Chapter 223: Shadow Hedgehog
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Twelve years had passed.
A Carcass Refinery station stood in the middle of the cave lab, pieces of jellylike frozen meat wiggled on top of the station while the blood-red color reflected from the meat. The frozen pieces of meat were quickly assembled by tens of thousands of dark magic runes—squeezed and packed together.
These activated fleshes were molded and rubbed in the carcass refinery. Memories were being collected together however the memories from the past host were all forgotten.
There was a red glow visible on Grimm’s mask, reflected from the blood-red meat before him. Deep scarlet eyes were also seen under the mask, while the reddish-green fat Lord Myna was on his shoulder—both were left speechless.
All of a sudden, the lab was filled with a mysterious and unusual atmosphere—as if something bad was about to happen. The Water-Crystal Turtle started to tremble from outside the cave.
It was the fear that foreign creatures had toward the unknown power of life and death mastered by the Black Sorcerers!
The carcass refinery continued to work on the pieces of meat, or rather to be seen as a mutated lifeform. There were various kinds of tentacles—organs repeatedly extending out from the lump of meat and sinking back into it while the lump gradually turned neon green. Even Amonro’s coccyges were also seen in it.
Badump… Badump…
Suddenly, the loud pounding of heartbeats was heard in the lab. Grimm wore a wicked and grim look on his face—with a clear depiction of passion and enthusiasm of a sorcerer towards the knowledge of sorcery.
Grimm held on a heart that was about the size of a baby’s skull with his pale, delicate, and slim palm. The heart pounded strongly—endless energy of life could be felt from it, as if it was composing a song of praise for its life.
However, the song was enslaved by the evil knowledge of dark sorcery.
“Wait a minute!”
Lord Myna who sat on Grimm’s shoulder stopped Grimm from continuing—it had a childish idea in mind. Suddenly, it spat out fresh saliva onto Grimm’s palm which was holding the activated heart, “Ptui!”
Grimm’s palm shook lightly. He emitted an aura of frustration despite his face covered by a mask. He asked coldly, “You bastard, what does this mean?”
“Oh… my dear Master Grimm, don’t get the wrong idea! I was thinking about what that old bastard said—Dimensional Gaps occur when the protagonists from the low latitude world surpass the original world as they are dissatisfied being mediocre. As a result, they were not being accepted in the low latitude world and became exotic creatures in the imaginary space of high latitude lifeforms. After all these years of eating low latitude protagonists in the Dimensional Gap, wouldn’t I have some of the rings of light surrounding those protagonists? Who knows my saliva might bring transformation to this Chimera and change its fate, hahaha…”
Lord Myna acted immensely pleased with himself.
However, Grimm replied with dissatisfaction, “Hmph! The rings of light surround those protagonists? The fate and presence of the strongest protagonist in this novel would always have great comeback and turnaround from dangerous situations, and became the true definition of immortality. So, now you think that you are the one?”
“Haha, at least I am still alive now—not to mention I have been trapped in the Dimensional Gap for so many years!” Lord Myna replied earnestly.
Grimm shook his head and ignored the overthinking Lord Myna that thought that he would be the ‘Exceptional Protagonist’.
Lord Myna’s theory assumed that all living creatures would be the protagonists of this endless world as long as they were still alive.
Moreover, there would only be protagonists when viewed onto the low latitude world from the perspective of high latitude lifeforms. It would not be applicable when the endless world was viewed as the high latitude world.
Grimm chuckled sarcastically and continued his experiment.
The activated heart on Grimm’s hand beat continuously. Grimm took a deep breath and gently squeezed out blood from the heart—dripped on the lump of molded activated flesh.
Sizzle!
A loud sizzling sound was heard. As if droplets of ice-cold water were being dropped into a pot of heated oil, the lump of flesh consisted of tentacles and body parts then exploded like a blooming flower. As the carcass refining went on, major parts of the body gradually formed.
“Ha!”
Reacting quickly, Grimm shouted and stuffed the activated heart into the exploded lump of flesh and pressed on both his hands onto the carcass refining station—magical power surged and activated at maximum level.
A buzzing sound was heard.
The dark magic rune that covered the activated tentacle parts released dark rays of light and the surroundings of the lab were then filled with an unpleasant atmosphere. A squeak was heard from the tentacles that were stimulated by both the blood of the activated heart and also the magic rune. The tentacles then immediately gathered together with the heart as the center point.
Then, it formed into a neon green colored sphere shape while it wobbled non-stop.
“This would be the last step!”
Grimm waved his hand and a black crystal ball floated over before him from above the tabletop. There was a dot of light within the ball that was struggling, and it could hardly be seen.
It was with a stroke of luck when Grimm first entered the Shadow World via a Void Fortress and he was able to encounter the Natural Elemental Soul of the Great Bloodfalls Lavawyvern.
It mattered not if Grimm did not need this Chimaera in future. Since it was not artificially merged, the elemental soul could still be the ingredient for the next Chimera, until it was being artificially merged into a high-level elemental soul.
Grimm’s right hand was filled with magical power that was extracted from the elemental soul while he waited calmly for the best timing to perform the merge.
This elemental soul would be the chain that locked onto the Chimera, in order for Grimm to take control of it. It would be equivalent to gaining control of the soul of the Chimera with the cost of a Soul Fire.
A moment later.
Lord Myna was puzzled while he stood on Grimm’s shoulder and asked, “Hmm? Master, something doesn’t seem right with this activated flesh…the Carcass Refinery seems to be lacking some energy structure.”
Grimm looked at the flesh that sat on the refinery and it seemed to be in a restless state. It even showed signs of deteriorating life energy. Immediately, Grimm’s expression froze as he realized something was not right.
He realized that he was unable to sense defects from the experiment through his weak senses toward natural energy sources.
Suddenly, an idea had struck him and he immediately drew his hand through the air. Then, more than ten Shadow Stones appeared before him.
He knew that he had to act quickly, and he shouted fiercely, “Wild Instinct Level 1, activate!” Then, a layer of densely packed black tiny scales was formed above his skin. He immediately closed his palms together and squeezed hard while he rubbed his palm to create friction in between. The Shadow Stones were then crushed into powder form.
Grimm let out a hiss and the scales retracted back into his body, while he dusted the entire activated flesh that was still wobbling with the powder on hand.
All of a sudden, the wobbling flesh seemed to calm down by the powder and stopped its movement, only left with the sound of its heartbeat that could hardly be heard. At the same time, densely packed neon green bone spiked out and elongated from the flesh, it immediately looked like a hedgehog.
Thousands of spikes were wiggling vigorously, similar to the tail of Amonros.
“Now this is it!”
Grimm pointed toward the flesh, immediately the enslaved Natural Elemental Soul of the Great Bloodfalls Lavawyvern entered the body of the Chimera. The elemental soul had given the lifeless flesh mixture a final touch and now it had come to life.
Shh…
The eyes of the neon green hedgehog slowly opened, and its dark pupils were seen. The size of its body was only about half a meter while thousands of its elongated spikes were about two meters long.
Immediately after, the hedgehog disappeared from Grimm’s sight.
He was amazed and excited. “Oh? That was unexpected! It seems like this Chimera has inherited the ability from the Enigmatic Amonros to hide in the shadows.”
The water crystal ball flew over to Grimm while he carefully sensed the body attributes and some other abilities of the Chimera.
After a pause, Grimm let out a sigh and shook his head.
Since this Chimera was just an experiment to Grimm, its physical attributes were only about 180 points while its attacking degree maintained around 300 points. It paled in comparison to Grimm and the Greedy Flame Giant’s physical attributes as they had been refining their potential for many years.
However, there were also things to be grateful for from the Chimera. It had high resistance obtained from the energy of the Neon Green Amonro and its ability to hide within the shadows, which was the ability obtained from the Enigmatic Amonro.
From the experiment of this Chimera, Grimm finally realized the weakness of the Neon Green Amonros. They were the mutated lifeforms that were unable to sense any energy sources as they had isolated their own energy from the surroundings.
Based on the findings, Grimm forwent the hopes that he had toward the Neon Green Amonros.
‘A sorcerer that is unable to sense energy sources?
‘Would that still be considered a sorcerer…’
Grimm let out a deep sigh and murmured, “Well then, let’s just name this first and memorable experimental Chimera as Shadow Hedgehog!”
Lord Myna burst out in laughter. “Haha, Master Grimm, I can see that this Chimera has surpassed the value of what you have put in, some part of the result might also have come from my saliva–the protagonist’s saliva.”
Grimm gave Lord Myna a hard stare and ignored him. He continued to pick up the glazing fiery red flames that were collected from the tailbones of the Vaiduryarion Amonros. He left the lab and dove toward the Lightning Mirror at the lake bottom.
There seemed to be abnormalities within the secretive Lightning Mirror at the bottom of the lake.