9 Angels (2/2)

Seeing that one of its comrades had died, the other two angels had stilled their movements as if in shock. Jia Hyson's eyes flicker, and he doesn't waste the opportunity given to him. Jumping up to an inhuman height, his fingers elongated and hardened, forming ten wickedly sharp wooden claws.

Don't look down at the fact it's wood; in fact, it was better than any steel knife on the market.

In 2021, there was a study by a Chinese scientist, Teng Li, who said that cellulose's strength relative to its density is "higher than almost all the metals and alloys in the world.

By removing the weaker polymers in the wood, such as lignin and hemicellulose, keeping the strong cellulose fibres found in plant cell walls, compressing the material and drying it in a hot press, a 'harder wood' at 20% of its original thickness, was created. Despite how thin it became, the result was something twenty-three times harder than before and triple the sharpness of the average commercial table knife when converted into a blade.

Such a material could be turned into nails that couldn't rust and withstand the weight of a small car, a simply fantastic feat of science. One that was before the apocalypse, where all sorts of incredible mutations began popping up everywhere.

Jia Hyson, who had been a writer originally, shouldn't have normally known these sorts of interesting facts. However, before becoming a writer, he had once pursued a biological science career. And while it never really went past university, that didn't mean he stopped being interested and occasionally reading various articles of interest, doing a few personal.. experiments, and rearing various… things.

This study had piqued his fascination very much at the time. After all, with such a sharp wooden knife at hand, wouldn't disposing of the evidence be so much easier?

Unfortunately, it didn't come to fruition, or at least not before the end of the world came about anyway.

As a plant user, wood fell under this category of his control. While it wasn't as intuitive as his less woody plants, they were still sturdy and beneficial for both attack and defence purposes. Not to mention helping improve his standard of living via construction and serving other more mundane roles.

After recovering his sanity and memories, Jia Hyson began experimenting with the possibility of having something like this artificial 'hard wood' for himself during his free time, among other things. It took a lot of sacrifice and time. Still, eventually, he succeeded in cultivating a tree with incredibly tough, defensive properties in its wood.

But to control the wood to even a cellular level and harness its power even more fully was something that Jia Hyson admitted to being unable to do easily. He not only needed an enormous amount of energy but required a more... 'intimate' assimilation of the essence of this wood into his body to wield it how he wanted it to be wielded.

A hard wood would be inconvenient to store in his muscles, fat and viscera like the rest.

Therefore, Jia Hyson at the time thought.

If the flesh won't do, why not the bones?

With a sharp and vicious laugh, Jia Hyson pounces on the angel's head, bits of his own meat and blood falling from his hands, which had been torn off from the wooden weapons bursting from his hands. Unhesitatingly, he used his left hand to stab the top of his enemy's head, serving to stabilise himself, who had jumped on the flying creature, while his other hand ripped and clawed at the eyes on the wings, as well as stabbed and slashed fiercely at the angel's face.

The wings of the creature contort and flap in distress in response, trying to throw Jia Hyson off. However, the claws on his left hand were different from those on his right. Instead, they had a rigged, almost barbed surface, making it extremely difficult to pull out without excruciating pain. Ripping one of the smaller wings off, golden sticky liquid gushes out, and the zombie smiles with great satisfaction, shoving the bleeding end of the wing into his mouth to tear into.

Just like his plants, the moment he tasted the blood and meat of the angel, he could immediately feel just how much more energy was contained in them than the River God. "Ahahaha, how delightful!" He crows with a beast-like desire in his slanted eyes before he bites into one of the eyes growing on the wing, which was darting frantically around as if silently asking for help. The eye burst under the snapping of teeth, the jelly-like liquid oozing down Jia Hyson's chin, which he laps up eagerly. "It's so delicious; how can it taste so good?" He murmurs, his voice full of almost drunken, perverted pleasure, "Ah~ I'm a little hard right now~"

Maybe it was the terrifying joy in Jia Hyson's voice, his words, or just his cruel actions, but the angel head full of many wings shudders, and its actions become even more fierce. Suddenly, all the blue irises on the eyes turn a deep orange, and with a piercing scream, the entire creature catches on fire. Jia Hyson, caught unawares, curses. As a plant user, he hated facing fire the most.

Fortunately, he wasn't stupid and already had preparations for such situations.

Under the fierce flame, he didn't give up and kept a distance. Instead, he began using his right hand to rapidly and ruthlessly slice his entire body. Wherever he cut, like flowers rapidly blooming, layers and layers of wood began to emerge from his burning body and cover it. Under the heat, a strong, floral, almost rose-like scent seemed to emerge as a natural consequence of the heat of fire against the wood.

This was the same wood as his claws, the wood that had burrowed into his bones- mutated verawood.

While not the hardest wood in the world, it was considered in the top ten and often used in things from pulley wheels and heavy construction to wooden hairpins and combs.

Because its density is so high, even before mutation and further manipulation on Jia Hyson's part, it was already slightly resistant to fire. But now, with a hardness that far surpassed Ipe wood, the number one fire-resistant wood currently known, it was enough to have the confidence to stay in the flame for at least a little longer and land a few more blows.

Of course, the payoff was naturally quite high. Fortunately, according to Jia Hyson's conservative estimation, just from his observation and intuition alone, the energy that he had just consumed from this move could probably be made up ten times over as long as he could eat just a quarter of this angelic being.

With his appearance looking more like a creepy-looking puppet now as wood covered him from head to toe, Jia Hyson wasted no time inflicting as much damage as he could, with no more intention of playing around. With his right hand, he joined his left in piercing the creature's head, elongating the wood haphazardly, letting it branch out and scrape through anything and everything inside the head's 'body'. It was just one move, but the damage was incredibly massive.

The winged angel's head screamed again and again, repeatedly crying out with a voice full of fear and pain as sharp branches rapidly burst through various parts of its face and head. The feeling of many sharp knives stirring up its flesh and blood, tearing through blood vessels and muscles, cracking its skull and scratching its nerves… if it had hands, it would surely be scratching mindlessly at its face right now.

Despite the sweltering heat surrounding him, Jia Hyson smiles wildly and full of sadism, enjoying the cries of the angel underneath him. It's a pity the fire made it too hard to see, or he would have wanted to relish seeing the torment on this strange being's face…

Still, the fire was really too pressing, hotter than anything he had ever experienced. Any longer, and he was sure, fireproof wood or not, that his body would be cooked alive and his cells would denature, entirely unable for regenerate back again. Therefore, he reluctantly exerted the strength befitting a level 10 zombie and pulled, the already weakened angel finally being shredded and torn apart from the inside out.

As he does so, he falls onto some of the River God's flesh, rolling down it so he can enter the cold water quickly, and recover from the heat. It would take a few minutes or even more to recover from the burn wounds he had incurred, as well as the damage from bringing out his 'Puppet Form' in the first place. In the water, he grabs the fallen bits of the angel and begins to devour it while he watches the fights continue in the distance.

The third enemy that had appeared was also a floating angelic being similar to the head. The upper half of the body was of a beautiful, topless blonde woman, and her lower half was covered with wings upon wings, layered as if it was the petals of an upside-down, feathery rose that had yet to bloom. She had two pairs of wings full of eyes on her back, and her eyes were empty and hollow. However, instead of bloody red flesh inside, one could see the inside was a brown-golden colouration, as if she was initially a statue made from copper or bronze.

However, while that was a little eerie, it was nothing compared to the three animal heads attached to her shoulders. A skinned bloody cow that constantly dripped blood, the skeleton of a fierce-looking bird with a wickedly sharp beak and finally, a beaten-up lion whose jaw seemed to be unhinged and pulled down to an inhuman degree that showed off rows of teeth that should belong to a shark instead.

Jia Hyson had a headache just looking at the creature. Fortunately, he didn't have to deal with it at the same time as the other one, as his mimosa, whose intellect had further improved, had currently been taking on this enemy alone.

The mimosa, known as the shy plant famous for visibly curling up its leaves when touched, showcased some of the fastest movements plants could have. While not impressive compared to animals, this mutated mimosa plant could now almost rival a Level 9 ability user in speed. Not just in its leaves, but its entire body had taken the path of agility and manoeuvrability. Still retaining more or less its smaller size, it was light and easy for the roots to move agilely out of the soil.

Added to its already sensitive nature and relatively good intellect, it could be considered one of the most challenging plants to wrangle. Not that one would want to, of course.

Not only did it have speed, but also their woody stems came with short, curved thorns about three millimetres long. While it wasn't scarily big, the thorns were sharp enough to easily cut through bone, and the mimosa had also adapted to secrete a chemical that had belonged to its body called mimosine. In itself, mimosine wasn't too terrible. Still, once entering a body, the bacteria inside would convert this chemical to a toxin that commonly interferes with thyroid function.

Original mimosa plants were already considered a relatively large problem in cattle ranches not just because of their thorns but also due to this build-up of mimosine in the cow's system, which caused hair loss and other symptoms. Jia Hyson's mimosa was far more lethal than that, though. After all, the thyroid was quite a vital place, and consistent lesions in the thyroids produced various rather severe symptoms such as muscle weakness, anxiousness, irritability, weak bones, irregular heartbeat and so on.

While not the strongest, most lethal or quickest poison, at the very least, the effects of anxiety and irritability show up quite fast, affecting the prey's decisions and movements to some extent and allowing the little mimosa to showcase its speed and reflexes even more so.

Seeing the small plant run around this enemy's body swiftly, scratches of golden liquid revealed itself on the pale flesh. It wasn't clear if the toxin would have any effect, but at least the other had been successfully distracted by this.

Jia Hyson, who was recovering, frowned and mentally instructed a few other plants to come help. The Monstera couldn't do much as the mimosa was fairly well entangled with the angel, but that didn't mean that others couldn't join in.

His plants were powerful, but in the end, not all of them had strong awareness and intellect, and those that had this were still quite limited. Therefore, it was still necessary to try to teach them small tricks and strategies. After all, they were all domineering in their own right, but if they could work together, at least enough that Jia Hyson didn't have to constantly monitor them, their fighting strength would reach another level entirely.

The Psychotria and dodder flower, under his silent manipulation, picked up two small little bonsai-sized yellow trees that began to shake excitedly, uprooting them from the ground before they quickly crawled up the cavern walls, their roots and stems moving akin to the tentacles of an octopus.

The happy butterwort and venus flytrap were also summoned by Jia Hyson, growing more and more buds everywhere. With the energy consumed passed on to its offspring, the plants were vibrant and large, brimming with life and without a sense of weakness one would usually attribute to delicate plants. Each bud and leaf seemed to shiver in their tension and anticipation. After all, they didn't understand a lot, but they could at least comprehend that being summoned meant more chances to eat!

There, under Jia Hyson's guidance, he directed the swift mimosa plant to occasionally get almost caught, making its roots and leaves graze the attacks from the angel and her multiple heads, shedding any unnecessary leaf foliage down as it does so.

Shedding leaf foliage was a bit risky for the plant, and instinctively it was an action that the more intelligent mimosa instinctively resisted. But in the end, it was no longer the cute and simple mimosa plant that needed sunlight to live; it was now a mutated one that could absorb its energy from death and hydrate its body with blood. Therefore, under some gentle but firm mental prodding from Jia Hyson, it reluctantly obeyed.

Cleverly timing its movements, it not only did as ordered but even gave the angel a false impression it was close to success, skimming past each attack and swipe in a series of 'close calls', aggravating the angel even more.

This is because, psychologically, when things are too difficult, many people tend to choose to decisively give up and try to tackle more manageable tasks first. However, the more one feels they're close to success, the more hyper-focused they tend to be, especially if it was a previously arduous and annoying task. Coupled with the mimosine that helped fuel a sense of impatience and anxiety in the being, this resulted in the angel's heads all paying attention to the skittering plant, completely ignoring how its soft leaves lightly fell down onto the waiting plants below.

While it was only the lightest of touches, it was enough to activate these touch-sensitive plants. Any leaf or root that dropped down instantly triggered the Venus flytraps and butterworts that have been touched by it. The butterwort leaves immediately shot up, doing their best to grab and entangle where they could reach the angel, dragging it downwards with as much strength as they could muster. Fortunately, the action of bringing things downward was much less demanding than staying in the air, so with enough leaves stimulated, it was enough to quickly pull the being closer to the floor surface.

At the same time, the Psychotria and Dodder flower made their move. Shaking the little yellow bonsai with their roots and stems, as they did so, the yellow petals of the flowers fall off as they rapidly age and form seed pods. These seed pods matured in a matter of seconds, and suddenly, the wooden capsules began to split with a loud cracking sound, as if an old pistol was being shot multiple times.

"Aack!" "Gragh!" "Mhroo!" The three distorted and mutilated animal heads screamed in pain as holes appeared on their face and the rest of their body, golden blood bleeding profusely out from each wound. What was more terrifying was that tiny tentacles came out of the injuries like little sea anemones in just a few seconds, greeting everyone before they took root in the angel's body.

Attacked both externally and internally, even if the angel had many heads, it couldn't think its way out of this hopeless situation. Its demise was assured.

Jia Hyson laughs in delight, hearing the agonised sounds as he bites into the soft cheek of the angel's head. For a moment, he pauses before clenching his jaw and forcefully ripping the flesh off the dead body in a brutal and powerful action. With some difficulty, the zombie begins to chew the hard-won meat in his mouth, but even if his jaw had to work hard, the taste of pure and decadent energy that dripped out made it worth it.

After a minute, the zombie swallows and sighs in bliss, reaching out to grab one of the wings. The feathers, which had previously been soft and fluffy, seemed to have hardened after death, each feather more like it was cut from a sheet of metal. Jia Hyson clicks his tongue in annoyance.

The verawood in his body was pretty charred, more than he expected to be honest; the flames were definitely quite special to turn to harm the verawood in such a short time. It wasn't that it was difficult to re-summon, but the increased energy it probably demanded to forcibly recover back to previous health was quite a bit. Therefore, Jia Hyson was hesitant to take it out just to help him defeather his food.

His eyes move to the slightly vacant eyes grown on the wings thoughtfully. After a moment, he uses his fingers to dig into the eye socket, carefully scooping it up with fairly proficient and skilled movements. The eyeball was as big as his palm and was still warm. Jia Hyson already knew that the eyes had some sort of power, too, further confirmed the moment he held the eyeball in his hand and felt that strong and pure energy from it. It wasn't as much as the angel's head, but it was comparable to a large chunk of the River God's flesh. Not to mention, it was much easier to pluck out.

These angels truly had very powerful abilities, as well as an unfamiliar appearance that immediately made him wary and fearful at the start; however, as long as you find the weakness of them, it's only a matter of time to deal with them. And the benefits reaped were really.. delicious.

Playing with it in his hands like a child holding a water balloon, the saliva threatening to overflow in his mouth wouldn't let him continue absentmindedly enjoying himself, reminding him of the need to replenish his body and eat. Holding the delicate eyeball up, he makes a small hole with his teeth and begins to swallow down the gooey, almost jelly-like liquid of the vitreous humour and the watery fluid of the aqueous humour. When the powerful plant user was almost finished drinking the vitreous body of the eyeball, Jia Hyson once again bit into the now deflated eye, eating the rest of the more solid structures such as the sclera and cornea and crunching on the glassy lens like a jellybean.

Of course, don't look at how easy and simple it seemed to take these creatures down. These angels were truly very powerful. Jia Hyson lived to be the ruler of his part of the world during the apocalypse for a reason, and his plants were not weak either. The fact the muscular headless angel could withstand so many blows from the Monstera and ultimately could possibly continue withstanding those blows if there wasn't any other interference was enough to show its terrifying strength in Jia Hyson's eyes.

The only reason he could deal with these beings just by altering some battle tactics is simply because he had the force value to fight them and the options to deal with them effectively. If he had to handle all three by himself… even at his peak, the possibility to win was very much there but the possibility to come out alive and in a state that wasn't near death was certainly nil.

Well.. that's if he fought in his previous state, anyway. Jia Hyson glances at the angel head he was holding by a wet and ragged wing. The angel was in an absolutely dreadful state, bleeding gold and red everywhere, skin practically shredded and it's vulgar viscera spilling through the cracks and holes. Almost lovingly, Jia Hyson presses his lips against its forehead before opening his mouth.

An appallingly sharp cracking sound was heard, followed by the grinding chomping like glass being crushed. Jia Hyson smiled as he chewed the angel's skull that he had bitten off as if it were a caramel apple. Before, he really wouldn't have been able to do this. The angel's body looked deceivingly soft and ethereal, but the skin was something no simple sword could slice, and the bones were even more challenging. This being was most likely designed with extremely high defence, high agility and an impossible-to-defend ultimate attack. A level ten zombie such as himself took a lot of strength just to tear the soft cheek meat off and eat.

If it was before, Jia Hyson would have been too lazy to try to eat the bones. However, just by nibbling a bit of flesh here and a few wings there, he had become so full of energy that he felt he had actually broken through the limits of a level-ten zombie.

To be honest, forget breaking out from being a level ten zombie; Jia Hyson almost felt like he had broken through the realm of zombies completely and was close to directly ascending to godhood.

He had never touched any addictive hard drugs in his lifetime. Still, if this is what they felt, Jia Hyson was suddenly much more empathetic toward every drug user's struggle with addiction. Overflowing with vitality and strength, Jia Hyson continues to eat, greedy for even more of this addicting taste of power. His dark eyes turned into a shining gold colour.

In the distance, the other angels were also getting the same treatment. Once hailed as some of the strongest bosses in the SSS+ Level Instance Heavenly Fall, they were now not as good as meat on a chopping block. After all, at least that meat would be thoughtfully prepared and neatly sliced, but their flesh was gnawed and poked at, and even their bone marrow was slowly being emptied out. It was an ugly, disgraceful and vulgar death.

And this view was all captured and transferred to the central system to process.

System: […]

Fuck, which garbage data program transferred such an insane monster here?!

Wuwuwu, motherboard, I'm scared!