Stronger with Crimson Modifier-Chapter 53: Origin [2]

Hu Qi followed the group back to the floor where the female Black Blood Species’s corpse lay.

"Based on the concentration of Black Blood on their bodies, they must have been converted recently."

A woman named Zhang Lian crouched down.

She took a blue test strip from her clothes.

One end of the strip was dipped into the dark red blood on the ground, and it quickly began to change color.

Zhang Lian observed the extent of the color change on the strip and explained in a low voice.

"So, that means the Lower-Rank Black Blood Species is most likely still in Qirong City?"

Helinta’s gaze was icy. An invisible red light seemed to dance around her body.

It made the surrounding air feel scorching hot, as if she were a furnace.

Walking down floor by floor, seeing corpse after corpse, had made her expression increasingly grim.

"Investigate! Find that thing. I’m going to rip out its tendons and strip its bones bare!"

Her icy voice sounded as if it were being squeezed through her teeth.

The others’ faces paled slightly as they hurriedly nodded in agreement.

Afterward, the group walked around and checked some more, confirming that the facts were indeed as Hu Qi had said and that the cause of death for these people was indeed a Black Blood Species.

Helinta then had Lin Tong take Hu Qi away.

The two of them walked out of the residential complex.

They reached an intersection.

"So, where are you planning to go now?" Lin Tong turned his head to look at Hu Qi.

"Why don’t you crash at my place?"

Now that Helinta was gone, his expression had relaxed considerably, and he became more talkative.

"No, that would be too much trouble. I’ll just find a hotel."

Hu Qi smiled. He had too many secrets, and besides, he didn’t like living with other people.

Then, he changed the subject.

"Oh, right, Senior Brother Lin, can you tell me more about the Black Blood Species? Like, where do these things actually come from?"

Hearing this, Lin Tong shook his head.

"It’s too complicated to explain everything, and I might miss some details.

I’ll send you a file with information on the Black Blood Species in a bit. You can read it yourself, and if there’s anything you don’t understand, you can ask me then."

"Alright. Thanks, Senior Brother Lin."

Hu Qi couldn’t really press the issue.

"Don’t mention it."

As the two chatted idly, Lin Tong drove to their destination.

It was a hotel next to the Red Scale Club.

’Lin Tong must have done this on purpose.’

After reminding Hu Qi to call if he needed anything, Lin Tong stepped on the gas, and the car sped off.

Glancing at the disappearing taillights and the pitch-black street, Hu Qi, carrying the bag with the Camphor Tea Duck, turned and entered the hotel.

The hotel was large and very expensive.

After paying the deposit, Hu Qi took the elevator to his room on the 32nd floor.

After a quick shower, Hu Qi dried himself off with a bath towel. It was now around four in the morning. Because it was summer, the black curtain of the sky had already faded to a deep blue, and a faint, pale light was beginning to appear on the horizon.

He drew the curtains, turned on the air conditioner, and lay down on the bed. He then pulled out his phone to look at the file Lin Tong had sent.

The file wasn’t large, only a few megabytes, and it downloaded quickly.

Hu Qi opened it and began to scan through the contents.

It was mostly text, with a few hand-drawn illustrations or pictures interspersed throughout.

Contrary to what Hu Qi had imagined, it didn’t start with information about the Black Blood Species.

Over a hundred years ago, Earth Star was in an era dominated by two great empires: Purple Gold and Longyuan.

In that era, the many smaller nations either became vassals of the two great empires or were destroyed.

At that time, the people were in the grip of a gold rush.

The largest gold mine was located near Qika County in the Purple Gold Empire’s Trabumi Province.

Initially, when the mine was discovered, it was mined for copper by the locals due to the large copper deposits in its upper layers.

It wasn’t until a dozen or so years later, when the upper copper deposits were nearly depleted, that the massive gold mine hidden below was discovered.

Large-scale mining operations began soon after.

The proven Gold reserves exceeded ten thousand tons, and the gold content per ton of ore was 5.1g/t.

Such a high concentration drove countless people into a frenzy.

In the face of profit, human greed is never satisfied.

Through continuous excavation, the mine shafts grew deeper and deeper.

Eventually, the total length of the tunnels and inclined shafts reached 9,000 meters, making it the deepest of all mines.

A round trip from the surface to the bottom of the mine took nearly 6.7 hours, and it typically took a miner about three hours just to descend from the surface to the deepest point.

However, not only did the Gold not diminish, but the concentration of Gold within the ore actually increased with depth.

But just as the depth reached ten thousand meters, a sudden Mutation occurred.

Miners who went inside began to mysteriously disappear, vanishing without a trace.

The only clue was a few pieces of blood-soaked ore on the conveyor belt.

As it was the mine with the highest gold content, the Purple Gold Empire immediately organized personnel from relevant departments to investigate.

But in the end, they too were never heard from again, as if the investigators had also vanished into the mysterious depths of the mine.

A few days later, the nearly one thousand personnel stationed outside were all but wiped out.

It was only then that people discovered the culprit behind it all: a type of monster from the Inner Earth World. They looked no different from ordinary people most of the time; the only distinction was that the more powerful the monster, the closer its blood was to being black.

Thus, they were named the Black Blood Species.

Below this text was an old photograph.

It showed a blond man dressed in coarse sackcloth.

At a glance, he looked no different from an ordinary person, but upon closer inspection, one could see black bloodstains lingering at the corner of his mouth.

Compared to the reference objects next to him, his build was excessively large.

On the ground beside him lay several corpses in gruesome states.

Beneath the photograph was a caption.

Krof, the first discovered Lower-Rank Black Blood Species. His physical body was extremely durable, capable of withstanding ordinary bullets.

He could tear a person in half with his bare hands and shatter a thick, concrete wall with a single punch.

In the end, he was only killed after the Purple Gold Empire deployed several tanks and nearly a thousand fully armed soldiers.

After his death, his corpse was divided up among various nations for research, providing a massive sample for the later study of the Black Blood Species.

And the above was not an isolated case.

As time went on, the number of discovered Black Blood Species grew.

Realizing that there was no possibility of peaceful coexistence with these Black Blood Species, and facing monsters that fed on all of humanity, Longyuan and Purple Gold had no choice but to set aside their mutual grievances and hatred to jointly form the Xia Federation.

The further he read, the more solemn Hu Qi’s expression became. ’Immune to bullets... Does it take a missile strike to kill them?’

And this wasn’t even the strongest.

According to the available information, the strength of the Black Blood Species, from lowest to highest, is ranked as: Blood Slave, Lower Rank, Middle Rank, and Upper Rank.

The Black Blood Species named Krof, described above, was only considered a Lower-Rank Black Blood Species.