Chapter 83: 81. Counterattack

81. Counterattack

"Xiaoli, are you sure you want to do this?" After hearing Li Yingqi's bold plan, He Jia'an did not immediately voice his doubts, but instead asked this question before agreeing.

The sudden coma of Xin Junmao and the sudden "ceasing of hostilities" by the Daughter of Gluttony must have some connection; Li Yingqi guessed that the Daughter of Gluttony must have fallen into a state similar to Xin Junmao's.

If that were the case, the Daughter of Gluttony would be like a sleeping lamb waiting to be slaughtered. Although the probability of killing the Daughter of Gluttony was not high, severely wounding an Alien God could still bring a great deal of peace to the human world.

"Yes, I want to go see, and then try," Li Yingqi said. She gathered her hair and pulled out a handful of white strands, watching the wind underground blow her white hair into a dance, as if she could see her life slipping away from her fingertips.

Li Yingqi had taken the "Death Return Pill," and she was constantly overdrawing her limited life force as a human. That feeling of being able to see her own death approaching with the naked eye was like the Grim Reaper torturing her bit by bit with a scythe. Watching the blade that harvested youth carve wrinkles and sharp angles onto her face, the judge's brush dipping into her black hair color, the hand of time poking rough spots and blemishes onto her face... she felt she had to do something.

According to estimates, if she suffered no further injuries, she could barely live for another ten years. But in those ten years, the time she could act like a normal person would be at most three years. The accelerated aging of her organs and muscles would make her even weaker than an average elderly person. After five years, she would have to spend the rest of her life in a hospital bed, and the time she spent awake would likely be less than that of an infant in swaddling clothes—only, when she woke up, she faced death, while the latter woke up to welcome a new life.

"But we don't have a way to truly harm the Daughter of Gluttony; even the flames of the Green Oil cannot deal her significant damage," Yu Lianyun could not help but remind her.

"Actually, there should be a way," Li Yingqi said softly. She silently unzipped a layer of her tactical vest and slowly pulled out a Black-edged White Feather.

He Jia'an and Yu Lianyun's expressions changed instantly. He Jia'an looked at Li Yingqi in shock and shouted, "When did you get this thing? Don't tell me the reward you applied for from your superiors was this!?"

What was in Li Yingqi's hand at this moment was precisely the feather of a Guhuo Bird.

Li Yingqi did not deny it. She smiled, and as she held the feather, it seemed to respond to her soul, emitting a flickering light. "It's amazing, isn't it? I don't know why I'm one of the few people who can resonate with a Guhuo Bird's feather, but precisely because of that, I was able to apply to my superiors for the right to use it."

As she spoke, Li Yingqi sighed with emotion, "Perhaps, this is my destiny."

Regarding the Guhuo Bird feather, the abnormal item research department of the Xuanmi Group had conducted studies on it and discovered that the feather could resonate with a small portion of women. Women who sensed it would often become obsessed with it, eventually realizing how to use the feather one day, and ultimately transforming into a Guhuo Bird.

"Turning into a Guhuo Bird and becoming an abnormal—that should give me a chance, although I don't know how far I can go relying solely on the abilities of a Guhuo Bird," Li Yingqi said.

He Jia'an fell silent. If they used an Abnormal to deal with an Alien God, perhaps there really was a sliver of a possibility, even if the probability was low.

"Have you really decided?" He Jia'an took a deep breath, his tone trembling.

"Yes." Li Yingqi nodded firmly.

"Alright then, go do it. Do what you want to do." He Jia'an responded to Li Yingqi's determination with a resonant, powerful voice. He then hoisted the unconscious Xin Junmao onto his back and said to Yu Lianyun, "Xiaoyu, let's go."

Yu Lianyun wanted to say something but stopped, eventually nodding and following in He Jia'an's footsteps.

"Staying alive is the most important thing. If there's a chance to get out, don't hesitate. I remember this feather isn't something that completely transforms a person into an Abnormal after a single use." He Jia'an walked a few steps, then paused, turned slightly, and said, "Don't be in such a rush to die. At the very least, pay back the two thousand yuan you owe me first."

"I've been eyeing the cosmetics in your dorm for a long time. Can you promise to give them to me before you die?" Hearing this, Yu Lianyun followed up with a straight face.

"... Get lost." Li Yingqi was stunned for a moment, then immediately scolded her two teammates who were deliberately ruining the atmosphere, feeling both embarrassed and annoyed.

He Jia'an and Yu Lianyun quickly fled the scene.

Watching their departing figures, the corners of Li Yingqi's mouth curled up slightly, and her mood was no longer so heavy.

She gripped the Guhuo Bird's feather tightly, turned around, and walked back into the palace inside the Stone Gate...

He Jia'an and Yu Lianyun were running through the ruins of the Underground City. The two were silent; in truth, they were far from as optimistic as they had just appeared.

Urgh—

Yu Lianyun suddenly felt a chill at her feet. That familiar clicking sound made her spirit jolt, and she immediately stopped running, looking around vigilantly.

"What's wrong?" He Jia'an also halted his movement, looking at the somewhat neurotic-looking Yu Lianyun, his eyebrows arching as if he sensed something. "What did you sense again?"

Yu Lianyun nodded, a look of excitement in her eyes. "It's Yao Zhenzhen. I sensed Yao Zhenzhen."

"Yao Zhenzhen?" He Jia'an frowned deeply. He certainly knew that Yu Lianyun was a lucky person plagued by a "Blessing," only that "Blessing" seemed to be invisible to everyone but Yu Lianyun. He had also heard from Yu Lianyun that Yao Zhenzhen had been swiped away by a claw from Kusuen during the last Ancient Calamity Incident. He hadn't expected the "Blessing" to be such a tenacious filth that it had actually regenerated.

Immediately, Yu Lianyun finally saw the black shadow mass slinking on the ground; it was moving rapidly across the surface of the ruins.

Yu Lianyun knew well that the Avatar of the Blessing seemed particularly interested in corpses, as if something remaining on fresh corpses was a food source for them, which they liked very much.

But they were currently on the road to escaping the Underground City, and Yu Lianyun hesitated, not knowing if she should chase after it.

"Let's chase after it and see," He Jia'an said, having seen through Yu Lianyun's thoughts. "I happen to be interested as well."

Yu Lianyun nodded, then ran in front, leading He Jia'an to catch up with the rapidly moving shadow mass.

When Yu Lianyun saw the shadow mass slip into the ruins piled up with broken walls and debris, she stopped, her gaze fixed on a twisted arm exposed outside the rubble.

"Is there something wrong with this corpse?" Yu Lianyun thought, and then she moved to clear away the building debris buried on top of the corpse.

After settling Xin Junmao down, He Jia'an also moved stones with Yu Lianyun. A moment later, they saw the corpse beneath the ruins clearly; it was actually a headless corpse, and the person was wearing the gray uniform of the Evolution Heaven organization.

"How could there be such a way to die?" Both Yu Lianyun and He Jia'an felt puzzled. Yu Lianyun even judged from the body's physical characteristics that this corpse had definitely died not long ago, with no more than four hours having passed.

Yu Lianyun then caught sight of the shadow mass sweeping past the corpse and slipping into the deeper crevices of the ruins. She forcibly pried open a stone slab, revealing a hollow space buried beneath the ruins. A headless head was staring at her with eyes that refused to close in death, and the shadow mass merged into the shadow beneath the head, emitting sounds of gluttonous gnawing.

"HuangZichao?!" Seeing the head, both Yu Lianyun and He Jia'an felt their hearts tighten. They clearly remembered that HuangZichao had been alive and had already evacuated underground with the Snake Team.

But why did his head appear in this place?

The answer was self-evident: the HuangZichao they had seen before was not the real person. He had been replaced by something parasitic inside the body of an Evolution Heaven member without anyone noticing, and it had successfully deceived everyone.

"Was it when the Green Oil was released and everyone was forced to scatter that he was accidentally replaced by that thing?" He Jia'an guessed; this was the most likely possibility.

Following a series of chewing sounds from the shadow mass on the head's shadow, the skin of the headless head turned increasingly pale, finally drying up until it looked like a piece of crumbling tofu-dregs statue. When the shadow mass let out a satisfied belch, the head shattered into a pile of powder.

Whoosh!

The sound of a whip cutting through the air at high speed rang out. Before He Jia'an and Yu Lianyun could react, He Jia'an was struck and sent flying, crashing into the rubble and dirt scattered everywhere. Yu Lianyun subconsciously shrank back and closed her eyes.

Sensing that there was no feeling of pain, Yu Lianyun slowly opened her eyes and saw a pair of black arms extending from behind her shoulders, gripping the tentacles that had suddenly attacked her.

Yao Zhenzhen tilted her head, her body emitting eerie cracking sounds as she slowly manifested from behind Yu Lianyun, her mouth emitting low, hair-raising, monstrous cries.

Yu Lianyun felt slightly at ease, her gaze turning to the eerie creature waving the tentacles. The opponent was wearing the combat gear of a Mysterious Investigator, but the part above the neck was a deformed skull. Several tentacles protruded from the eye sockets and mouth of the deformed head, and the body uncontrollably assumed a twisted walking posture.

"HuangZichao was indeed parasitized." Cold sweat broke out on Yu Lianyun's forehead. She looked at He Jia'an, whose upper body was buried in the ruins, feeling extremely anxious.

Yao Zhenzhen let out a hoarse, monstrous shriek at "HuangZichao," as if declaring Yu Lianyun as her exclusive property; Yu Lianyun's flesh was something she had reserved to taste, and she would not let her suffer even the slightest injury that would affect the texture.

"HuangZichao" seemed not to understand Yao Zhenzhen's warning. Tentacles flew in unison, attacking Yu Lianyun again. Yao Zhenzhen's expression instantly became ferocious and terrifying. Yao Zhenzhen charged toward the opponent at high speed, opened her mouth full of blackness, and bit down fiercely on "HuangZichao's" neck.

Because she was watching with her own eyes, when she discovered the warning signs of "HuangZichao's" attack, she rolled and dodged without hesitation. Although she dodged quite clumsily, she avoided the same fate as He Jia'an.

"Urgh-ah!" Yao Zhenzhen let out a monstrous cry, and the force with which she bit the neck increased by a few degrees.

After a series of teeth-grinding tearing sounds, Yao Zhenzhen used her mouth and brute force to forcibly tear off "HuangZichao's" neck, separating the head from the body. She used her slender arms to squeeze hard, forcibly flattening the head into a ball, and then stuffed it into her mouth to chew frantically.

She was like someone eating an undercooked octopus ball; Yu Lianyun felt a chill all over her face watching it.

After confirming that the vicinity was safe, Yu Lianyun hurried to the side of the fallen He Jia'an and found that his face was deformed, with blood gushing from the corner of his right eye and his nostrils. She felt a sense of foreboding and hurriedly checked He Jia'an's vital signs to judge the severity of his injuries.

In the end, Yu Lianyun breathed a sigh of relief; she felt relieved in her heart that their Tiger Team captain was thick-skinned enough. His heartbeat was somewhat rapid but still within the normal range, and although the cheekbone on the right side of his face had been smashed and his nasal bridge broken, it was nothing too serious.

The human skull, after all, is still considered sturdy.

She fished a syringe out of her pocket and jabbed it into He Jia'an's thigh. After the liquid was injected, the unconscious He Jia'an immediately woke up and sat bolt upright in shock. Before he could even open his mouth to curse, the excruciating pain from his facial injuries rendered him speechless, and he nearly rolled his eyes back and fainted from the pain again.

Fortunately, the Stamina Potion exerted a certain refreshing effect. He Jia'an endured the intense pain, and after a while, he widened his eyes to look at the headless corpse of HuangZichao, then looked at Yu Lianyun, and made "mm-mm-mm" sounds to inquire.

"Yao Zhenzhen did it." Yu Lianyun did not hide it; she helped He Jia'an up and said, "We should hurry out now."

He Jia'an nodded, suppressing the agony brought on by his shattered right cheekbone, and once again carried the Xin Junmao who had been set aside on his back to leave.

Yu Lianyun looked back at the Stone Gate from afar, her eyes carrying a trace of worry and hope, thinking: "An accident caused 'HuangZichao' to block a parasitic attack for you, but I also hope you can survive."

The Daughter of Gluttony was currently trapped deep in a repetitive dream; no matter how she killed Haimofen, Haimofen would always play the violin consistently, and her slaughter became completely meaningless.

She gradually became exhausted from the repeated, meaningless killings, while Haimofen became increasingly spirited, his movements in sawing the strings becoming more and more exaggerated, and the sound of the violin growing louder accordingly.

While playing, Haimofen said: "One last warning: leave or die."

Facing Haimofen's threat, the distorted body of the Daughter of Gluttony paused; she seemed to have been startled.

However, Haimofen suddenly felt the violent emotions radiating from the Daughter of Gluttony slowly receding, and a strange atmosphere was quietly spreading.

The next moment, the Daughter of Gluttony's lump-like, bloated body suddenly tightened, becoming relatively slender. The blood flowing irregularly on the ground took on shape and edges, transforming into the forms of plant roots. The limbs of men and women clustered tightly together, turning into an inverted umbrella shape, and finally, that indescribable Daughter of Gluttony transformed into a blooming flower of human flesh.

At the center of the flower, the male and female limbs were densely intertwined and fused into one, eventually becoming a beautiful mermaid with half her body covered in Scale and ears shaped like fins. She interlaced her fingers as if in prayer, her expression sorrowful and serene, and she opened her throat toward the sky.

The mermaid's ethereal and beautiful singing voice intertwined with Haimofen's violin strings, as if lingering and affectionate, or as if inseparable.

Haimofen frowned solemnly. Unlike his previous confrontation with the Other-Dimensional Musician, where the Other-Dimensional Musician had used the most direct and overbearing method to clash with him head-on, the Daughter of Gluttony's approach was completely different. She did not choose to resist, but instead integrated her own singing voice into his musical melody.

She was utilizing the power within his music!