Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 323 Lucas the Reaper
"Oh? Can you tell me in detail?" Sun Hang suddenly became interested.

"Lucas, hunter number 0109, nicknamed 'Harvester', a hunter directly under the Skyhub Tower." Yuri said, "He is a first-rank hunter, and his highest ranking on the hunter rankings was once ninth."

"Ninth place..." Sun Hang knew of only two monster hunters with rankings. One was "Iron Wall", the exclusive bodyguard of the top leaders of Tianshu Tower, ranked ninth; the other was "Bao Si", the owner of a rule-based meme who could even charm Longyanlei, ranked thirty-seventh.

And Lucas' ranking is even higher than Iron Wall.

"So, what are the abilities of this 'Reaper' Lucas?" Sun Hang asked.

"Just like his nickname, Reaper of Life." Yuri said, "His ability is very strange. When he uses any weapon that is very similar to the sickle, as long as he attacks the target, regardless of whether it causes effective damage to the target, the attack will absorb part of the target's vitality and feed it back to Lucas... He is the trump card that Tianshu Tower uses to deal with biological monsters. No matter how powerful the monster is, as long as it is a living creature, it will be restrained by Lucas."

"I think... if this guy is fine, wouldn't it be easy and pleasant to send him to deal with Chimera No. 17?" Sun Hang said, "He doesn't have to do anything. He just needs to run under the giant cocoon and scrape it with a sickle. Can he kill Chimera No. 17 with the 'true damage' to the creature?"

“In theory, that’s right… But in reality…” Yuri hesitated, “Well, you’d better come with me inside and take a look, then you’ll understand.”

After that, Yuri walked to the door lock, and after entering six passwords of more than ten digits, he turned around and said to Sun Hang: "Everyone who enters this room needs to undergo iris and DNA information authentication. Blood samples need to be collected during the process. Please don't resist."

As soon as he finished speaking, a laser swept across Sun Hang and Yuri from head to toe, and then the laser stayed on their faces for several seconds.

"How do we collect blood samples?" Sun Hang asked, "Don't we say that taking off the protective suit will contaminate the containment?"

"No need to take off the protective suit." Yuri shook his head.

A hidden slot on the ground opened, and two robotic arms emerged from it. The two robotic arms moved to the sides of Sun Hang and Yuri, connecting the collection heads at the end of the robotic arms to a valve on the arms of the two men's protective suits.

With a slight "click" sound, the collection head and the valve were docked, and a cold needle entered the protective suit and pierced Sun Hang's arm.

"Identity verification completed." The AI ​​synthesized voice came from inside the smart door lock. "The person in charge of the No. 1 containment area, Yuri Alexi Ivanov, has an S-level authority. The registered hunter of Tianfu City, Sun Hang, has an authority level of 'confidential'. The two people applied to enter the B423 containment area... The application has been approved by the highest authority of the Tianshu Tower. The valve is about to be opened, please step back."

"Please step back a little." Yuri also reminded, "The containment area of ​​​​B423 is usually in a complete vacuum state. The instantaneous negative pressure generated after the valve is opened may suck in people who get too close."

"Oh." Although Sun Hang was not afraid of vacuum and negative pressure, he still took a step back obediently.

A strong suction force came from the gap of the open valve, and when the air pressure inside and outside was balanced and the suction force disappeared, a biting chill suddenly floated over from inside...even the temperature inside the protective suit with a constant temperature device dropped several degrees in an instant.

Sun Hang glanced at the place where the valve was opened, and saw that the water vapor in the air had condensed into a layer of white frost on the ground and near the door frame, and the white frost was still spreading into the distance.

"The temperature in the containment area is minus 205 degrees Celsius. Please check whether the extreme environment adaptation function of the protective suit has been automatically turned on." Yuri said.

Sun Hang glanced at the reading projected on the helmet visor. After dropping a few degrees, the temperature inside the protective suit quickly returned to its original constant temperature, and the temperature adjustment device inside the backpack began to make a much louder noise than before.

"Please be careful and try not to touch anything in the containment area, including the walls." After saying this, Yuri was the first to pass through the valve.

The structure of this containment room is somewhat similar to the laboratory used by the Tianfu City Weird Research Institute to observe Chen Hongjuan. There is also a relatively narrow corridor when you first enter - but the mechanism in the corridor is not a secret cabinet containing protective clothing and weapons, but a large number of shower heads popping out from above, on both sides, and underfoot.

Through the helmet, Sun Hang heard some kind of liquid spraying out from the shower heads - these liquids quickly solidified after coming into contact with the surface of the protective clothing, forming a layer similar to a coating on the surface of the protective clothing.

"Please raise your arms, and then alternately raise your feet for a while, and try to spray the isolation liquid to blind spots such as armpits and soles of feet." Yuri, who was walking in front, said, "After the isolation liquid solidifies, it will form a solid protective layer. When we leave the containment room, this channel will clean the solid protective layer and then peel it off."

"Isn't protective clothing alone enough?" Sun Hang asked.

"There were some accidents in the early years that I don't want to talk about, so we would rather cause more trouble than avoid it." Yuri sighed, "Especially when facing these extremely dangerous monsters."

The two of them "showered" in the isolation fluid for about five minutes before Yuri pushed open the last door leading to B423.

This was a pure white room shrouded in high-brightness lights - the ceiling, walls and floor were all white. After Yuri closed the door, the pure white walls and door instantly merged into one, and there was no gap between the two that could be found with the naked eye.

There is no light in the room. These pure white walls are the light source in the room. The light they emit turns the entire room into an area where there is almost no shadow, just like the shadowless lamp on the operating table.

In the middle of the room, a two-meter-square transparent box was suspended. The box was filled with clear liquid. A thin, naked man curled up inside it with his eyes closed. On the man's back, eight glass cups were turned upside down. At first glance, it looked like cupping.

But if you look closely, you will find that the edges of these eight glass cups have actually all cut into the man's skin... It would be better to say that they are "growing" on the man's back rather than being upside down on the man's back.

A long copper needle was fixed to the bottom of each glass cup, and the other end of the needle was directly inserted into the man's body. Every few seconds, a cloud of purple-black mist would gush out from the edge of the needle hole into the cup, and after circling around in the cup for a few times, it would be sucked back into the man's body.

"Is this cupping?" Sun Hang wondered, "What is that purple-black thing?"

"'Life force' that has been condensed into substance." Yuri said, "Or, in other words, life force that has been 'materialized' by Lucas' ability."

"So this is what the invisible and intangible vitality looks like?" Sun Hang nodded slightly, "But then again, this color always gives people a sense of an evil villain..."

"In fact, it should be bright red like blood, but it appears purple-black due to lack of oxygen in the 'inhibitor fluid'." Yuri said.

"Inhibitor?" Sun Hang asked, "Is it similar to the 'beast inhibitor' that Lao Wang... uh, 'Night Fury' once injected?"

"The principles are similar. They are both products of memetic reverse engineering." Yuri nodded.

"Okay, can we continue telling this guy's story?" Sun Hang said, "I'm quite puzzled. How did he become a phenomenal monster... What kind of phenomenon is this? The phenomenon of the materialization of vitality? Or is it the phenomenon of this purple-black thing going in and out of his body?"

"That was a difficult hunting mission. The target was a plant-like monster located in the swamp area of ​​​​Southern Xinjiang." Yuri sighed and said, "The reason why I didn't answer your mission directly just now was because the target monster in that mission was extremely similar to Chimera No. 17..."

"That plant-like weirdo is also being hatched?"

"No, the closest thing between the two is that they both have extremely powerful vitality." Yuri said, "It is a vine hidden under the swamp. It has hunted almost all the creatures in that area, including the monsters, and its own strength has been continuously strengthened through repeated hunting and eating. Tianshu Tower is worried that the monster's strength will get out of control and pose a threat to the towns around the swamp, so they decided to send Lucas to hunt it."

"and then?"

"Lucas completed the mission, but..." Yuri said, "As I said just now, Lucas' ability is not to simply weaken the target's vitality, but to absorb it... In other words, he will absorb the target's lost vitality into his own body. At that time, some people in the Tianshu Tower questioned that if the absorbed vitality exceeded Lucas's limit, it might lead to uncontrollable consequences... But because Lucas has completed many missions and hunted many extremely powerful monsters... So more people think that this risk does not exist - after all, Lucas only absorbs vitality, not the monster's meme, and his own infection process will not increase due to absorbing too much vitality..."

"So during this mission...did he suck himself full?" Sun Hang asked.

"...The size of the vine monster exceeded our estimate." Yuri nodded. "We thought its mass would not exceed 200 tons at most, but no one expected that the part detected by the instrument was just the tip of the iceberg exposed on the surface of the swamp... In fact, the body of the vine monster has occupied more than 90% of the space in the swamp... Except for a layer of 7 to 8 meters deep mud on the surface of the swamp, the space underneath has been completely filled by the vine monster."

"That swamp...how deep is it?"

"According to subsequent measurements, the deepest part of the swamp is as deep as 170 meters... In fact, this is no longer a swamp, but a giant underground cave corroded by the corrosive liquid secreted by the vine monster." Yuri said.

"Then after you find out something is wrong, can't you just ask Lucas to stop?" Sun Hang asked again.

"We thought the same thing at the time... but for some reason, no matter what the command said, Lucas turned a deaf ear to it, not to mention stopping the act of absorbing the vitality of the vine monster... We are not sure whether his abilities were out of control at the time and he was in a dilemma, or whether he was unwilling to give up the mission."

"I think it's probably the former."

"I think so too... I know Lucas very well. He is a very calm person. He never acts on impulse and has never disobeyed orders from his superiors. Moreover, he refused to communicate with the rear at that time. This is definitely not normal." Yuri continued, "In that situation, we had no way to interrupt the absorption process without hurting Lucas... After 41 hours of absorption, the vital signs of the vine monster completely disappeared, and the meme began to disintegrate on its own, but Lucas fell into a very strange state."

"How weird is it?" Sun Hang asked.

"His body seemed unable to bear the huge amount of life force he absorbed. The life force that was compressed to the point of 'substantiation' kept gushing out from his pores, and then being sucked back by him... just like the process you saw in the 'pressure relief cup'. We tried to send people closer to him, but when the people we sent were still a few meters away from him, their entire bodies would expand rapidly like balloons and finally explode into a bloody mist."

"Burning up by vitality?" Sun Hang asked.

Yuri nodded. "Around Lucas, there is still a lot of life force that has not yet been 'materialized'. Although compared with the materialized life force that flows in and out of his body, these scattered life forces are not even a drop in the bucket, but they are more than enough to kill ordinary humans. The most terrifying thing is that we couldn't find a way to prevent this life force from entering the human body at that time. Neither protective clothing nor mecha vehicles could do it. As long as they get close to a certain range, they will be blown up alive."

Yuri paused for a few seconds and continued, "Then, we discovered that Lucas's infection progress increased dramatically and soon exceeded the danger threshold...Nine hours after the vine monster was confirmed to be eliminated, Lucas himself was also judged to be 'completely transformed'."

(End of this chapter)