Chapter 26

Something's off. Something is very wrong.

Li Cheng, hiding beneath the bridge, had bloodshot eyes and was gasping for breath.

He had smeared medicine powder on his head and roughly stitched the wound with thread to stop the bleeding, but the ant-like bristles on his hands refused to fade.

Worse still, he could feel the Lord of Insects' corruption intensifying—tendons, bones, blood vessels, skin—all shifting toward insect forms.

Riiip—

The muscle on his right thigh swelled uncontrollably, bursting his jeans, as a torrent of raw power surged upward.

Li Cheng braced himself against the ground to keep from falling, but the mantis-bone blade on his right hand continued growing, dragging out veins and nerves like a new limb.

At the same time, his right eye's vision blurred and fragmented; trembling, he pulled out his phone, opened the camera, and clearly saw the pupil inside his right eye socket quivering violently, as if about to split.

Whether it was the grass-paving ant or the giant mantis, both had compound eyes.

Stop!

Li Cheng raised his fist and slammed it hard against his chest.

His heart abruptly halted; blood flow froze throughout his body; the mutation trend on his right side slowed instantly.

With all his willpower, he resisted the constant erosion of his consciousness and the urge to kill; after what felt like an eternity, the mutation finally receded.

The mantis-bone blade and arm bristles slowly retracted; the thigh muscle returned to normal; the pupil ceased trembling.

"Huh…"

Soaked in cold sweat, Li Cheng exhaled deeply, collapsed beneath the bridge, and regained his strength.

About twenty minutes later, he stood, pushed his bike back onto the street, rode home, washed up, and called Yu Yulu on WeChat.

On the surface, he was checking in on her—but in truth, he was probing the hospital's condition. Sure enough, he heard police sirens in the background.

The police or Special Affairs Bureau must have discovered the giant corpse beside the flowerbed and sealed the scene to clean up traces.

After hanging up, Li Cheng weighed his options, gathered all his assets—the mantis with blood amber inside and the insect pupae, four fragments of the Lord of Insects' divine corruption—and placed them, along with the newly seized black grease, into several vacuum-sealed plastic bags.

Then he changed into a brand-new outfit, climbed over the wall of his bedroom, and returned to the street.

His current condition was utterly abnormal—as if he had entered a new stage. He couldn't be sure he'd survive the next spontaneous mutation.

Yinx City still had roughly five thousand public phone booths; he found one and dialed the number on the business card given to him by Sunsun Yao.

"Hello?"

"Hello," Li Cheng paused, choosing his words carefully, "Chenghua Community, Building 6, Unit 803. I'm the one."

That address was where the Lord of Insects' infected host had killed the couple—and where Li Cheng had first met Sunsun Yao.

"Oh, it's you," Sunsun Yao's tone turned intrigued. "I thought you'd never call this number."

"Can we meet? I need to hire you for something."

"Sure. Pick the place."

"Lianhua North Road. Starbucks."

Li Cheng hung up and headed toward the destination. He didn't rush into the café; instead, he hid around the corner and watched silently.

Ten minutes later, Sunsun Yao arrived, sat by the window, ordered coffee—and only then did Li Cheng enter Starbucks and sit across from her.

Sunsun Yao wore a white hoodie under a black coat, paired with jeans—a typical urban white-collar look.

"You're really cautious."

She studied Li Cheng, noticing the 502 glue on his fingertip tips and recognizing the face he wore as that of the middle-aged man killed by the Lord of Insects' infected host—though he now wore sunglasses.

More crucially, just across from this Starbucks stood a police station.

Sunsun Yao pulled out her phone, scanned the code, and ordered two coffees, smiling faintly: "You're afraid I'll harm you, so you picked a spot right outside a police station?"

"Sorry."

Li Cheng took a deep breath, offered no explanation, and pulled a wrapped piece of blood amber from his pocket, placing it gently on the table: "How much is this worth?"

"Lord of Insects' divine corruption fragment."

Sunsun Yao narrowed her eyes, leaned back, and waved her hand: "Put it away. Exposing this to air carries risk."

She paused, then said seriously: "Any trade involving divine corruption fragments within Special Affairs Bureau territory is a serious crime. If you hand it over to them, you'll likely get fifty thousand cash plus a banner of commendation. But if you sell it to other guilds or organizations, the price is negotiable."

"I have more divine corruption fragments."

Li Cheng tucked the blood amber away, voice hoarse: "I want to use them as payment to solve my problem."

"What problem?"

"I'm infected by the Lord of Insects," Li Cheng said plainly. "I've gone through roughly four cycles of 【Gene Hunger】."

"Cough—"

Sunsun Yao nearly choked on her coffee. She stared at Li Cheng, confirmed he wasn't joking, then frowned tightly: "Mind if I probe with spiritual awareness?"

Spiritual awareness probing is the most common detection skill among players.

But for players unfamiliar with each other, using this ability uninvited is tantamount to provocation—it can easily spark a fight.

Li Cheng shook his head, letting Sunsun Yao extend her palm and hover it above his dorsal hand.

A sensation of being watched spread from his hand, surging upward into his chest. Li Cheng suppressed the urge to pull back, his expression rigid.

After a moment, Sunsun Yao withdrew her hand, frowning seriously: "You're not a Chosen One."

Li Cheng nodded. He had never claimed to be one—so he hadn't lied.

Sunsun Yao didn't dwell on the matter and continued: "When were you infected?"

"Half a month ago." Seeing her fall silent, he asked: "Is there a problem?"

"You know how the outside world views Lord of Insects infection, right?"

"Yes. No cure." Li Cheng recalled the Special Affairs Bureau agents shooting down infected hosts, voice hoarse: "According to game forums, the Killing Ground holds infinite possibilities. If the Special Affairs Bureau can't solve it, other factions might."

"You're right. The issue is the cost."

Sunsun Yao's face was expressionless: "To the concept of 'human,' Lord of Insects infection is like smashing a porcelain vase, mixing the shattered shards with random debris, then re-firing them into a stronger vessel."

During this process, the infected will gain greater power, but the 【Gene Hunger】 will grow stronger and more frequent, until the infected's genome collapses entirely and they become a monster devoid of human reason.

Most ordinary people will mutate into monsters during the first stage of the Worm Lord's infection.

A small number of people can endure until the third or fourth round of Gene Hunger before losing their sanity and becoming monsters.

In the rarest cases, they held on until the sixth round before they could no longer hold out."

She paused for a moment, then said calmly, "The top-tier player organizations do have methods that can perfectly resolve a Godspawn infection, but the cost is too high, and they won't use them on people outside the core circle."

Li Cheng said in a low voice, "I still have extra Godspawn shards on me."

"It's useless. The two aren't on the same order of magnitude in value."

Changsun Yao said decisively, "Repair is always harder than destruction. Imagine this: it's very simple to fire a kiln of porcelain using modern craftsmanship, but if you wanted to perfectly restore a piece of porcelain that had been shattered into fragments at the atomic level, with strength equal to the original, the difficulty would increase by more than one order of magnitude.

Unless you have a big shot at home,

If you go to the Special Affairs Bureau now to turn yourself in and seek help, there's an extremely high probability they'll put you through the 【Euthanasia Program】."

"Euthanasia Program?"

"In other words, end-of-life care." Changsun Yao said calmly, "Within a funding limit of one million, they'll let you eat what you want, drink what you want, and spend a happy week or two. When the time comes, they'll perform euthanasia on you and recycle your body.

This is the Special Affairs Bureau's standard procedure for dealing with high-risk targets who turn themselves in and cannot be treated."

Li Cheng was silent for a long time before he said, "I can work for them."

"We're now in the fourth year since the Killing Game began. The Special Affairs Bureau isn't short of hired muscle—or rather, isn't short of hired muscle below the top combat tier."

Changsun Yao asked, "Even if they recruit you, you'll still, at the end of life, involuntarily transform into a monster. Instinctively creating destruction, spreading infection. The equivalent of an extremely dangerous ticking time bomb."

"."

Li Cheng fell into a long silence. He slowly raised his head and asked seriously, "How much longer can I survive as a human?"

"In the most optimistic case, about a month, give or take."

Changsun Yao set down her coffee and said, "Of course, all of the above is just my side of the story. If you don't believe me, I can take you for a free visit to places like the Prometheus Laboratory Company. Ask them what opinions or suggestions they have."

(End of this chapter)