“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
Creepy howls came over from the end of the tunnel.
It sounded like a ferocious beast on a rampage that had been skinned alive.
Very soon, a daunting shadow rushed into Li Yao and his companions’ sight after a few leaps.
It was also an officer of the Imperial Guards. Judging from his epaulet, he was of a rather high military rank.
His face, however, couldn’t have been more appalling. His head had expanded to twice the normal size. Quite a few lumps were rising high on his forehead and his temples, fluctuating like beating hearts.
His eyes were so red that they were almost purple, so purple that they were almost black. From the festering eyes, tremendous colorful, suspicious fluids were flowing out, as if his brain had entirely been turned into mucus that was being squeezed out.
Even so, he still boasted unparalleled strength. After a wave of his hands, he already tore two Imperial Guards who went forward to stop him into two pieces, their guts flowing all over the ground.
If the vitality field of the other Imperial Guards was like a lifeless river that was running at a fixed speed, the vitality field of this mad officer would be as violent as a colorful, surging vortex.
After killing a couple of soldiers in a row, he threw his head at a heavy tractor. He even tried to lift the heavy tractor that weighed hundreds of tons. His arms were squeaking, his legs deeply sank into the ground, and even his arm bones were protruding out of his elbows, but he couldn’t care less about it.
The officer had completely gone mad.
The “normal” Imperial Guards around were utterly fearless. They took the opportunity to charge forward. After paying a price of more than ten victims, they finally dealt a fatal blow at the mad officer.
The mad officer, however, was unbelievably tough. His internal organs were almost burnt up by the heating guns and the crystal guns. A devastating hole appeared on his torso. However, his wails did not die down until more than half a minute later.
At this moment, his head had expanded to three times the normal size. The few lumps on his temples and the center of his eyebrows were as swollen as grapes that might explode at any moment.
A team of soldiers wearing special helmets that looked like anti-epidemic personnel immediately went forward and dragged the corpses of the officers and the dead soldiers away into an inconspicuous branch next to the tunnel.
The rest of the Imperial Guards seemed to be too familiar with such a scene to be surprised. It took them only half a minute to restore their order and continue shipping the crystals mechanically.
Li Yao and Long Yangjun looked at each other and said at the same time, “Follow them!”
Li Yao split a few crystal cameras and followed the team of “anti-epidemic soldiers” from not far behind them.
In the meantime, he scanned the tunnel and the branch and simulated the structure in his crystal processor. When another quake took place, he powered the drill of mystic rays and crawled toward the branch.
In the end, together with Long Yangjun and Li Jialing, he put on his crystal suit and turned on the stealth mode. The three of them were melted into the environment like chameleons.
The branch was zigzagging and now high, now low. It took the anti-epidemic soldiers more than twenty minutes to finish a thousand meters and reach their destination while carrying a massive amount of bodies with floating discs.
At the end of the branch was a hole from which fire and smoke were jetting out nonstop. There seemed to be a magma pool somewhere deep down.
Huala!
The anti-epidemic soldiers threw the corpses of a few soldiers in first. The dead bodies were immediately taken away by the fire and disappeared into the smoke. Melted by the magma, they did not have a single cell left.
“Let’s do it!”
The anti-epidemic soldiers were about to throw the mad officer’s body into the magma when Li Yao and Long Yangjun dashed down. Flashing into almost ten clones, they controlled the four anti-epidemic soldiers instantly and made them fall to the ground without any sound.
For safety, Li Yao set up an alarm rune array and a sound-blocking rune array on the branch, in case the sounds here might spread out.
“Do you want me to do it, or do you want to do it yourself?”
Li Yao asked Long Yangjun.
“Let me. I have a more profound understanding of the so-called ‘brainwashing’ than you.”
Long Yangjun took out a few scalpels that were as thin as paper from her Cosmos Ring. They danced among her fingertips agilely.
Li Yao and Li Jialing helped her move the rest of the bodies, and they only kept that of the mad officer on the floating disc. Then, adjusting the anti-gravity rune array, Li Yao set the altitude of the floating disc to Long Yangjun’s chest, turning it into a simple operation stable.
Long Yangjun’s fingers turned into ten streaks of brilliance and operated on the officer’s uneven head accurately. Very soon, the shattered skull was removed, and all the broken bones were picked out, but the brain tissues inside were not damaged at all.
However, although Long Yangjun did not injure the brain tissues of the mad officer, they were already as messy as churned tofu. If Long Yangjun had not covered and supported it with spiritual energy, they would’ve spurted all over the ground.
Thankfully, Li Yao and Li Jialing were both ruthless men, or they would’ve thrown up.
Focusing her attention, Long Yangjun separated the muddled brain tissues. Three minutes later, she found what she wanted.
“Do you see it? The brain tissues here went out of control. The brain cells proliferated crazily thousands of times faster than the speed of normal metabolism, unleashing abundant heat and causing severe internal bleeding.”
Pointing at the abnormally swollen brain tissues with forceps, Long Yangjun said, “That’s the reason why his head expanded twice and why he went mad.”
Li Yao nodded to show that he understood it.
The symptom of the officer was not rare among the trainers. Many classic diseases in mental derangement would cause simple problems.
The cells inside a human body, both the body cells and the brain cells, died and grew every day. After every seven to ten days, the cells all over the body would be renewed. This process was known as “metabolism”.
Metabolism was an indispensable function to ensure the vitality and vigor of human beings.
One of the most important training methods for both the Cultivators and the Immortal Cultivators was to absorb abundant spiritual energy and accelerate the speed of metabolism of a certain region or their entire bodies through special techniques.
The renewal of all the cells in the body was known as “one cycle”. On the premise of enough resources, an expert of training could have dozens of cycles when they mediated for hours, renewing their cells dozens of times. That was why they boasted abilities far exceeded what the ordinary people were capable of.
However, it was not necessarily a good thing that the speed of metabolism was too fast.
That was because the renewal of cells would consume abundant resources and spiritual energy and also generate and discharge tremendous wastes, including the dead cells, the blood that covered the deal cells, the mucus, and even additional heat.
Such wastes had to be absorbed by the capillary vessels and shipped to the skin, where they were discharged through the pores.
That was why one would be spurting out hot steam and secreting stinky, black fluids when they were training hard.
If the speed of discharging could not keep up with the speed at which the wastes were produced, the poisonous wastes would be gathered inside the body, blocking the veins and nerves and disrupting the normal circulation of spiritual energy and body fluids. Tremendous damage would be caused, even including severe consequences such as mental derangement.
It was exactly the case for the officer.
His brain had too many “cycles” too quickly. The brain cells in a region were updated countless times, but the dead brain cells and blood were not discharged in time. Also, the heat released during the metabolism pressed and tore apart the regular brain tissues and cerebral vessels. Even the skull was blown up by the force. As a result, he was mentally deranged and went mad.
“How did it happen?”
Li Jialing couldn’t help but touch his own head. “Such abnormal expansion of the head usually happens only when one is practicing powerful techniques or advancing into a new level, right? This officer was carrying out a mission. How on earth was he mentally deranged for no good reason?”
“It’s not exactly ‘for no good reason’. Look, it was this cluster of brain tissues that had abnormalities. Many brain specialists and Meditation Healers believe that this is the area responsible for memories. They are known as ‘memory cells’.”
Long Yangjun opened the abnormal brain cells with the forceps softly and said, “Focus your spiritual energy on your eyes and set the resolution of your eyes to the highest. What can you see from here?”
Li Yao took out a pair of hazel glasses from his Cosmos Ring and handed it to Li Jialing. With the glasses, Li Jialing narrowed his eyes and observed carefully for a long time before he remarked in surprise, “Bleeding points! So many bleeding points!”
“Yes. Those bleeding points were not formed recently. They were formed because somebody repetitively stimulated the area of memory cells over the past few days, if not months.”
Long Yangjun said, “The memory cells of this officer had already been ravaged and riddled with holes. They were essentially a mess, even more vulnerable than the memory cells of the ordinary people. When something went wrong, it was possible that the repair genes of the memory cells would be triggered, leading to abnormal expansion and internal bleeding. Eventually, they caused mental derangement.”
“Human beings boast a rather powerful self-recovery system. The recovery functions of the trainers are even more impressive.”
Li Yao explained, “The memory cells of the officer have been repetitively stimulated and traumatized. So, his brain sent a special order to the cells, asking them to ‘repair the damaged cells and proliferate more cells’. However, when the order was carried too many times, things went out of control, and the crazy repair and proliferation became unrestrained, making him end up like this.
“In fact, the proliferation of body tissues is commonly seen on ordinary people too, as could be seen by the scars after wounds heal. However, for the Immortal Cultivators, their speed of metabolism and cell recovery are dozens of times higher than that of the ordinary people. Once the cells lose control, the consequences will be much more severe.
“Not just the memory cells, there’s also this spot.”
Long Yangjun began to dissect the brain tissues on the other side. “Similar phenomena of swelling and proliferation can be found here too. Some of the brain cells have been expanded more than ten times its normal size. How can he not go mad?”