Let Me Cut Your Belly Open

The mutated mouse, rolled up into a spiked ball, tried to land and continue rolling towards Tom, who was lying on the ground and had lost his shield. However, as soon as it landed, it found its spikes stuck.

This was precisely the result of Tom's deliberate plan. The remote-controlled tank was positioned at his ten o'clock direction, and the spiked ball was deflected by him, landing perfectly on the tank.

This high-end toy was different from Tom's street armor; it was made of the highest quality materials. Apart from PVC plastic, various materials such as resin and rubber constituted its components. When the spikes pierced into it, the different materials they encountered resulted in varying degrees of resistance when pulled out. Some retracted, while others got stuck, and when one side of spikes extended, they would get jammed in. So after a few rotations, the spiked ball found itself unable to move.

This was exactly what Tom had hoped for when he noticed that the tank's shells were made of plastic. He had paid attention to this expensive remote-controlled model toy and had learned about its material composition from online reviews. Therefore, when he was seeking a solution just now, he quickly thought of this method upon seeing the tank.

The mutated mouse tried to break free but found itself unable to escape in its rolled-up state, so it stretched its body out. However, in doing so, it ended up with its back stuck to the tank, exposing its belly.

This was exactly what Tom wanted. At this point, he had already forgotten about the shield. As he struggled to get up, he also successfully switched to speed mode. The street armor rushed towards the mouse's belly, and at the same time, Tom pulled out the last steel needle spear from his back and approached the mutated mouse.

"Take this!" Tom fiercely stabbed the steel needle spear into the mouse's abdomen, then pulled it out and stabbed again. The mutated mouse let out a painful scream as blood gushed from the wound. After enduring several stabs, it desperately broke off some of the spikes that were difficult to pull out and immediately rolled up into a ball.

Seeing the danger, Tom quickly let go, crossed his hands in front of his chest to protect his head, and shouted, "Take cover!"

Suddenly, all the spikes on the mutated mouse's body scattered, with the first target being the nearest street armor. Dozens of spikes pierced the front of the street armor, turning it into a pincushion. Fortunately, Tom timely protected his most vulnerable face with his hands, so although several spikes pierced his forearm, they did not penetrate the skin.

He stepped back to adjust his balance, pulled out the pig-killing knife from his back, and fiercely stomped on the mutated mouse, which was covered in glowing hair spikes.

The previous mutated mouse he had faced had a special layer of fat on its body, which allowed its skin to cushion most of the attacks, enhancing its defense. However, this mutated mouse was different, so when the pig-killing knife chopped into its body, blood splattered, and flesh and bones were severed.

The intense pain stimulated it to struggle desperately and even turned its head to bite Tom's hand. Unfortunately, it bit onto the spikes it had shot out onto its arm. Seizing the opportunity, Tom chopped down with his knife, doubling the width of its mouth.

Since shrinking in size, Tom often chose to attack from the mouth when facing larger opponents, making him adept at it. After three strikes, he chopped the mouse's head in half from the mouth and then tossed the heavy mouse body to the ground, finally catching his breath.

Linda saw Tom removing his helmet and knew the mouse was dead. She immediately ran out from behind the bed, casually pulling out a spike from the front of the bed like it was a hard iron needle, with a sharp tip. She looked around and saw many spikes stuck in the walls, chairs, and even the vacuum cleaner nearby.

She approached and looked at the bald mouse, then exclaimed, "Oh, what a cute little thing... Well, it's considered a big thing... so big." But what surprised her even more was that Tom's street armor, at this moment, was also pierced with spikes all over the front.

Tom took off the street armor and looked at the mouse hair, feeling a bit overwhelmed. He had to manually remove them one by one. "It's not that it grew bigger; it's that you got smaller." Although this mutated mouse had changed, its size was only slightly larger than the one they first encountered. It seemed that this mutation did not change its size.

"Your strength is quite something, Dog Head God!" Linda picked up a forearm protector, which was quite heavy and had to be lifted with both hands.

Since the spikes were still quite hard, Tom found it easy and convenient to pull them out, like plucking feathers from a chicken. In just a few moments, he stripped off all the spikes stuck on it. Looking at the chest plate full of holes, Tom shook his head in relief. Fortunately, the spikes did not pierce through the armor; otherwise, he would have been covered in holes from head to toe.

Thinking back to the previous encounters with mutated creatures, most of them focused on changes in body size, enhancing their hunting capabilities by strengthening their mouths. Like this one, which not only hardened its hair but could also shoot out and retract spikes in a coordinated manner to achieve a rolling effect, it could be said that it underwent significant mutations in terms of bodily functions.

Tom decided to dissect it to see what was inside. However, he remembered that the girl's room was nicely decorated, so he asked, "Can I drag it to your bathroom to dissect?"

"Dissect?" Linda's eyes lit up as soon as she heard the word, and she exclaimed, "Sure! The bathroom is this way, I'll take you there. But it's so heavy, you... Well, your strength really is something."

Tom chuckled and shook his head. "My strength isn't enough to easily use this set of armor because of this!" With that, he took out a handguard from the pouch around his waist, embedded with a red crystal. He raised his hand, and a faint red light emitted from his arm.

"Huh?" Linda, with her blue eyes, curiously examined Tom's arm. "You don't have batteries on you, do you?"

The ordinary red crystal provided Tom with 4.5 times arm strength reinforcement, allowing him to easily grab the bloody dead mouse in front of Linda and drag it to the bathroom. Linda's eyes sparkled as she followed him, bouncing along.

Truly a rich kid, Linda's bathroom was nicely decorated. However, the lights here were already dim. Just as Tom was considering whether to light a fire, Linda pressed a switch, and a small light bulb by the door lit up.

"The battery can't power all the lights in the whole room, so I improvised with this small electric light. It'll have to do!" Linda explained.

"Enough!" Tom nodded.

"What kind of magic is this?" Linda was extremely interested in Tom's glowing arm and reached out to touch it, but Tom waved her off.

"The next scene is too bloody, not suitable for kids... well, girls like you. Please leave," Tom said.

Linda pursed her lips and grunted dissatisfiedly, "Just dissecting a little mouse? When I was four years old, my family's old horse helped me dissect a little white mouse. What's the big deal?"

"Four years old?" Tom was stunned. Who had such bold parents? "But for us, this isn't a little mouse anymore... it's as big as a sheep now."

Linda immediately rolled up her sleeves, eagerly anticipating the dissection. "Good! I can observe more closely. Being able to harden hair and shoot it out without any precedent in the biological world is a significant discovery. It might even win a Nobel Prize!"

Tom shook his head, unsure how to deal with this curious girl. He could only reluctantly agree, "If you feel uncomfortable, please leave quickly, alright? And don't get too close; it's hard to clean if you get your clothes dirty."

"No problem. I have a whole bunch of Barbie doll clothes, no duplicates. Hurry up, stop dawdling. Are you still a man?" Linda retorted.

Facing such a curious and spirited girl, Tom really had no choice but to focus on the mouse in front of him.

The subcutaneous tissue of this mutated mouse was filled with densely packed, vein-like structures. Tom cut a portion and examined it under the light, shaking his head; he didn't understand these things. On the other hand, Linda didn't mind the bloody tissue, grabbed it to take a closer look, and said, "Similar to lymphoid tissue, but not exactly lymphoid. It's likely mutated lymphoid tissue. These should be organ tissues that control hair contraction. Look, the hair, which was as hard as needles just now, has softened."

So experienced? Tom looked at this little beauty with surprise.

"What are you looking at? Haven't you seen a genius before? This young lady has an IQ of 181... No, it's 183. Proficient in physics, chemistry, biology, and fluent in eight languages," Linda proudly declared.

"Eight languages... it's hard enough to handle one country now," Tom said, continuing to dissect the mouse's body cavity.

Sure enough, near the mouse's heart, he found a crystal. Unwilling to give up, he dug further and found some yellow liquid near its colon, and... another gemstone.

Just like the worm in the sofa, it had a crystal and a gemstone inside its body.

Linda was surprised to see this; she weighed the heavy crystal in her hand and examined it under the light, unable to see its color. "Is this the gemstone crystal you mentioned earlier?"

Tom nodded, washed the crystal in the basin next to him, and also washed the blood off his hands before placing it in front of Linda.

Green crystal and yellow gemstone.

It seemed that this mutated mouse, like the worm, had mutated additional organ tissues and gained additional attack methods, resulting in the presence of both crystals and gemstones inside its body.

This... might be the level 2 threat mentioned in the shelter's warning.

These mutated creatures were different from the ones Tom had encountered before; they had acquired new attack methods, achieved through the mutation of internal organs.

"Looks like you also have special organs like this mouse inside you, right?" Linda quickly drew the "conclusion" and grinned, "Let me cut your arm open to see what good stuff you've grown inside!"