Northeast Ye Hu held a pistol, aiming the muzzle at the severely damaged No. 2 workshop!
The scene of the massive explosion in front of him made him grit his teeth in anger.
All of this destruction was the result of his years of hard work!
But more than anger, he felt vigilant!
Out of the corner of his eye, he faintly saw something fall into the pipeline below the boiler at the center of the explosion. However, upon closer inspection, there was no trace of it.
"Could it be my imagination?" Northeast Ye Hu felt a slight nervousness in his heart!
"Inform the operators on the first floor to close the pipeline valve! It must be completely sealed!" he ordered.
"Also, bring the mechanics from below and have them find a way to temporarily seal off this pipeline in the boiler. Otherwise, there will be danger..." he instructed one of his subordinates.
After the subordinate left, Northeast Ye Hu remained extremely vigilant as he approached the pipeline at the center of the boiler.
The depths of this pipeline were pitch black, giving off a sinister feeling as if it could swallow one's soul.
Northeast Ye Hu swallowed hard.
"Boss, are you worried about what we saw the first time we came here?" his subordinate asked.
Northeast Ye Hu didn't speak, just nodded slightly.
It was evident that this subordinate had been with Northeast Ye Hu for a long time. At this moment, he, like Northeast Ye Hu, looked down at the pipeline below and aimed his gun menacingly.
Jia Yan felt like he had entered a bottomless black hole!
The descent was rapid, and he kept colliding with sharp objects, intensifying the pain in his already injured body!
Fortunately, the solid clots outside his body were extremely hard, allowing him to endure numerous collisions without suffering significant injuries.
While his body was still undergoing mutation, the effects seemed to be different this time under the shockwave of the boiler explosion!
Previously, he could sense his body and internal organs expanding, as if he would grow larger again with the help of the black liquid. But now, due to the shockwave's influence, this mutation process was reversed!
The sensation of expansion ceased, and Jia Yan felt that all his organs were now congealing!
This was a mutation direction chosen by his instinct for survival!
The previous explosions and the current collisions had led his body to choose a different path in this mutation process!
Instead of growing larger, it opted for a hardened defense!
The clots on his body were not temporary!
Jia Yan could sense that these clots would accompany him for some time until he found the possibility of the next mutation.
And the mechanism behind their formation was similar to the cocoon formed by insects of the order Diptera, but it had completely transcended the category of a cocoon. It had simply become a defensive shell, solidifying outside the exoskeleton and hardening hundreds of times stronger than a cocoon!
Complete defense! Even the internal organs, which no longer grew, were mutating towards a more robust form.
The impact of the explosions and the collisions with sharp objects had prompted his body to focus on defense!
So, Jia Yan managed to survive the deadly collisions time and time again! And these near-fatal collisions further promoted adjustments to his body!
The more disastrous the collision, as long as it wasn't fatal, the more evident the trend of mutation!
Jia Yan had no idea where he was. He didn't simply fall from the second floor to the first floor; it seemed like there was an endless space below.
He kept falling, kept colliding, and kept falling...
This process repeated, and Jia Yan's already dazed mind became even more confused.
The world seemed to sink lower with each fall. It felt like the voices he heard and the sensations he felt were drifting away from him.
He was isolated in a space devoid of light and sensation.
The darkness was terrifying.
Jia Yan had no choice but to watch these events unfold before him.
When the last shred of external sensory perception finally disappeared completely.
Jia Yan could faintly feel his body "pounding" onto a hard object...
Then, all sensory functions completely shut down!
Time seemed meaningless, and space seemed meaningless.
Jia Yan was like a lonely drifting soul in his own space.
The only comforting thing here was that he still felt like a human, albeit without light. The sensation of his fingers, toes, and facial features was still intense.
He knew that all of this was just his dream or illusion.
But even so, being able to feel like a human again was a very happy thing!
Loneliness remained loneliness.
Just as Jia Yan finally began to doubt whether he was dead...
Crack!
Crack, crack!
Crack, crack, crack!!
Finally, some kind of external sound was perceived by his auditory organs!
In the dark and deep space.
A sturdy object resembling a rock, nestled among a pile of rubble, whether it was alive or not was uncertain.
It was like any other solid rock around it, devoid of any signs of life.
Crack...
And not far from this rock.
In the dark space, pairs of massive feet were slowly moving in this dark and profound place.
Crack, crack, crack!
Some gravel was crushed under these feet, rolling to the side.
These feet belonged to a strange monster!
This monster had a slender body, with segments forming an astonishing length!
In total, twenty-one pairs of legs and corresponding segments, judging from appearance alone, it was a typical "centipede"!
However, its body length was unbelievable for a centipede alone. Its enormous body and shiny carapace distinguished it from a true centipede, seeming to belong to a creature from another world!
This was a super-giant centipede with a body that was fire-red in color, bucket-like in girth, and over two and a half meters in length!
If there were any biologists here, they would be utterly astonished because there was no way such a giant centipede could exist in the current world, let alone one with seemingly poisonous attributes, an absolute nightmare for humans!
Crack, crack...
This super-giant centipede was slowly crawling on the ground.
It seemed to sense something and began to search through a pile of rubble with its long body.
Its grim and terrifying lip legs overturned one rock after another.
When it finally overturned a small, compact, yet hard and black "rock," the centipede stopped searching.
It began to manipulate what it considered to be a small "rock"!
Perhaps because the "rock" didn't respond, or perhaps it didn't sense anything unusual about this small rock.
So, the massive fire-red centipede gave up its search, and its twenty-one pairs of legs began to crawl away, making a "crack, crack, crack" sound...
Not long after the centipede left.
Snap!
Snap, snap, snap!
The small "rock" that had been manipulated by the fire-red centipede finally showed signs of movement!
The surface of the black "creature," resembling a strange organism about ten centimeters in size, began to crack!
If the fiery red centipede from earlier had tried to bite this strange "stone," it might have tasted a fresh delicacy from the outside world. But who bites stones for fun anyway? So, the fiery red centipede left the scene.
And shortly after its departure, the stone unexpectedly began to move!
More and more cracks appeared on the surface of the stone!
With crisp and loud cracking sounds echoing.
Finally, after reaching a certain limit, a continuous series of crisp noises ensued, and the dark substance covering the surface of the stone completely peeled off.
A robustly shaped, giant black mosquito, about ten centimeters in length, emerged in this pitch-dark world where one couldn't see their own hand in front of their face!
The appearance of this mosquito was unlike any other mosquito in the world.
Although it could still be recognized as a mosquito at first glance, the overall feeling was completely different!
Robust, sturdy, and massive! That was the first impression this mosquito gave.
Yes, this mosquito was none other than Jia Yan, who had successfully undergone his third mutation after consuming the black liquid from the factory's metal pool and enduring countless hardships!
Jia Yan's current body was only about thirteen centimeters long, and this third mutation did not further increase his size.
Of course, there was a reason for this. Jia Yan had already sensed that the effect of this third mutation was entirely focused on strengthening his own defense!
Originally, he could have increased his size by ten times or even leaped directly to a version of a giant mosquito measuring thirty to fifty centimeters. However, this effect had now been completely condensed into enhancing his current sturdy physique!
Feeling the weight and solidity of his body, Jia Yan didn't know how powerful he was now. Even though he hadn't continued to grow larger, he knew that his power system had completely reached the level it should have been. In other words, even though he was still only thirteen centimeters long, his strength level was still that of a half-meter-long body!
This level of power had exceeded Jia Yan's imagination. He even vaguely pondered whether the strength level in certain parts of his body had reached or even exceeded that of humans!
A mosquito only thirteen centimeters in size, yet possessing human-level strength?
This was absolutely terrifying!
It could only be said that the effect of that black liquid was truly formidable!
"So... where is this? And what was that gigantic centipede just now?"