“The saliva of this kind of frogman is corrosive. Its stomach acid is as corrosive as aqua regia.”

“It has a clear reaction to human flesh, matching the mutation patterns of pollution disease patients.”

“The epidermis is flexible and waterproof. The weakness is in the abdomen.”

“Most of the body consists of fast-twitch muscle fibers. Preliminary speculation suggests strong explosive power but poor endurance.”

Lu Yan wrote down the relevant data line by line in his work log.

After two days of recovery, the injuries on his body no longer affected his movements.

Doctors have everything at home, so having a set of surgical scalpels used for dissection didn’t seem all that strange.

This low-level contaminant had basically lost all human characteristics and completely lost its sanity, retaining only the primitive desire to feed. It could no longer be considered human. Moreover, the other party had tried to kill him.

Therefore, despite maintaining his respect for “cadaveric teachers,” Lu Yan did not show any mercy when he made his moves.

When Lu Yan threw the frog meat into the meat grinder to shred it and flush it down the drain, the System’s voice sounded very regretful: [The meat of this kind of frog… is actually quite delicious.]

Lu Yan: “I think a person, at the very least, shouldn’t… and ought not to.”

[…Fine then.]

Processing the corpse had taken a day, and Lu Yan had not closed his eyes for nearly thirty hours.

He fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow, but was still awakened by knocking at 10:00 AM.

He had always been a light sleeper; he couldn’t help it.

The property management guy shouted at the door, “Mr. Lu, are you awake?”

The property clerk’s name was Shen Qingyang, and he had worked here for two years.

Previously, the door lock had been eroded away. In this unusual time, Lu Yan couldn’t find anyone to change the lock, so he had replaced it with a new one himself—an electronic lock with fingerprint unlocking and no keyhole.

He turned on the peephole monitor and asked through the intercom, “What’s wrong?”

“Do you know where the resident opposite you went?” Shen Qingyang inquired. His eyes looked slightly dull, and he held a bottle of mineral water, taking a sip every half a minute. “He hasn’t picked up his water for the past two days. We checked the surveillance but couldn’t find him either. I’m a bit curious.”

Lu Yan replied calmly, “I don’t know.”

“Okay. If there’s any news, you can contact me in the property group. I’ll go deliver water to the next unit first.”

It was unclear if Shen Qingyang himself noticed, but when he left, he moved with small, skipping hops.

If it were a child, walking like that would probably be quite cute.

Lu Yan remained silent for a moment, sensing that the number of infected people in this city might be far greater than he imagined.

The System also sighed deeply: [The speed of evolution has accelerated. Normally, it would take at least a month to progress from the first stage to the third stage. K City will lose control faster than expected.]

Lu Yan hesitated for a moment and asked, “Isn’t there a Pollution Disease Prevention and Control Center?”

[The number of Awakened can’t keep up with the contaminants to begin with, and now even their speed of upgrading can’t keep up. Fires are breaking out all over the world, but there is only one bottle of water—how do you put them out?]

Lu Yan felt that it made sense.

Lu Yan waited for a while, brought the water and groceries outside the door into the house, and turned on the television as usual.

He although had stockpiled many supplies, most of them were instant foods. Fresh ingredients still needed to be delivered by others.

At this time, the television station was broadcasting the news, which was also the only program K City residents could receive now. The television station was severely short-staffed; currently, there was a signal only at 10:00 AM, 2:00 PM, and 8:00 PM every day, lasting for an hour each time.

No longer sugarcoating the peace, the female anchor on screen very solemnly introduced the pollution disease.

The anchor was probably seeing these materials for the first time too, as her voice trembled slightly while reading the news:

“This is the most severe trial facing humanity worldwide since entering the new century.

“Currently, K City has issued a yellow pollution warning.

“The transmission method of this pollution disease is through fish egg parasitism, and some of the parasitized individuals are contagious. Parasitic fish eggs mostly survive in tap water; residents please pay attention to drinking water safety.”

“According to intelligence, the mutation of the parasitized is divided into three stages. The characteristics of the first stage are… the mutation cycle spans from 7 to 50 days. The final formed contaminants are categorized into three types: frogmen, fishmen, and algalmen, with the level of danger increasing in that order. Mutated individuals possess strong aggressiveness and are no longer human. If you encounter a mutated person, please find cover to hide immediately. If you discover someone at home has begun to mutate, please call the police immediately.

“Although the enemy is exceptionally powerful, we still cannot give up hope. The relevant departments of K City have never abandoned their rescue efforts for ordinary residents.”

“Furthermore, if there are citizens who have suffered pollution but show no mutation symptoms, you can call the prevention and control center. In this critical moment of life and death, we need everyone’s strength!”

……

……

Accompanied by blurred photos playing in rotation on the television, the final fig leaf of the pollution disease was ripped away. Fear and anxiety enveloped everyone’s hearts.

Many people realized the severity of the problem through the television and voluntarily or involuntarily headed to the shelters.

Other citizens chose to flee overnight because of this, and gunshots rang out continuously until dawn. Before social order collapsed entirely, armed forces were still quite effective.

On the fifteenth day of the lockdown, someone reached the edge of the city for the first time.

This was a taxi driver who, relying on his familiarity with the city, shook off the pursuers behind him. He was driving on the highway out of the city, his face filled with the relief of surviving a disaster.

The streets were empty and desolate, scarcer than ever before. The driver steered onto a minor road. The road conditions there were poorer, but he could get onto the highway without passing through a toll station, and then go to other cities…

Crossing the ancient Tea Horse Road would lead to the adjacent M City.

Seeing that victory was right ahead, the smile at the corner of the driver’s mouth froze on his face.

At some point, a wall several meters high had been built around the perimeter of K City.

This wall stretched as far as the eye could see and was exceptionally smooth, like a giant cage.

The headquarters had indeed sent an Awakened as reinforcement.

Bai Qiushi, Leader of the Second Group of the Special Operations Department & Captain of the First Team, [Talent – Barrier], spiritual power threshold 8700.

He sat high up on the city wall, listening to Lin Sinan’s report, his brow entirely filled with impatience.

“Fighting? It’s impossible to fight in this lifetime. If it weren’t for the fear of death, I wouldn’t have awakened this kind of talent. Moreover, my physical fitness is poor, and I’m not the combat-type mad dog… What? I didn’t insult that person. I can hold this dirt wall for a week at most. One week—control all pollution within the urban area. Otherwise, headquarters will consider using thermal weapons to deal with it. You know, the kind that goes biu, bursts into a mushroom. Got it?”

On the 16th day of the lockdown.

Clear signs of mutation had appeared on Shen Qingyang’s face. His eyeballs protruded forward.

Lu Yan had dissected Zhou Kevin; the other party’s brain had atrophied severely, only about the size of a walnut, and all the sulci and gyri on the surface had completely vanished. As a whole, it resembled a smooth piece of goose liver. This brain abnormality was clearly what caused the contaminants to lose human sanity.

Of course, this was also the reason why some contaminants kept moving even after their brains were blown to pieces. Hilarious—they didn’t need a brain at all.

Shen Qingyang stopped outside Lu Yan’s door.

He pressed the doorbell and asked, “Mr. Lu, are you there?”

After a moment, Lu Yan’s slightly distorted voice came through the intercom: “I’m here.”

“It’s good that you’re here. This is the last time I’ll come to deliver water. The inspectors at the pollution center said I’ll soon enter the second stage of mutation. Although I don’t know exactly where the mutation is happening, I can tell. Everyone has become very afraid of me.” Shen Qingyang’s voice was very slow. “Right now, we are short of hands to get things done. If it weren’t for the fact that no one came to replace me, I would have gone to the shelter long ago… Do you know about the shelter? It’s the place for collective treatment of mutated people.

“They call it the concentration camp of the 22nd century. Not a single mutated person sent there comes out alive. But there’s no choice. I watch the news; those mutated people who lose their minds have nothing left but the instinct to feed. They say a person is made of memories—by then, the ‘me’ won’t be ‘me’ anymore. So I think it doesn’t matter if the body dies in the shelter.

“Although I can’t perceive my own mutation, it’s not like there are no changes. Dr. Lu, I want to remind you… you smell a bit different from normal people, very fragrant. You must stay safe. Although testing has begun by district, it’s very messy outside; you’d better not go out. I already deleted the surveillance footage from that night for you. It’s fine as long as you’re okay.”

Like delivering his final arrangements, Shen Qingyang rambled on a lot.

“Also, thank you, Dr. Lu.”

Shen Qingyang came from the countryside and dropped out of junior high school. Later, while moving bricks at a construction site, he broke a leg, and Lu Yan was the doctor in charge of his surgery.

The person was saved, but he was left with a limp and couldn’t return to his previous job. It just so happened that Lu Yan saw a recruitment notice down below and introduced it to him.

Shen Qingyang’s stomach let out a few timely rumbles—from hunger.

He was still eating normally, but food could no longer give him a feeling of fullness.

When he woke up this morning, out of hunger, he had even secretly sliced off a piece of meat from his own body. Surprisingly, it didn’t hurt very much.

Shen Qingyang took one last look at the door of Lu Yan’s home, turned around, and left.

Afterwards, under the watch of the staff from the Pollution Disease Prevention and Control Center, he would head to the shelter.

There were seven people in total from this residential complex going to the shelter.

The number of polluted people in K City was greater than imagined, so the beds there were exceptionally tight.

The accommodation provided by the shelter consisted of single rooms. The rooms were all temporarily converted, exceptionally narrow, and separated by a layer of sheet metal in the middle, resembling train sleeper berths.

In a place like this, there was naturally no soundproofing to speak of; even the sound of someone chewing an apple in the neighboring room could be heard clearly.

Fortunately, Shen Qingyang was used to hardships, so he didn’t feel it was unbearable. He was just a bit worried about Dr. Lu back in the complex, so he suffered a bit of insomnia on his first night.

In W City, adjacent to K City.

A person wearing a black robe stood in the suburbs, looking from afar at the dirt wall outside K City.

That high wall didn’t just block the land upward; it drove downward, blocking the river.

The special chemical agent used to kill the fish eggs had already been discharged into the water. In about two days, it would poison the contaminants in the river completely clean.

The shape of the black robe made it impossible to tell if the person was male or female; the entire individual was covered tightly.

“The shelter is the best hatching ground. Only through devouring can one achieve better evolution. Sometimes, I really am grateful for those bright parts of human nature. At least they built a shelter, didn’t they?”

The black robe stood on the spot without moving, and there was no one else around.

Astonishingly, the speaking voice actually came from the back of his head.

“I wonder into which lucky person’s hands that King Fish Egg will fall… For this hatching, I specially caused ahead-of-schedule chaos in K City. Headquarters has its hands full, so they naturally have no extra energy to care about this place.”

“Yes, I know, your son is still in K City. But that doesn’t matter, does it? And don’t tell me you still possess an emotion like fatherly love.”

“This process will naturally involve many sacrifices. But all sacrifices are for the descent of the great God.”

The wind blew past, just happening to lift the hood of the black robe.

Its front face had only a single vertical eye and no mouth, the white of the eye completely filled with bloodshot veins. The back of the head, however, was a constantly changing human face, alternating between male and female.

“K City is merely a beginning. Sooner or later, this world will be filled with the ruins of God!” The expression on that human face was full of fanaticism, before quickly calming down. “And we are the creators who fashion God.”