As a high-level Mutant, Sawtooth possessed abnormal regenerative abilities. Seeing that his weapons couldn't truly kill the opponent, Feng Jun directly traveled back to the present world. If he couldn't win, couldn't he at least hide?
However, before leaving, Feng Jun locked his mechanical exoskeleton onto Sawtooth and took out a miniature nuclear hand grenade from his storage space. This item was used for anti-armor combat by individual soldiers in the Doomsday. In the Doomsday timeline, mechanical equipment had developed to be exceptionally powerful. As an era where mechanical exoskeletons and power armor were popularized, it was very reasonable to give soldiers extremely strong armor-piercing capabilities.
The "Vibrator" miniature fission hand grenade was a tactical weapon developed by the Imperial Research Institute in the middle of the war, equipped for individual combat by Ming Empire soldiers. Its purpose was to allow Imperial soldiers to still have the ability to fight to the death when encountering large enemy mechanical armored units, but it was not favored by Ming Army soldiers. Imperial soldiers generally jokingly called it the Cabinet's Funeral, with a weight of 1 and an explosion radius of 100-200 meters. Generally, only suicide squads or those who were surrounded would use this thing. It could easily destroy a large power armor, along with its user.
After returning to the present world, Feng Jun checked the time: 5:49 PM. The time he set for the explosion when he left was 3 seconds later. Even if Sawtooth's ability was truly like the protagonist in Prototype, it would be impossible for it to survive within the range of a nuclear explosion, even though this was a weakened miniature nuclear bomb. If that didn't work, then he still had two more Vibrators in his storage space. At that time, Feng Jun would let it know what cruelty was.
Feng Jun was not in a hurry to travel back immediately. After taking a comfortable shower in his villa and changing his clothes, Feng Jun then activated his travel ability and returned to the Doomsday.
In the Doomsday, the explosion directly destroyed several buildings within the range of Feng Jun and Sawtooth's battle and left a five-meter-deep crater in place. Feng Jun's travel ability had a characteristic: each time he traveled, he would appear exactly at the location where he last left. Originally, Feng Jun and Sawtooth were fighting on the roof of a building, but the original building had been destroyed by the explosion, so Feng Jun appeared directly in mid-air when he traveled back this time. However, this was not a great threat to Feng Jun. Although he was not wearing a mechanical exoskeleton, Feng Jun still landed steadily in the crater created by the explosion, relying on his physical fitness after injecting the evolution potion.
After standing up, he heard the sound of glass shattering under his feet. Looking down, there was a layer of black, glassy substance on the ground. This was glassy crystallization produced by the high temperature of the nuclear bomb explosion melting the soil. The temperature needed to be at least between 1000-2000 degrees Celsius; no organic matter could survive in such high explosion temperatures. It seemed that Sawtooth should have been directly vaporized by the high temperature, with no possibility of continued regeneration.
However, in that case, his gene seed was probably also vaporized. He finally encountered one, only to lose it. He wondered when he would encounter another gene seed next time. Because thick radiation clouds always floated in the sky of the Doomsday, the sky had already completely darkened at this time. Feng Jun took out a flashlight and looked around, preparing to find a way to leave.
Just as the flashlight's light shone around the crater, Feng Jun noticed that one spot seemed to be abnormal. After Feng Jun walked over, he found that there was a sticky liquid on this part of the ground, as if something had just crawled from here.
"Could it be that the explosion just now didn't kill Sawtooth?" Feng Jun suddenly had this thought. He quickly followed the trail of mucus and, sure enough, found a slowly wriggling object not far from the outer edge of the crater.
This was Sawtooth after being hit by Feng Jun's Vibrator miniature nuclear bomb. At the moment of the nuclear bomb's explosion, it shed the mechanical exoskeleton attached to its body and threw the nuclear bomb away. The cells on its body surface accelerated their division and hardened, quickly forming a thick layer of cutin. However, the high temperature of over a thousand degrees still completely destroyed its body. Now, it had become a lump of rotting flesh that could only wriggle on the ground. Even its brain's consciousness had disappeared, leaving only the most basic biological instincts.
At this moment, a prompt appeared in the storage space again: a gene seed was contained within this lump of rotting flesh. However, recalling Sawtooth's ability to absorb zombie blood, Feng Jun did not dare to directly touch it.
He took out a Bolter from his storage space and fired several shots continuously at Sawtooth's remains.
Sawtooth, which had become a soft-bodied creature, could not evade Feng Jun's shots at all. Several Bolter rounds blew its remnant body apart, but even so, the shattered flesh did not stop wriggling. Tiny blood vessels still popped out from the wounds, wriggling incessantly in the air, trying to approach each other and devour nearby flesh and blood.
Among the shattered fragments of flesh and blood, Feng Jun saw a pulsating heart. It was larger than an ordinary person's head. Due to Feng Jun's shooting, one corner of the heart had already shattered, and a faint red glow could be seen from within.
Feng Jun walked forward, took out a long knife, and directly cut open the heart. In the center of the heart was an egg-sized red crystal. At this moment, the urgency in the storage space grew stronger and stronger, urging Feng Jun to put this crystal into the storage space.
He used the knife to pick the crystal out of the heart and wiped off the attached flesh and blood with a cloth. He held it in his hand and examined it for a while; it was translucent, like a natural ruby. This was the gene seed that the storage space had asked him to collect. He wondered what its effect would be. Never mind, he would complete the task first. The storage space originally required him to collect one gene seed within a year, with failure resulting in obliteration. Now he had completed the task ahead of schedule. He wondered if there would be any rewards. After putting the gene seed into the storage space, Feng Jun quietly waited for the storage space's information prompt.
"Congratulations, Host, for collecting a gene seed. Storage space area doubled. Next task: collect 2 gene seeds within the new one-year deadline. Failure will result in obliteration." It was still a very concise reply.
"Damn it, only the storage space doubled? No other rewards? And the time limit just got extended, but the task doubled!" Feng Jun couldn't help but complain. The storage space doubling meant it was now over forty square meters. But he had to collect 5 more gene seeds within a year. To think that just one Sawtooth was so troublesome, and now he had to find 2 more.
Just then, several cars suddenly drove up from a street in the distance, and someone leaned out the window, waving to Feng Jun.
"Boss, are you alright?" Before the car had even fully stopped, Song Peng jumped out, followed by a squad of fully armed soldiers. "The Imperial Guard reported that you were missing, and there was an explosion here, so I rushed over with my men."
"It's all over. You take care of cleaning up here." Feng Jun did not blame them; after all, if he hadn't wandered off, he wouldn't have encountered this trouble.
"Collect the wriggling flesh on the ground. This stuff sucks blood. Be careful not to touch it directly with your skin. Seal it up," Feng Jun said, pointing to the wriggling Sawtooth fragments on the ground.
Song Peng had already noticed the fragmented flesh on the ground. Hearing his boss's instructions, he quickly called his subordinates to get to work. They found several soldiers equipped with mechanical arms and carefully collected the fragmented flesh on the ground, placing it separately into sealed containers to prevent them from merging together.
However, danger still occurred during the collection process. A piece of fragmented flesh suddenly leaped out of a container as it was being placed inside and attached itself to a soldier's arm. In just an instant, the soldier's forearm was drained of blood, and the small piece of fragmented flesh quickly doubled in size. Fortunately, the soldier next to him was quick-witted and immediately pulled out an electromagnetic vibrating dagger, cutting off his entire arm, which saved his life.
Seeing this scene, cold sweat broke out on Song Peng's and the soldiers' foreheads, and fear began to creep into their hearts. Looking at the traces of the explosion around them, they wondered what kind of Mutant their boss had fought. Some soldiers also began to admire Feng Jun. They had originally thought Feng Jun was just a businessman who controlled resources, but now it seemed he was not. Feng Jun himself possessed very strong strength and could even defeat a powerful Mutant alone. Some people who had originally held contempt for Feng Jun began to admire him, after all, everyone worshipped the strong, especially in the wasteland.
Feng Jun did not notice the admiring gazes the surrounding soldiers cast upon him. Instead, he walked over to the soldier who had cut off his companion's arm.
"What's your name?" Feng Jun noticed this soldier's reaction just now; he almost instantly pulled out an electromagnetic vibrating dagger and cut off his companion's arm, saving her.
"Reporting, Boss, my name is Zhong Chen." The soldier gave Feng Jun a standard military salute.
"Well done. Your reaction was quite fast just now." Feng Jun patted his shoulder. "Your reaction was good just now. From now on, you will be my Imperial Guard captain."
Besides appreciating Zhong Chen's quick reaction just now, Feng Jun also realized that if he wanted to collect more gene seeds, he couldn't do it alone. He had to quickly cultivate a force that was loyal only to him and had strong combat power.
Just as Feng Jun continued to arrange for soldiers to clean up around the crater, Old Eight appeared, dragging a crippled body. It turned out that it had not been completely destroyed by Sawtooth. Although it had lost a leg and had large areas of damage on its body, it still avoided the explosion and crawled out of the rubble.
Seeing Old Eight dragging its crippled body running towards him, Feng Jun was first surprised, then he understood what was happening: Li Lu was still missing. He stroked Old Eight's head, "Where is Li Lu? Do you know? Quickly take me there."
Subsequently, led by Old Eight, Feng Jun found Li Lu hiding in a building. Fortunately, when Feng Jun found her, Li Lu still had faint breathing, but that was all. There were two large wounds on her chest and abdomen, which appeared to be caused by Sawtooth's claws. She had lost too much blood and had already lost consciousness.