Chapter 26: Armored Pectorals, Qilin Arms, and Devil Back Muscles

Chapter 26: Armored Pectorals, Qilin Arm, and Devil’s Back

"..."
"One thousand and fourteen!"
"One thousand and fifteen!"
Thud!
With a deafening crash, the massive barbell on Jiang Ren’s shoulders slammed onto the floor.
By now, sweat was pouring off him like rain.
His oversized, pure-white training shirt was completely drenched, clinging tightly to muscles as hard as steel and sharply defined.
*Rip!*
Jiang Ren carelessly tore the training shirt off and looked at his upper body in the massive floor-to-ceiling mirror.
His pectoral muscles were as full and symmetrical as a suit of armor; his Qilin arm, bulging with veins and thicker than an average person’s thigh, looked formidable; his eight-pack abs showed clear separation; and his latissimus dorsi—the "devil’s back"—was as wide as a door panel.
Even "broad-shouldered and thick-waisted" was an understatement.
It is no exaggeration to say that Jiang Ren’s physique could easily grace the finals of the world’s most prestigious bodybuilding competitions. Furthermore, unlike top-tier competitors who suffer from excessive drug use, his midsection remained flat, lending his entire frame a sense of aesthetic harmony and coordination.
Yet, the most attention-grabbing feature remained his left arm.
Starting from the connection point between his shoulder and torso, it was saturated with a deep, blood-like crimson hue.

This was a fitness center covering over ten thousand square meters.
After leaving the affluent district, Jiang Ren had dined at a well-regarded restaurant in the nearby commercial area before coming here for his daily training.
He was currently in one of the gym’s VIP training rooms, which he had rented out exclusively.
Spanning fifty square meters, it was equipped with dumbbells, barbells, a power rack, and several standard fixed machines—a decent value for the price.
In reality, given the size of this gym, one rarely needed to worry about finding available equipment, unless it was during the evening peak hours.
But there was no helping it; with Jiang Ren’s current massive, conspicuous frame, any training he did would inevitably draw the attention of those around him.
Not to mention his physical capabilities, which far exceeded those of an ordinary human. He could effortlessly shatter world records for various training exercises, even using world-record weights for his endurance sets.
In this world—much like his home world, with its advanced internet and ubiquitous short-form videos and influencers—if he dared to act like this in public, the footage would spread across the entire web within a day.
Such fame, to him, brought far more harm than good.
After all, someone who exceeds the average person by half a step is a genius; by one step, a lunatic; and by several steps, a monster.
Facing a monster, most people might act polite in person, but online, they would drop their hypocritical masks and raise the butcher’s knife of public opinion. Who knew what slogans they might chant—demanding he be dissected for research or that he contribute to the "purification" of human biology?
Even if the small group of people who truly controlled society were aware of his existence, the immense pressure from public opinion would likely leave him with nowhere to turn.
He might even be forced to trade favors just to have his personal information scrubbed from the internet.

He was sure those emerging internet capitalists would be more than happy to oblige.
But Jiang Ren would not be happy.
After all, his greatest skill was eliminating dangerous entities, and such a favor would be equivalent to performing a high-level elimination for free.
His fees for top-tier capitalists were never low; ten million Federal Credits was merely his base price, and he had handled several contracts worth hundreds of millions.
In other words, that favor would cost him at least ten million Federal Credits.
While exposure might occasionally have positive outcomes, Jiang Ren did not want to gamble.

"My endurance and strength have both shown clear improvement since yesterday. Let’s see the practical results."
Jiang Ren picked up the reinforced boxing glove he had brought specifically for his right hand. After putting it on, he walked over to the punching bag.
He raised his hands, positioning them in front of him.
The next moment.
His right fist lashed out like a bolt of lightning, striking the punching bag with a heavy thud.
Accompanied by a dull, heavy boom, the bag flew high into the air, swinging past a fifty-degree angle before it began to fall back.
"Looks like the glove needs even more padding."
Jiang Ren examined his right-hand glove.
If not for this gear, the punching bag likely would have burst.
As the bag swung back down, he threw another punch.
Dull thuds rang out, one after another.
A continuous, relentless rhythm.
Yet, from start to finish, Jiang Ren only used his right hand; his left hand remained in a defensive posture, guarding his side.
This was not because the left arm was weak—how could a devil’s left arm ever be weak?
It was simply because the left arm was too strong, so strong that it did not seem to be a "thing" belonging to this world.
If a person wanted to throw a punch with full force, their feet, calves, thighs, glutes, waist, back, and arms would generate power in sequence, eventually converging into the strongest possible strike.
Most people operated this way, and Jiang Ren’s right arm was no exception.
But for this devilish left arm, the body was little more than an auxiliary tool. When he threw a punch with it, the arm led the body, rather than the body leading the arm.
However, these considerations were secondary to Jiang Ren.
The reason he rarely used it—and tried to avoid using it even during elimination missions—was that every time he did, a strong premonition would arise.
If he continued to use this left arm, something very bad would happen.
This intuition grew stronger with each passing time.
For an ordinary person, such a hunch might be indistinguishable from paranoia, but for Jiang Ren, who possessed the instincts of a beast, it was a warning he could not ignore.

"Still a bit inconvenient."
After a hundred punches, Jiang Ren side-stepped to avoid the falling bag and removed the deformed glove.
Although the production cost of this glove exceeded two hundred Federal Credits, it was merely a disposable consumable for his training.
Jiang Ren sighed, missing the private training facility he had built himself.
He had spent tens of millions of Federal Credits there to commission custom heavy-duty equipment and large-scale punching bags, all while ensuring absolute privacy.
Only there could he truly unleash his full potential.
Of course.
Provided he didn't use his left arm.

This VIP training room was equipped with a private shower.
Jiang Ren walked inside, stripped off his clothes, and turned on the showerhead.
Water trickled down over his body.
He had been in this world for twenty-one years. Starting from small businesses like street vending to earn his initial capital, he then expanded his cash flow through the stock market.
Jiang Ren had achieved financial freedom by the age of sixteen.
At eighteen, he invested most of his wealth as venture capital, became a free agent, and founded the Devil Elimination Company.
Since then, he had poured almost all of his energy into that firm.
Today, within the dangerous world hidden beneath the surface of reality, Jiang Ren was among the very elite.
That’s right.
Not the only one, but one of them!
Although Jiang Ren possessed an earth-shattering item like the devil’s left arm, others who stood at the same peak also had their own fortuitous encounters, and some could not even be called human.

"Three more days. I hope it doesn't disappoint me."
Jiang Ren wiped the water from his face, a bright, sunny smile on his lips.
The reason he had arrived in this city several days early was that he had accepted a large private contract, with a deposit of twenty million Federal Credits alone.
The remaining balance would be calculated based on the rank of the dangerous entity and the difficulty of the elimination.
He didn't care about the exact amount.
He was already prepared to fleece them for all they were worth; after all, it would be a waste not to profit from a capitalist’s wallet.