IABI – Chapter 98 The Truth of the Jungle (11)

“Pa.”

The distance between the two of them hadn’t been great to begin with. On top of that, Chi Xin’s speed had already surpassed the limits of a human being. Before Han Zimo could pull the trigger, Chi Xin was already in front of him and kicked the gun out of his hand.

She balanced on one leg, the other extended straight and lifted high. Her long black hair, carried by inertia, only slowly fell back behind her once the gun had already flown away.

From Han Zimo’s perspective, she looked like the most exquisitely designed character from a fighting game—even her gaze was flawless beyond reproach.

At such a tense moment, a trace of dazed fascination actually flickered in his eyes.

Chi Xin frowned. She didn’t care what the other party was thinking. The instant her raised leg came down, her other leg swept out in a perfect arc, borrowing the momentum to slam viciously into Han Zimo’s waist!

Han Zimo revealed a look of arrogant confidence. He didn’t even dodge, simply standing in place and spreading his arms.

“Even if I admit your claws are sharp, you’re still nothing more than a—”

“Bang—!”

Chi Xin’s leg struck Han Zimo’s waist with a heavy thud.

The rest of his sentence never came out. Hit by such a sudden, brutal blow, his eyes bulged, lips parted, and undisguised shock spread across his face.

He only had time to glance briefly at Chi Xin before hunching over and being sent flying backward.

Chi Xin drew back her leg and asked calmly, “What were you saying?”

“Thud.”

Han Zimo slammed into the wall of the hall, collapsing a corner of it. Rubble and dust cascaded down, scattering across the entire space.

“Cough! Cough!”

Among them, Sero’s physique was the closest to that of an ordinary human. She couldn’t help coughing a few times, her face filled with disbelief.

“She… she…”

Unlike Sero, both Chi Xin and Jing Xiubai kept their eyes fixed tightly on the spot where Han Zimo had been buried, their expressions grave.

Chi Xin slightly rotated her ankle and tilted her neck a little. “You noticed it too?”

“Mm.” Jing Xiubai responded. “With your leg strength, it wouldn’t just send someone flying. For a normal human body, that kick should at least have left him paralyzed from the waist down.”

Chi Xin could kick open even a metal gate with just a few strikes. Could Han Zimo’s body really be harder than metal?

“You—you don’t know. Cough!” Sero coughed twice more before steadying her voice and said anxiously, “Han Zimo has undergone my father’s modifications…”

There was no need for her to say the rest.

With a crash, something burst through the rubble in the collapsed corner and stood up.

“Chi… Xin.”

The hoarse voice slowly spoke her name, like a demon from hell chanting a seductive curse.

Chi Xin reflexively turned around, placing Jing Xiubai and Sero behind her.

Han Zimo rose to his feet little by little. His clothes were tattered beyond recognition from the scraping impact, and he simply reached out and tore off what remained of his shirt.

Chi Xin’s pupils contracted.

What shocked her wasn’t Han Zimo’s physique, but the smooth layer covering all of his muscles—tight and snug like a second skin. Yet the metallic sheen made it clear that this was absolutely not something a human body could naturally grow.

“You really did surprise me.” Han Zimo’s voice trembled slightly, the quiver of excessive excitement. Under Chi Xin’s astonished gaze, he sneered and snapped off his own right hand.

Chi Xin: ???

That was actually a fake?!

That artificial right hand was in fact a scabbard. Once removed, it revealed the razor-sharp hooked blade concealed beneath.

“…His entire body is made of extremely high-density nanomaterials, tougher than even the most advanced bulletproof vests on the market.” Sero finally found her voice again. “His right hand has been modified into a hooked weapon made from the hardest metal currently known in the world.”

After the brief exchange, Chi Xin had already regained her composure. She simply asked calmly, “Anything else?”

Sero hesitated for a moment. “He should have been injected with a strength-type ability serum, but I’m not sure which generation it was, or what effects it produces.”

Chi Xin gave an “Oh,” her face still showing no trace of panic.

Han Zimo licked his lips. “Dr. Sero really didn’t do her job thoroughly. Such an important test subject, and there aren’t even any records?”

Sero pressed her lips together. Looking at Han Zimo’s body of steel and iron, then at the seemingly delicate, pretty young girl Chi Xin, uncontrollable worry surged into her eyes. She shouted, “Chi Xin, his combat level isn’t the same as those zombies. You can’t beat him—run, quickly!”

Before Chi Xin could answer, Han Zimo let out a cold snort. “Run?”

In the next second, he charged toward Sero at the same blinding speed. The tip of the hooked blade gleamed with a sinister chill, aimed straight at Sero’s eyes!

“Clang!”

A wall of ice instantly formed in front of Sero. Jing Xiubai spread his hands, using the ice wall to block the hook’s attack, then violently swung his arm, slamming the entire thick wall of ice into Han Zimo.

The ice shattered, the sound crisp and icy. Yet Han Zimo didn’t move an inch, standing in place as his body smashed straight through the ice wall.

An impact that could have torn an ordinary person to pieces landed on him as if nothing had happened at all—not even the faintest trace of blood remained.

Jing Xiubai’s expression didn’t change much, but his gaze grew a little heavier.

Chi Xin naturally noticed this. She subtly shot Jing Xiubai a look, then spoke up to draw Han Zimo’s attention. “Han Zimo.”

Han Zimo came back to himself and looked at her leisurely.

“Are you very confident in your own strength?” Chi Xin asked.

She could tell—whether it was dodging her whip kick at the beginning, or charging head-on into Jing Xiubai’s ice wall, there was a kind of self-assured arrogance in Han Zimo’s expression, as if no one else even mattered.

Whether it was her “strength ability” or Jing Xiubai’s ice-type ability, he dismissed them all. In his eyes, only his own modifications were the finest work.

Han Zimo’s eyes lit up. “You noticed.”

A strange smile appeared on his bewitchingly handsome face. “This is the battle suit I asked Dr. Hughes to tailor specifically for me. So—are you satisfied?”

Chi Xin looked at the gleaming metallic film covering his body, along with the sharp hook on his right hand, and showed an unconvinced expression.

“You don’t like it?” Han Zimo froze. It was as if his entire worldview had been violently shaken. He couldn’t help but let out an indignant roar.

“What do you ordinary humans know?! The nano-suit makes me impervious to blades and bullets—they can barely harm me at all! And this—”

He lifted the sharp hook and waved it in front of Chi Xin’s eyes.

“As long as I have this, all your defenses turn into nothing more than paper. With just a light hook like this—”

He swung the hook at the nearby wall, instantly gouging out a chunk.

A twisted, cruel smile spread across his face. “This is exactly like your bodies.”

After Han Zimo finished speaking, the three fell into silence.

Sero was frozen in fear, while Chi Xin and Jing Xiubai…

“Wow.” Chi Xin read flatly, without any emotion. “That’s… really eye-opening.”

Jing Xiubai sighed softly. “Dr. Hughes should be arriving soon.”

“Roger.”

Chi Xin rolled her shoulders slightly, flexed her wrists, and her twin blades slid free. She assumed a fighting stance and even beckoned at Han Zimo. “Hurry it up. I’m on a schedule.”

“You dare mock me?” The smile vanished from Han Zimo’s face.

“You dare mock a warrior personally created by Dr. Hughes?!”

“That old man probably can’t make anything better than this anyway,” Chi Xin said.

That plain, casual sentence stabbed straight into the most hidden part of Han Zimo’s heart. His expression twisted as he stared at Chi Xin’s calm face, and he finally couldn’t hold back, charging straight at her.

“Clang—”

Just as the hook swept toward Chi Xin’s face, it was firmly blocked by the raised blade.

“Han Zimo,” Chi Xin said, “why are you willing to obey Dr. Hughes so readily? Just because he gave you this set of equipment?”

Her other wrist flipped, the blade deftly changing direction before stabbing fiercely toward his abdomen!

If that strike had landed, it should have ripped him open, blood spilling everywhere.

But thanks to the nano-suit, when the blade tip hit Han Zimo’s stomach, it instead produced the clang of metal colliding with metal, causing him no harm at all.

At that moment, Han Zimo seized the opportunity. He grinned savagely at Chi Xin, grabbed the hem of her clothes with his intact left hand, and together with the hook above, exerted force—lifting her straight up!

“Ah!” Sero screamed in terror.

“Why?” Han Zimo roared as he hurled Chi Xin toward the wall.

“Because in this world, only he can make me the strongest!”

The force was fast and vicious. Chi Xin felt as if she had been launched into the air. But this level of impact wasn’t enough to send her crashing out. She adjusted her posture midair, kicked off the wall with both feet, ran a quick circle along it, and landed steadily.

“Oh?” She even had the leisure to keep chatting.

“And why are you so sure he can make you the strongest?”

Seeing her completely unscathed, Han Zimo’s expression darkened. He continued attacking while answering in between blows.

“Who Dr. Hughes is—I don’t need to explain. Do his promises even need to be questioned? He can invent ability-enhancing drugs, he can develop vaccines for viruses. He is destined to become the god of the new world.”

He viciously blocked Chi Xin’s assault, his eyes glowing with a fixation bordering on obsession.

“—He can make me the strongest.”

Chi Xin twitched the corner of her mouth.

“I won’t comment on the rest,” Jing Xiubai said calmly from the side, “but I don’t know why you believe he can make you the strongest. Ability-enhancing drugs aren’t flawless. Neither are modified humans.”

“So what if there are flaws?!”

Han Zimo was kicked back several steps by Chi Xin, roaring with a feral expression.

“Everyone has flaws! As long as I’m still the strongest, I’m a hundred times better than those weaklings!”

“You really do believe him,” Chi Xin finally couldn’t help saying.

“Is becoming strong really worth paying everything for?”

Han Zimo stared at her steadily. “Yes.”

“Is there a reason?”

“Does it need a reason?” Han Zimo said.

“I once asked many people why—why other children could eat their fill, stay warm, wear nice clothes, and go to the park, while I could only curl up in the sewers, scavenging for trash to eat like a rat born carrying a virus. I asked my mother—she couldn’t answer me. I asked my teacher—what I got was nothing but mocking looks.”

His pupils trembled.

“Later I realized it. All those so-called reasons came down to one thing—I wasn’t strong enough. I couldn’t snatch food from others, so my mother starved to death. I couldn’t take what I wanted, so I could only be forgotten forever.”

“You ask me for a reason?”

“There’s no need for one. My very existence is the reason I want to become strong.”

Chi Xin fell silent.

So it really was true—behind every villain with broken logic, there’s a tragic past.

But unfortunately for him, the one he ran into… was her.

“All right,” Chi Xin said.

Han Zimo paused, suspicion flickering across his face. “You’re admitting defeat?”

Chi Xin smiled faintly at him.

“No. I’m just acknowledging your twisted logic.”

As she spoke, under Han Zimo’s suddenly shocked gaze, Chi Xin unclipped her twin blades and tossed them straight onto the ground.

“Look,” she said, showing him her empty palms.

“My hands are empty now. I promise you—in the rest of this fight, I won’t use any weapons.”

Han Zimo’s expression shifted from shock to profound humiliation.

“You don’t believe me? You’re looking down on me?!”

“On the contrary—I believe you completely.”

Facing the fully armed Han Zimo with bare hands, Chi Xin remained calm.

“I just want to prove to you that the ‘strongest’ Hughes promised you is nothing more than the cheapest candy given to a homeless child—pretty on the outside, but so fragile it shatters at a touch.”

She said softly, “Let me show you what true strength really is.”