"Clang—!!!"
He had just turned his head, preparing to walk towards the power control room, but the next second, a loud bang suddenly came from the Institute's main gate in the distance, startling Luis and the others.
They quickly shone the M16 assault rifle's flashlight in that direction, but due to the distance, they couldn't see clearly. It sounded like something had violently crashed into a wall.
Javier also turned his thermal imager, but he didn't detect any biological heat signatures, which was incredibly strange.
"Quick, quick… this way,"
"Javier, go open the power switch in the power control room first, don't worry about these strange sounds!"
Seeing this, Luis hurriedly urged Javier, pushing him as he spoke. Undoubtedly… Luis's mental state had been severely tormented.
He didn't care what monster was chasing them from behind; all Luis wanted now was to turn on the lights.
Otherwise, if he continued to be blind in the darkness, Luis truly couldn't bear the torment of mental suppression anymore.
No matter how ugly the monster was, Luis wasn't afraid of it being exposed in the light; he only feared the faceless monster in the darkness, whose self-imposed mental pressure would make him collapse—!
"Gurgle…"
"Ho ho ho…"
However, following the banging of the iron door, a silent wheezing sound followed. Compared to the heavy, drooling wheezing of ordinary zombies, the wheezing in front of them was intermittent.
It was as if an old phlegm was stuck in the throat, unable to be coughed out, or like a consumptive patient with asthma, sometimes rapid, sometimes slow.
In short, it was very terrifying.
This sudden wheezing sound made Luis's head spin even more, his expression inexplicably tense, pushing Javier into a run.
The rest of the people had no choice but to quickly follow Luis's footsteps, as they were also very afraid of the strange sounds behind them, including Ada, the strong woman, who couldn't help but frown coldly.
If they could see, it would be fine, but if they couldn't, the pressure was indeed much higher than imagined.
"Thump thump thump…!!!"
"Thump thump thump…!!!"
Urgent footsteps echoed in the corridor.
Luis reached the Institute's power control room at his fastest speed, looking at the main switch of the electrical box in the corner of the wall.
He couldn't help but let out a huge sigh of relief. He had finally arrived at this place. He truly couldn't stand the Institute without a light source anymore; it was simply a nightmare!
"Gurgle…"
"Ho ho ho… Ho ho ho…!!!"
At the same time, just as Luis breathed a sigh of relief, the strange wheezing sound from behind pursued relentlessly, and the sound grew louder and louder.
It seemed to be getting closer to their direction, and Luis even vaguely heard sounds of something sometimes walking, sometimes sliding outside the power control room door.
Luis could be certain that it was undoubtedly a Regenerator, because he was most familiar with this monster he had created. Its entire body was rotten flesh with no bones or joints, only a few Plaga parasites inside controlling it.
This caused the Regenerator's movements to be very bizarre. Sometimes, when its flesh couldn't support it standing, it would crawl on the ground, wriggling like a loach.
It could even lunge and pounce, in short, it was extremely grotesque, bizarre, and terrifying, belonging to the type of horror of an ugly chimera monster!
"Luis, quickly turn on the main power switch!"
"There's a biological heat signature approaching our direction. It's currently hovering outside the door, it should be a Regenerator. Leon, Ada, and Merchant, you all move back a bit, away from the power control room door…"
And at this moment, Javier raised the M16 assault rifle in his hand, his gaze fixed on the power control room door behind him, and he urgently reminded the people around him. As the wheezing grew more intense, Javier had already seen through the thermal imager the Regenerator swaying towards them from behind the door.
It was roughly a two-meter tall humanoid creature. Its skin had some heat, but it was all dead matter.
There was no blood flow or skeletal structure of a regular organism, but at its head, chest, thighs, abdomen, and other locations, it possessed other additional high-energy heat signatures.
Undoubtedly, this was the Regenerator Luis had spoken of. Those three or four high-energy heat signatures should be the locations of the Plaga parasites.
"Click—!!!"
On the other side, Luis's relaxed expression changed upon hearing Javier's reminder. His hand quickly gripped the main power switch of the power control room and pushed it up forcefully. With a surge of electricity, the previously shut down power of the Institute was immediately restored.
"Puff puff puff puff puff puff…!!!!"
A series of muffled thuds sounded.
The light bulbs overhead and the corridor lights gradually came back on, one by one. For a moment, blinding white light shone into their vision, everyone regained their sight, and the darkness gradually receded.
But—
"Clang… Bang—!!!!!!"
A loud crash suddenly erupted.
A powerful force violently slammed into the power control room door. The unlocked power control room door was instantly burst open.
A huge, wriggling body slid into the power control room, and at the instant the lights came on, everyone also clearly saw what the so-called Regenerator looked like.
"Hiss…"
And upon noticing the huge grayish-white tumorous mass sliding in from the doorway, everyone gasped in unison.
Its bloated body was a full two meters tall, its head still the familiar pale and bald shape, deep-set eye sockets flickering with a pair of crimson dot-like eyes. It had no real nose, and a large mouth filled with sharp, foul-smelling fangs split open to its ears.
Its arms were long, dangling like a chimpanzee's arms down to its knees. The skin below its neck was still grayish-white, but the flesh was incredibly wrinkled, like a plastic bag.
It was completely naked, sporting a huge, bloated belly, like an old, wrinkled, pregnant woman in her fifties. Overall, it was incredibly bizarre.
And what was most grotesquely nauseating was its way of moving.
Because the Regenerator had just launched itself into the power control room door, its current posture was still lying on the ground.
Its huge, bloated body, with its beer belly, constantly wriggled on the ground, as disgusting as a large, white, bloated maggot constantly twisting and turning in a toilet.
Undoubtedly, the Regenerator's appearance exceeded everyone's expectations.
They had originally thought it was a fierce and terrifying monster, but now it seemed… terror indeed accounted for a part, but more of it was grotesque, disgusting, and ugly.
"…"
"What the hell is this thing?!"
At this moment, even the battle-hardened Leon couldn't help but look troubled, staring at the Regenerator monster in front of him with a look of disgust and nausea, as if a giant corpse that had been soaked in formalin preservative fluid was poured out again, making it unbearable to look at.
Ashley behind him clutched Leon's arm tightly, not daring to let go. If she were embraced by this monster, Ashley suspected she would have to live in a nightmare for a whole month.
Even Ada, a strong woman, couldn't help but take a step back. The monster in front of her was indeed not terrifying, but it gave her a strange, nauseating feeling that made her not want to attack.
She always felt that once she touched this monster, she would have to bathe in perfume for a month to feel clean, as if she had obsessive-compulsive disorder.
And… that strong smell of mixed preservative and corpse stench was already making her incredibly light-headed. It was like trying to cover up body odor with perfume but failing, instead the two merging and mutating into a new, explosive, foul smell!
Chapter 87: Hellish Painting
"Cough cough… Ptooey…!"
"What an ugly and disgusting monster,"
Because of the Regenerator's death, Leon's deeply embedded leg finally managed to pull free, but the massive explosion of the corpse was unavoidable, as the distance was simply too close.
"Bang—!"
With a muffled thud, a large amount of liquid and fragmented flesh splattered onto Leon's body. Smelling the strange odor on himself, Leon shook his head helplessly, unable to resist complaining.
It was bad enough that this monster died, but he didn't expect it to retaliate before its death. Although the destructive power of this mud bomb wasn't great, the insult was extremely strong. Presumably, no one would like this smell.
He could even vaguely feel that the only two women in the team, Ada, had slightly frowned and looked at him with revulsion, which made Leon feel very frustrated.
Fortunately, although Ashley next to him hated the smell, she didn't show too much dissatisfaction. After all, Leon was her black knight who had saved her.
How could a princess be disgusted by the heroic bloodstains of her knight—?
That would be a very rude act.
"Although this monster is formidable, if you have the right equipment to counter it, it's actually quite easy to deal with. Its advantage is infinite regeneration; if you don't hit its vital points, it's practically unkillable."
"But its flaws are also very obvious: its hardware is too low. Compared to other monsters before, the Regenerator's movement speed and attack methods are too limited."
"It only has two moves: pounce and bite. And because it has no skeletal support, its movement speed can be described as snail-like. As long as you break its legs, even if you can't kill it, we can string it along for a long time."
At this moment, Javier, who had just dealt with the Regenerator, slowly put away his modified Desert Eagle. Looking at the Regenerator that had turned into disintegrated minced meat and mud on the ground, he spoke calmly.
As long as you have a thermal imager, the Regenerator monster is much easier to deal with than in the game. After all, as the saying goes, the Regenerator's hardware foundation is too poor.
It is terrifying, but a slow-moving monster that occasionally only lunges is really not much of a threat.
No wonder it can only become an ultimate elite monster. It seems it's not just about the large quantity of mass production, but more importantly, its characteristic of being easily countered.
Listening to Javier's eloquent talk, Luis in the distance also nodded. This was indeed a weakness of the Regenerator, because when he first began researching this monster, Luis's goal was not to make it a terrifying monster, but to utilize its ability to infinitely regenerate.
This would allow human medical technology to achieve breakthrough progress. After all, once the research on the Regenerator was completed, humanity could break through cloning technology, and many hospitals would not need organ donations, but could spontaneously obtain many perfect regenerated organs.
These organs would be healthy and perfect because they were regenerated from the Regenerator's body. Humanity could break free from moral and ethical constraints, thereby conducting more in-depth human research.
Furthermore, if the Regenerator's regenerative ability could be transferred to humans, similar to a vaccine injected into the human body without any side effects, then humanity could achieve the concept of being invulnerable to injury. No matter how severe the injury, whether from a car accident, fire, or even a high-altitude fall, they would not die!
Perhaps lifespan was one of the key issues, but as long as infinite regeneration could be achieved, Luis would effectively hold half the key to the door of "immortality." After all, so-called immortality meant being indestructible and undying, not only having infinite lifespan but also an uninjurable body.
This terrifying thought took root in Luis's mind. It seemed no one could escape the curse of immortality. Spencer was like this, and so was Luis.
Because of this thought, Luis fell into a frenzied research, thereby forgetting his original intention.
Until the experiment ultimately failed… when the Regenerator's regenerative ability could not be transferred, and the Regenerator also transformed into an ugly monster, Luis was startled into realizing his mistake.
It was only now that Luis understood that immortality… was not so easily achieved, and it was a chasm that humanity could hardly cross. After all, how could the Creator allow humanity to defy nature?
"At first, I didn't intend for this thing to become a monster, but unfortunately… my experiment failed, which led to such a terrifying creation. I didn't give it any offensive abilities,"
"But the Plaga parasites inside it made it violent. Perhaps the genes within the Plaga parasites were inherently violent from the start, and my experimental direction was also wrong from the beginning."
He sighed deeply, Luis murmured with a sense of lament, his emotions quite lost. This was yet another time Luis realized his mistake.
But soon… Luis shook off this negative emotion, gave a self-deprecating smile, and quickly led everyone towards his research lab.