbed using the Six-Syllable Mantra.
What would happen if too much of this mixed and impure soul power were absorbed? Zhou Ziwei didn't know for a moment, but he figured it wouldn't be a good thing.
Therefore, it is completely impossible for Zhou Ziwei to create a superhuman similar to himself by absorbing soul beads.
However, Zhou Ziwei estimated that if an ordinary person were simply allowed to slowly absorb the power within the Soul Bead and gradually increase their soul power to three or four times that of an ordinary person, there shouldn't be too many problems.
When one's soul power becomes stronger than others, it naturally leads to a significant increase in willpower and wisdom. Zhou Ziwei felt that if necessary in the future, he should add this benefit to those who followed him.
At that time, whether it's the people in charge of business management or the henchmen under them, they will all be able to stand on their own, and Zhou Ziwei will naturally not need to work as hard as he does now.
Knowing that the Soul Bead did not contain any soul memories, Zhou Ziwei immediately felt relieved. He figured that language memories were more firmly established and couldn't be easily erased by external forces. In any case, as long as his language memories didn't come from those Soul Beads, it was fine.
Thinking of this, Zhou Ziwei waved to the mercenary and said in fluent Vietnamese, "Don't be afraid... come here, I'm your uncle's friend... you injured your brain while fighting some terrorists, I think... you might have amnesia... come on! I'll tell you..."
Next, Zhou Ziwei shamelessly spouted nonsense to the mercenary, claiming that he had a deep connection with the man's uncle. He said that a while ago, he heard that the man's entire family had been captured by the Storm Mercenary Group and taken to the valley as hostages, to be killed. So, Zhou Ziwei played the role of a lone hero, venturing into Storm Valley alone, single-handedly taking on the entire mercenary group, and ultimately rescuing the two brothers. As for their uncle... he had already been killed by the Storm Mercenary Group...
Zhou Ziwei then pulled over the big guy who was still in a state of dementia and insisted that he was the younger brother of the tall, thin mercenary.
The mercenary looked at the big man's body, which was at least three times thicker than his own, and then at his own thin frame, and couldn't help but feel a little puzzled.
Seeing this, Zhou Ziwei slapped his forehead and then remembered that he should also give the skinny man a few drops of the milky white spring water.
The big guy is now abnormally powerful, making him the perfect meat shield. This one in front of me... seems a bit too ordinary... However, this person has regained his senses. Although he has no memory, he has the ability to judge things. If I were to turn him into a monster again under these circumstances, then... Zhou Ziwei could imagine that even if this person didn't say anything, as long as he remembered that he was turned into a monster by Zhou Ziwei, he would definitely hate Zhou Ziwei to the bone in the future.
That won't do... In that case, let's give him a few drops and see how it goes!
Thinking of this, Zhou Ziwei went to find the bottle of white spring water again, carefully poured three drops into the rough pottery cup, and then came over, persuading and forcing the skinny man to drink the three drops of milky spring water...
Three drops of spring water entered the skinny man's body, but no abnormalities were observed in his body. However, a look of pain would occasionally flash across his face.
Zhou Ziwei's curiosity was piqued. He wondered how the white liquid could turn a living person into a monster, so he secretly separated a wisp of his soul power and carefully entered the skinny man's body, observing the changes in the skinny man's body from a microscopic perspective as an observer...
As soon as Zhou Ziwei's soul power entered the skinny man's body, he saw white flames everywhere again. However, this time the flames did not simply devour and melt, but rather spread rapidly like a virus throughout the skinny man's body, reaching every organ and cell. In the blink of an eye, they had spread all over the skinny man's body.
The powerful white flames seemed to contain boundless vitality. After burning quietly in the nucleus of each cell, they would quickly cause the cell to divide into two. However, before the newly divided cells could fully grow, they would be burned by the white flames and merge back into the original cells.
And so it went... the cells in the skinny man's body divided and merged again and again, in a continuous cycle, which made every cell in his body rapidly strengthen at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Because the splitting and merging were almost perfectly balanced, Zhou Ziwei didn't see any obvious changes in the skinny man's physique during the entire process, which lasted for more than ten seconds.
After about ten seconds, the white flames inside the skinny man seemed to have completely exhausted their energy and gradually went out. The changes inside the skinny man's body also stopped abruptly. However, the skinny man still looked emaciated, so thin that even a wolf might shed tears at the sight of him.
However, Zhou Ziwei knew that at this time, the skinny man's muscles and skin had become extremely tough. Even if he was not as tough as the big guy, the difference was not far off. He estimated that if someone fired a few shots at the skinny man with an ordinary pistol, they might not be able to really hurt him.
It's estimated that the reason the fat man's body shape changed was probably because he drank too much white spring water at once, causing some difference in the rate of cell division and merging in his body, which is why he was blown up like a balloon... Ugh, luckily there were only a dozen drops at the time. Zhou Ziwei estimated that if this big guy had drunk ten more drops of spring water, he would have exploded like fireworks, his flesh and blood flying everywhere.
"Hehe... Silly boy, do you feel your body full of power?" Zhou Ziwei couldn't help but laugh when he saw the pain on the skinny man's face gradually disappear and turn into an excited and curious look. He said, "From now on, you two brothers will follow me... Hmm, your Vietnamese names are too hard to pronounce, so how about I call you Ah Da and Ah Er? Well, you'll have to come back to China with me, so... you'll have to hurry up and learn Chinese."
As Zhou Ziwei spoke, he stuffed a weakened soul bead, which still contained about two remnant soul energies, into the big guy's mouth.
In any case, it's better to heal this big guy's soul trauma first. He still needs Ah Da and Ah Er to help him look after the four children. It won't do if he keeps being so dazed and confused...
Ah Er (the big guy) immediately fell into a deep coma after swallowing the soul bead that had only weakened him by about one-fifth.
Zhou Ziwei was eager to engage in a battle of wits and courage with the black market assassin network, so he naturally had no patience to wait here for A'er to wake up.
So they immediately carried Ah Da and Ah Er on their backs and took them to the helicopter in the middle of the valley. After taking Ah Er, they also took the other children who were still unconscious.
Zhou Ziwei then began a killing spree in the cave, wiping out the dozen or so unconscious mercenaries and refining their souls into soul beads.
Zhou Ziwei found himself becoming increasingly cruel. Now, killing a person or two was as casual as chopping melons and vegetables. When he chopped off a person's head, he didn't feel the slightest bit of guilt. This made him somewhat alarmed. He was worried that if he continued to develop like this, he might become a bloodthirsty demon.
Actually... in the eyes of ordinary people, killing might not be considered too evil, but refining a soul... that's something only a devil would do. Could it be that I've already become an unforgivable demon?
Considering these circumstances, Zhou Ziwei couldn't help but feel more hesitant as he continued to refine these people's souls.