On a neon-lit pedestrian street.
A decayed human remnant fell onto the pavement, sending the onlooking pedestrians screaming and scattering in every direction!
Whoosh!
A black blur streaked past. Xi Nian landed lightly beside the remains, his slit-pupiled eyes burning like pale blue-white flames. His dark-skinned body rippled with sleek, streamlined muscles.
Venom rasped in his mind, "It has already parasitized another human nearby. Clearly, it is far stronger than the first symbiote and can choose almost any human as a host!"
"Which human?"
Like the most terrifying apex hunter, Black Cat's feline eyes coldly swept over the fleeing pedestrians. None of them showed any obvious signs of being parasitized. He quickly realized that the second symbiote intended to escape amid the chaos.
"Where is the symbiote?" Xi Nian bared his teeth and urged impatiently.
The instincts and bestial nature of the symbiote and the Essence Devourer Beast intertwined and ran rampant, pushing the rationality that belonged to humanity to the brink of collapse. Brutality, savagery, indifference, and other inhuman evils invaded his body and mind, causing Xi Nian's actions to become increasingly unrestrained and crazed!
Just like earlier.
Xi Nian had torn apart and slaughtered the human host together with the symbiote parasitizing him. Although he already knew that human could not be saved, and that delaying further would only allow him to run over more innocent people, making it the optimal choice at the time, such bloodthirsty brutality carried out without hesitation was already far removed from the thoughts of a normal human!
Venom said, "I can only sense it within thirty meters, but there are simply too many humans nearby—over a hundred. I can't determine which one has been parasitized!"
Its voice grew sharper and hoarser as it suggested in a demonic whisper, "I think the best solution right now is to kill all the humans here. Otherwise, if it escapes, even more people will die!"
"Don't hesitate! Make your choice already, or it will escape by blending into the crowd..."
"Shut up!" Xi Nian growled hoarsely. Looking at the humans fleeing in every direction, he suddenly drove one claw into the ground beneath him!
Hiss—
As the entire pedestrian street shook violently, dozens of terrifying cracks spread across the smooth pavement with Black Cat-shaped Xi Nian at the center. Then, marking a radius of thirty meters, black hardened tentacles formed from viscous fluid burst from the ground and shot straight into the city night sky over ten meters above!
The dozens of hardened tentacles formed a dense barbed barricade, trapping everyone within the thirty-meter radius!
Dead silence!
The scene fell completely silent!
Countless people looked up in horror, overwhelmed by immense fear. At the same time, they recalled that humiliation of being imprisoned in a birdcage—cough, wrong setting!
"Find it for me!" Xi Nian kept one claw embedded in the ground, his body completely still as his other claw transformed into a tentacle and extended toward the trapped crowd.
"Monster, stay away!" Quite a few people screamed and fell to the ground.
But they quickly discovered that the reaching tentacle was soft and pliant, as if it had the pads of an ordinary cat's paw. It merely brushed against their shoulders or chests before swiftly moving on, touching each person trapped within the tentacle barricade in turn.
Xi Nian was using touch to search for the human host parasitized by the second symbiote.
After all, symbiotes could parasitize someone without a sound. When they were not controlling a person's consciousness, even the host often did not know that they had been parasitized.
After Xi Nian had examined over half the people, a middle-aged man standing near the back of the crowd frowned slightly and inexplicably touched his chest.
For some reason, beads of cold sweat kept emerging across his body, soaking through his undershirt and making it feel chilly.
Obviously, now that he knew the tentacles would not hurt anyone, most of his fear should have faded.
Afraid. So afraid. Terrified of dying!
The second symbiote lurking inside the middle-aged man learned through the man's shared vision that Venom's host was about to search him. It began trembling uncontrollably in terror!
Before this, it had been unable to sense the first symbiote, so it knew that symbiote had already been killed.
After Xi Nian discovered it, it had continuously switched hosts while fleeing. Yet as it ran, it became increasingly aware of just how powerful Venom's host was!
The gap was far too great!
When symbiotes existed alone, they could barely even achieve the most basic survival. But after parasitizing a suitable creature, they could unleash abilities such as body hardening, transformation, Super Strength, and Super Speed. These abilities were also closely tied to the physical qualities of the host they parasitized!
Yet after switching through so many human hosts, the second symbiote discovered that the strength it could display was nowhere near that of Venom's host!
How could it have known?
Xi Nian's current state did not merely draw upon the abilities granted by Venom's parasitism. Instead, after being parasitized by Venom, he had in turn parasitized the Essence Devourer Beast in the nature of a symbiote.
The resulting effect was not as simple as one plus one.
"The symbiote boss can't come save me. I'm going to die. I'm going to die here!" The second symbiote panicked inside the middle-aged man. Xi Nian's tentacle had already searched not far ahead of him and was about to reach the host it currently parasitized!
What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?
Death was closing in!
Despair welled up within the second symbiote, but at that moment, it seemed to sense something.
The parasitized middle-aged man turned his head and inexplicably looked toward two people in the crowd.
They were a woman in her early thirties, holding the hand of a boy around ten years old. Though the woman herself was terrified, she still softly comforted the child. "Peter, it's okay. Don't worry. Aunt May will definitely protect you."
Peter nodded. He looked fearfully at the terrifying Black Cat, then gathered his courage and stepped in front of Aunt May. Suddenly, the hairs on his body stood on end. He glanced sideways and met the middle-aged man's hollow gaze.
It was as though he had been stared at by an evil abyss. Peter's face turned pale with fright, and he instinctively pointed as he blurted out, "The monster Black Cat is looking for... is him!"
"Peter, what are you talking about?" Aunt May froze.
"What are you talking about? I'm not a monster!" The middle-aged man also found it absurd and could not help retorting. But suddenly, his eyes widened in terror as a mass of gray-green viscous liquid poured out from his open mouth!
Half the liquid remained inside the man's body, while the other half floated in the air, wriggling as though alive!
The bizarre scene that overturned all common sense stunned everyone nearby, leaving them rooted to the spot.
"Found you!" Xi Nian in Tri-Symbiotic Form acted with ruthless decisiveness. The instant the second symbiote exposed itself, his extended tentacle immediately transformed into a sharpened hardened spike and lunged forward to kill it.
Piercing through the air, the tentacle was like a nail as it punched through the gray-green symbiote's body and pinned it to the tentacle barricade behind it!
Sizzle!
The second symbiote churned and boiled violently, suddenly severing the pinned portion of itself. The remaining liquid body shot forward like a water jet, like a gray-green net, rushing toward the woman nearby.
"Aunt May, watch out!"
Peter spread his arms and stood in front of Aunt May. The gray-green liquid thus seeped smoothly into his body!
Before you continue