“I’ve been followed several times before,” Xia Na said, pointing the tip of her knife towards the Centipede Man’s abdomen. “But there’s a way to finish them off in one go… See? Just attack here, and they’ll be dead in an instant.”
“I see…” Ling Mo braced himself and looked where the knife pointed, immediately spotting a large cluster of organs squeezed together. Despite the lack of substance, the mere sight of such a mass tightly packed together was quite revolting. Just as Ling Mo was about to look away, he spotted something unusual.
Hidden among these organs was something…
“This is…”
An organ no bigger than an infant’s fist, covered with a thick layer of mucus, was gently pulsating. Due to its very slow rhythm, it was easy to overlook. No doubt, this was the heart of the Centipede Man…
If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, Ling Mo would never have imagined a human heart could evolve to be so inconspicuous…
As for the other organs inside the Centipede Man’s thorax, they were clearly not the type that would be fatal if injured… To Ling Mo’s eye, he couldn’t even tell what these organs were for…
“Wait… So its head isn’t a weak point?” Ling Mo quickly recovered from his surprise and immediately thought of Fang Ying.
That parasitic Progenitor Zombie didn’t have a conventional heart either, but wasn’t she promptly dead after being shot in the head?
Xia Na shook her head and said, “Unfortunately, that’s the case. Instead of calling their heads ‘heads,’ it’s more accurate to call them ‘mouthparts.’”
She withdrew her Scythe and pressed down into the Centipede Man’s mouth.
Its already dislocated jaw began to move under their gaze, and the already terrifying mouth opened wider and wider. Finally, it reached an unimaginable extent… It’s no exaggeration to say that if this mouth got hold of someone’s head, the next second, only half a head would remain.
“See that,” Xia Na said.
“Wow…” Li Yalin curiously stretched her hand to measure it, her palm dwarfed by the massive mouth.
Ling Mo was dumbfounded and exclaimed, “Damn…”
“But they do have their weaknesses,” Xia Na smiled and said, “No Intelligence, that’s their biggest flaw. Purely instinct-driven monsters, no matter how strong, are still easy prey for me. Just disrupt their weak neural responses, and they can be gutted without any reaction.”
“That’s true…” Ling Mo suddenly realized. He had been so focused on the unique structure of the monster that he forgot this point…
“But don’t let your guard down… The reason I did this was to give you a complete understanding of these creatures. I even left clues along the way; how could you still carelessly enter here?” Xia Na swiftly finished off the Centipede Man and gave Ling Mo a glance.
“When did you ever hint at that!” Ling Mo said incredulously.
“Didn’t you notice that they can move freely in and out?” Xia Na widened her eyes, incredulously.
“I did notice that,” Li Yalin happily raised her hand.
“Then you should know they’re very good at hiding, so whenever you come to places like this…”
“Such a leap!”
After confirming the Centipede Man was dead, Ling Mo looked towards the other end of the passage.
The long passage appeared gloomy and dark, the Centipede Men that crawled deeper were already out of sight.
“Hurry up. They’ll be back soon if they can’t find prey,” Xia Na straightened up and said.
“So we…”
“Follow me.”
Xia Na led them forward, then suddenly turned and dived into a dark concrete tunnel.
The tunnel was about half a person tall and only five or six meters long. After crawling out, they emerged into a wider and taller passage, with the tunnel entrance about a meter above the floor of the passage. ṘÀƝọ𝖇ЕꞨ
A strange odor pervaded the area. In the silent surroundings, the occasional “drip” could be heard. As Ling Mo stepped out of the tunnel, he felt his foot hit a puddle. He looked around and realized the passage was covered with a layer of silt.
“I found this place earlier, but waited for you, only exploring a short distance before returning,” Xia Na carefully jumped down, muttering thankfully, “Glad I wore thick-soled shoes… Senior Sister, you wore high heels, right? Great…”
“I am…”
Before Ling Mo could speak, Xia Na cheerfully interrupted, “If it’s not about you, don’t mind the details… By the way, this is the sewer.”
“Thanks for the reminder,” Ling Mo replied with a twitching corner of his mouth, inwardly brewing, “Wait until we get out. See how I deal with you!”
“I originally thought I had reached the rooftop, didn’t expect to have climbed all the way down to the sewer…”
Xia Na casually brushed her hair behind her ear, revealing a youthful face. Her smile was vibrant: “Going this way, we can avoid those monsters. But how many more we’ll encounter on this route, I don’t know…” She turned to Ling Mo and continued, “We might have discovered another new species…”
“Underground…”
“Sewer beauties… ah, no, Humanoid Monsters!” Xia Na said excitedly, “Actually, when you think about it, we should have considered this! For zombies, such dark places not only provide security but also allow rapid access to various parts of the city! Although most zombies live above ground, there’s always some that enter the underground… As soon as a zombie falls into an uncovered sewer, it might become a Progenitor!”
“I feel like something’s not right…”
And Xia Na had already moved ahead: “Believe it or not… from the moment I discovered this place, I had this feeling.” Her voice gradually filled with fervor, “Maybe the world’s underground has been completely taken over by these creatures. Not just X City, not just this province… Do you know what that means?”
Xia Na suddenly turned around, her eyes quietly changing color: “Zombies are no longer the only monsters.”