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"A lab session?"

Standing behind the transparent barrier, Professor Chen let out a piercing sneer, as if he had heard the funniest joke in the world. His bloodshot eyes, through the layers of glass and the blast-proof walls, shone with a fanatical and cruel scrutiny.

"Li Haotian, you're too arrogant. Do you think this is a school, and I'm some old scholar who only knows how to talk theory on paper?"

Professor Chen slammed down a lever on the control panel, and with a hiss of hydraulic pressure deflating, four heavy alloy doors on both sides of the previously closed corridor rose up simultaneously.

"These are my students, these are the textbooks for this lesson."

As the gate opened, the heavy, synchronized footsteps instantly drowned out the blaring alarm. A dozen security personnel, clad in full black tactical armor, filed out. Their movements were swift and decisive; even their breathing was perfectly synchronized.

They were not armed with ordinary riot control weapons, but rather with modified large-caliber kinetic energy rifles and internationally banned stun darts.

"Ignite it." Professor Chen's voice boomed through the loudspeaker in the empty experimental area.

The next second, more than a dozen tongues of fire spewed out, and a dense rain of bullets covered Li Haotian and Liu Hu like a storm.

"Holy crap! What kind of firepower is that?!"

Liu Hu let out a strange roar and rolled violently behind a load-bearing pillar to the side. The bullet struck the concrete ground where he had just been standing, sending up a series of blinding sparks and concrete debris flying everywhere, instantly leaving a bloody gash on his cheek.

"Are these lunatics trying to tear this building down?"

Liu Hu gritted his teeth, thrusting his heavy assault rifle out from behind cover and unleashing a long burst of fire at the figure in front of him. As the team's gunner, Liu Hu was an extremely accurate marksman, and several bullets precisely struck the chest of the security guard at the forefront.

However, the expected scream of pain as he fell to the ground did not occur.

"Clang, clang, clang!"

Several sharp cracks rang out, and the security guard's chest armor plate was dented, yet he didn't even falter for a moment. He seemed oblivious to the pain or the impact, maintaining that chillingly steady pace as he approached step by step, gun in hand.

"Monster! This is a monster!" Liu Hu's pupils shrank, and he pulled the trigger again, this time aiming at the other's head.

But the security personnel's coordination was appalling. One of them shielded the injured man with an incredibly sturdy riot shield, while another used the opening to draw a strange arc with his vibrating blade, aiming straight for Liu Hu's throat.

This is not a reaction that ordinary humans could make. It is a tactic that abandons fear, pain, and even the instinct for survival, like a series of sophisticated killing machines.

Li Haotian was now engaged in a fierce battle. Two enemies flanked him from both sides. Although the narrow terrain prevented them from firing their weapons freely, their sharp hand-to-hand combat skills were as precise as surgical scalpels.

A security guard thrust his combat knife straight at Li Haotian's heart. Li Haotian dodged to the side, his tactical knife flashing as he tried to slash the guard's wrist. For an ordinary special forces soldier, this strike would have been enough to cripple half an arm.

But just as his wrist was about to be destroyed, the security guard showed no intention of retreating. Instead, he used the momentum to slam his body forward, slamming his shoulder, covered in hard plastic armor, into Li Haotian. This style of fighting, which completely abandoned defense and only sought to kill, forced Li Haotian to temporarily avoid the attack and retreat.

"It seems it's not just about medication." Li Haotian's eyes were icy as he quickly scanned the room.

These people had unfocused pupils and an ominous bluish-gray tinge beneath their skin—signs of long-term neurotoxin exposure. But more importantly, a faint blue light flickered beneath the skin of their necks.

That was some kind of high-power signal source.

"Liu Hu, don't fight head-on! They're using drugs to suppress their pain; this is not a way for a human to fight!" Li Haotian kicked away an enemy who was rushing at him and shouted loudly.

Liu Hu had already sustained some injuries. Although his firepower was fierce, even breaking the thigh bone of one of the men who charged at him, the man with the broken leg acted as if nothing had happened, dragging his body on the ground with his hands, and raising the detonator in his hand.

"How can we fight this? We can't kill it! We can't even get a reaction when we hit its heart!" Liu Hu cursed, cold sweat pouring down his forehead.

"Because they were never truly 'alive,' they were just puppets being manipulated." Li Haotian glanced at the black panther crouching on the beam, growling softly. "Little Black, time to get to work."

"roar--"

At Li Haotian's command, a dark shadow, like a black lightning bolt, silently swept down from the darkness.

Although the security personnel reacted slowly, their sensors seemed to have detected a fast-moving target. Several guns instantly turned, attempting to fire into the air.

But Xiao Hei was simply too fast. The muscle fibers, enhanced by biological reagents, unleashed terrifying explosive power at that moment. It made several incredible transformations in the air and instantly merged into the group of security personnel.

Strangely, Xiao Hei did not open its blood-red maw to tear at the enemy's throat as usual, nor did it extend its sharp claws to pierce the heart.

Its form was like a ghost, flashing across the shoulders, backs, and helmets of these people. So fast, in fact, that only blurry afterimages remained on their retinas.

"What is it doing? Dancing?" Liu Hu couldn't help but curse while changing magazines.

Just then, an unbelievable scene unfolded.

The security personnel, who had been attacking like zombies and even dragging their broken legs toward the detonator, suddenly froze.

It's like a videotape that's been paused.

Immediately afterward, the security guard dragging the broken leg loosened his grip, and the detonator slipped to the ground. His previously taut muscles instantly relaxed, and he collapsed heavily to the ground like a lump of mud, never to move again.

The other dozen or so security personnel suffered the same fate. One second they were charging forward with guns raised, the next they lost all their strength and fell straight down. Even their falling postures were remarkably uniform, without any instinctive cushioning, like lifeless objects devoid of any nerve signals.

A faint, fishy smell filled the air; it wasn't the smell of blood, but rather a burnt, charred odor.

Xiao Hei landed lightly on the ground, a tiny metal piece the size of a grain of rice dangling from its mouth. It shook its head, as if spitting out something dirty, and then spat it out at Li Haotian's feet.

It was a microchip that was still flashing a faint blue light, with several extremely thin nerve wires still attached to the chip's connection end.

Li Haotian crouched down and used his tactical knife, Blade, to pick up the chip. By the flickering red alarm light in the corridor, he could see the tiny mark on the chip's surface—an apple bitten by a snake, and in the apple's core, a line of tiny letters was engraved: TP.

"Drug puppet," Li Haotian uttered coldly.

So that's how it is. These so-called "enhanced humans" don't actually need any sophisticated genetic modification. They only need to implant a chip in the back of the neck that can cut off spinal cord signals and forcibly rewrite movement instructions, and then combine it with a stimulant drug that can make the body overdraw its potential and ignore pain, to create these tireless and fearless killing machines.

As long as the chip is still there, even if their limbs are broken, their brains will still send commands to drive the remaining muscles to complete the task.

Now, as the chip was precisely removed by Xiao Hei's surgically precise claws, the line connecting the "manipulator" and the "puppet" was severed.

Liu Hu peeked out from behind cover, his eyes nearly bulging as he stared at the enemies sprawled on the ground. He walked over to one of the fallen security guards and tentatively kicked him. The man didn't react, his breathing so weak it was almost imperceptible; he was in a deep coma.

"This...this is it?" Liu Hu stared incredulously at the black panther licking its paws, swallowing hard. "When did this beast become so gentle? Normally, these guys' necks would be raw and bruised by now."

Li Haotian stood up and crushed the still trembling chip at his feet.

"This is more painful than killing them." Li Haotian looked at the people scattered on the ground, his eyes filled with no pity, only a deeper chill. "For the sake of so-called power, they turned themselves into playthings in the hands of others. They were powerless while alive, and they will leave behind this kind of infamy after death."

He looked up and through the broken corridor to Professor Chen, who was still standing behind the protective barrier.

At this moment, a crack finally appeared on Professor Chen's previously arrogant and fanatical face. He stared intently at the elite security guards on the surveillance screen who had suddenly "crashed," then looked at Little Black, who was squatting obediently wagging its tail at Li Haotian's feet, and his face turned ashen.

"How could this be..." Professor Chen muttered to himself, his fingers trembling as he reached for another button on the control panel. "That was my masterpiece...that was perfect control...how could it have been discovered..."

"Perfect control?" As if hearing Professor Chen's thoughts, Li Haotian gestured a throat-slitting motion towards the glass cage, a cruel smile curving his lips.

"Professor Chen, your lectures were indeed very engaging." Li Haotian's voice echoed in the empty corridor, carrying a chilling sense of oppression. "But now that these puppets have lost their strings, isn't it... your turn, Pinocchio, next?"

"No! You can't get in! Absolutely not!" Professor Chen roared hysterically, slamming the main switch of the defense system.

With a dull mechanical grinding sound, the explosion-proof gate at the end of the corridor began to slowly fall. Behind that door, in the deeper darkness, came a tooth-grinding, dense sound, like the crawling of some giant insect.

Li Haotian did not stop. He simply stroked Xiao Hei's smooth, silky fur, his gaze fixed intently on the slowly descending gate and the abyss behind it.

"Since we're going to continue, let's stay with him until the end of the class."

The smoke from the gunfire had not yet dissipated, and a new storm was already brewing. Li Haotian knew that the real monster was not in these manipulated puppets, but in the twisted heart that had created all of this.