So, under Ban Du's lead, Zhou Bai and he came to the laboratory. Ban Du glanced at the half-body remnant of himself in the cultivation tank, and said coldly, "That used to be me."
"To cultivate the power of the Primordial Spirit, one must inhale spiritual energy. But now that the Heavenly Dao has been twisted, the spiritual energy is polluted. As long as you inhale spiritual energy and align with the heavens, you will gradually sync with the twisted Heavenly Dao. If your will isn't strong enough, you might end up like that…"
"I see." Christina said, "No wonder you're fine, Zhou Bai. Your Primordial Spirit power was directly added by the system, not trained by yourself."
Zhou Bai pursed his lips, warily eyeing Ban Du on the side. The situation was unpredictable, so he decided to add some Primordial Spirit value later to calm his nerves.
"The teacher cut off an intact part and cloned a new me." Ban Du took a few glances at the deformity in the cultivation tank, sighed, and turned to look at Zhou Bai.
He stopped abruptly halfway, staring blankly at Zhou Bai lying on the ground, and asked in a perplexed tone, "What are you doing?"
Zhou Bai relaxedly said, "Nothing, I'm just tired and taking a rest. You don't need to mind me, continue."
"It looks like you are about to go insane too…" Ban Du shook his head, "The cost of the Primordial Spirit power is too great."
Saying that, he walked to a wall and directly opened a secret door: "When the teacher cut me, he didn't expect I'd retain a trace of consciousness and saw the secret he painstakingly hid away."
As the secret door opened, Zhou Bai's eyes suddenly narrowed.
What met his eyes was a chamber piled high with dense corpses.
Bodies of children were neatly stacked within the chamber.
Zhou Bai could even see several corpses of Elsa, Alice, and Ban Du.
Ban Du said faintly, "The teacher has always been secretly experimenting with us to cultivate the Primordial Spirit power.
In the demon class, he made us directly face the extremely dangerous twisted Heavenly Dao without our knowledge. Those statues constructed based on the twisted, evil, and fallen information of the Heavenly Dao would make one begin cultivating uncontrollably just by prolonged contact.
And once a mutation occurs, he would cut off the intact parts and use them to cultivate new clones that inherit the pre-mutation memories."
"But is the cloned me still me?"
"Zhou Bai, you and Alice come with me. Staying here is a dead end."
Zhou Bai looked at everything in the chamber in shock, numerous clues converging in his mind.
'The previous diary's mad rants… the doctor's talk of going crazy… and Ban Du's condition.'
'Christina also said that reckless cultivation might turn one mad. Is this what she meant?'
Christina tossed about in Zhou Bai's mind, "I think what Ban Du says is true. Let's hurry and escape. Dr. Zhuang looks like a dead man. He definitely isn't a good person."
Seeing Zhou Bai hesitating while lying on the ground, Ban Du said, "It's up to you whether you want to go or not. Anyway, I must take Alice away. I won't let her continue living in this hellish world."
At this moment, screams came from the hallway. Ban Du and Zhou Bai's expressions changed simultaneously, and they ran towards the direction of the hallway.
In the hallway, under flickering lights, children's bodies lay in pools of blood, utterly lifeless.
Alice, trembling all over, stood at the center of the hallway, looking at Ban Du and Zhou Bai rushing over. She bit her lips, holding back her tears, fear evident on her face.
"Alice!" Ban Du reached out, his Primordial Spirit power bursting forth.
But before his power could envelop Alice, he saw her expression freeze. Her head slammed onto the floor with a thud.
"Ah!!" Ban Du roared and rushed forward.
…
The little boy walked up to the crying black-haired girl, "My name is Ban Du. What's your name?"
The black-haired girl touched her tear-streaked face and said in a sobbing voice, "I'm Alice… I'm so hungry…"
Ban Du took out a piece of compressed biscuit from his pocket, "Here, eat this." Watching her gobble it down, Ban Du said, "Don't cry. From now on, I'll share my food with you every day."
"Really? What about you?"
"I've grown up; I eat less. And the base will get better. I'll take everyone out to find more food. No one will go hungry anymore."
Alice: "Really? You're amazing!"
…
In the darkness, an invisible blade swept across. Ban Du had already turned into an indistinct mass of flesh, splattering in front of Alice.
The slimy sounds of slithering carried through the darkness.
Zhou Bai looked at this scene in shock. His Primordial Spirit power quickly enveloped his body and extended outside.
The Primordial Spirit power skimmed over the bodies lying on the ground.
Ban Du, Alice, Elsa... familiar faces of children lying in pools of blood.
Only after sweeping over all the bodies did Zhou Bai's Primordial Spirit power touch something solid, cold, and slimy.
Hiss~ hiss~
In the darkness, a monster resembling a snake crawling on the ground, its entire body shrouded in faint black smoke, emerged. Yellow serpent eyes looked at Zhou Bai with curiosity, and it said, "Hiss~ hiss~ There's actually a child with high Primordial Spirit value left? This trip wasn't in vain."
Zhou Bai, trembling, looked at the snake-monster and coldly asked, "What are you?"
"Rescue squad, I'm the rescue squad~~ Weren't you the ones who called us over?" The snake-monster curiously examined Zhou Bai, the black smoke swirling around it, "Are you angry? Or scared? I can let you speak a few more words considering your potential."
"Run!" Christina frantically screamed in Zhou Bai's mind, "Heavenly Demon! It's a Heavenly Demon! I remember now! Run! We can't defeat it!"
Zhou Bai bitterly laughed. The opponent's body blocked both the door and ventilation ducts; escape was impossible.
"Are you Heavenly Demon?" Zhou Bai tried to buy time, "Why did you kill them?"
"Killing… needs a reason?" The snake-monster laughed, "Just a bunch of pigs. Killing them, what's the big deal. You, too, are just a pig. Why am I even talking to you?"
Swoosh!
The black fog transformed into countless blades, darting toward Zhou Bai.
Primordial Spirit power erupted to its zenith instantly, forming a shield in front of Zhou Bai.
In the explosion of cracking sounds, Zhou Bai's body, along with his Primordial Spirit power, flew backward and shattered, falling to the ground.
Zhou Bai's eyes widened, watching the world turn darker and darker, until he finally lost all signs of life.
——
Surviving Count: 1