Volume 13 Ancient Bronze City Ruins Chapter 641 His Power
Even if you block the signals transmitted by the pain nerves directly, it will be useless... This kind of pain is born directly from the depths of the source of consciousness. To use a more childish term, it is "pain that goes straight to the soul."
Ke Lan felt that her self-consciousness was on the verge of collapse. On the verge of extreme pain, she seemed to have a sense of ecstasy as if she was about to soar into a higher-dimensional world...
"Fuck... am I a masochist?" He didn't know why, but at this critical moment, this kind of nonsense flashed through his mind. "No, that's not right. I was the center of the group when playing with the young lady. How could I be a masochist?"
As time passed, the unbearable pain gradually subsided, and Ke Lan's mind gradually returned to clarity - he was shocked to find that he and the other members of the team were standing in a huge pit that was thousands of meters deep. As far as the eye could see, the ground was covered with remnants of rotten tissue, and even the walls of the pit were covered with rapidly shrinking flesh and blood... In just a dozen seconds, the original erosion seed that had originally stretched across the wilderness like a mountain range had almost completely disappeared, and its corpse had evaporated like snow under the scorching sun, leaving only the disgusting stench in this huge pit.
"Ke Lan - are you, are you okay?" Ivan asked hurriedly when he saw Ke Lan standing up.
"Probably, perhaps, possibly it's okay..." Ke Lan touched the back of his head. Fortunately, his hair was still there... With the burning sensation just now, he almost thought that he was going to be burned into a bald head again.
"Are you sure?" Ivan pushed the goggles on his nose. This thing is not just a pair of goggles, but a high-tech detection device with multiple functions, similar to the AR glasses worn by Lin Qiming's secretary. However, the one Ivan wore was a custom-made model designed specifically for medical personnel.
When he looked at Ke Lan, all kinds of red alarm prompts on his lenses were flashing.
"The absorption process just now was quite painful, but now I don't seem to feel anything." Ke Lan shrugged and replied.
"Do you know what your body temperature is now?" Ivan's tone was a little stiff.
"How much?" Ke Lan was stunned for a moment and put his palm on his forehead. "Looking at you, it shouldn't be 37 degrees Celsius, right? But I don't feel my skin is very hot."
"If this thing isn't broken..." Ivan tapped the frame of the goggles with the tip of his index finger, "It detects your body temperature, which is... sixty-five degrees Celsius."
"Sixty-five degrees Celsius?" Ke Lan was stunned. Ordinary people are already in danger of life when their body temperature reaches over forty degrees Celsius. Although the body temperature of enhanced and modified people is higher than that of natural humans, it rarely exceeds fifty degrees Celsius... and with a value of sixty-five degrees Celsius, if it were Layton, the alarm on his prosthetic central control chip would have been ringing non-stop.
The most important thing is that Ke Lan herself did not feel any heat, and the temperature of her skin was the same as usual.
"That's not right... Could it be that your glasses are broken?" Ke Lan asked subconsciously.
Ivan turned his gaze to other people, and the alarm on his lenses went off immediately. The monitoring values also returned to the normal threshold. But when he turned his head to look at Ke Lan again, the temperature reading began to jump up again.
"There's nothing wrong with the equipment." Ivan shook his head.
"Then feel it yourself to see if I have a fever." Ke Lan stretched out her wrist to Ivan.
Sixty-five degrees Celsius, this number is exaggerated as a body temperature, but if it is just a temperature reading, it is at most equivalent to a cup of warm water, far from being hot. Ivan didn't think much about it, he took off his gloves and grabbed Ke Lan's wrist.
Ke Lan's wrist was not hot at all, not even warm. All Ivan could feel by touching it was a strange coolness. Combined with the tough yet delicate and smooth texture of Ke Lan's skin, he almost suspected that he was not holding a human wrist, but the limb of some cold-blooded animal with smooth skin.
"Strange?" This time it was Ivan's turn to be stunned. He looked at the flashing red warning sign on his lens and the body temperature that had soared to nearly 70 degrees. However, the things he touched were so cold that they didn't seem like those of a warm-blooded creature... He couldn't help but start to wonder if there was something wrong with the equipment or his own sensory organs.
"Hey, it's true. I just turned on the temperature detection system... Tsk, it's even more exaggerated than your glasses, doctor. It directly shows that Ke Lan's body temperature is over 100 degrees Celsius--" Layton shouted, "If you hold his wrist like this, won't your hand be roasted?"
"If you don't believe me, try it yourself." Ivan let go of Ke Lan's wrist and took a step back.
"Eh?" Layton hesitated. "It's over a hundred degrees Celsius. Even though I'm a cyborg, I'm still a mortal..."
"Does my hand look like it's in trouble?" Ivan asked.
"I think both of your devices are broken... ahem." Thirty-three rolled his eyes at the two of them and said to himself, "If the temperature around Ke Lan's body could be that high, the light would have been distorted due to the change in gas density. But do you see this phenomenon now?"
"That seems to be the case..." Leighton reached out his hand doubtfully and touched Ke Lan's arm, "Hiss... why is it so cold? Like... like a fucking corpse..."
"If you don't know how to speak, you don't have to say anything..." Ke Lan looked at Layton speechlessly, "Don't curse me to death either."
"No, I was just making an analogy... But then again, your temperature is obviously not even 37 degrees Celsius, right? It can't be that Ivan's and my equipment are malfunctioning at the same time, right?"
At this moment, Ze Luo suddenly came over, walked around Ke Lan, then raised his head and said, "Your temperature measurement system uses the principle of infrared temperature measurement, right?"
"Yes." Layton replied, "I don't know what the structure of Ivan's glasses is, but nowadays, most of the devices that can measure temperature at a long distance use infrared."
"That's right." Ze Luo said, "Although Ke Lan's body temperature is not that high, there is a very terrifying energy flowing in his body now. A small part of this energy has overflowed from his body surface. Although it is only a little, it is enough to cause huge interference to your detection equipment."
"Energy? Are you referring to the drop of blood that Ke Lan absorbed?" Layton muttered, "At first I thought that after he absorbed that stuff, even if he didn't become a giant like the Original Corrosion Seed, he would at least be like the Hulk in the movie."
"Speaking of changes..." Ivan pondered for a moment, then looked up at Alexander who was a few kilometers away. "You have now absorbed the blood of the original erosion seed. Can you kill that thing?"
"I don't know... To be honest, if Ze Luo hadn't been able to 'see' the energy flow in my body, I would have even doubted that I hadn't absorbed that drop of blood at all." Ke Lan said with difficulty, "But apart from the pain I felt when I absorbed it just now, I didn't feel any changes in my body, even the living armor--"
As he spoke, Ke Lan's arms were instantly covered with a layer of blood-red armor.
"The living armor has changed a bit. It has changed from a blood scab-like texture to a ruby-like, crystal-clear texture. Its hardness has also increased a bit... But it's impossible to kill Alexander with just this change."
After Ke Lan finished speaking, he reached out and pressed the earphone: "You have been silent since a while ago. Now that the original erosion seed is dead and I have absorbed the blood of the true god, shouldn't you say something?"
"I thought you could guess it." The information dealer said meaningfully.
"Guess what?"
"If you regard the blood of God as a box containing power, then if you want to open the box and release the contents, you still need a key."
"Can you please stop telling riddles at this time?"
"Well, it's actually very simple. It's not enough to just obtain His power. You also need His permission before you can use this power."
"His...permission?"
"You should have mastered the method of communicating with that being, right?" the information dealer said. "Even those mediocre black-robed cardinals in the heretical sects can do it. With your 'capital', you should be able to make Him keep his gaze on you for a while, right?"
"You mean...'Holy Word'?!" Ke Lan's breath suddenly stopped.
"Is there any other way?"
"All right……"
Ke Lan glanced at the Blasphemer and said, "Valentina, you are responsible for getting everyone out of the battlefield. This place... will soon become unsafe."
"What are you going to do?!" Ivan grabbed Ke Lan and said, "The Holy Words refers to the sacrificial ceremony of those black cardinals, right? Are you planning to sacrifice yourself?"
"No, no, no... I'm different from those black cardinals. In fact, I have used this ability before." Ke Lan said.
"when?"
"During the East 9th District incident, the mixed team of the Security Bureau and the Garrison Corps encountered Arasaka Yui, whose body was highly mutated... Well, at that time I thought she was transformed into a radioactive monster, but now I see that Arasaka Yui is very likely a black cardinal." Ke Lan continued , "In the face of overwhelming power, the entire team was almost wiped out, with only Victoria and I surviving. In order to get rid of Arasaka Yui, I was determined to die and imitated the black cardinal I met before, reciting that prayer in Alpha language..."
"And then?" Ivan asked.
"Then Arasaka Yui died... To be more precise, she was completely wiped out from this world. Nothing was left."
"What about you? Shouldn't using this ability have serious side effects?" Ivan's speech speed was getting faster and faster. "According to the records of the Security Bureau, no one of the black cardinals who initiated the sacrificial ceremony survived afterwards, regardless of whether the ceremony was successful or not... The mortality rate is 100%!"
"I also said that I am different from those black-robed cardinals..." Ke Lan said, "After using the power of that 'God' to kill Arasaka Yui, nothing abnormal happened to my body..."
"But the situation is different now! Do you think Arasaka Yui can be compared with someone like Alexander?" Ivan said firmly, "Although I know very little about the principles of the sacrificial ceremony, I know very well that the most important rule is 'equivalent exchange'!"
"What is equivalent exchange?" Layton on the side seemed a little confused, "Doctor, what are you talking about? I don't understand at all..."
"Equivalent exchange means that you get power in exchange for the price you pay." Ivan said word by word. "The essence of the sacrificial ceremony is a transaction. The weights on both sides of the scale are the sacrifices you can offer to the gods and the power the gods can give you... Specifically, in the case of the black cardinals, the stronger the lives they sacrifice, the stronger the monsters they can summon... And the price you need to pay to defeat a behemoth like Alexander is imaginable."
"That is to say, even if Ke Lan can kill this big guy, he himself will definitely die, right?" Leighton's face was a little pale.
"That's basically it." Ivan nodded vigorously.
"No." Ke Lan shook her head. "I think you got one thing mixed up."
"What's up?"
"Although the essence of the 'Holy Word' is the same as the sacrificial ritual, I am not a sacrifice. How can I be sacrificed?" Ke Lan took a deep breath and said to everyone, "The reason why those black cardinals died is because they were trying to get something for nothing. Apart from their own lives, there was nothing to sacrifice. But I am different. I have obtained this drop of God's blood. The power to defeat Alexander lies in this drop of blood. Why should I sacrifice myself to exchange power for that god?"
"But--"
"Don't worry, Ze Luo, Valentina, take them away." Ke Lan said firmly, "I'll give you ten minutes, run as far away from the battlefield as possible... Wait a minute, I don't know what will happen, but it will definitely not be a small scene."
"Okay." Ze Luo nodded. Ivan and Layton were about to step forward to stop Ke Lan, but they found that their bodies were unable to move. In a blink of an eye, they were thrown by Ze Luo onto the back of the Blasphemer mecha.
"Try not to die." Sanshisan nodded to Ke Lan, "At least don't die before me." Then he also climbed onto the machine.
As for Asano Akira, he handed the sword in his hand to Ke Lan - this was the first time Ke Lan saw his sword leave his hand... Before this, Asano Akira always held the sword in his arms even when he slept.
"You even lent me your 'wife'?" Ke Lan couldn't help but make a joke, "What if I accidentally break it?"
"As long as it can help you." Asano Akira still had that expressionless look on his face, "It doesn't matter."
