The Jiaoren muttered another pair of insults, blinking its sleepy eyes toward the shelter outside the window. It seemed half-awake, repeating, "Master? Where on earth have you gone? That parasite pit reeks more than ever!"

"The Jing City Shelter?"

"That name rings a bell! I could swear I've heard it before."

Ye Shu wasn't anyone's fool. Given such a violent reaction from Xiaobai, she already had her suspicions.

She always trusted Xiaobai's nose.

With a reaction that big, this place had to be crawling with monsters... or perhaps—an experimental lab...

Ye Shu brought the car to a stop and glanced at the long line snaking outside the shelter.

"Xiaobai, it's up to you. How many parasites are nearby?"

Ye Shu eyed several items in the points shop with thinly masked greed.

Too bad fighting crypt ghouls was almost suicidal—even a single run cost half her life bar.

"Many," Xiaobai replied flatly.

The Jiaoren's brow furrowed, a dark premonition settling deep.

This overwhelming stench... It would take more than a few hundred parasites to produce such a reek.

The instant the window cracked open, the Jiaoren locked eyes with the circling crowd outside, and promptly reeled in disgust. It braced itself, cursing, "Not good, Master! Run! This whole area... it's saturated with parasite stench! It's killing me!"

Shelter? This was nothing of the sort.

This was a parasite nest through and through!

But weren't these all living, breathing people?

Why did they exude the same rotting, fishy stench as parasites?

Suddenly, a chilling thought flickered through the Jiaoren's mind... Maybe all those half-human, half-beast parasites she'd seen before were just failed products. These right here—these were the real parasites!

Xiaobai itself was a monster, and strictly speaking, parasites were too.

Judging by their ranks, those half-beast hybrids from earlier were clearly bottom-tier.

"This is bad!"

"Really, truly bad!"

"Master, these people... they're not human. They're probably evolved parasites!"

The Jiaoren had seen plenty while following Ye Shu and had even joined in exterminating parasites—but, as they say, enough ants can kill an elephant.

Judging from the intensity of the smell alone, estimating how many monsters crowded the shelter wasn't hard.

Piece by piece, Ye Shu reconstructed the truth from the Jiaoren's half-words. She stared at the dense, almost endless layers of 'people' ahead and felt a headache oncoming.

So many...

Just counting those who hadn’t entered the shelter yet, there had to be thousands.

One person and a sword—how could she possibly prevail?

This wasn't a mission; it was a suicide note.

She remembered Fu Jingchuan had mentioned before coming, that this shelter supposedly housed more than a hundred thousand survivors. She'd found it odd—a tiny shelter rescuing so many in so short a time? Now she understood... The place was packed with parasites.

Worse, the parasites seemed to have evolved intelligence.

Ye Shu narrowed her gaze, calculating her odds of escaping with her skin intact. The tension had barely started to simmer, when her eyes were caught by a familiar figure.

There she was—the sunny, outgoing Zhao Yao.

Recalling how the Jiaoren had once paused at her door, Ye Shu pieced it together.

If she was right, Zhao Yao was a parasite too—one of a high rank, able to fool even Xiaobai’s senses. Facing her... and tens of thousands of parasites in the shelter, what chance did Ye Shu have?

None. Absolutely none.

She scooted her hand along the steering wheel, readying for a quick retreat before anyone noticed.

She was just about to reverse, or maybe ditch the pickup and run, when Zhao Yao got there first, rapping sharply on the window.

"Sis, it's really you! It's been ages."

"I'm one of the coordinators who reached out to you, Zhao Yao. Big Sis Ye, you can call me Yaoyao."

The girl's radiant, flower-like smile left no trace of the monstrous parasite beneath. Were it not for her trust in Xiaobai, Ye Shu might have doubted herself.

"Zhao Yao, is it? Sorry, I have to leave for now—maybe another time."

Ye Shu was entirely unruffled; she didn't even bother to lie. Expressionless, she put the pickup in reverse.

"No can do! Sis, you’re my long-awaited guest."

"I can't let you leave on your own."

A crowd quickly pressed in from behind, blocking all hope of driving away.

Only then did Ye Shu notice—their appearances may have been human, but their eyes would occasionally flash with unnatural colors.

In that instant, the truth struck her.

Those who had been the first to inhale the White Mist—it had transformed them wholly into parasites, and of high grade at that. Watered-down, diluted Mist, just wasn’t as effective as the pure form—and the failures were the half-beasts.

So that explained it. The numbers of parasites weren’t high, and these 'residents' stayed home because they were parasites.

Her own seclusion had left her uninformed. She'd missed the signs.

Ye Shu said nothing. She rolled down the window, whipped out a rocket launcher, and fired point-blank at the nearest parasite.

They might be resistant to heat, but at least it would buy her precious seconds.

"Boom—"

Explosions thundered through the air.

A black plume of smoke curled over the skyline.

Ye Shu floored the pedal, fleeing in her battered pickup, but not before sending a warning to Su Bai and the others: find another safe spot, quick.

"Boom—"

Another explosion, deafening and violent.

Parasites tailing the truck were blasted to bloody pulp, their fragmented limbs still twitching on the road.

"Damn it! They just won’t quit!"

It cost her nearly half her firepower to force open a slim avenue.

She cursed herself—why try to win intelligence on the parasites? She should have just wiped them out, one by one.

"Bang—"

She was mid-escape when Zhao Yao caught up.

A grenade landed on her car roof.

It detonated.

The pickup erupted into scrap metal.

"Cough, cough…"

Ye Shu crawled from a haystack, bedraggled, her white T-shirt bathed in red. Her eyes flashed hotly at her foe.

"You struck first, Sis. I'm just settling the score!"

"Yaoyao only wanted to invite you to visit the lab. I didn’t think you’d attack first and blow up so many of my limbs. So tell me, Sis Ye—how exactly should I make you pay?"

A shadow fell across Zhao Yao’s face. Overexcitement stained her eyes an ominous red.

Ye Shu ignored the lunatic completely.

Rocket launchers might destroy parasite bodies, but never eliminated them utterly... Now she regretted not bringing along Fu Shiyi’s venom. At least then, she could’ve held out a bit longer.

"You’re an ice-ability user, Sis. I saw it before—so lucky. If only I'd awakened an ability back then—maybe this wouldn’t have been my fate."

Ye Shu popped a recovery pill into her mouth.

She hadn’t bought many—but it looked like she’d need every one.

"A marketplace game item?"

"You even have storage?"

"Who would've thought—you’re a pro gamer after all."

For Zhao Yao, entering the game meant nothing more than seeking power.

But the moment she became part of the instance, leaving was no longer an option.

Why could the players slay parasites so freely, while she was doomed to be assimilated?

Zhao Yao’s lovely face twisted, splitting apart as tentacles burst from her back, darting for Ye Shu’s ankles.

But Ye Shu was no ordinary foe—her blade flashed, slicing the tentacles into eight limp sections before they drew near.

"What sort of item is this sword? You actually severed my limbs—limbs born of my own divisions…"

She was already the highest parasite within the shelter; no outside force could possibly threaten her.

Who’d expect that this ragged, plain wooden sword was actually a priceless treasure?

But Zhao Yao wasn’t angry. Instead, she kept her distance from the blade, retreating instantly each time Ye Shu raised it.

Whenever Ye Shu lowered her guard, Zhao Yao renewed the chase.

…………

Hours ticked by, the fight at a stalemate.

In truth—Ye Shu was gradually losing ground.

This parasite was every inch the equal of the crypt ghouls she'd faced before.

Zhao Yao could regenerate in moments—there was simply no end to killing her.

Meanwhile, Ye Shu’s stamina was trickling away.

Worse, Zhao Yao could summon her kin.

A ring of parasites encircled the empty field, forming an ironclad barricade.

Even with the wooden sword in hand, escape looked almost impossible.