Adams's rugged face contorted with deep hatred. He gripped the cannon bowstring, laughing maniacally, "You two devils! You destroyed everything I had and my life's savings, and you even killed all my brothers! I know this is my retribution, but I have no regrets. From the day I became a pirate, I knew my fate. Now, it's time for you two devils to join me on my journey. I know you're no ordinary people, but even if you're incredibly powerful, can you escape the bombardment of cannons?" With that, he abruptly pulled back the bowstring.
With a loud bang, a fiery red shell shot straight out of the thick cannon barrel, but less than five meters after leaving the barrel, the shell suddenly froze in mid-air, as if time had stopped.
Adams's ferocious expression froze instantly, then gradually relaxed, his nose wrinkled slightly, and in the blink of an eye, he went from looking fierce and hysterical to looking utterly terrified. He quickly turned around and ran towards the stern of the pirate ship, looking back as he ran. In his line of sight, the stationary cannonball suddenly changed direction by air and then flew towards him at high speed.
Adams was terrified, screaming, "Damn it!" His burly body frantically squeezed through the railings and gaps of the pirate ship. Fear gripped his heart like an invisible, icy hand. In his mind, the cannonballs were no longer cannonballs, but had become an invisible demon, chasing him with a sinister laugh.
Although Adams made several turns and crawled through a fence, the shell seemed to have eyes, relentlessly pursuing him. He turned, and the shell turned with him; he squeezed through a tiny gap, and the shell followed. No matter what, Adams couldn't escape the nightmarish pursuit of the shell.
Adams quickly reached the stern deck of the pirate ship. He turned around, gripping the last railing tightly with both hands. Behind him lay the unfathomable sea, and facing the slowly approaching, automatically firing cannonballs. His panicked face was even reflected in the gleaming yellow brass. The muscles in Adams' face twitched incessantly. He wanted to jump into the sea, even if it meant drowning, rather than being tormented to death by such a terrible thing. But his legs trembled uncontrollably, as if rooted to the spot.
The shell stopped fifty centimeters from his chest, as if frozen in place the moment it was fired from the cannon. In that instant, as Adams was momentarily stunned, the shell suddenly shot out with tremendous force, blasting Adams and a section of railing behind him away with a bang. They were then engulfed in flames before finally falling into the sea.
By this point, all the pirates had been eliminated, and the deck was littered with their corpses. The sea, which had just been filled with gunfire and smoke, returned to calm.
"Xiao Rou, your power growth seems a bit strange," Ling Yun said suddenly, glancing at the still somewhat dazed girl.
Chapter 288 The Microscopic World
"It is a bit strange," the girl said, her beautiful brows furrowing slightly. "It seems to be growing a little too fast. Based on what I learned in the underground bar, it shouldn't be this fast. However, I like this feeling." As she spoke, she smiled charmingly at Ling Yun, exuding endless allure. Looking at Xiao Rou's beautiful appearance, it was hard to imagine that just moments ago, she was a cold-blooded killer who had murdered dozens of people.
Ling Yun pondered for a moment. Everything happens for a reason; there's no such thing as power increasing too quickly without cause. Although this is good for Xiao Rou for now, it's still necessary to be cautious when the cause is unknown. He walked over and gently placed his hand on Xiao Rou's forehead, beginning to examine her internal condition with his Eye of Illusion. Since he didn't know where the problem lay, Ling Yun had no choice but to carefully examine her entire body.
Xiao Rou quietly and obediently allowed his spiritual energy field to enter her body, a shy blush appearing on her beautiful, flawless face. This examination was tantamount to Ling Yun personally touching her body, meticulously probing every inch of her skin without missing a single detail.
Although the girl was fully dressed, she was actually presenting herself completely naked before her beloved, even opening her heart wide open. Xiao Rou wasn't the traditional type of girl; her attitude towards sex was neither open nor conservative. If the person she liked wanted it, Xiao Rou wouldn't particularly refuse. Under Ling Yun's gentle, warm touch, the girl suddenly felt very comfortable, feeling both excited and involuntarily expectant. She closed her beautiful, clear eyes, her long eyelashes trembling, her rosy lips slightly parted, and the temperature of her snow-white, jade-like skin rapidly rose, becoming slightly hot.
Ling Yun noticed his girlfriend's unusual behavior, but he was focused on probing Xiao Rou's internal condition and had no time to analyze the cause. His mental field, equipped with the Eye of Illusion, had already circulated through the girl's body more than a dozen times, but to no avail. Both her mental field and body were perfectly normal. Compared to Xiao Rou when she was seriously injured a few months ago, not only had her injuries fully recovered, but her mental field had also strengthened several times over.
Ling Yun frowned. Finding nothing didn't mean he would give up. Xiao Rou was just as important to him as his own safety. If he couldn't find the cause, Ling Yun would always be burdened by this heavy weight. Unbeknownst to him, this incredibly beautiful girl had become the most important person in his heart.
After a moment's thought, Ling Yun's eyes suddenly flashed with a golden light, a sign that the Eye of Illusion was fully activated. Since breaking Mochizuki Nami's Blood Sacrifice Illusion Technique, the Eye of Illusion's function had reached a level that Ling Yun himself could not have imagined. If he relied on his senses, the Eye of Illusion should now be able to observe the movement and appearance at the two extreme levels of the most microscopic and the most macroscopic. This naturally included the genes of the observed. However, Ling Yun had not used it before and did not know what impact it would have on Xiao Rou. Therefore, he was extremely cautious in every move he made.
Ling Yun was suddenly startled as two soft, smooth arms wrapped around his waist and back, followed by a soft, fragrant body that nestled into his arms, filling him with a warm, soft embrace. Ling Yun was about to speak when Xiao Rou's two hot, red lips pressed against his, kissing him deeply.
Ling Yun couldn't help but reach out and embrace his girlfriend's incredibly supple waist, intimately and passionately entwined with Xiao Rou. Of course, even with a beautiful young woman in his arms, Ling Yun didn't forget what he was doing, or rather, he was kissing and probing simultaneously. That's the advantage of being a superhuman; you can multitask. While savoring the girl's fragrant, soft lips, he was also sending his mental energy field into the microscopic depths of Xiao Rou's genes.
A fine, invisible thread of mental energy shot out from Ling Yun's fingertip, instantly transforming into the most subtle mental force tendril in the world. It entered the genetic level of the double helix structure of the DNA in a cell within Xiao Rou's body through the gaps in her skin. This was a magical world, a world invisible to the naked eye. Humanity's understanding of itself was also lower than its understanding of this vast universe.
Although Ling Yun's telekinetic manipulation had reached a master level, it was still far from sufficient to condense his mental energy field to a fraction of ten negative, the size of a bacterium. Even if his telekinetic manipulation level were several levels higher, it wouldn't be possible. This completely exceeded the limits of a superhuman. Just as a mosquito cannot push a truck, or a finger cannot pick up a bacterium, once the difference reaches a certain point, it results in a qualitative difference.
However, the evolved Eye of Illusion solved all of this perfectly. Due to its dual macroscopic and microscopic functions, the Eye of Illusion allowed Ling Yun's mental field to transform into telekinetic tentacles the same size as his genes. These invisible tentacles were filled with ultra-miniature senses, capable of transmitting genetic changes to Ling Yun's mind without missing a single detail. The replication ability then analyzed the data brought back by these senses. After analyzing the genetic composition and the reasons for the changes, the data presented itself in a simple way that Ling Yun could understand and make corresponding changes. Through the combination of several supernatural abilities, Ling Yun had become an artificial intelligent computer, capable of processing massive amounts of information and data simultaneously and flawlessly.
The tentacles extracted a three-dimensional fragment of Xiaorou's gene and began to investigate. Because genes have an equal homogenizing effect, checking a part is as effective as checking the whole, and it can also narrow down the scope. Since the problem does not originate from changes in the mental energy field within the body, it must stem from changes at the genetic level, because this is the source of power for superhumans, and all superpowers and techniques originate from it.
Xiaorou and Lingyun embraced tightly, their bodies forming an ambiguous, languid posture. From a distance, they would only appear as a couple passionately embracing and kissing, with no indication that Lingyun had already entered the depths of Xiaorou's body. Xiaorou felt as if she were sitting in a warm pool of water, her entire body feeling warm and comfortable, an indescribable comfort. She even felt herself drifting off to sleep in Lingyun's broad chest. This feeling was so wonderful that Xiaorou even opened her mind, her heart filled with a tenderness like water.
An almost endless stream of information swept through the tentacles like flowing water. There was a large amount of data rich in regularity. Without the analysis of the replication ability, Ling Yun would not know what the data meant. A glimpse reveals the whole picture. Even gene fragments that were less than a micrometer in size were as profound as the ocean.
Gradually, the data pieced together a rough sketch in Ling Yun's mind. It was the genetic map of normal humans that Ling Yun was familiar with and understood. Obviously, human technology had reached this level, but it could not go any further. The understanding of the microscopic level had not made any better progress, almost just like the understanding of the macroscopic level.
Xiao Rou's gene fragments flickered with star-like points of light, seemingly moving, occasionally flashing in an incomprehensible pattern across the vast amount of genetic information. This was not found in normal human genes. Each flash represented a mutated gene in an ability user. Of course, only those with the "Vision Eye" could make such a comparison. Other ability users, even if they could see the microscopic genetic map, could not distinguish which part was the mutated ability user's gene and which part was normal.
With the replication ability as a faithful backup, countless data that matched the gene map were filtered out at the fastest speed. What remained were gene fragments that were asymmetrical with the gene map. However, the replication ability's security function did not alarm, which means that the asymmetrical DNA information is actually the gene mutation of the ability user. For Ling Yun, this also provides a golden finger tool to open up new ideas for the Hand of God. The brain faithfully records these mutated gene data, and there will be many more places to use them in the future.
Based on current perceptions, Xiaorou's genes have not shown any abnormalities. According to Lingyun's detection results, Xiaorou's genes possess perfect fusion power, and the areas with large gene mutations are still filled with blank spaces. The light spots are only moving back and forth within a small range. This might not seem meaningful to outsiders, but Lingyun knows that it means Xiaorou has enormous untapped potential. The range of the gene mutation light spots represents the approximate limit of the ability user's current strength and potential. The larger the area of the light spots, the greater the potential user's future growth space. Judging from the current movement area of the light spots, Xiaorou should at least reach the level of a general.
The tentacle suddenly trembled violently, like a high-speed motorcycle suddenly crashing into an uneven dirt road. The sensory input surged back with an unexpectedly large amount of data. Ling Yun was startled and quickly examined the anomaly on the gene fragment. The data returned by the sensory input indicated that during the detection process, countless tiny bioelectric waves suddenly rose from the gene fragment. The energy released by these waves was extremely small, perhaps imperceptible even at the microscopic level, yet the sensory input on the tentacle easily detected them. The tiny electrical charge couldn't harm the tentacle, nor could it block the sensory input; it only caused the tentacle to vibrate—this was the reason for the tremor.
Ling Yun observed the suddenly emerging bioelectric waves with astonishment. The data from the replicated ability told him that even mutated ability users' genes wouldn't automatically generate bioelectricity. The only conclusion was that the bioelectric waves came from another source, not from Xiao Rou's body. Due to the attractive force of electrons, under the influence of different waves, the light spots in Xiao Rou's gene region seemed to be stimulated, moving faster and faster. Moreover, as the speed increased, the range of movement of the mutated gene light spots also expanded, with bioelectric energy constantly being poured into them. This was the main reason why Xiao Rou's strength had increased so rapidly.
Although the origin of bioelectric waves is unknown, even the Eye of Deception has found nothing about them. These bioelectric waves seem to be generated out of thin air. In fact, given the complex structure of the human body and the massive amount of genetic information in genes, any chemical substance and physical phenomenon can actually be explained and deduced at the microscopic level. However, this deduction involves the most complex and cutting-edge technology, which is far beyond the comprehension of the current human brain. Even the most advanced computers cannot process it. Everything can only be summed up in two words: mystery.
However, Ling Yun felt slightly relieved because he discovered that the bioelectric waves contained regular fluctuations, and the timing of stimulating gene fragments was also very fixed, often forming a cyclical pattern that repeated itself. After the gene fragments absorbed energy, the stimulation of the electrical waves was increased again, and then the cycle repeated, forming a benign system.
Because the gene fragments of the superhuman are constantly absorbing and growing stronger after receiving energy, Xiao Rou is growing almost every moment. Of course, this growth is not limitless. When the power reaches a certain level, the current stimulation of bioelectric waves will be ineffective. As for whether the power will be increased, Ling Yun does not know. Moreover, his perception also makes Ling Yun vaguely feel that the generation of the electric waves should be related to Xiao Rou's state of mind. Without a state of mind, it is impossible for bioelectric waves to exist. Moreover, this state of mind seems to have formed some kind of intuitive connection with him. As for how to explore this connection, that is beyond Ling Yun's ability.
Knowing the reason, Ling Yun slowly withdrew his mental energy field from his girlfriend's body, letting it flow back into his own body like water. Ling Yun suddenly felt extremely tired. From the beginning to the end of the microscopic exploration, only a few minutes had passed, but Ling Yun was already drenched in sweat, as if he had been engaged in a prolonged battle with a powerful opponent. His mental and physical strength had reached their maximum limits. Xiao Rou was gently holding him, reaching out to lightly wipe the sweat from his forehead.
"Yun, are you alright? Why are you so tired? Have you found out what's wrong?" Xiao Rou had no idea what Ling Yun had just done, but seeing his exhausted appearance, she couldn't help but feel a little sorry for him and gently hugged him as she asked.
Ling Yun glanced at her and immediately felt much better. No matter what, his girlfriend's comfort always gave him the greatest warmth. "It's nothing, it's just that the detection took a bit of mental energy. I'll be fine after a rest," Ling Yun said softly. Suddenly, a strange feeling welled up from the bottom of his heart. Having just come out of the microscopic world and returned to the normal world, the huge contrast suddenly gave him a feeling of being one with the world. This feeling was like inspiration, fleeting but giving him endless inspiration and a newer, more profound realm of understanding. In just an instant, Ling Yun suddenly understood many things he couldn't understand before, and his eyes suddenly became clear and bright, as if he were seeing a completely new world.
Suddenly, the Heavenly Eye flew out of the silver ball pendant on Xiao Rou's chest on its own, and once again spun around and landed on Ling Yun's brow, injecting streams of cool energy into Ling Yun's body.
Chapter 289 The King of Superpowers
Xiao Rou released Ling Yun, and the two of them watched the changes in the Heavenly Eye together. As Ling Yun's superpowers rapidly recovered, the Heavenly Eye left Ling Yun's brow again, then flew back into the silver sphere pendant and settled down again. This had happened twice before, the last time being at the Superpowers Headquarters. Each time, the Heavenly Eye automatically replenished Ling Yun's energy, but no matter how much the two investigated afterward, they couldn't understand the motivation behind the Heavenly Eye's actions. The Heavenly Eye was like a mysterious treasure with its own consciousness, constantly producing incomprehensible anomalies, yet they couldn't discern the source of these anomalies and could only passively wait.
However, it seems that the Heavenly Eye has always been particularly fond of Ling Yun. Xiao Rou had never seen the Heavenly Eye make any unusual movements during the more than three years she was on the run, but after meeting Ling Yun, such unusual movements have occurred no less than three times. However, since they could not find out the reason, the two of them lost interest in it.
Ling Yun stretched his arms, feeling incredibly comfortable, as if he were basking in the scorching winter sun. Suddenly, his arms froze in mid-air, and a sense of surprise rose involuntarily from his heart. In just a moment, his mental energy field seemed to be different from before. After replenishing his depleted supernatural power with the Heavenly Eye, a surging power suddenly erupted from his body automatically. The powerful mental energy field even made Ling Yun lose control for a moment, automatically overflowing from his body surface and instantly enveloping him in a tangible silver light.
Xiao Rou gasped in surprise, involuntarily pushed back by Ling Yun's mental force field, and asked in astonishment, "What are you doing, Yun?"
Ling Yun quickly withdrew his mental energy field back into his body and grasped her small hand: "I didn't touch you, did I? I just lost control of my mental energy field a little. The Heavenly Eye replenished my superpower, and it seems to have changed a bit from before."
"It's okay, I felt it too," Xiaorou said. "It seems that after you probed my body, there was a subtle change in your mental field. By the way, did you find anything unusual in my body?"
Ling Yun recounted what he had perceived in the microscopic world. Xiao Rou was immediately shocked. She stared intently at Ling Yun. Although they were both superhumans, Ling Yun's abilities far exceeded the scope of supernatural arts. In other words, he was a superhuman among superhumans. Not only could he enter the microscopic realm, but he could also perceive the laws governing gene flow within the vast amount of information at the microscopic level, and even use supernatural arts to alter these laws. What did this mean?
Xiao Rou instantly sensed Ling Yun's power; it was on a completely different level. Given time, if Ling Yun possessed extremely high superpowers, he would become the king of superpowers.
"I wonder what the secret of the Heavenly Eye is?" Ling Yun sighed. Almost all his experiences were related to this black bead whose secrets remained undiscovered. Over the past fifty years, countless powerful individuals had perished because of the Heavenly Eye. It seemed insignificant, yet it had become the most important treasure in the world of supernatural beings, even subtly influencing the course of certain patterns. The more Ling Yun grew and became stronger, the more he felt the mystery and power of the Heavenly Eye.
He suddenly recalled Theodore's solemn words before their parting, suggesting that the Heavenly Eye was related to some important religious ceremony. However, he wondered why the dark creatures had sent such a powerful duke to seize the Heavenly Eye. Ling Yun couldn't help but feel a sense of unease.
In his opinion, there was no need for Xiaorou to carry the Heavenly Eye with her at all times. Possessing the Heavenly Eye might seem like having the most important treasure in the world, but in reality, it was just a black bead whose secrets could never be fully understood. The most likely scenario was that the Heavenly Eye would constantly bring about deadly disasters. Whether this black bead would bring good fortune or misfortune was still hard to say; it had even become a hot potato. No one could handle it; they would likely get burned first.