Doomsday Reboot: My Superpowers Absorb Everything

When the rotting dragon's slime landed on Lin Ye's shoulder, he smelled a odor similar to a mixture of strong acid and rotting flesh. His military dagger throbbed in his palm, and the dark purple energy shield cracked like glass struck by a heavy hammer, revealing spiderweb-like patterns. Zhao Feng's military knife was stuck in the ribcage of a bone slave; just as he pulled it out, another bone slave's bone spikes slashed his thigh, and blood dripped down his trouser leg onto the decaying leaves, leaving dark stains.

"Back into the lab!" Lin Ye roared, pulling Zhao Feng up. A burst of dark purple energy shattered the lunging bone slaves into pieces. The rotten dragon's head had fully emerged from the burrow, its eyes on the tumor darting about, its crimson gaze locking onto them. That spittle of slime just now was merely a test; the next spit would likely be a fatal one.

The metal panel at the laboratory entrance had slid open completely, revealing a downward-extending staircase. Emergency lights flashed red on either side of the staircase, illuminating the passage like a tongue leading to hell. Zhao Feng kicked aside two Black Crow Gang members who were trying to block the door, then stabbed one of them in the throat with his saber. He roared to the Iron Hoof Alliance soldiers behind him, "Cover! Into the passage!"

The last soldier had just jumped into the passage when the roar of the Corrupted Dragon exploded overhead. As Lin Ye turned, he saw the massive, slime-covered maw spewing towards the passage—without a second thought, he channeled all his dark purple energy into the warning vines on his bracelet. The vines woven by Su Ya suddenly grew rapidly, like a green lightning bolt wrapping around the Corrupted Dragon's jaws. White flowers bloomed and withered in an instant, but they forcefully slowed the angle of the slime's spray.

"Boom!"

The slime splattered onto the metal plate at the tunnel entrance, sending up plumes of white smoke. The steel plate corroded at a visible speed, creating large holes. Lin Ye was thrown into the tunnel by the blast, colliding with Zhao Feng, and the two rolled around in a heap. When he got up, he saw that the skin on his right arm was turning black at an eerie speed—the spot where the slime had splashed—and it felt like countless tiny insects were crawling under his skin.

"This stuff will spread!" Zhao Feng tore open the corner of his shirt, heated the military knife until it was red-hot, and pressed it firmly against Lin Ye's wound. The smell of burning flesh filled the air. Lin Ye gritted his teeth, not uttering a sound, but his vision began to blur.

From deep within the passage came the old crow's sinister laugh: "There's no escaping it... The Corrosive Dragon's Bone-Eating Liquid can seep into the bones along with the blood..."

Zhao Feng helped him move deeper into the passage, the military knife sparking in the darkness. Blood-like viscous fluid began to seep from the walls on both sides of the passage. The Black Crow Gang members had caught up without anyone noticing, their footsteps echoing in the narrow space like a death knell.

"Take this with you." Zhao Feng suddenly handed him a tin box containing the Iron Hoof Alliance's token—a metal plaque engraved with a wolf's head. "Go to the third floor and find Dr. Chen; he owes me a life."

Lin Ye gripped the iron box tightly, about to say something, when Zhao Feng suddenly shoved him towards the fork in the road: "I'll cover your retreat! Remember, don't let Su girl wait like a statue waiting for her husband!"

After the crisp sound of the saber being drawn, there was the muffled thud of the Bone Slave falling to the ground, followed by Old Crow's furious roar. Lin Ye staggered into the side path, the numbness in his right arm spreading to his shoulder. He pulled out a dagger and plunged it into his left arm—the pain cleared his vision and allowed him to hear the explosion behind him, the sound of a grenade Zhao Feng carried.

The emergency lights in the passageway went out in the explosion, and darkness completely engulfed everything. Lin Ye walked forward, feeling his way along the wall. The places his fingertips touched were sticky and slippery, like the skin of some kind of creature. He remembered Su Ya saying that the roots of the Warning Vine could sense the energy of its own kind, so he stuck the still slightly warm vine fragments to the wall.

The vines suddenly trembled violently, pointing towards an inconspicuous iron gate on the left. The doorknob was covered in a thick layer of dust, as if it hadn't been opened in a long time. Lin Ye used his dagger to pry open the lock, and the moment he pushed the door open, a whiff of disinfectant wafted out, mixed with a faint medicinal fragrance.

"Don't move."

An aged voice echoed in the darkness, followed by the scratching of a lighter. The orange flame illuminated the wall covered in glass jars. Floating within were various deformed organs, some covered in scales, others filled with eyes, resembling nightmares steeped in formaldehyde under the firelight. The old man, sitting in a swivel chair amidst the jars, his white coat stained with dried brown stains, toyed with a scalpel in his hand.

"Dr. Chen?" Lin Ye recognized the person in the photo inside the metal box.

The old man chuckled, the flames close to his face, revealing half an ear missing, the edges of the wound scabbed with dark red. "Zhao the Madman certainly knows how to find people." He suddenly threw a scalpel at him. "Before the bone-corroding fluid spreads to the heart, insert this stuff into the shoulder blade; it can temporarily freeze the blood flow."

Lin Ye caught the scalpel; the cold metallic touch sent a chill down his spine. The skin on his right arm had turned black all the way to his elbow, and the numbness was accompanied by a sharp, stabbing pain, as if countless tiny needles were piercing his bone.

"Scared?" Dr. Chen spun his chair, the firelight casting deep shadows on his face. "Back when I removed the shrapnel from your body, you were much braver than you are now."

Lin Ye didn't speak, but instead plunged the scalpel into his shoulder blade. In the instant the excruciating pain exploded, he heard the "crackling" sound of blood freezing, and the black spread in his right arm indeed stopped. He looked up, panting heavily, and saw Dr. Chen dripping green liquid into a petri dish with a dropper. Suddenly, the flesh in the dish twitched and grew tiny legs.

"A cell sample from the Corrupted Dragon." Dr. Chen pointed to the petri dish. "This thing's genes can devour any living thing, including itself." He suddenly laughed, the laughter echoing between the glass jars. "Do you know why the Black Crow Hall dug it up? Because when this thing is extremely hungry, it will even eat superpowers."

Lin Ye's heart sank. If the Corrupted Dragon could truly devour supernatural abilities, wouldn't Su Ya's vines and his dark purple energy all become nourishment?

"However..." Dr. Chen changed the subject, picking up a silvery scale with tweezers, "It also has natural enemies. This is the molted skin of the 'White-Scaled Snake.' We used its serum to control early samples back then, but unfortunately, this snake is long extinct—"

Before he could finish speaking, a heavy thud echoed from deep within the passage, accompanied by the bone slave's roar. Dr. Chen's expression changed, and he shoved the petri dish into Lin Ye's arms: "There are ventilation ducts on the third floor leading to the ground. Take this and try it on Su Yatou's vines; the plant's vitality might be able to trap it!"

Lin Ye had just climbed onto the ventilation duct when he heard the sound of a scalpel cutting through flesh behind him, followed by Dr. Chen's final roar: "Tell Zhao the Madman, what he owes me... we're even!"

The ventilation duct was filled with dust, forcing him to crawl forward. The chunk of flesh in the petri dish was still writhing, and the freeze on Lin Ye's right arm began to loosen. The corrosive fluid, like a venomous snake awakening, started crawling towards his heart again. He remembered Su Ya's withered warning vine and the sunflower seeds clutched by Lin Xi. Suddenly, he bit open the lid of the petri dish and poured the disgusting chunk of flesh onto the wound on his right arm.

The rotting dragon cells, upon encountering the bone-corroding fluid, pounced like hungry wolves on fatty meat, instantly engaging in a fierce struggle. Strange lumps swelled beneath the skin, then quickly deflated, black and red fluid mingling with drops of blood seeping out. Lin Ye's vision blurred with pain, yet he clung tightly to the ventilation duct railing, his fingernails digging into the rust—he had to get out alive. Su Ya was still waiting for him to plant sunflowers, Zhao Feng's iron plaque was still in his arms, and Dr. Chen's petri dish still needed vines to test it.

After climbing for an unknown amount of time, a faint light shone through the gaps in the ventilation ducts. Lin Ye crashed through the grille and fell onto a soft patch of earth. Looking up, he saw Su Ya kneeling on the ground, her forehead pressed against the earth. Green energy surged into the soil like a tide, and the ground in front of her cracked open, with countless vines growing wildly along the cracks, weaving a dense, impenetrable green net above her head.

"Lin Ye!" Su Ya's voice was choked with sobs as a green rope suddenly split off from the vine and wrapped around him.

When Lin Ye was pulled to her side, he realized that just outside the green netting lay the gaping maw of the rotting dragon. The vines were withering at a visible rate, yet they still clung on desperately. Su Ya's hair was mostly white, and her face was covered in wrinkles, making her look as if she had aged decades in an instant.

"You're back..." She smiled, wiping away tears, but the green energy grew weaker and weaker. "I poured all my life force into the vines... I can't hold on much longer..."

Lin Ye suddenly remembered Dr. Chen's words and stuffed the still-wriggling sample of the corrupted dragon cells into the root of the vine. A bizarre scene unfolded—the withered vines suddenly sprouted wildly, the tender shoots covered with fine barbs, like countless tiny mouths, greedily gnawing at the corrupted dragon cells trying to penetrate the green net.

"It works!" Lin Ye pressed down on Su Ya's shoulder, transferring his remaining dark purple energy to her. "Your vines can digest it!"

Suya's eyes brightened, her wrinkles faded visibly, and her gray hair turned black again. She grasped Lin Ye's hand, twisting his dark purple energy into a rope with her own green energy, and channeling it deep into the vines. The green net began to push back, the roar of the corrupting dragon grew painful, and the slime that tried to penetrate the green net was decomposed into nutrients upon landing on the vines.

The Black Crow Hall began to scatter, and Elder Crow was torn apart by the enraged Bone Slaves—those puppets infected by the Corrupted Dragon cells had ultimately become beasts that devoured their masters. As the first rays of sunlight shone through the green netting, the Corrupted Dragon's massive jaws slowly lowered, and its enormous body collapsed like a mountain, kicking up clouds of dust.

Su Ya leaned against Lin Ye's chest, too tired to keep her eyes open, but her fingers still clutched the hem of his clothes: "You promised... to plant sunflowers..."

Lin Ye looked down and saw the new shoots on her wrist and the wound on his right arm beginning to heal—the dragon cells, after being digested by the vines, left behind silver patterns, like a guardian snake. He gently kissed her forehead and heard the distant sound of the Iron Hoof Alliance's horns, a signal that Zhao Feng was still alive.

"Plant them, plant them now." He picked up the sunflower seeds that Lin Xi had dropped on the ground and scattered them in the freshly turned soil. "Once the flower heads grow, we'll make our home here and let the Iron Hoof Alliance's brats see that we can not only fight, but also grow flowers that shine brighter than the sun."

Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the vines, falling on the seeds and on the two figures supporting each other. The sounds of explosions still faintly echoed from the depths of the tunnel, but this land had begun to awaken. Tender shoots were peeking out of the soil, with the stubbornness of new life, welcoming the morning light that belonged to them, a light tinged with gunpowder yet still warm.