Fear of food

Chapter 126 The Second Qualitative Change in Abilities

The second qualitative leap in capabilities!
Chen Qi was filled with anticipation; he was very likely to be the first person to achieve two qualitative leaps in his abilities.

The first qualitative leap in his abilities allowed him to fully master the power to devour the Nightmare Clan. This second qualitative leap should be an enhancement based on that foundation.

However, he will have to figure out the specific effects himself.

And now we have two excellent experimental subjects.

Once Chen Qi finished eating, the food-guarding effect disappeared, and the ghost face biscuit's ability also became ineffective.

The surrounding crowd immediately stopped attacking Sun Xuechao and the Nightmare Eater.

Without the food-guarding mechanism and the influence of the ghost face biscuits, Chen Qi's Crimson Domain has supreme control over these ordinary people.

Sun Xuechao's blue domain priority is lower than his, so he can't compete with him at all.

However, Chen Qi's weakness lies in the fact that his domain is too small; he can only control people within a radius of a dozen meters.

Sun Xuechao's field of expertise can even cover most of the medical school.

The role that ordinary people can play is already limited, and due to the gap in the scope of the two sides' domains, they are basically unable to play a role.

Sun Xuechao can control more people, but once they enter Chen Qi's territory, these people will turn against him.

Chen Qi can only control a small number of people, and the control distance is only a dozen meters. Ordinary people cannot compare with top parasites like Sun Xuechao at all, and they will be easily left behind.

So the first thing Sun Xuechao did was to clear the area.

By sending away all the people within his territory, Chen Qi would have no one to control.

The surrounding area instantly became empty, clearing a battlefield for them.

During this process, no more parasites came to help.

Jinghai Medical College had a large number of parasites, but Chen Qi broke in several times and killed countless people in the process...

There may still be some parasites left, but the low-level parasites that get mixed in will only become Chen Qi's blood bags.

In addition, Huang Jihai took several key players with him and they haven't returned, leaving only 1.5 people who can stand up and stop Chen Qi's parasites.

Sun Xuechao counts as one, but Shiyan only counts as half.

As a member of the Nightmare Clan, he couldn't even use his domain; he only possessed the most basic physical mutation ability, though it wasn't weak.

Chen Qi's situation is also a bit complicated. As a parasite who has just begun to integrate, his potential has not yet been fully developed.

Moreover, as a nightmare parasite, once he leaves the dream-contaminated zone and loses the blessing of dreams, his combat power will decrease significantly.

His current fighting style mainly relies on his abilities as a Pagan.

Relying solely on the ability to devour the Nightmare Clan, plus the mini version of the Crimson Domain, the two Ghost Face Cookies, and the mental interference provided by Dream Dragon, there is basically no hope of defeating Sun Xuechao and the Nightmare Eater combination in reality.

After all, reality is not the same as the illusion. In the illusion, he was able to overpower the two of them because the illusion weakened them.

In the real world, Chen Qi's greatest hope now lies in his ability to become a ghoul, which has just undergone its second qualitative change.

Sun Xuechao and Nightmare-Eating exchanged a glance and instantly reached an understanding. Sun Xuechao charged ahead, while Nightmare-Eating circled around Chen Qi, like a hyena ready to ambush its prey at any moment.

Sun Xuechao's body began to undergo an astonishing transformation; his chest cavity opened automatically, revealing his internal organs.

Various organs grew from those viscera, including eyes like those of a dead fish and mouths full of sharp teeth...

And above his heart, there were raised, ravine-like lines, somewhat like... a human brain!
puff!puff!
One after another, the organs popped out of the chest cavity and began to assemble.

At the top is the heart, which looks like a brain; below that are the liver and spleen, which have eyes; the lungs, which have noses; the stomach, which has a mouth; and on either side are a pair of kidneys, which have ears...

The internal organs were pieced together to form a bizarre human face, complete with all the facial features.

His remaining body began to roll outwards, as if his skin had been shed. The original skin was squeezed into the twisted interior of his body, while the flesh that belonged to the inside became the outer skin.

It made Sun Xuechao look like a skinned animal.

At the same time, his flesh and bones continued to mutate and grow rapidly, reaching a height of nearly three meters in the blink of an eye.

It has a head made of internal organs, with its large intestine as a neck, connecting to the tall, twisted, skinless body below.

It's almost unrecognizable as human anymore.

Suddenly, his strange head flew towards Chen Qi like a cannonball.

The tangled neck made of intestines was instantly stretched out, and the twisted large intestine was straightened out, appearing incredibly resilient.

However, the head suddenly stopped two meters away from Chen Qi.

It seemed that he was also afraid that Chen Qi would swallow his head whole.

Then, a large amount of green liquid, resembling stomach acid and bile, gushed from his eyes and mouth.

Chen Qi's original plan was to wait for Sun Xuechao to come closer and then devour him, but Sun Xuechao changed his tactics at the last minute, and he had a countermeasure.

He swallowed the pistachio that he had been holding in his mouth.

These pistachios are actually a wild food, one of the few wild nuts that Chen Qi found when he left Jinghai City.

After the peanut undergoes secondary processing, it acquires the properties resulting from a qualitative change in the peanut.

In an instant, two huge white fruit shells appeared in Chen Qi's hands.

Those were the shells of pistachios. Chen Qi held one half of the shell in each hand, like two huge shields.

He pulled his hands back, and the two shields fit together perfectly, protecting him completely.

He was like a giant pistachio, with the shield as the shell and himself as the kernel, encased within it.

The stomach acid and bile sprayed onto the fruit shell, making a sizzling, corrosive sound, and after a short while, it was eroded through.

But it blocked the first wave of attacks for Chen Qi, and that was enough.

The "shell shield" that peanuts have acquired after their qualitative change may seem strange, but it is actually quite powerful.

Most alien eaters, after their first qualitative change in ability, have very ordinary combat power, or even no combat power at all, such as Big Pancake and Coffee.

Peanuts, at the very least, provide a strong defensive capability.

However, when peanuts were used, they were two huge peanut shell shields, but when Chen Qi used them, they became pistachio shell shields.

Chen Qi discarded the corroded pistachio shell, forcibly controlling Sun Xuechao's strange head with his crimson domain, while quickly retreating to create distance between himself and Sun Xuechao.

At this moment, the Nightmare Eater, which had been looking for an opportunity, launched a sneak attack.

He exploded into arrows made of flesh and blood, shooting towards Chen Qi. His goal was not to attack Chen Qi, but to merge with Chen Qi again!

"Now is not the time," Chen Qi thought to himself.

With a wave of his hand, the arrows of flesh and blood were forcibly controlled and suspended in mid-air.

Looking at the flesh-and-blood arrows three or four meters away from him, Chen Qi suddenly felt an impulse surge within him...

He felt as if he could easily devour those arrows!
Chen Qi was slightly startled and vaguely understood something.

However, instead of attacking the Nightmare Eater, he casually waved his hand and threw the dozens of flesh-and-blood arrows that the Nightmare Eater had transformed into several meters away.

He then turned to face Sun Xuechao, who was further away from him.

Chen Qi focused his attention, his eyes fixed on Sun Xuechao's strange head.

In an instant, he seemed to lock onto his target, and that impulse in his heart resurfaced.

Chen Qi slightly opened his mouth and gently inhaled.

With just a simple inhalation, an invisible suction force acted on Sun Xuechao's bizarre head. All the organs and tissues on his head were pulled and deformed like rags, uncontrollably pulling towards Chen Qifei.

Sun Xuechao tried to pull his head back, causing his large intestine, which was connected to his head, to contract violently and become taut in a straight line.

But the harder he tried, the faster the organs and tissues that made up his head crumbled, all turning into invisible energy that entered Chen Qi's mouth.

In the end, Chen Qi went a little further and allowed Sun Xuechao to put his mutilated head back.

Just like before, when Sun Xuechao and the other Nightmare Clan members went easy on Chen Qi, Chen Qi could only go easy on Sun Xuechao as well; he couldn't possibly eat him.

To deal with Sun Xuechao, you can kill him, but you can't eat him.

If you kill him by other methods, he can be resurrected; but if you eat him, he's truly dead.

Chen Qi still remembered his promise to Brother Sun: that he would save him if he had the ability in the future!

"So strong!"

In his mind, Menglong's excited voice rang out.

Really strong!
Chen Qi has now figured out the effects of his second qualitative leap in ability.

After his first qualitative leap in ability, his ability to devour the Nightmare Clan was indeed very powerful, and it could be said that he was a natural counter to the Nightmare Clan.

Some parasites whose overall strength far surpasses Chen Qi's have almost no power to resist once Chen Qi gets close.

However, its disadvantage is also obvious: it has short arms.

You have to get close to the target to attack.

After all, Chen Qi's mouth attack range is only around himself. As long as the enemy can keep their distance from him, he can't do anything about it.

He can't stretch his neck dozens of meters like Sun Xuechao.

Such an attack method not only makes one vulnerable to being kited, but also easily puts oneself in danger.

Every inch shorter is more dangerous; there is nothing more dangerous than him using his mouth as a weapon.

Even with both fists, one punch can still travel at least a meter.

Moreover, with the mouth connected to the head, it's as if one is exposing their vital organs to the enemy.

However, after the second qualitative change in his ability, he has upgraded to the ability of "remote absorption", which is equivalent to making up for his shortcomings all at once!
This gave Chen Qi the ability to attack from a distance, causing his combat power to skyrocket!
After witnessing Chen Qi's ability to absorb food, the Nightmare Eater immediately became docile and dared not approach him again, keeping its distance.

Chen Qi wasn't really interested in him. Killing the Nightmare Eater was pointless and might even weaken him.

Moreover, he still has a use for keeping the Nightmare Eater...

On the other side, Sun Xuechao also became cautious, carefully protecting his mutilated head by tucking it into his chest cavity, no longer daring to use his head for any surprise attacks.

Although Chen Qi had no intention of killing Sun Xuechao, he did not intend to let him go so easily.

We must at least continue to weaken him to prevent him from interfering with our subsequent actions.

I'll also use Sun Xuechao to test my newly acquired ability to consume drugs!

Chen Qi quickly approached Sun Xuechao, locked onto him, and activated his absorption ability again.

This time, he devoured Sun Xuechao's body, aiming at one of his arms and sucking it in violently!
Sun Xuechao didn't have a good way to deal with this, and soon only the bone remained of one arm, with all the flesh and blood removed.

He could only retreat continuously, like the Nightmare Eater, to create distance.

Chen Qi followed closely and gradually became more skilled, mastering the ability to absorb substances and figuring out some of the limitations of long-range absorption.

This ability is indeed powerful, but it is not invincible; it also has flaws and shortcomings.

The first thing is the attack range; the maximum distance is only about twenty meters. Beyond this distance, the suction force gradually decreases.

At least from thirty meters away, Sun Xuechao could easily resist Chen Qi's ability to absorb energy.

In addition, this ability can only attack a single target; once locked onto a target, it can only attack that one person, which is not very useful when surrounded.

However, the fact that Chen Qi could chase after Sun Xuechao, a second-generation Nightmare Clan member, all the way was already impressive enough!

Chen Qi relentlessly pursued Sun Xuechao in order to weaken his fighting strength. Under Chen Qi's pursuit, Sun Xuechao continued to suffer additional injuries.

Just then, Chen Qi's vision blurred, and he suddenly lost sight of Sun Xuechao.

"It seems they really can't do anything with me, and have dragged me into the illusion again."

In reality, they are no match for Chen Qi; in the illusion, they will only be more passive.

Sun Xuechao would never have pulled Chen Qi into the illusion unless he had absolutely no other choice.

They're simply trying to trap Chen Qi in an illusion.

"Be careful, this illusion is of a higher level. It's the highest-level rule illusion of the Nightmare Eater Clan!" Menglong warned immediately.

Chen Qi knew, of course, that this was an illusion from an S-level pollution source!
It's a level higher than the illusions created by the previous Class A pollution sources.

Chen Qi knew that the S-level pollution source was most likely hidden in the cafeteria, but that was in reality.

Where that part of the illusion is hidden remains unknown.

After all, its contamination ranges throughout the entire medical school, meaning it could be hidden anywhere within the medical school.

Chen Qi didn't have the time or energy to conduct a thorough search of the entire medical school, so he had to find another way to escape the illusion.

"If I can't find the source of pollution in the illusion, how can I escape it? Can you send me directly to the interdimensional world?" Chen Qi asked Meng Long in his heart.

Menglong said, "This is the Nightmare Eater Clan's trump card. How could you escape so easily? However, I have already helped you transfer your body to the interlayer world."

"Now, relying on the connection between your body and soul, as long as you find the weak point of the illusion, you have a high chance of breaking through the illusion and going to the interlayer world."

Chen Qi frowned: "Weak point? Where are we going to find it?"

"I don't know. You can only look around. But such a large illusion must have more than one weak point."

Chen Qi had no choice but to patiently go and search, but Meng Long continued, "Compared to this, I'm more worried about something else."

"what?"

"Your actions could very well cause Jinghai City to experience an accelerated escalation of pollution!"

Chen Qi was slightly taken aback: "But I didn't threaten their source of pollution, did I?"

Based on Corning’s experience, it seems that pollution is only escalated to the second stage when the source of pollution is threatened.

Chen Qi hasn't even been able to find the source of the pollution in Jinghai City yet.

Menglong explained, "The Nightmare Eaters in Jinghai City can't do anything about you. Even the second-generation Nightmare Eaters can't stop you. If they let you continue to cause destruction, they won't be able to bear the losses."

"So we're forced to upgrade, increase the level of contamination, and create even more powerful parasites to fight against you!"

Chen Qi thought about it and realized that made sense.

He can roam freely in the S-level contaminated zone, and once he leaves, he certainly wouldn't mind cleaning up all the other high-level contaminated zones.

At that time, not only will more Nightmare Clan members in Jinghai City suffer casualties, but Chen Qi will also likely find the source of the pollution.

It's better to proactively upgrade and cut losses in time.

but……

"Will these existing parasites also strengthen after the pollution level is raised?"

(End of this chapter)