Due to the time spent merging with the King Fish larva, Lu Yan had been out of touch with the outside world for a while.

The moment he stepped out, he sensed something was wrong. There were deep palm prints on the metal security door, as if someone had slammed against it with great force. Lu Yan took a look—they didn’t look like human hands; they looked like those of an oversized frog. A thick, cloying stench of blood hung in the air, refusing to dissipate. Because the power was out, the stairwell was pitch black. Lu Yan felt for his phone screen.

[I want to remind you of one thing,] the System suddenly said. [Although there are no pollutants in your immediate line of sight, these variants are phototactic. If you don’t want to be surrounded, I do not suggest you use any light source. You can already see in the dark, so learn to accept the parts of yourself that are different from humans.]

Night vision is limited; the principle involves the LCD membrane surface shifting towards blue to reflect infrared light into visible light, allowing one to see clearly. Lu Yan’s eyes now reflected a reddish glow, much like a cat’s. However, in his vision, everything around him had turned green.

The neighbor’s door was wide open, the inside of the metal gate covered in terrifying claw marks—proof of someone’s desperate struggle before death. There were viscous liquids on the floor of the corridor. Lu Yan lightly rubbed his foot against them; it was dried blood, feeling like syrup under his shoe. These bloodstains were clearly dragged; they had paused for a moment in front of his door, and upon realizing they couldn’t get in, had headed toward the stairwell. The bloodstains also vanished around the corner of the landing.

Because of his profession, Lu Yan’s schedule was usually out of sync with his neighbors, but he remembered a family of four living next door: a couple, a child, and an elderly person. He looked at the pool of blood, stood in silence for a moment, gripped his knife, and stepped inside.

Excuse the intrusion.

The smell of blood in the room was much thicker than outside. Judging by the volume, there was definitely more than one victim. Lu Yan followed the bloodstains two steps into the living room and, not paying attention, stepped onto half a severed hand. He looked down for a moment—the hand likely belonged to an adult female, with clear bite marks at the wound. Aside from that, no obvious human remains were visible. It seemed these pollutants didn’t leave bones behind when they ate.

The living room was the crime scene, but the starting point of the bloodstains was the children’s room deep in the hallway. The room was decorated very warmly, with Lego toys piled in the corner, showing that the child was very cherished. Although the pollutant had left, the room was still filled with a damp, fishy odor. A chair was overturned on the floor, and there were several broken hemp ropes lying there.

[Clearly, it was the child in this household who mutated. But the parents didn’t want to send him to the containment center, so they tied him up in the room, hoping for a vaccine. At first, the mutated child could still listen to his parents, but eventually, he became nothing more than a monster that wanted to eat people. Finally, one day, the monster broke free from the ropes.]

The hearts of parents everywhere are truly pitiable.

[Also… do you want to look up at the ceiling? It seems to have crawled over along the stairwell.]

A drop of foul-smelling drool landed right next to Lu Yan’s foot. It turned out the fishy smell in the room wasn’t because a mutant had been locked in for a long time; the pollutant was right beside him.

Lu Yan looked up. A young boy was hanging from the ceiling like a gecko. Its hands were nearly the size of its head, its sticky, webbed digits gripping the ceiling firmly. Probably because it was too full, its stomach was bloated, looking like a woman ten months pregnant.

A grotesque smile appeared on the pollutant’s face. It opened its mouth wide, revealing two rows of sharp teeth. Its long tongue flicked out like a predator’s, and the flesh tumors on the tongue stood up like sharp barbs.

Having dissected a frogman once gave Lu Yan the confidence—and a bit of understanding—regarding this type of pollutant. Although frogmen moved quickly and had immense strength, their attack style was monotonous: they either pounced or licked. They could spray corrosive stomach acid, but there wasn’t much of it.

Having overcome the nausea, he found it wasn’t hard to deal with, given his current physical condition. Lu Yan thought for only a moment; he didn’t dodge, but instead reached out and grabbed the tongue. Ignoring the barbs, the tongue felt very smooth and greasy, like a slab of tender pork liver.

The pollutant’s face showed clear surprise. However, since its eyes were already wide enough, it looked exactly the same. Lu Yan pulled hard, dragging it from the ceiling to the floor. The pollutant hit the ground with a loud thud. Very inconsiderate to the neighbors.

Self-preservation is an animal’s instinct. It wanted to run, but Lu Yan’s strength was astonishing, pinning it down. The pollutant cowered in the corner, hissing in a struggle, watching in terror as Lu Yan grabbed its tongue in one hand and his scalpel in the other, approaching with a full-faced smile.

“Although I’m not a pediatrician,” Lu Yan said, “it’s an emergency, so excuse me. At the very least, I have passed the national medical practitioner certification.”

The blade sliced open the frogman’s abdomen. It struggled once or twice in its death throes, then finally went limp on the floor, unmoving. Lu Yan dissected some undigested human limbs and heads from its stomach.

[For a pollutant that has completed its mutation like this, there is no possibility of reverse-growth back into a human. As for how to resolve the pollution, I probably don’t need to say much—you will see for yourself very soon…]

The blood vessels on Lu Yan’s arm bulged—it was the reawakening King Fish larva. On his previously smooth arm, patches of fish scales appeared, covering his skin like armor. Then, these scales tilted upwards. Thin white threads probed out from the gaps in the scales and connected to the frogman on the floor. Then, it began to feed.

It was like drawing blood; the white threads were slowly dyed red. Lu Yan reached out to touch the threads and shuddered from the pain. It wasn’t his hand that hurt—it was the threads. It felt like someone was touching his brain nerves with their bare hands. No wonder the King Fish didn’t come out earlier; if the frogman hadn’t been fully dead, even the slightest struggle would have caused Lu Yan agonizing pain.

Perhaps because of the symbiotic relationship, as the King Fish fed, Lu Yan felt a sense of “eating” himself. His stomach felt warm and comfortable. He squinted his eyes, a strange, abnormal flush appearing on his pale face, like someone who was hungover.

The System was eerily silent: [I thought that a normal person seeing this scene would at least have a mental breakdown.] It had prepared to be a mental health mentor, but Lu Yan unexpectedly didn’t give it any face.

Lu Yan replied expressionlessly: “In your eyes, are humans too fragile? Although according to your theory, we are inferior creatures that haven’t fully evolved, in the millions of years it took for humans to evolve from apes, humanity has never given up on saving itself.”

The feeding lasted for half a minute.

[Spiritual Power Threshold +10. Congratulations, you have been enhanced.]

The System let out a cold sneer, whispering: [That double-crossing traitor’s prediction is correct. If the King Fish host is a pollutant, devouring all the pollutants in K City would indeed exceed that boundary… Pity it ran into me.] Its voice was too small, and combined with the sound of tides Lu Yan heard in his ears from time to time, he didn’t hear it clearly.

The white, lustrous tentacles retreated back into Lu Yan’s body, as if they had never appeared at all.

Perhaps because the residential complex had already been cleared once, Lu Yan didn’t run into a second pollutant until he left the area. The police tape at the entrance remained, but the guards were nowhere to be seen; only the blood-stained guard booth hinted at what had happened there.

Theoretically, the whole city was without power, but the direction of Qujiang Park was brilliantly lit, bright enough to make one’s eyes ache.

[That is the Pollution Disease Prevention and Control Center conducting pollutant recovery. If you are interested, you could go take a look.]

Lu Yan retracted his gaze, not particularly interested. K City at night was excessively quiet. Only when passing through certain small paths could Lu Yan hear a few heavy gasps mixed with the sound of chewing. Every time, Lu Yan would follow the sounds into the alleyways. He hadn’t come to break them up; he had come to join them.

…

…

Lu Yan rubbed his stomach. He had always been a loyal practitioner of the “only eat until 80% full” rule. It had been a long time since he had felt this nauseatingly full. Throughout the night, his spiritual threshold had increased by a total of 70. Added to the 100 he got from merging with the King Fish, he was now an Awakened with a spiritual threshold of 170.

This value wasn’t high. At the very least, according to the research institute’s criteria, it was only the lowest-level Tier 1 Awakened. However, K City was entirely Lu Yan’s home turf; the bloodline suppression made him almost invincible here. Besides, the strength of an Awakened wasn’t determined solely by the spiritual threshold.

“Full. Time to go home; I’ll come back tomorrow.”

He was quite eager to encounter pollution patients who hadn’t fully mutated yet—according to the System’s theory, he could probably treat them. But obviously, he couldn’t force such things; he couldn’t go door-to-door with a megaphone asking.

As Lu Yan walked down the street, a bleak east wind blew. In his pocket, his phone vibrated slightly. It was actually the iPhone’s built-in AirDrop. A stranger’s message popped up: [Bro, why are you outside? Several guards in our complex are infected, and no one has come to collect them yet. Are you fcking looking for death?]*

A very kind-hearted “big brother.”

The phone vibrated again: [Block the light! Those pollutants are sensitive to light! Don’t you watch the news!!! How on earth did you get on the street?]

[FCK!!! They’re here!!! Run!!]*

Just as the message popped up, the 13th floor of the building behind Lu Yan lit up. A petite girl stood by the window, nervously tapping on the glass and making a noise, before running away like a puff of smoke.

A moment later, Lu Yan’s phone received a new message: [This building belongs to my family. I’m going to hide in another room first. This is all I can do for you.]

The System said: “[Although I have no fondness for the human race—weak, selfish, and pathetic—I have to admit that humans always have some behaviors that puzzle me. In this instant, it makes me think you guys are quite cute.]”

The end of the street trembled. A three-meter-tall fish-headed humanoid hopped toward him. Its body still retained human form, its frame hunched, but it had a massive fish head—judging by the species, it looked like a catfish. Its fishy lips opened and closed, and its four whiskers moved without any wind.

[Wow, congratulations, you’ve encountered the first mini-boss of this experience dungeon: a Tier 400 pollutant Fishman. This Fishman was a big eater when he was alive; after mutating, he’s especially gluttonous. In three days, he’s eaten 60 people and grown to be this fat. He doesn’t just eat humans; he eats his own kind. He’s more aggressive than a normal Fishman.]

[But the good news is that the fish eggs he sprays, while a bit disgusting, won’t cause you to be polluted. Also, there’s a reason he has such a big head. You humans have a saying: ‘Deep feelings, one big gulp. Shallow feelings, just a lick.’ This Fishman has quite deep feelings for you… His weakness is his gills. In short, be careful.]

The Fishman’s intelligence wasn’t high. It had originally been walking toward Lu Yan, but upon seeing the light on the roof, it was quickly distracted, walking with heavy steps toward the apartment building.

Lu Yan had only encountered frogs along the way; he had never dissected a Fishman this big before. Furthermore, he believed that when facing pollutants, his survival probability was just that little bit higher. Therefore, he turned on his phone’s front flashlight.

The Fishman suddenly turned its head. It seemed to perceive the provocation and charged toward Lu Yan with incredible speed. A night of feeding had significantly improved Lu Yan’s physical fitness, and almost instantly, he reacted, retreating rapidly and dodging the Fishman’s strike.

But this Fishman was simply too large. Lu Yan’s arm was grazed by the Fishman’s whiskers; the whiskers, which looked soft and boneless, were sharper than knives. His clothes were ripped, and blood seeped out.

The Fishman suddenly froze and stopped moving.

System: [Fck. Your blood, your blood—I should have guessed! SHT!!]

The System was always sarcastic; this was the first time Lu Yan had heard its tone sound so panicked.

[Stop fighting! Now, fast, immediately. Run toward the Pollution Disease Prevention and Control Center. If you don’t want to be surrounded, run fast!!!]

…

…

Qujiang Park.

Qujiang District was worthy of being the origin of K City’s pollution disease. Although the quantity wasn’t particularly large, the danger and pollution values were far higher than other areas. Oddly-shaped pollutants swarmed over one after another, like moths to a flame, coming here. The Qu River water was almost dyed red with blood.

Lin Sinan had fine beads of sweat on his forehead. In order to deal with the pollutants here, a total of 16 Awakened were currently staying in the park, quite a few more than usual. But he still felt a sense of inadequacy; some of the pollutants here had even evolved a bit of intelligence.

However, at 2:00 AM, these pollutants suddenly stood still on the spot, as if they had been hit by a stop button. Although he didn’t know why, Lin Sinan obviously wouldn’t let this good opportunity pass.

But after clearing them for just two minutes, the pollutants before him turned their heads toward the same direction as if waking from a dream. On their faces, there actually appeared… varying degrees of fanaticism. It was like hyenas that had been hungry for many days smelling rotting meat.

I don’t know who let out the first frog croak.

In the next second, not a single pollutant looked at the brilliantly lit Qujiang Park; they flowed toward the same direction like a tide!

“What’s going on?” the detectorist beside him looked shocked.

Lin Sinan stood in a daze for a moment, thought of a possibility, and his face suddenly turned ugly.

“I’ve only heard of this situation once…”

“The First Research Institute, Test Subject No. 0 awakened. It is a rare healing talent, rumored to be the ‘Awakening’ talent ranked first in the sequence. That day, the institute was also surrounded by pollutants.”

“To protect No. 0, the institute had to lock No. 0 into a life capsule.”

Although the detectorist was an Awakened, because he was a support type, his spiritual threshold was not high, and he had always been stationed in K City. This was the first time he had heard of such a thing; his expression was bewildered: “There’s also a healing talent? How come I haven’t heard of it?”

That’s a stupid question. There were only three in the world right now. One was locked in a life capsule and didn’t dare to be released, one was being raised at headquarters like an ancestor, and the remaining one was abroad.

Lin Sinan put away his gun, opened his headset, his eyes bloodshot, and roared: “Bai Qiushi, stop watching the show on the wall! K City has a suspected awakening of a healing talent! F*cking get over here, or wait to collect the corpses!”