Esoteric Buddhism: To live as king in America

"Now that things have come to this, you're not joking, are you?"

Mian looked at Matt with a smile, then held the sword to Matt's neck, causing Matt to break out in a cold sweat.

"I'm serious. My initial assessment of your strength was flawed. Now, even based on that younger sister alone, you're more than qualified, so..."

Matt blinked and gave a fawning smile.

"How about we reach another cooperation agreement? I'll give you a lot more compensation."

His expression at this moment was incredibly humble, just like those who had been defeated by Mian before. But the difference was that before, whether it was that sniper or Orge, Mian could genuinely feel the fear in their opponents.

And the person before me...

"It's all fake."

Mian let out a cold laugh, then brought his sword down.

The sharp sword easily severed Matt's head. Yet this terrifying superhuman was still not dead.

His body was still moving; countless buds of flesh writhed and teemed on the severed neck, as if a new body was about to grow from it. The handsome head with black hair rolled three times on the ground, all the humble and fawning expression on his face vanishing instantly, leaving only a cold indifference as if he had long been accustomed to everything.

"You will die. You have no organization backing you. I don't know how you acquired these strange powers, but if that's all you've got, you won't escape the Celestial Cult's pursuit."

With one cheek pressed against the ground, the head spoke these words. Mian merely smiled in response.

"I already knew about this, so I won't just sit here and wait to die. That's why I plan to cooperate with you, but..."

A sly glint flashed in Mian's eyes.

"As expected of someone from this place."

"you!"

For the first time, Matt's face showed genuine surprise, but before he could finish speaking, Mian had already plunged the sword into his head.

At the same time, Ai Yin exerted her power, destroying every pulsating node in her body and completely extinguishing the life force contained within this clone.

Looking at the completely immobile corpse before him, Mian sighed deeply. Regardless of what happened afterward, he had at least survived this ordeal safely.

"Ryan, how do you usually dispose of corpses?"

Mian asked Ryan, who was trapped in the consciousness space. This only reliable, secret teacher, now that his life was no longer in danger, had returned to his usual listless state.

She lay on her side in her consciousness space, propping her head up with her hand, and answered nonchalantly:

"Of course, we'll use it for experiments. For a small family like ours, even the corpses of ordinary people are rare, let alone the corpses of superhumans. We could destroy it completely, but that would be too wasteful. You can use illusion magic to hide it first—you should have established contact yesterday. Also, whatever you choose, remember to collect his corpse first. Even if it's just an avatar, someone of that level should have some good stuff on him."

Mian nodded. In any case, it was good to strengthen one's own strength as much as possible in the face of the potential crisis that might come.

As for complying with the laws of the Ocean Federation...

Mian let out a scoff. The facts had already proven that the laws here couldn't restrain the extraordinary; the hidden world followed a different set of rules. Ultimately, obeying the law and being a good person were two different things, and Mian didn't carry that heavy a burden.

"Leo".

Mian turned to the mixed-race youth who was still on guard, his face bearing the lingering traces of fanaticism and battle scars, and gave him instructions.

"Go and look after Lisa, and if possible, keep watch around. Ain, you also keep watch and listen for any suspicious movements, then let me know."

Ayn nodded vigorously, her ruby-like eyes sharply scanning the ruins and the empty construction site in the distance, like a wary lion cub. Leo respectfully responded and quickly went to carry out the order.

Mian crouched down, forcing himself to suppress his instinctive aversion to the stench of blood and death, and began to carefully examine Matt's body. His first focus was on the black trench coat, which appeared to be of high quality. Carefully unbuttoning it, Mian reached into the coat's inner pockets and began to feel around.

Her fingertips quickly touched several hard objects and flat packaging bags. Mian took them out one by one.

Among them were several small, tightly sealed packets of dark green herbs. One type had leaves with strange serrations, and its veins seemed to flow with an extremely faint, almost imperceptible, ghostly green glow. The other type emitted a strange, pleasant fragrance mixed with the earthy smell through the packet.

An injectable vial encapsulated in a metal tube was placed in the most convenient position. Judging from the label, it appeared to be some kind of sedative drug used to suppress schizophrenia.

There was another thing that seemed most important to Mian: a peculiar badge about the size of a thumb.

The material is neither gold nor iron, and it feels cold and heavy to the touch. The surface is etched with intricate patterns that seem to be composed of star trails, with an extremely tiny black crystal fragment inlaid in the center, resembling solidified stardust.

Mian had a vague feeling that this was probably related to the cult of naturism, so he solemnly accepted it and then stripped Matt of his clothes.

Without the cover of clothing, the clone's superhuman physical features were exposed even more clearly.

His skin had an unhealthy grayish-white hue, as if covered by a layer of tough leather. His muscles were abnormally bulging, but unlike bodybuilding, they looked more like an inhuman structure formed after countless tears and brutal repairs.

Most striking were the massive, penetrating wound on his chest, almost torn apart by Ain, as well as the deep, bone-revealing wounds ripped from his body by Ain's claws and the bruises from being struck by Leo's iron rod.

The muscle tissue at the edges of these wounds exhibits a bizarre activity. Although the wriggling has stopped, fine, fibrous structures different from those of normal humans can still be seen. These seem to be the last traces left on this body by those disgusting tentacles.

"Tsk, what a disgusting modification..."

Mian frowned and muttered to herself, her stomach churning again. Ryan, however, seemed completely unconcerned.

"That's how all superhumans are. How can you get close to the gods if you don't cut yourself? Alright, stop worrying about it. I'll teach you a simple 'vision distortion' incantation and hand gesture, combined with the 'Clover Forest' mark you established yesterday. It will make this corpse look like an insignificant rag to ordinary people and even superhumans."

Mian concentrated and began to chant softly, following the complex incantation syllables and subtle flexion and extension of his fingers that Ryan had simultaneously transmitted in his consciousness.

A faint energy fluctuation, carrying an aura of decay and illusion, emanated from his fingertips and coiled around Matt's corpse. As the incantation was completed, a thin, almost transparent layer of ice crystals first condensed on the wounds on the corpse's surface.

Subsequently, in Mian's vision, the corpse rapidly twisted and faded, eventually becoming almost indistinguishable from the surrounding cement fragments as a "stone," lying quietly in the shadows of the ruins.

Matt's clone's corpse was thus almost completely hidden from Mian's sight.