The Ultimate Evolution

As soon as Sheyan started exchanging blows with the Cockatrice, two more of those monsters pounced towards him, but they were easily pushed back by Ramtas and its wooden magic staff.

It was evident from this initial round of exchange that the Cockatrices were capable of “judging a book by its cover”. They thought that the bigger opponent would obviously be stronger….

On the other hand, the cyborgs were holding their own quite well. They were designed with a carrying capacity of 40 kilograms without affecting movement. Currently, after dividing the instruments between themselves, each of them was carrying a load of around 60 kilograms, so they equipped their weapons and armours and stood in a triangular formation with their backs to each other. They each had something which looked like a riot shield on their left hand and a powerful lightweight rapid-fire weapon akin to an MP5 on their right.

Sheyan did not need them to help kill the enemy. He only required them to be able to protect themselves without becoming a burden to him.

The Cockatrices and other beasts could clearly sense that the cyborgs’ bodies were completely made of plastic and cold synthetic rubber, so they were no different from clay and stones to the beasts. Therefore, the beasts did not go out of their way to attack the cyborgs.

Because Sheyan had to wait for the diseases to slowly worsen, Sheyan and Ramtas chose to utilise a really disgusting time-delaying strategy.

Suddenly, the wind that had been sweeping over the plains stopped, and a few drops of water fiercely pounded onto Sheyan’s hair, causing a slight pain to his scalp.

A streak of lightning flashed through the sky, followed by the deafening roar of thunder.

A torrential rain poured down like a waterfall, covering their vision with a curtain of whiteness!

The crazed Cockatrices knew well to make use of the weather. They immediately leaped out from the grass once again while crowing fiercely. However, Sheyan had already familiarised himself with their simple attack patterns by now.

Their flying pounce was quite fast and well-concealed, but after that, they did not have very effective follow-up moves. The flying pounce may be fatal for the average animals, but for a veteran like Sheyan who had experienced many fights, it was pretty easy to cope with.

After Sheyan and Ramtas had defended for a period of time, the diseases began to worsen and various symptoms started breaking out, torturing the Cockatrices from the inside. Taking advantage of the moment, Sheyan and Ramtas launched a fierce counter-attack. Strangely, these creatures chose to fight to the death instead of running away. They were truly crazy.

After fighting for a while, Sheyan abruptly stepped back, lifted his leg and stomped down on a Cockatrice, pinning it to the ground. Then, he grabbed the Cockatrice’s neck!

The silver-coloured liquid metal life-form on Sheyan’s gloves suddenly flashed in a strange manner. Sheyan exerted some force in his grip and easily broke the Cockatrice’s neck! Even the wind and rain could not cover up the crisp sound of the neck snapping.

The death of one of their own made the rest of the Cockatrices go berserk. They started attacking crazily with no regard for their own safety. However, the powerful viruses in their body constantly caused major flaws to appear in their actions time and again.

Slowly, the Cockatrices were killed one after another.

Sheyan had a momentary lapse of concentration. He cut off a Cockatrice’s neck with a slash, but the severed head would not let him go even in death. It traced an arc in the air and maliciously pecked Sheyan’s arm!

A strong numbing sensation spread from Sheyan’s arm. He took a step back and immediately inspected the spot where he was pecked. The spot was numb but extremely painful at the same time, and the numbing sensation was quickly spreading to the surroundings. He also realised that his HP had dropped by 400 points in an instant!

Sheyan was really shocked! Based on his defence, he would not lose so much HP even if he was viciously drilled by an electric drill, let alone a simple peck like this.

Borrowing the light from a flash of lightning, Sheyan saw that the place where he was pecked had turned grey. Cracks had appeared in an area as large as three coins. When he scratched the wound, small pieces would break and fall off like stone!

Around the wound, the healthy fleshes were rapidly growing to scrap these mutated parts off the body, but what followed afterwards was naturally a sharp, intense pain.

‘This kind of attack….Is it petrification?’ the thought flashed across Sheyan’s mind.

In truth, petrification did not exist only in myths. The phenomenon often happened in ordinary life too, such as in patients with kidney stones and gallstones, for example. Muscle calcification was also a common occurrence, while tuberculosis lesions could be treated through calcifications… When the time taken for these occurrences was accelerated by a hundred times, it would become petrification.

If a certain creature possessed a power related to this field, petrification could be easily explained.

Sheyan once again fetched the information on the Cockatrice that he had obtained previously. Upon reading, he found that there was now something new in the biological power section:

[ Biological power: Petrification — When attacking, there is a certain probability of inflicting petrification on the attacked part of the enemy’s body. Usually, the more furious the Cockatrice, the greater the probability of petrification. Conversely, when a Cockatrice is depressed or exhausted, the probability of the power triggering is greatly reduced. ]

Sheyan became more vigilant after reading the explanation. The Cockatrices were definitely nothing to shout about on this planet, but they still had such a formidable power. Imagine being surrounded by dozens of Cockatrices…. When Sheyan thought of that, he started to feel it might be a good idea to group up with his allies as soon as possible.

After a simple cleaning of the battlefield, Sheyan found that no keys had dropped. In truth, the keys were something like a bonus reward provided by the Nightmare Realm; that’s why the natives of the parallel worlds could not see them. Right now, Sheyan was not fighting under the directives of a Realm, so of course there were no keys.

But no keys did not mean no loot.

The three cyborgs went forward on their own initiative and dexterously dismembered the dead Cockatrices, then stored them away. They had an offline database where they could look up a lot of information, and they provided Sheyan with a lot of useful knowledge.

The beak of a Cockatrice was thought to contain the secret to their petrification power, so it was the most valuable. A large number of research labs would purchase Cockatrice beaks at a high price.

The meat on a Cockatrice’s thigh was chewy and delicious. A Cockatrice was considered the higher-end, upgraded version of a turkey on Thanksgiving Day, so it’s price had always been high on the universe E-bay.

The kidney of male Cockatrices was also a highly sought-after product on the market due to its alleged medicinal properties.

In conclusion, these five Cockatrices have brought Sheyan a profit of 10,000 utility points, at the very least. If he was lucky, the profit could even reach 50,000 utility points.

In addition, Cyborg No. 1 also humbly suggested to Sheyan that if an animal chose to fight to the death without running away, it often meant that its nest was nearby, and there were babies or eggs inside that must be guarded.

Sheyan recalled the information on the Cockatrices he previously read, which stated: “Because they like shiny things, you can find a lot of glass fragments and stones in their nests. Sometimes, there will also be ores and gems.” So, he decisively chose to go take a look.

Fortunately, the nest of the Cockatrices happened to be near the small mound where Ramtas was taking Sheyan, so they did not even have to take a detour. By the time they arrived, the wind and rain were already slowly subsiding, but the lightnings were breaking out more and more frequently, dancing and sweeping wildly across the sky like giant golden snakes. A streak of lightning would strike down to the ground from time to time, making a deafening boom and creating a large amount of smoke. It seemed that there was a possibility of the weather developing into a thunderstorm.

Sheyan finally understood the reason why the trees on the plain were sparse and not that tall, and why their barks grew the way it did. This was a planet with strong magnetic forces and disorderly magnetic fields, so the probability of thunderstorms occurring was quite high, which meant that the trees faced the frequent risk of lightning strikes. Over time, those trees naturally became the way they were now. Those that did not had been cruelly eliminated through natural selection.

Sheyan glanced at all the metallic instruments carried by the cyborgs and immediately broke out in cold sweat. He ordered all of them to start digging at the side of the mound to make a cave as soon as possible to avoid the lightning.

The mound was about seven or eight meters tall. Sheyan chose to dig at a spot two meters from the ground so that they would not be bothered by rainwater. The three cyborgs aside, Ramtas and Sheyan might as well be humanoid bulldozers when they dug. A simple cave was created in but a few minutes. The three cyborgs chopped down three large trees and brought them back to reinforce the cave. At last, they managed to create a shelter before the thunderstorm broke out.

Ramtas was lying down beside the bonfire. It spat out the bones of the Cockatrices which it had swallowed after Sheyan had abandoned them, and it was currently happily chewing on them. Sheyan knew Ramtas’ body well. This big guy was a monster which was produced after adapting to this harsh local environment, so it actually had five stomachs. It deserved to be called the king of gluttony!

The first two stomachs were called the rumens. When Ramtas ate, it would gobble up and swallow the food without chewing in pursuit of speed. The consumed food would be softened by gastric juice and saliva inside the rumens, then it would be fermented under the action of bacteria.

After fermentation, the food would enter another chamber called the reticulum. Then, the food would return to the mouth from the reticulum to be carefully chewed on.

Finally, it would enter the last two gastric chambers for a full digestion.