Shen Cong’s mind was still filled with a dense fog. He did not have the strength to think about the reason. When he did, his mind hurt horribly. He could only do his best to control his Activity and master the out-of-control Activity to heal his wounds.
There were a few times where his head was just too dizzy and he could not focus, so he was unable to command his Activity.
Yet just when he sucked in a deep breath to endure the pain in order to start guiding Activity to heal his wounds again, Titan gave him a large amount of Activity once more.
Boom!
Shen Cong felt like he had just been run into a speeding train, and every part of his body was being torn apart.
When he opened his mouth, he coughed up a large amount of blood, and he nearly fainted again.
His sense of danger became greater.
‘My body… has definitely… been attacked multiple times… No, I have to stop Titan from giving me more Activity…’
He used the last bit of clarity in his mind to try and guide Titan into stopping its act of continuing to absorb Activity, but if he could not even guide his own Activity to heal himself, how was he to guide Titan?
He tried a few times and failed every single one.
‘No… this won’t do… I have to stop Titan…’ Shen Cong only had this one last thought in his dizzy mind.
He had to stop Titan from giving him Activity.
His body could not endure it!
Every time Titan gave him Activity, he was unable to control it, and it continued accumulating in his body. He was beyond what he could hold! His body was already way past its limit! If this continued, he would truly break down!
‘That’s right… the Demonic Bull King Totem.’ At the critical moment, Shen Cong thought of a way out—he had to shut down the Demonic Bull King Totem.
If he removed the Activity resonance field, the tornado would scatter away, and Titan would not be able to swiftly absorb wandering Activity.
Naturally, it would then not be able to give him Activity too.
“Ah!”
Shen Cong gritted his teeth and roared. He used his great willpower to stand up from the driver’s seat.
Every time he moved, he was accompanied by pain that seemed to rip apart his soul. But for the sake of survival, no matter how painful it was, Shen Cong had to endure it.
He had stayed with the truck for six years and was obsessed with one single goal. He might not know that he was ill in the mind, but he was actually mentally sick, and it resulted in him isolating himself. Yet this had indirectly allowed him to do whatever he wanted to do. It was something even he could not control.
Now, he wanted to get up to shut down the Demonic Bull King Totem. Even if he were in so much pain that his body trembled, he still stood up slowly and headed to the truck compartment while sweating and trembling with each step he took.
The Demonic Bull King Totem was embedded into the wall of a cubicle.
Shen Cong crashed into the cubicle while staggering. It was just a few short steps, but it used up almost all of his strength. He did not know how much blood he coughed up. His body continued bleeding nonstop, and it mixed with his sweat to drip down on the floor.
His vision was practically filled with red, and he could not see any other color. He just relied on his sense of touch to move.
In the end, he finally reached the horns.
The resonated liquid on the surface of the water buffalo horns did not do anything when he touched it. The Activity resonance field continued operating, because Activity could not be easily interrupted by some physical matter touching it.
Shen Cong had to deal with the problem before his eyes based on his predicament. Hence, he could only remove one water buffalo horn from Titan’s wall.
Only by doing so could he break the dual-core model.
“HAH!” he shouted after gritting his teeth. Shen Cong used every bit of his last strength to pull the Demonic Bull King Totem from the wall of the truck. When he was about to use up all his strength…
Crack.
Finally, the water buffalo horn was forcefully yanked off by Shen Cong relying on his weight.
Immediately, the tornado which had been spinning nonstop scattered with a bang, and the Activity resonance field disappeared.
Thump.
With a loud sigh, Shen Cong fell on the ground. He was panting fiercely. He had nearly fainted again, but he did not. However, this was no different from fainting. He did not have the strength to even struggle to his feet.
‘Living is so good…’
*****
Shen Cong did not know how long he had been lying on the floor. He heard the faint beeping sound from the mechanical watch on his wrist. It had beeped approximately ten thousand times, which meant that it had been more than three hours since he had laid down on the floor.
During them, he was at the verge of dying. All he saw was red, all he smelled was blood, and his limbs had nearly lost their feeling. But he could still hear some sounds. Aside from the mechanical watch’s beeping, he also heard the buzzing of the green-headed flies next door when they flapped their wings, along with the chaffing sounds the ant larvae made when they ate metal.
There were plenty of sounds, and they did not resemble a sonata of any sort, but Shen Cong was entranced by them.
He needed something to divert his attention, or else, if he fell asleep, he would not be able to wake up.
It was only when he was about to die that he was able to fully understand just how much he wanted to live.
In the end, Shen Cong won.
During the three hours of stillness, Titan did not give him any more Activity. The large amount of Activity in its body slowly fused with its original Activity without Shen Cong’s guidance, and then it started to repair his heavily damaged body.
After lying still for three hours, Shen Cong’s sensory abilities slowly recovered, and the first thing he did was to guide his own Activity to use every ounce of its energy to repair his still wounded body.
He suffered from massive bleeding, a lot of his muscles had been torn or sprained, and his organs bled as well, though at different degrees.
But there was something that was worthy of rejoicing. His nerves and bones were still in perfect condition.
The bloody vision slowly faded away. His retina was slightly damaged, so his vision was still a little blurry. He believed that he had a concussion as well, because he could not think very clearly.
And he did not know whether he should cry or laugh at this, because he quickly noticed that his level had shot up by 0.12 because of Titan violently shoving Activity into him. Now, he was at Level 0.954. Even though he was lying on the floor and his body had nearly been ripped to shreds, his physical constitution had become stronger. He now had one foot planted firmly in Level 1.
He lay on the floor for another half an hour, then felt that he had managed to stop all the bleeding in his body. The pain from the muscle sprain had also disappeared.
So, he gritted his teeth and stood up, because he was so famished that his stomach was growling nonstop. His body was also incredibly weak. He needed to eat something, be it Activity-laced meat, vegetable willow leaves, chocolate or other food that provided loads of calories. He needed all of them.
His body never became stronger without him paying a price for it. Every time his physical constitution improved, his appetite increased drastically, and he needed to quickly replenish his nutrients.
Shen Cong shoved food down his throat.
A large amount of evolved fish, leaves from the vegetable willow, chocolate, and honey entered his stomach to restore some of his nutrients and strength.
The rich amount of Activity repaired the damage in the body nonstop, and Shen Cong’s energy returned to him little by little. He forced his body back to the driver cab and checked the video from the surveillance camera on the display screen. The sky outside had already turned dark. The grayish-white night vision image showed that there were no signs of evolved beasts in the area.
Shen Cong remembered that he fainted because of the Activity impact at 9:40 P.M. on the 11th of August. Right now, the mechanical watch showed that it was already 11:53 P.M. on the 12th of August. He had fainted for nearly half a day and laid on the ground for some more time.
When he was certain that there were no dangers outside, he returned to the cubicle serving as his bedroom, removed his clothes, and just laid down on his bed without even bathing.
There was no way he could fall asleep because he had already slept for a long time.
While Shen Cong rested his body, his mind ran.
When the change happened, he had been nearly scared to death. He did not expect that such a major situation would occur, and he had nearly died not by the hands of a disaster or a monster, but because of Titan, his greatest pillar of support.
After reaching Level 1, Titan had actually been unable to take in more Activity, and because of it, it violently shoved all of it to Shen Cong.
Why was that?
Shen Cong could not understand it, but when he thought of the accident, he felt himself sweat in fear.
If… If Titan’s Activity had not dropped a few times, which prevented it from reaching Level 1 for a long time… If the encounter with the thunderstorm and the dog crocodile had not happened and Titan had gone along with Shen Cong’s original plan to absorb enough wandering Activity to fill itself with the substance some time after and reached Level 1 at that time…
There was no doubt about it, Shen Cong would have definitely died!
Because at that time, his physical constitution was not up to standard at all.
After the thunderstorm, he had only reached the strength of two bulls. Even if Titan gave him some Activity to improve his physical constitution, at most, he would just be at the strength of three bulls, not four bulls, which was the strength he currently had. But even with the strength of four bulls, Shen Cong had nearly been unable to live through this accident. If he only had the strength of three bulls, would he not have died straight away?
When thinking about this, Shen Cong shuddered in fear, but also felt lucky.
And he was truly lucky. When Titan’s progress towards Level 1 was pushed back, he had eaten quite a lot of Activity-laced nectarines, which was why he had managed to improve his physical constitution, and that led to him being barely able to live through this incident.
‘Perhaps… the ironfolk are truly… the imperfect path of evolution…’