Book 4 Chapter 22.5 - Heart of Darkness
A war erupted within Su's chest. Every piece of flesh that made contact with that heart was immediately crushed into minced meat, but new flesh and blood would quickly fill in this now emptied space, firmly wrapping around this heart. Large amounts of intruder cells were infused into that heart. The destroyed tissues were reabsorbed by the body, with cells that did not die changed into intruder cells and funneled back into the attack sequence, and cells that did die absorbed and changed into basic nutrients to resupply his body's energy needs.
After repeated battles, several blood vessels finally connected, revolving around the heart and forming a passage into the heart of darkness. Large amounts of blood poured into the heart, and then it was completely torn apart, absorbed, converted, and turned into a muddled stream that was sprayed outwards. Su's losses were great, but the persistent attacks of his intruder cells put an incredibly great burden on the heart, causing the number of combat cells it released to continuously decrease. Unlike the intruder cells of countless changes, the combat cells the heart of darkness produced were all the same. Even though their combat strength was extremely great, it was only equivalent to the combat cells the nucleus produced. As such, under the overwhelming numbers of the intruder cells, they were still forced back bit by bit.
After who knew how much time had passed, the heart of darkness' resistance finally reached its first critical point. A rumbling noise sounded within Su's brain, indicating that he had already linked up with the heart of darkness. A sea of images and knowledge poured into Su's memory.
The heart of darkness didn't belong to this world, the term 'heart' was just what the human race used after using their own bodies as a reference. Its true function was to serve as some unknown creatures' power source. It could adapt to any environment no matter how vile it was, and it possessed exceptional regeneration and cloning abilities, possessing a seemingly everlasting lifespan. From a biological standpoint, it could completely be called a super life form. During the endless time after it separated from its main body, it gradually produced a consciousness and intellect of its own, and if it completely awoke, then it could completely grow into an unimaginably great living body!
As of this moment, Su already reached the initial steps of controlling the heart of darkness, seizing the most basic level of authority. Aside from becoming a main power source, Su also acquired a portion of the heart of darkness' memories and knowledge. A new biological energy system was constructed within his body in order to match with this heart of darkness. If one opened up Su's chest, one would see that this heart of darkness that had numerous blood vessels wrapped around it was slowly pulsating rhythmically. Apart from its dark black exterior, it almost didn't seem any different from a normal heart, and it was similar to its structure when it was under Ruler's control. However, in reality, the two were entirely different. Ruler controlled it through binding it up, preventing the heart from awakening, and when it did awaken, he kept its activity at an extremely minimal level. Meanwhile, Su directly seized access to the heart of darkness, even though it was still just the initial stages.
Right now, the heart of darkness throbbed once every five minutes, and the energy it produced was equivalent to a third of what Su's entire body produced during this period of time. This made it so that should he need to redistribute his body's energy, his ability to do so was correspondingly increased. Even though the range of his panoramic view didn't increase, its clarity and degree of probing was once again upgraded. Moreover, after obtaining this abundant supply of energy, the reaction speed of Su's brain also increased, making it so that even when he used Extreme Assault, this increase in data processing speed allowed Su to make some further adjustments in precision. The ability Extreme Assault itself also received a direct amplification. Under the circumstances that he didn't replenish his stamina, Su could increase the uses from three times to five times, at the cost of decreasing the distance of the attack by a hundred meters, but the speed of the assault would increase. In addition, due to his body becoming stronger, the time it took for Su to enter extreme speed similarly shortened. Under the support of tremendous amounts of energy, Su only needed one second to break through the sound barrier.
From what he currently understood, the heart of darkness had a total of seven levels of authority. Right now, Su had only unraveled the first level. What he had to do from here on out was to gradually attack and break down the heart of darkness' defenses to obtain higher levels of authority. However, even though it was just the initial level of authority, Su already found many ways to strengthen himself through his analysis of the heart of darkness' composition and genes. As his level of authority increased, his benefits should become greater as well.
Ruler's body was still floating on the blue colored liquid. To actually serve as a prison for the heart of darkness meant that Ruler's body was, in fact, quite unique, as well as sufficiently powerful. Even though he lost consciousness, his body still instinctively repaired the injuries, making him look perfectly okay, as if Ruler was just sleeping. His body floated in the blue liquid, passively absorbing nutrients as well. Ruler's body had already stopped its activity, but his body might live for many years to come.