Bang!
In just a short moment, the door had been forced open a bit further. The gestation pod was controlling the corpse, relentlessly pushing its way inside. Its upper body had already squeezed through, and the gaping wound on its abdomen split wider, exposing the parasite hiding within.
“Hiss… hiss…” The parasite opened its mouth, furiously stretching its tongue outward. Its two forelimbs extended as well, revealing slender arms with sharp claw-like hands. The hooked claws glistened with viscous mucus, droplets of which fell onto the corpse’s surface, sizzling with a sound that eerily matched the parasite’s hiss. An unsettling stench of rot filled the air.
The parasite, now fully exposed, stared greedily at Ling Mo and Li Yalin inside the canteen with unblinking eyes. Its claws scratched restlessly at the ground.
Seeing this grotesque display, a chill ran down Ling Mo’s spine. This thing had already decided it was time for its meal!
“Die already!” Ling Mo grabbed a chair nearby and smashed it down with full force.
A zombie’s strength in a full-powered strike was not something a mere rotting corpse could withstand. With a dull “thud,” the parasite let out a piercing screech as the corpse slammed back against the door with a heavy impact. Viscous mucus sprayed out from the edges, and as the chair fell to the ground, Ling Mo wrinkled his nose in disgust.
Clearly, the inside of the corpse had been hollowed out. When Ling Mo’s strike landed, its chest cavity crumpled inward, shriveling like a deflated balloon. The parasite, along with a gush of mucus, was forced out of the host body. Without its host, the humanoid-looking monster became even more aggressive. It lunged directly toward Li Yalin, who stood beside Ling Mo.
“Ahhh, it’s biting me!”
Li Yalin let out an excited yell, her figure shifting slightly. In the blink of an eye, she had silently reappeared behind the parasite.
In mid-air, the parasite’s body split unexpectedly into two halves. Even as it fell to the ground, its ferocious attacking posture remained rigid.
“It’s just a monster. Why are you yelling so-” Ling Mo started to say, but then paused as he noticed something peculiar. Every time Senior Sister Li Yalin screamed, the monster would freeze momentarily, almost as if stunned. Though this interruption lasted only a fleeting instant, it provided the speedily attacking Li Yalin with a perfect opening.
“Could it be some kind of mutation ability? But then again…”
Ling Mo was pondering this possibility when a loud crash echoed from outside. The ground beneath their feet trembled twice.
The tables and chairs stacked against the door creaked and groaned as they were crushed and deformed under immense pressure.
“Holy crap…” Ling Mo’s pupils shrank.
The staff canteen had a rather unique layout. Behind the main entrance was a half-wall, creating a small passageway. At one end of the passage sat a vending machine-a feature Ling Mo considered a rather advanced touch for a company facility. At the moment, however, the vending machine was being used as part of the barricade, pressed under a pile of tables and chairs and wedged against the wall.
But judging by the increasingly frequent creaks and groans, it was clear that even with the vending machine, the barricade wouldn’t hold for much longer.
“It’s those two advanced ones,” Li Yalin said with a faint smile. Though her lips curved upward, her eyes narrowed slightly, and her irises began to change color. Her slender fingers twitched unconsciously, while Snake Kiss in her hand gleamed with a chilling, cold light.
“They’re just outside the door?” Ling Mo asked.
His eyes were locked onto the steadily widening gap in the door, but there was seemingly nothing visible beyond it. Since the loud crash earlier, even the gestation pods had fallen silent. In this ominous stillness, only the sound of the door being repeatedly slammed broke through the air, and the enemies remained unseen.
Li Yalin nodded without hesitation. “Yes…” However, her expression suddenly changed. “Watch out!” she shouted.
Ling Mo’s heart skipped a beat as he instinctively leapt backward.
Bang!
This time, the loud crash didn’t come from outside the door but directly above them!
A chaotic mess of debris came crashing down, followed by a dark shadow that landed heavily on the ground.
Ling Mo, who had landed on his feet, immediately looked anxiously in Li Yalin’s direction, only for his vision to be obscured by clouds of dust.
“I’m fine…” Li Yalin’s voice rang out but was abruptly cut off by a muffled groan. A moment later, Ling Mo saw a silhouette being hurled out of the dust. ṙâNöΒÊ𝒮
“Yalin!”
Ling Mo reacted instantly, channeling psychic power at once. A psychic tentacle lashed out in her direction.
The moment the tentacle wrapped around Li Yalin, Ling Mo felt an intense, throbbing pressure in his temple, accompanied by an enormous drain on his psychic power. It took the equivalent of the energy of three or four psychic tentacles to counteract the force and pull Li Yalin back to safety.
“Are you okay?” Ling Mo asked warily as he stood and glanced over at her.
Li Yalin nodded, her eyes fixed intently on the swirling dust cloud.
“Incredible strength… and intelligence, too,” Ling Mo muttered under his breath.
“Yeah,” Li Yalin replied. “Based purely on its strength, it could already be classified as Leader-Level.”
“Stronger than you?” Ling Mo couldn’t help but feel a sense of unease.
Li Yalin’s lips curved into a smirk as she glanced at him, amusement flickering in her eyes. “But my defense is better.”
Ling Mo was momentarily stunned before breaking out in a cold sweat.
Sure, that earlier attack had been powerful, but with Li Yalin’s skin’s defensive capabilities and her body’s flexibility, even if he hadn’t stepped in to help, she would most likely have landed safely on her own. Then again, no matter how high her chances of being unscathed were-an absolute 100%, even-there was no way Ling Mo could just stand there and watch her get flung through the air without doing anything.
Some things simply cannot be judged by pure logic…
“Careful, it’s coming,” Li Yalin said suddenly, her tone calm but serious.
Thud… thud…
From the swirling dust, the faint outline of a twisted figure emerged. The figure moved closer, each deliberate step seeming to press a heavy weight onto Ling Mo’s chest, leaving him feeling increasingly stifled. By the time the figure was about to step out of the dust, the oppressive sensation Ling Mo felt had reached its peak.
A shiver ran down his spine, and his mind suddenly cleared.
“It’s the suppression of evolutionary rank…”
This was, in essence, a natural law-just like how small prey animals instinctively cower at the sight of an apex predator. It was a visceral, primal reaction, a deep-seated fear rooted in survival instincts. A person like Ling Mo, who was controlling lower-level zombie puppets to go provoke Progenitor Zombies, was a rarity even within the zombie species.
As Ling Mo forcibly steadied himself and regained his composure, he noticed that Li Yalin had begun to change as well.
Her pupils were turning red, the edges glimmering with a captivating amber hue. Her entire presence seemed to shift dramatically. As her eyes fully transformed, her skin appeared to tighten, lending her an almost otherworldly, menacing aura. Her smile grew colder, sharper, and her slightly tilted chin added an air of dangerous arrogance.
From her expression to the state of her body, everything about Li Yalin now resembled that of a venomous snake poised to strike.
“Damn,” Ling Mo muttered, momentarily dazed. This was nothing like the Yalin from a moment ago! Once she entered her zombie state, her true strength as a Leader-Level Zombie finally emerged-a strength far greater than what she had shown prior.
Thud!
The figure finally stepped out of the dust cloud. Half of its body was drenched in blood, and its eyes burned with an insatiable madness and fury.
As Ling Mo finally got a clear view of it, the zombie-Pa Ji-charged toward them with terrifying speed, swinging his axe-like arms furiously.
In the blink of an eye, Pa Ji vanished mid-sprint!
This scene wasn’t unfamiliar to Ling Mo. Both the zombie Huahua and the Progenitor Fang Ying possessed this instantaneous acceleration ability. However, the one who had mastered this ability to its utmost potential was still Pa Ji! His legs had clearly undergone a unique evolution, seemingly designed specifically to maximize this technique.
No wonder Ling Mo’s Zombie Puppets had been eliminated so silently. With such blinding speed, how could low-level Zombie Puppets possibly evade him…
These thoughts occurred to Ling Mo in an instant. The moment Pa Ji vanished, Ling Mo shouted, “Watch out!”
Whoosh!
Li Yalin darted forward, her figure becoming a blur. But unlike Pa Ji, she didn’t vanish outright. Instead, as she dashed forward, several identical afterimages suddenly appeared!
Both utilized instantaneous acceleration, but while Pa Ji relied purely on linear speed, Li Yalin used her body’s flexibility to move repeatedly-across several points, possibly dozens of shifts, within the span of a breath!
These afterimages were simultaneously illusions and real. Because as they emerged, Li Yalin was still in constant motion!
With mere fractions of a second between them, not even a zombie’s highly evolved senses could discern the real from the false…
Ling Mo wasn’t about to stand idly by, either. While his speed was nowhere near theirs, his body had, after all, been enhanced.
At the same moment he shouted “Watch out,” he raised his arms to shield his vital areas. These swollen, transformed arms worked surprisingly well as improvised shields…
Bang!
A thunderous crash sounded from the barricaded door, followed by a guttural roar that erupted from the door’s crevice: “Roar!”
Clang, clang, clang!
Li Yalin’s afterimages suddenly surged forward, creating a whirlwind of motion. Almost immediately, a string of sharp, violent collisions began echoing through the air.
Ling Mo’s jaw nearly dropped-sparks were flying from the impacts!
Keeping one eye on the barricade, Ling Mo yelled at just the right moment, “Pa Ji!”
Clang!
Pa Ji’s enraged form reappeared. His arms now bore dozens of white marks, but none of them had managed to break through his hide completely.
“Aim for his stomach!” Ling Mo shouted.
The wound from Ling Mo’s earlier attack was still there, and blood seemed to be oozing out ever so slightly. However, despite his abysmal recovery rate, this monster’s defensive capability was remarkable. Especially his arms-they were as solid as shields!
“Roar!”
Pa Ji’s crazed gaze snapped toward Ling Mo, but in that exact moment, Li Yalin soundlessly appeared behind him.
As Pa Ji began to turn and swing his arm toward her, that version of Li Yalin suddenly vanished. Immediately afterward, a pair of hands materialized on either side of his head and came crashing together in one swift, brutal motion…