The weapon refiner is not doing her job properly

Chapter 231 The Slaughterhouse (9)

Is the Filthy Feast Spirit too sensible, that it actually knows what "recycling" means?

The pig heads suspended in the liquid all had furrowed brows and distorted faces, as if they were trapped in a nightmare from which they could not wake up.

The moment the door was pushed open, the pig-headed men who were dissecting the corpse at the table stopped simultaneously. They didn't turn around, but slowly twisted their heads 180 degrees, staring blankly and uniformly at the doorway.

Despite being stared at by so many puppet-like gazes, Su Ninglong remained unfazed, instead offering a slightly apologetic smile:
"Am I disturbing your work? Don't look at me, keep going. I'm a quality inspector, I'm only responsible for checking the quality."

As she spoke, she naturally walked towards the nearest culture tank, her tone as usual:
"Let me check... if today's 'meat' is fresh..."

The room reeked of a strong, putrid stench, yet she could still ask "Is it fresh?" without batting an eye; her nose must have long since lost its function.

Su Ninglong quickly scanned the pig-headed people around her, secretly surprised. These "workers" did not look complete, and their movements were stiff, as if they were being controlled by something.

Before she could get a good look at it, a beam of silver light suddenly slashed down from above.

The Guixu Umbrella instantly closed, and Su Ninglong gripped the handle to block upwards. With a sharp "clang," the umbrella ribs collided heavily with the blade, steadily blocking the sudden attack.

"That was close!" she said casually, as if she were just chatting. "How am I supposed to do quality control if you suddenly take action like that?"

She looked up at the attacker, an exceptionally tall, pig-headed overseer with a metal ring around his neck and his right hand transformed into a chilling machete.

It seems he was a transformed spiritualist in his previous life.

The supervisor completely ignored her words and coldly announced, "Unauthorized entry into the restricted area will result in a deduction from your performance bonus."

Su Ninglong smiled but didn't reply.

She didn't even sign a contract, but she still got a big piece of pork belly, didn't she? Let them deduct her performance bonus; the quality control team leader is in her hands anyway, so getting it back is just a matter of lifting a finger.

What Su Ninglong didn't know was that most hunters in the past died at the hands of the foreman. The deduction of performance pay mentioned by the foreman would take effect even without a signed contract, as long as the foreman believed it.

The slaughterhouse is a bizarre workplace where murders can happen invisibly.

However, Su Ninglong has not experienced the trials of the modern workplace, so she cannot empathize, nor could she make any extra associations based on a single sentence from the pig-headed man.

The foreman raised his knife arm again and brought it down hard.

Su Ninglong didn't take the hit head-on, but took a step back.

This pig-headed man possessed astonishing strength, and even though she was a Core Formation stage cultivator, she didn't want to confront him head-on.

The person in question was definitely a spiritual being with exceptional physical abilities during their lifetime.

With a flick of her wrist, the Guixu Umbrella unfolded and began to spin rapidly. Dozens of wind blades condensed from the edge of the umbrella and shot toward the overseer.

The foreman reacted swiftly, parrying with his sword-wielding arm. But the wind blades attacked from all directions simultaneously, instantly leaving hundreds of deep, bone-revealing cuts on its body.

However, these wounds were like a mere scratch to the overseer; one second they were raw and bleeding, and the next they were completely healed.

Su Ninglong's gaze darkened slightly.

This ability is somewhat similar to Lian Xinyi's, but it is clearly more difficult to deal with.

Even when Xin Yi was injured, she would at least groan a couple of times, but this pig-headed man didn't react at all.

Honestly, I finally managed to improve my strength a bit, but the enemies I encounter are all more monstrous than the last.

The old ancestor was suffering!

Seeing the broadsword swinging down again with a whoosh and fierce momentum, Su Ninglong decided not to fight head-on.

Although the supervisor is strong, he is still a little short, and it is not worth making Guixu suffer.

Xiao Sun was also quite dissatisfied with the supervisor, and she muttered to herself that she should be matched with a stronger opponent.

Most spirits have a picky streak, which Su Ninglong has long been used to.

Those like Xiaosun, who have survived the baptism of lightning, are especially proud.

Even without the sacred artifact, she had a way to deal with it, but Su Ninglong didn't want to linger in battle. A brief encounter to find out its strength was enough.

Instead of leaving the small slaughterhouse, she started causing trouble everywhere. Sometimes she would grab the "corpse" from the pig-headed man's hands to shield him from the knife, sometimes she would hide behind the tank of solution soaking pig heads, and sometimes she would kick over a box full of "meat chunks." She was as agile as a monkey, making a mess of the scene.

After playing for a while, she felt it was enough and seized the opportunity to slip out the door. But as soon as she stepped out, she bumped into three foremen, and the one who had been there earlier chased after her.

Su Ninglong: "..."

That's giving her too much credit. She can manage one supervisor, but four... well, it's not impossible, but it's easy to mess things up.

There's a reason why mobs are more troublesome than bosses; they're numerous and practically indestructible, so what's the point of fighting them?

They've left!

So she led the four overseers in a game of hide-and-seek, taking the opportunity to search every nook and cranny of the slaughterhouse, but they still couldn't find where the spirit was hiding.

The entire contaminated area was permeated with a heavy, ominous aura, strong yet uniform, with no particular spot standing out; it seemed to be everywhere, yet nowhere to be found.

Su Ninglong tried hard to recall her past mission experiences, attempting to find similar situations, but quickly dismissed the idea, even if they were similar, they might not be the same situation.

After circling around like that a few times, it was almost 5 a.m.

The place was too big, which also had its downsides; finding a secret room wasn't easy. She had originally planned to cross the spatial barrier to meet the security guard, but the dark beings outside the door were extremely restless, and even through the door, she could vaguely hear their whispers.

Su Ninglong always remembered her encounter in the "Throat of Aggregation" quest, where the hunter who was caught by the thing behind the door escaped by cutting off his own arm.

She must never open any door from which whispers could be heard. Even though she had reached the Core Formation stage, she dared not be careless.

She quickly returned to lounge number 50.

Several strands of bright red flesh were stuck to the door panel, and there was a drag mark on the ground, indicating that the battle here last night was quite fierce.

She knocked on the door at the agreed-upon rhythm, lowering her voice: "It's me! Invincible Beauty."

There was a moment of silence in the room.

The person who spoke didn't feel embarrassed, but the listener was kicking themselves. They really shouldn't have let her set the code word so casually.

Yinggu stepped forward and carefully opened the door. Su Ninglong quickly slipped in and immediately shared the results of her investigation.

"Can't find it?" Zhao Piku and Tong Zi both fell silent upon hearing this.

Since its inception, the Star Alliance has cleared fewer contaminated areas of the Filthy Feast Spirit than the "Throat of Aggregation," and there are no related records in the kill logs.

Although there were records of the battle before the alliance was formed, the losses were extremely heavy.

Because the Filthy Feast Spirit can merge the entire area into its own body, entering the contaminated area is equivalent to stepping into its "digestive tract".

Like a frog being slowly boiled in water, once a spirit enters, it unknowingly becomes its puppet. According to Feng Ying's previous plan, if the filthy spirit merges into the building, Eagle Bone will use bombs to "eliminate" it area by area. Eagle Bone recently generated a special invisible shockwave bomb that causes very little damage to the building itself, but can temporarily clear the "spirits" attached to the area.

“When I blew up that room-checking monster last night, I used several spirit-less bullets,” Eagle Bone said. “I didn’t find anything unusual in the building.”

These special energy bombs are rarely used, since they are not very effective when used to bombard spirits directly, and they are completely harmless to ordinary creatures, looking just like pretty bubbles.

It was only after Feng Ying collected and analyzed a large amount of supernatural ability data that she decided to use it for reconnaissance in the contaminated area.

Although the process of elimination may seem clumsy, it is effective, at least in that it can clearly eliminate one potential danger.

But the Filthy Spirit isn't stupid, nor does it play by the rules. Transforming the entire slaughterhouse into a "digestive tract"? That place is far too large; it's simply unsuitable.

"The building looks normal, but where's the monster?"

Eagle Bone was taken aback. "I forgot!"

Last night I successfully killed the room-checking monster, but I forgot to check the corpse. It was too easy to kill, and I overlooked whether the corpse had changed. Now all that's left is a pile of indescribable flesh and blood.

Su Ninglong wasn't in a hurry; at least it was relatively safe for now. "It's okay, there will be another chance tomorrow."

"Do you need to rest for a while?" Tong Zi and the others had at least rested for a night, so they were in better condition than Su Ninglong.

Su Ninglong shook her head: "It's okay if I don't sleep."

Zhao Piku looked at her a couple more times and said, "You look just like Qi Shen."

"Where does it look like?"

"They don't really look human."

Su Ninglong immediately puffed out her cheeks. How could this be? Her ancestor was an extremely beautiful person, how could she not look human?
This childlike reaction amused Zhaopiku.

Su Ninglong appears mature and aloof, but inside she is still a playful person (or rather, a mischievous old man).

After the joke, Tong Zi said seriously, "We also encountered the supervisor last night. The pig-headed man who was checking the rooms was probably as strong as an ordinary two-star hunter. He wasn't difficult to deal with."

“It’s not difficult to deal with the overseer alone, but there should be quite a few of them,” Su Ninglong continued. “I suggest you avoid direct confrontation for now. More importantly, you must first figure out the specific feeding methods of the Filthy Feast Spirits. Once you understand this, catching them will be much easier.”

“Oh, right,” she remembered something, took out a work badge she’d gotten from the pig-headed man at the night slaughterhouse, and handed it to Eagle Bone, “Help me try out a ‘Spiritless Bullet’.”

Yinggu took it and saw that it read "Night Shift Employee".

It's estimated that Suninglong took it back casually.

Without hesitation, he threw two ineffective bullets at the employee ID card.

The pink bubbles were dreamlike, like a scene from a fairy tale. But the moment they touched the name tag and gently burst, the name tag emitted a short, sharp sound, as if someone had stepped on its tail.

The two hooks, which had been baring their claws, suddenly became limp and lifeless, like the tentacles of an octopus that had lost their water.

“It feels a bit strange.” Song Hu knew that his reaction was not as fast as others, so before approaching the name tag, he first applied a shield, and then carefully picked it up with the tip of his pen to examine it closely. “The luster on the surface has disappeared.”

Others nodded.

The hooks, which had been gleaming with a chilling light, turned into dull, rusty metal parts after the bomb exploded.

"Don't tell me that the true form of the Filthy Feast Spirit is this thing. Just finding and destroying them one by one is enough to drive me crazy." Eagle Bone felt like he had a splitting headache.

Just then, a regular knocking sound came from outside the door, accompanied by a soft cough: "...It's me, my darling Xuanxi."

Su Ninglong immediately understood the awkwardness that Tong Zi and the others had just felt, and tried to suppress the upturn of her lips but failed.

Song Hu stepped forward, opened the door, and let Xuan Xi in.

"Why are you here at this time?" Song Hu looked down at the back of his hand; the numbers on it were very stable. Due to their binding relationship, the values ​​of the others were almost identical.

"I walked over with my back to the window." Xuanxi was surrounded by the snoring of the pig-headed man all night, his head filled with the grunting and squealing of pigs, and he couldn't close his eyes at all.

"Nobody asked how you got here," Eagle Bone said, somewhat puzzled. Xuanxi, who was usually calm and intelligent, seemed to have picked up some of Charlie's slowness as well?
Xuanxi glared at him, her sharp brows showing obvious weariness, and said with a look of utter despair, "The noise from the next room is like a concert in a pigsty..."

"Hahaha!" Eagle Bone burst out laughing after hearing this. Song Hu, being more composed, turned his head away and didn't laugh at him.

Has anything unusual happened on your end?

Xuanxi shook his head, "Aside from the noise at the beginning, there was basically nothing else. I didn't turn on the lights all night, and the snoring never stopped, but the footsteps outside the door never stopped at my door."

Back to the topic.

To determine how the Filthy Feast Spirits feed, we need to determine what they use to transfer energy.

There are many suspicious objects, including name tags, lights, pig-headed figures, livestock, and ATMs.

The name "Huiyanling" literally means "filthy banquet." "Hui" refers to filthy things, while "Yan" means a noisy and grand banquet.

Taken together, it is “a feast held by filth”.

Wherever it appears, the contaminated area is bound to be extremely troublesome, with a large number of monsters and chaotic scenes.

In fact, we can first rule out the possibility that the work badge is one of the carriers of the evil spirit's power.

Because the name tag itself is not offensive, it is more like a distorted or parasitic object.

Mystic spirits possess all sorts of bizarre abilities. Once corrupted and eroded, it is not difficult for them to make ordinary objects grow limbs and eyes.

As for the red lights, Su Ninglong believes they are not the key factor.

There were only one or two red lights in the slaughter area, and she verified last night that the red light had no real effect on her.

ATM...

Zhao Piku said they would dismantle it today. "Since it's just causing trouble anyway, let's see what the consequences are."

"I'll go and deal with that HR supervisor first," Su Ninglong said confidently. She hadn't argued with the supervisor much last night so she could be in top form this morning.

"But this time I need a helper."

The others were puzzled, as she had previously stated that she wanted to use this opportunity to prove her abilities.

She's probably the only one who dares to "prove her strength" in a four-star contaminated zone.

Su Ninglong explained, "It's not that I need your assistance in the battle. It's that after killing the pig-headed man, something might change on the scene, and I'm worried I won't be able to notice it."

Different cultivation systems have different perceptions of energy, and she can easily overlook many subtle details.

At this moment, she needed to call for her teammates, and Song Hu was the most suitable candidate.

(End of this chapter)