Chapter 349: Spreading the Gospel

A slum on the outskirts of the city.

They call it a slum, but in fact hundreds of refugees and homeless wanderers who have nowhere to go—people who have fallen below the execution line—have spontaneously gathered in a cluster of abandoned factories, building temporary shacks from sheet metal, plastic tarps, and salvaged billboard panels.

The air is filled with the stench of stale instant noodles, mixed with the acrid smell of unwashed clothes and disinfectant.

Lao Li crouches in a corner, cradling his six‑year‑old daughter Xiao Yu in his arms.

Xiao Yu has been running a fever for three days.

Forty degrees.

No antipyretic. No antibiotics. Not even a clean piece of gauze.

Lao Li takes a wet towel to wipe his daughter's forehead; the water on the towel is drawn from the restroom's tap, murky and yellow, and he dares not contemplate what might be in it.

"Dad... it hurts so much..."

Xiao Yu's voice is as thin as a mosquito's whine, her little face flushed hot, her lips cracked and split.

"It won't be painful, it won't be painful, Dad is here."

Lao Li pulls his daughter tighter into his chest, his rough palm gently cupping the back of her head, as if holding a porcelain doll.

He used to be a truck driver, earning a little over two thousand yuan per trip; life wasn't great, but whenever Xiao Yu wanted strawberry cake, he never said a single "no".

Now?

Because he collided with a reckless second‑generation rich kid, his qi and blood went haywire, and he was manipulated by the other party into total ruin.

No strawberry cake.

No clean water.

Not a single piece of amoxicillin.

Nothing, damn it, is there.

In the afternoon, he knelt at the Social Welfare Material Distribution Point for two hours, pleading. The uniformed staff flipped through the register and said medicines are prioritized for young and middle‑aged labor and technical personnel.

Lao Li says, "My daughter is only six; she'll die."

The staff lowers their head, avoids his gaze, and mechanically repeats: "Resources are limited, please understand and cooperate."

Understand? As if.

"Dad... water..."

Xiao Yu speaks again, her breath like a wisp of air.

Lao Li snaps back, trembling as he brings the half‑bottle of saved mineral water to his daughter's lips, feeding her drop by drop. The water runs down Xiao Yu's mouth corner, flowing over the rash‑covered skin of her neck.

"Drink slower, drink slower, my baby."

His voice trembles.

From outside the shacks comes a clamor of curses; people are fighting over a compressed biscuit. The sheet metal clangs loudly, and a baby's wail mixes with women's screams into a chaotic din.

Lao Li hears nothing.

He only hears Xiao Yu's breathing growing shallower and weaker.

"Your daughter... won't make it much longer, right?"

The voice comes from behind.

Lao Li turns his head and sees a person squatting in the corner's shadow, having been there for an unknown time.

The person wears the same filthy clothes as everyone else, his face smeared with ash, the hat brim pulled low. He looks like an ordinary refugee.

But his way of smiling is off.

The curve of his mouth is overly wide. In his eyes burns an indescribable fervor, like a starving wolf eyeing prey.

"Who are you?" Lao Li instinctively steps back, shielding Xiao Yu behind him.

"Don't be nervous, we're the same side." The man waves his hand, pulls a half‑crumpled cigarette from his pocket, lights it, and takes a drag.

"I've seen you squatting here three days. Did you ask those kids at the supply station for medicine?"

Lao Li says nothing.

"You asked, right? They didn't give, right?"

The man answers himself with a snort.

"These benefits distributed from above should have reached us, the homeless, but in fact they've long been siphoned off by the middle‑stage parasites, the so‑called social elites."

"When it comes to us, a million from the Social Aid Fund probably leaves only ten thousand, not even enough."

"No, hahaha... probably there was never any aid material from the top at all, because they know that once free goods appear, their prices become hard to sustain."

The man watches Lao Li's expression as if admiring a painting.

Lao Li's hand begins to clench.

The man pulls something out of his chest.

He spreads his hand flat.

In his palm, a thing slightly larger than a nail cap emits a dim crimson glow. The light is weak, yet it makes the surrounding air thick and oppressive; Lao Li feels a faint scent of sweet, metallic rust.

"What is this?"

"Power," the man's smile deepens, his voice becoming soft and fervent, bearing a preacher's devotion.

"Divine‑granted power."

"Swallow it, and you won't have to beg anyone ever again. Medicine, food, clean water—take as much as you want. Whoever dares block you, you will overturn that wall... together with the people behind it."

Lao Li stares at the glowing speck, his pupils dilating.

"You... are you serious?"

"Why would I lie? While those high officials are out eating steak, your daughter is here waiting to die."

"They have power, troops, money—why should your child have to die? Just because you're a truck driver?"

Lao Li says nothing.

He lowered his head and glanced at Xiao Yu in his arms.

Xiao Yu's eyes were half‑open, already unfocused, the black pupils misty, like two dust‑covered glass beads. The tiny chest's rise and fall grew ever smaller.

Huh......

Inhale......

Huh......

The next breath never came.

"Xiao Yu?"

Lao Li's voice changed tone.

"Xiao Yu!"

He laid his daughter flat on the ground, slapped her face hard, pinched her philtrum, and blew mouth‑to‑mouth. Xiao Yu's lips were chillingly cold, like a block of tofu just taken from the refrigerator.

"Xiao Yu! Baby, look at Daddy! Look at Daddy!"

No response.

Xiao Yu's hand drooped. Her fingers curled, and between the gaps a small piece of compressed biscuit crumbs that Lao Li had saved for her at noon was still clutched.

She hadn't finished eating.

She hadn't had time to finish.

Lao Li knelt there, cradling his now cold daughter, a hiss rising from his throat that sounded unlike any human voice.

The believer did not urge.

He leaned against the wall, smoking, savoring the collapse like a diligent tour guide patiently waiting for tourists to linger at a site.

Three minutes later.

Lao Li lifted his head.

His eyes were absurdly red, every muscle in his face twitched, his mouth opened and closed, his teeth chattering.

"Give it to me."

Two words. Nothing more.

The believer flicked off the cigarette butt, spread his palm, and the crimson Seed floated silently.

Lao Li did not hesitate.

He snatched it, shoved it into his mouth, and forced it down.

As the Seed slid down his throat, he felt a scorching heat burst in his stomach, spreading through the vessels to every limb and bone. The sound of bones shattering and re‑forming echoed from within, muffled and heavy, like someone hammering a wall inside his belly.

His skin first turned red, then gray, then sharp white Bone Spikes pierced the flesh of his shoulder blades, spine, and elbows, sprouting outward.

His height surged from 1.7 m to over two meters, muscles twisted and swelled, his form now wholly beyond human bounds.

Yet the most hair‑raising thing wasn't his appearance.

It was the sound.

He was howling.

Not a beast's roar, but a man's wail. Like a father bawling in a funeral hall, amplified tenfold, issuing from the mouth of a Bone Spike‑covered monster.

The mournful cry pierced the tin roof and surged into the night sky.

Bang—

His body tore through the shanty wall. The tin and planks shattered like paper, fragments flying sideways and toppling the three neighboring shanties.

The slum erupted in chaos.

"Monster! There's a monster over there!"

"Run! Run fast!"

The crowd screamed and scattered, elders were trampled, and a child's cries were drowned in the crush.

And the believer, standing amid the ruins, spread his arms wide.

He did not run.

He pulled a Cloth Bag from his chest, untied its knot. Inside were countless crimson Seeds, each the size of a longan pit, glowing Weirdly in the darkness.

"Don't be afraid!"

He shouted hoarsely, his voice drowning out all the chaos.

"This is not a disaster, this is redemption!"

He plunged his hand into the Cloth Bag, grasped a fistful of Seeds, raised them high above his head, then hurled them forcefully into the crowd.

The crimson specks arced, like a bewitching fireworks display.

A few landed at the fleeing people's feet, some bounced into the collapsed shanty ruins, and a few struck directly onto the hand of an elderly man who had been trampled and could not rise.

"The authorities won't come to save you!" The believer's voice turned fanatical, blue veins bulging on his neck.

"They won't even spare a single piece of medicine for you! In their eyes, what are you? Insects! Consumables! Decimal points that can be rounded on a statistical report!"

"Embrace mutation, embrace evolution, and then take revenge on those who look down on us!"

Those words were too poisonous.

Because they were too true.

The crowd's fleeing slowed. Some turned to look at the crimson specks scattered on the ground.

A limp‑legged middle‑aged man moved first. He had had his leg smashed on the first day of the Blood Moon Descent, no one cared for him, and the wound had begun to fester and stink.

He crawled over, picked up a Seed, and clenched it in his palm.

"Either way it's all death," his hoarse throat rasped, "Either way, damn it, it's all death."

He swallowed it.

Then the second. The third. The seventh.

The person who swallowed the Seed began to mutate within seconds; the muffled sounds of bones breaking and recombining rose and fell, wails layered upon wails, but as the cries continued they changed in quality, no longer sounding like pain, more like release.

It was as if a drowning person no longer had to struggle.

The believer knelt at the center of this blood‑splattered ruin, palms pressed together, forehead touching the ground.

"Welcome the Gospel."

He lifted his head.

Around him stood beings that were no longer human. Seven or eight malformed forms, each different: some bore extra arms, some had spines split open like fleshy flowers, some were entirely sheathed in carapace with only two eye sockets glowing red.

Yet they all stood silently, all facing the direction where the believer knelt.

Like a distorted Mass.

Liu Fang hid inside a ventilation duct.

She saw everything from start to finish.

The duct was made of iron sheet, less than half a meter in diameter; she curled up inside, her back pressed against the icy metal wall, and her sweat soaked her clothes through.

She covered her mouth, daring not to make a sound. Her stomach churned like a raging river, acidic fluid constantly surging toward her throat, and she could only forcefully swallow it back.

Three meters below, those things that had once been human were devouring the people who hadn't managed to escape.

Chewing sound.

Ripping sound.

And the believer still murmuring the repeated "Welcome the Gospel."

Liu Fang's hand trembled, trembling so much she could barely hold her phone. Yet she dimmed the screen to its lowest setting and turned on the camera.

On the screen, a creature covered entirely with jointed limbs crouched beside a corpse, using its forelimbs to pry the ribs apart one by one, then lowering its head to eat whatever lay inside.

The believer stood behind it, arms spread wide toward the sky, singing a melody whose tune was indecipherable.

Liu Fang pressed the record button.

Her fingers were as stiff as frozen, unresponsive, and she had to press three times in a row before it finally registered.

Thirty seconds.

She recorded for thirty seconds.

Then she tapped upload.

The network signal flickered, and the progress bar stuck at sixty‑seven percent, unmoving.

"Faster... faster..."

Seventy‑three percent.

Eighty‑one percent.

It was quiet outside the duct.

Liu Fang was stunned.

All sounds vanished in the same instant. No chewing, no fervent prayers, not even the sound of wind.

This silence chilled the spine more than any roar.

Ninety‑four percent.

A faint tremor came from the duct wall.

Something was crawling outside.

The sound of metal grinding, creaking, creaking, moved slowly along the outer wall of the duct, drawing ever closer to her.

One hundred percent.

Upload successful.

The iron sheet exploded.

A Crimson Hand bristling with Compound Eyes reached in through the torn opening; its five splayed fingers oozed a sticky, translucent fluid and clamped tightly around her ankle.