"I have been fooled by him since the start!" Lin Sanjiu expressed her rage to Mrs. Manas when she saw Derik smiling in front of her. Despite her anger, on the surface, Lin Sanjiu was just a ghastly-looking, skinless being made of muscles, flesh, and bones.
"He mentioned to follow the rules..." her voice was annoyed. "The name of his ability is just very straightforward. This is a refinery!"
Derik suddenly burst out laughing, as if he could sense the psychological state of the "muscle" person before him.
"Every time! Every time a person survives until I appear, I really appreciate the expressions on their face when they learn the truth," he tidied his coattail jacket. Smile wrinkles appeared at the corner of his eyes and cheeks, "Now, it had become a sort of tradition before I started fighting. I feel that it brings me luck. From your reaction, I guess you are already somewhat aware?"
The blood-red figure nodded.
"That's right," Derik continued, feeling contented, "from the beginning, you shouldn't try to identify Derik because each time you do that, it is just a refining process."
Lin Sanjiu let out a deep sigh inwardly. That was also what she had inferred.
From the start, she shouldn't try identifying the Deriks within the groups. Her easiest option was to brave the few hundred people in the space all at once and attack them directly. That was also the best way out of the situation. Even though the number of people would drop by almost half after a round of guessing, giving a false impression that things were getting easier, the people did not really vanish. Instead, they were refined.
One way to explain this is that each time Lin Sanjiu made a guess, it was a refining process. The capabilities of the people who disappear from space would be distributed between the remaining people.
Such a refining process compressed the people's combat capabilities and was a good ground for developing powerful abilities and fighting techniques. This was also why the crowd started physically fighting but eventually developed abilities.
Derik's House of Refinery could fuse and refine the combative capabilities of a few hundred people before finally infusing these capabilities into one person. The end result was the Derik in front of Lin Sanjiu.
"That's to say, this LP has power equivalent to a few hundred people?" Mrs. Manas asked in a mumble.
Before Lin Sanjiu could reply to her, Derik spoke with a dream-like voice. "The few hundred posthumans in this space have died in my House of Refinery. After they died, they became my nourishment. I absorbed their most powerful abilities, chose the strongest physique, and developed the most marvelous talents... I am an amalgamation of all these people, surpassing their combined strength... You wouldn't understand the feeling of being at the top of all these people."
Lin Sanjiu stared at Derik, but she wouldn't say anything. She was trying her best to figure out what other possible moves she could make.
"However, all abilities have their limitation. The refining process of my ability does not occur naturally. It requires a few rounds of attacks and filters. I'm not happy about it either," Derik smacked his lips, "But, thankfully, my deception worked. HAHA!"
Lin Sanjiu's facial muscles scrunched up and created a rather unpleasant expression.
"Come. You can become a member of my House of Refinery. When you die, everything of yours, including your ability, skills, and combat experience, will become a part of me. Doesn't that sound good?"
While he spoke, Derik's body gradually transformed into a gaseous state. His body started to slowly drift apart, starting from his shoulders. He quickly reached the area near Lin Sanjiu's leg bones.
'Is it corrosive? Is it a poison gas? Or something else?' Lin Sanjiu guessed as she immediately flew backward with her Higher Consciousness body. However, it was impossible to avoid the gas with such simple dodging.
Lin Sanjiu watched as the gas diffused quickly. It took just a little over ten seconds to fill the lobby. Lin Sanjiu couldn't help feeling a little hard-pressed as she activated her [Defense Forcefield'. She decided to take on the attack directly, using her Higher Consciousness. Unexpectedly, when the gas touched her body, she felt nothing.
Not even a single strand of her Higher Consciousness was affected, and they continued flowing as usual. It was as if the smoke didn't exist. If not for Derik's savage laughter, which continued reverberating, Lin Sanjiu would have believed that the gas was dry ice used before a performance.
'Is he going to use his ultimate ability much later?'
However, she was perfectly fine after some time, even though the smoke grew so thick that it started affecting her vision. In fact, after fighting non-stop for such a long time, Lin Sanjiu was quite pleased that she suddenly had the opportunity to just rest and do nothing in midair.
The red humanoid floated in midair, occasionally waving her hands through the smoke. An expression of faint puzzlement appeared on that person's skinless face. When Derik noticed that, he stopped laughing abruptly.
"Huh?" the voice in the smoke sounded rather astonished. "It's already been quite a few minutes."
Lin Sanjiu looked up at the smoke around her. She raised eight fingers, indicating to Derik that it had been eight minutes.
Not only was she unharmed, but she had even deactivated her [Defense Forcefield] to conserve her strength.
"This can't be it! Don't tell me you don't need oxygen?" Derik raised his volume. Lin Sanjiu's leisurely attitude offended him, "Even if there are posthumans with special physiques, no one can survive five minutes without breathing..."
The red skinless person held her stomach, and her shoulders started trembling, her head facing upward. If she could actually make a sound, she would laugh aloud.
'No wonder I am alright! So this smoke reduces the oxygen in the air!' Lin Sanjiu was already crying from laughing too much. 'He made such an exaggerated display, it scared me.'
Mrs. Manas also couldn't stop laughing. Suddenly relaxing from being overly tensed, they laughed for a very long time.
'Ah, I hope this isn't the only technique he has.' Lin Sanjiu took some time to finally stop laughing. She had not finished her sentence when she saw the smoke retreating quickly. The smoke finally concentrated on a single point and coalesced to recreate Derik's body.
The LP's face was very red, and his expression was grim. Anyone could see that he was very angry as his trump card, which no human could escape from, had been ridiculed and laughed at.
"I think you jinxed yourself again," Mrs. Manas mumbled.
Derik let out a malicious laugh. He opened his mouth and showed half a row of teeth.
"So, you don't need to breathe. Then, you can try this ability.
"[Mankind's Bane]."