Li Chengxi quickened his pace, walking up the steps in front of the small store.

Not long after he stepped onto the steps, everything behind him was completely submerged by the gray mist.

The gray mist rolled, quickly turning black, transforming into the same black mist as before.

He paused, continuing forward until he reached the store door.

The glass door was already open, as if welcoming him.

The lights inside slowly brightened, illuminating all the shelves and displays.

Li Chengxi looked at the still empty small store, and his right foot, clad in black armor, stepped inside.

Step by step, he quickly grabbed a snack from the shelf that he had never bought before, something resembling a chocolate bar.

Turning around, he headed towards the counter.

The cheaper the item purchased, the shorter the time needed to endure.

He had discovered this when he first entered.

Zhong Hui's notes also recorded this point.

*Clack.*

He placed the brown and gold chocolate bar on the counter.

Li Chengxi was about to close his eyes.

But he saw that the chocolate wrapper suddenly flickered, and a price tag had appeared on it.

'Twenty seconds.'

Only twenty seconds?

His vigilance increased even further.

Last time, he had caused a big commotion, killing so many hidden things. This time, who knew what level the difficulty would reach.

*Crack.*

Immediately, the door behind the counter, which had never been opened, slowly pushed open.

A pitch-black human hand slowly reached out from inside.

*Boom!!*

In an instant, just as Li Chengxi's attention was drawn to the hand.

The store door on the right, the automatic glass door, shattered with a crash.

A tall, sturdy humanoid black shadow smashed through the glass, opened its arms, and pounced towards him.

Growing on top of the humanoid shadow's head was, shockingly, an alligator head!

The changes happened extremely fast.

From the alligator head rushing in to embracing Li Chengxi, there was only a blink of an eye in between.

Seeing that its black arms were about to touch the outer layer of Li Chengxi's armor.

*Boom!!*

In an instant, a dazzling light appeared between the two.

Radiant Flash!

The golden light, accompanied by a powerful impact, struck the center of the alligator head's terrifying head.

Two powerful forces collided.

Stalling for a moment.

The alligator head flew backward, falling back onto the steps outside the store.

Li Chengxi slightly turned his body so he could see both the front and the right.

"If it were the me from last time, perhaps my strength still wouldn't be a match for you."

"But—"

The Inferior Shadow Dragon bloodline had increased his base physical punching power to three tons in just three days.

Three tons without Gentle Qi.

At this level, the impact force of the Flower Language Radiant Flash also increased accordingly.

After all, the essential power source of Radiant Flash is the radiance field.

And the strength of the radiance field is closely related to his own physical strength.

Three days ago, his base physical punching power was only a little over one ton.

Now, it has more than doubled directly.

Not to mention the improvements in other aspects such as perception and physique.

Aww!!

A hoarse howl came from outside the store, like a lion.

Another alligator head rushed in in the blink of an eye, clawing at him.

Without the slightest hesitation.

Li Chengxi raised his hand and punched forward!

*Dang!!*

Two similar claws collided head-on.

In the piercing friction sound, the two stepped back simultaneously.

This time, with the amplification of the Flower Scale Armor, Li Chengxi's punching power was also much stronger than before!

The amplification of the Jointed Bristle Flying Lian Flower Scale Armor was only slightly weaker than the ultimate Titan Flower Scale Armor.

Before Li Chengxi could steady himself, outside the automatic glass door, alligator head humanoids continuously rushed out of the black mist, heading towards here.

Immediately afterward, the black mist rolled, and an alligator giant, much larger than the other alligator heads, a full three meters tall, stepped out of the black mist, roared upward, and charged towards him.

At the same time, inside the small door behind the counter, the black human hand finally continued to reach out.

The black hand grew longer and longer.

Like plasticine, the arm was stretched out for more than a meter and continued to lengthen.

It opened its five fingers and flew straight towards Li Chengxi. The speed became faster and faster, more and more urgent.

At this time, eight seconds had passed.

The alligator heads and the black hand were rapidly approaching, getting closer and closer to Li Chengxi.

The claws and black hand were almost touching the outside of his Flower Scale Armor, close at hand.

Buzz!!!

The red light lit up.

The eyes of Li Chengxi's alligator helmet lit up with dazzling red light at this instant.

Chirr!!

He suddenly disappeared from the spot.

The claws and black hand both missed, instead colliding with each other and making a loud noise.

The surroundings quieted down.

The alligator heads searched the surrounding environment, trying to find where Li Chengxi was.

Chirr!!

A black light flashed.

The neck of an alligator head instantly split open, and the entire person kneeled on the ground.

Immediately afterward.

Chirr chirr chirr chirr chirr!!

Continuous black lights flashed like a storm between the surrounding alligator heads.

One after another, alligator heads were separated from their bodies and fell to the ground.

Aww!!

The largest alligator head opened its arms and pounced downward, pressing down on the shadow under its feet.

*Boom.*

A humanoid figure rose into the air from the shadow, as if it were just a pond and he was just jumping out of the water.

In an instant, the humanoid figure suddenly collapsed in mid-air, turning into a black shadow that separated.

A large amount of black shadow gathered behind the alligator head giant, forming Li Chengxi's figure.

*Pfft.*

A muffled sound.

His sharp claws deeply pierced the back of the alligator head's neck.

The alligator head giant froze.

Holding on for one second.

He fell forward heavily, crashing on the ground with a loud noise.

Li Chengxi retracted his hand, landed gently, and was unharmed.

He looked at the black hand floating in mid-air, walked forward slowly, and shook off the black blood on his claws.

The black hand slowly retreated, then suddenly rushed forward.

*Whoosh!*

Li Chengxi tilted his head slightly.

The black hand brushed past his ear, bringing a violent whistling sound.

'Radiant Flash.'

Dazzling golden light burst out, and the scorching impact hit the black hand's arm squarely.

In a faint scream, the black hand broke in mid-air and twitched violently, beginning to disintegrate in mid-air, turning into countless black viscous droplets.

*Tap, tap, tap.*

Li Chengxi's scale-covered and spiked feet slowly walked among a group of fallen alligator heads.

Soon, he returned to the front of the counter and reached out to pick up the chocolate bar.

The alligator heads around him were not dead and were still struggling and twitching on the ground. Their heads and bodies had rejoined, but the wounds had not fully healed.

Li Chengxi took the chocolate and turned to walk out of the store.

Suddenly, he seemed to sense something and looked up at the black mist above.

The mist dispersed.

A pair of dark gold giant eyes emerged from it, quietly looking down at him from above.

A dragon!!!

Li Chengxi also quietly stared at the other party.

But what he didn't expect was.

Next to the dragon eyes, the black mist dispersed again. Another pair of dark gold vertical pupils appeared.

Not only that.

The surrounding black mist dissipated one after another, revealing more and more pairs of dark gold vertical pupils.

Ten pairs!

Twenty pairs!

Forty!

Sixty!!

Li Chengxi raised his head and looked around.

Outside the silent small store, in the surrounding black mist sky.

Dense dark gold vertical pupils covered the sky!

A subtle vibration, like the chirping of insects, was gradually sounding from the surroundings.

*Boom!!!*

An invisible, terrifying distortion suddenly surged from all directions.

Accompanying the invisible distortion were also black pillars of fire!

Pillars of fire, each with a diameter of more than ten meters, burst out from the surrounding black mist, smashing towards Li Chengxi in the middle.

Just before the flames were about to fall, Li Chengxi picked up the chocolate and waved it slightly towards the dragon eyes in front of him.

"Goodbye."

*Whoosh!*

He disappeared from the spot.

Time's up.

At the same time, countless black flames and huge distortions finally fell, enveloping the entire area around the silent small store.

*Boom!!*

The slate melted, the walls collapsed, the green belt, the store door, the billboards, everything was dissolved into viscous black water under the destruction of the black fire and the distorted force field.

The outline of the silent small store also gradually dissolved and disappeared under the great destruction, turning into darkness.

*

*

*

Inside the taxi.

Li Chengxi suddenly opened his eyes, looking at the middle-aged driver in front who was driving the car.

He raised his hand, and in his right palm was the chocolate bar he had just taken from the silent small store.

On the chocolate bar's wrapper, the original unintelligible handwriting slowly twisted and deformed, like wriggling insects.

Soon, new handwriting formed.

'Lost Circuit: A circuit board from a long-extinct civilization, its function is unknown, it can be activated by connecting to an electric current.'

'This thing—' Li Chengxi looked at the chocolate in his hand, which had changed its appearance.

The original packaging had become a dark purple mottled film.

Through the translucent film, you could see many white things like insect eggs, densely packed together.

This board, as a whole, didn't look like a circuit board, but more like amber that had solidified many insect eggs.

Li Chengxi observed carefully.

He found that they were indeed insect eggs. Although separated by a layer, he couldn't see them very clearly, but he could still see that some of the insect eggs had already hatched, growing jagged, spider-like sharp mouthparts.

Li Chengxi sighed. Who would dare to use this thing if it was really called a circuit board?

Just from its appearance, no one knew what would happen if it were actually activated.

He sat in his seat, listened to the radio music that the driver had turned on, and put away the board.

Recalling the thrilling scene just now.

The Jointed Bristle Flying Lian Flower Scale Armor, after activating the Inferior Shadow Dragon bloodline in the Flower Language, had a built-in ability.

Similar to the Golden Sword of the Sword Orchid.

This ability was quite powerful.

That was, when wearing the Jointed Bristle Flying Lian Flower Scale Armor, if there was a shadow within a certain range, then he could consume physical strength and mental power to directly merge into that shadow.

Then wait for time, which could last up to three seconds, and then jump out of it.

This special ability was named Shadow Transformation by Li Chengxi himself.

Combined with his current high-intensity explosive power and the physical qualities of his body after bloodline modification.

Within those short twenty seconds, he was able to achieve such a terrifying record.

The simple-minded alligator heads had powerful strength, but still couldn't avoid the claw assassinations from behind.

'The only trouble is that the consumption is a bit high. And merging into the shadows seems to be a bit uncomfortable for the body.'

Li Chengxi raised his hand and looked at the subtle black lines that appeared on the surface of his palm.

This was physical damage, and there was pain.

He quietly released the Flower Language radiance field, and then watched as the black lines slowly began to fade.

'It seems that I can't use Shadow Transformation too much in a short period of time, I have to wait for my body to have time to repair and heal.'

He didn't know what would happen if there were more of these black lines, but judging from the pain, it definitely wouldn't be a good thing.

(End of chapter)