NABC Chapter 22, Appendix 8: Spider Lances
Chapter 22, Appendix 8: Spider Lances
Coming back to her senses from the novel experience of stitching up the corpse, Luo Lan looked down again at the piece of meat in her hand that emitted a strong, pungent stench.
This grayish-white wreckage came from a faceless stitched corpse. This type of stitched corpse is extremely resilient. Even after its head is cut off, it can still swing its fists. Only by destroying its core, which has a high-temperature reaction, can its life be completely ended.
Having taken a special precaution, Luo Lan had deliberately left this piece of flesh containing the complete heat source core when he was cutting through the horde of corpses with the steel spider spears.
Even now, this disgusting lump of flesh is still trembling slightly in my palm, the remaining muscle fibers contracting and undulating like a living thing.
Luo Lan gripped the surface of the flesh with his five fingers. Chaotic essence surged from Luo Lan's body, enveloping the trembling remains.
[Casting - Assembly]!
[Consumed Chaos Essence: 86]
[Current Chaotic Essence: 369]
Under the action of solidification, the grayish-white bits of meat covering the outer layer of the meat chunk peeled off layer by layer, like a cocoon of meat being torn apart by an invisible hand.
A deformed heart appeared before Luo Lan's eyes, its surface covered with bulging, dark purple blood vessels, still beating at a steady pace, each beat releasing tiny droplets of blood.
The heart slowly floated up from Luo Lan's hand, dragging along several broken blood vessel remnants, and merged into Luo Lan's chest cavity, which was not covered by skin.
The heart was embedded inside the ribs and began to beat alongside the original heart of the sutured corpse.
The two hearts beat out of sync at first, but gradually synchronized after a few seconds, and the new heart became the second power source for the body's beating.
Luo Lan immediately felt a powerful surge of energy pumping out from the new heart in her chest, flowing through her entire body along the newly connected blood vessels.
The new body, which had felt somewhat heavy and sluggish, instantly became lighter, and even the power contained within it seemed to have increased considerably.
[Assembled: The Heart of a Terrorist-Sewn Corpse]
[Tier: Iron+]
Specialty: High-speed metabolism
[Skill: Berserk Lv.1]
[High-speed metabolism: The recovery speed of physical attributes such as energy, endurance, vitality, and life force is increased by 1.3 times, and the biomass energy consumption required for daily survival is increased by 1.15 times.]
[Berserk Lv.1: Can be actively entered into a berserk state, temporarily increasing strength and agility while reducing pain perception. After berserk ends, a state of exhaustion will occur. The longer the berserk state lasts, the longer the exhaustion period. The berserk effect and maximum duration are affected by the skill level.]
As Luo Lan carefully reviewed the description of the new skill in his mind, a question arose:
[Is it biomass energy again?]
Luo Lan discovered that among the monsters in the Stitched Corpse series, apart from the large-eyed [Crawling Stitched Corpse] which uses "mental power" to activate its skills, the faceless [Violent Stitched Corpse] and the [Spirit Bone Stitched Corpse] covered in bone spurs both seem to be inseparable from "biomass energy".
I still don't understand what the specific quantitative standard of this so-called "biomass energy" is in this assembled body.
The only direct feeling was that the "hunger" from consuming biomass energy and launching bone spurs had been relieved quite a bit after only a short while.
[Maybe I really don't need to eat?]
With too little information to figure it out for the time being, Luo Lan didn't dwell on it.
He turned his gaze back to his former body—the empty shell of the giant armored spider lying paralyzed on the ground not far away.
Luo Lan walked to the [Dark Gold Shell], which was riddled with holes from the bone spikes. The surface of the shell was covered with pores and patches of acid corrosion.
Although the shell looks worn out now, its defensive capabilities are undeniable.
Without this protective shell, he would have been blown to bits by the horde of terrorist stitched-together zombies during the narrow alleyway battle. Apart from being unable to withstand the [Bone Spike Burst] attack, it would be difficult for other ordinary physical attacks to break through it.
Luo Lan placed her right hand on the shell, her fingers spread and pressed against the cool metal surface.
[Condensation Casting - Melting Casting]
[Consumed Chaos Essence: 36]
[Current Chaotic Essence: 333]
The moment the ability was activated, the [Dark Gold Shell] began to soften from its edges. Following the mottled golden patterns, the entire shell transformed back into streams of flowing molten gold, creeping up Luo Lan's right hand and up his arm.
The skeleton currently in use has no skin, and many muscles and bones are exposed, so its defense is definitely not very good.
However, Luo Lan didn't really care about the surface defenses of his body; he guided all the golden liquid to flow into his internal skeleton.
Luo Lan's bone hand is now connected to the cervical vertebrae of the stitched corpse, so all that needs to be done is to protect the internal skeleton.
Guided by Luo Lan, the golden liquid seeped into the chest cavity and wrapped around the pale bone surface.
The liquid gold, with a higher density than when it was used to form the Dark Gold Shell, coated the skeleton layer by layer. Every rib, every vertebra, every joint... including the bone hand body connected to the spine, was enveloped in dark gold.
The pale skeleton, covered by flowing gold, gradually took on a thick layer of dark gold luster.
[Melted and Reforged: Damaged Dark Gold Shell]
Specialization: Dark Gold Shell → Dark Gold Skeleton
[Tier: Iron+]
[Dark Gold Skeleton: A skeleton forged from high-density dark gold, capable of withstanding tremendous impacts and bending without easily breaking, providing strong physical support for the body. Increases resistance to negative status effects such as decay, rust, and curses.]
After the golden liquid completely solidified, the skeleton inside Luo Lan's body became significantly heavier than before, and he could feel the tangible increase in weight with every step he took on the stone slabs. However, this heaviness gave Luo Lan a sense of solid security.
The main body of the giant armored spider's carapace was salvaged, while its eight segmented limbs lay scattered haphazardly on the ground. Cracks and dents from the previous battle and acid corrosion remained on the spearhead.
Luo Lan naturally wouldn't give up on these eight arthropod appendages that he had strengthened several times over.
With a thought, Luo Lan simultaneously activated [Condensation-Assembly] and [Condensation-Melting].
[Consumed Chaos Essence: 100]
[Current Chaotic Essence: 233]
Eight spider spears rose from the ground on their own, adjusting their posture in mid-air. As their flight path progressed, the enormous spider spears, originally two meters long, began to rapidly deform under the reshaping effect of the chaotic source matter.
The spear shaft contracted and shortened, and the width of the spearhead also narrowed slightly...
Its perfect length and size perfectly suited Luo Lan's current two-meter-tall humanoid physique.
It is neither too large to be a hindrance to action, nor does it compromise functionality or destructive power due to its size reduction.
The eight spider spears, now measured to the correct size, hung in mid-air, their tips pointing downwards, lined up one by one.
"Pfft! Pfft! Pfft..."
A series of muffled thuds as sharp blades pierced flesh. Eight spider spears were aimed at the exposed back of the stitched-up corpse, their tips piercing the outer muscles and inserting one by one into the spaces between the ribs on either side of the spine, connecting with the [Dark Gold Skeleton].
[Assembled and cast: Eight steel spider spears]
Specialty: Steel Spider Lances → External Eight Spider Lances
[Rank: Bronze → Bronze+]
【External Eight Spider Lances: Eight external spider lances controlled by the spine and ribs, which can retract and fold to a certain extent. Forged from steel alloy, they can easily pierce and slice through the defenses of most mortal objects (Bronze rank and below)】
With a twitch of his back muscles, Luo Lan wanted to try out the eight spider spears on his back. The eight external alloy spider spears unfolded behind him like a peacock spreading its tail feathers, accompanied by his will.
"Whoosh, whoosh."
With a simple thought, the leftmost spider spear rose up and made a few feints in the air with its tip.
It offers a responsive and intuitive feel, retains its sharp and aggressive nature, and can be slightly folded and retracted to fit snugly against the back without hindering normal movement.
Luo Lan held the brand-new spider spear up to his eyes and examined it closely. In addition to the sharp spear blade, the ends of the spider spear segments were covered with many barbs that were not easily visible to the naked eye. It was clear that it had also inherited the ability of [grasping bristles].
This is unexpected.
The presence of the [Grasping Hairs] means that Luo Lan can still use the [Externally Attached Eight Spider Lances] to climb freely.
For Luo Lan's body at this moment, this [External Eight Spider Lances] is basically a complete upgrade of the [Steel Spider Lances], except that it is a size smaller than the Giant Spider form!