Infected Zone

Vanessa slapped a hand over her own head, and her grip on Li Wei's hand loosened. She hadn't expected her best friend to show up at a time like this.

She was about to say something more when a wailing alarm blared overhead, drowning out every other sound.

A red indicator light flashed incessantly, and a drone emblazoned with the Blackwatch logo was starkly visible, its noise loud enough to be unmistakable.

Anyone with a phone who had seen the news instantly turned pale. Almost everyone knew what this drone was used for.

It was for detecting infected individuals or those carrying the virus who hadn't yet mutated!

As the alarm sounded, the crowd screamed and scattered, quickly fleeing the drone's range. Vanessa and the bespectacled girl who had just run out both tried to head toward the crowd. Vanessa even attempted to pull Li Wei along, but when she tugged, he didn't budge.

She turned back and saw the drone hovering directly above them, its sensors locked onto Li Wei. It meant the virus carrier was him!

At the sight, her face went deathly pale. She let go of his hand and stared at her own palms in terror, the ones that had touched Li Wei.

He's a virus carrier! I touched him! He! He!

"AAAAAAHHHH!"

Overwhelmed by the sheer horror of her own thoughts, Vanessa collapsed backward onto the ground with a terrified scream.

Li Wei looked up at the drone. Yesterday, the news had just announced that this thing could detect the virus, and now it was already in use.

With everyone around him having fled, Li Wei stopped hiding. He crouched and leaped, soaring over a dozen meters to the face of a nearby building in a move that left everyone staring in disbelief. He ran across the vertical wall as if it were flat ground, reaching the rooftop in no time.

Blackwatch soldiers and armed SWAT officers, having received the drone's signal, moved swiftly. Armed helicopters circling over Manhattan sped toward the signal's origin and spotted Li Wei moving rapidly between buildings.

The helicopters' cannons and weapons locked onto the fleeing Li Wei, opening fire on the empty rooftop. Bullets whizzed past him, striking the city's concrete and kicking up clouds of dust.

Li Wei dodged the cannon fire, leaping from the rooftop. His cells compressed and expelled a burst of air, creating rippling shockwaves in the space around him. He was launched forward like he'd been struck by a heavy hammer.

Then, spreading his limbs wide, he glided through the air. The pressure generated inside his body couldn't let him fly, but it allowed him to sustain a glide toward a distant building.

Rogers held his cup of coffee, feeling a bit tired after working for a while. He walked over to the window of the high-rise, planning to gaze down at the bustling traffic from a hundred meters up to ease his weary middle-aged heart.

"A high-paying job really is something..."

With that sigh, he tilted his head back and took a deep sip of the rich coffee. Just as he set the cup down, a large foot suddenly appeared against the glass right in front of him.

Boom!

"Ah!"

The foot slammed into the tempered glass, leaving deep cracks. Then the foot vanished, and Rogers let out a terrified scream, collapsing to the ground in fright. The coffee spilled onto his pants, scalding him and making him yelp in pain.

Li Wei sprinted along the wall of an office building. The pursuing helicopters stopped firing at that moment, because opening fire now would definitely kill civilians inside the building.

The protests were escalating. The spokesperson was already trying to redirect domestic anger, but things weren't going smoothly.

Since the infected had physical forms, anyone with eyes could see they were dangerous, and everyone was afraid of them. The citizens were adamant: they wouldn't stop protesting until the infected were dealt with.

This time, it wouldn't be easy to sweep under the rug...

The information was relayed to headquarters. The protest lines were forcibly dispersed, and roads were blocked off.

Li Wei kept darting and weaving between buildings at incredible speed. He glanced back from time to time, clearly seeing Blackwatch soldiers driving armored police vehicles recklessly through the city, all aimed at him.

Though this was his first time being hunted so intensely, as long as he reached the infected zone, those detection drones would be useless. He could just sneak back out at night—no big deal.

At least this was a full-star treatment, right?

Dodging the helicopter cannons' strafing fire, Li Wei kept looking back, watching the number of pursuers grow.

The Blackwatch soldiers were like a pack of hyenas catching the scent of meat, chasing him relentlessly. Helicopters were closing in from all directions.

The moment Li Wei officially entered the infected zone, the already warmed-up helicopter cannons opened fire instantly. Countless bullets and missiles came at him from every angle. There were hardly any survivors left in the infected zone, so the Blackwatch hyenas could freely waste their ammunition.

Even if only a small fraction of the dense barrage hit him, those large-caliber cannon rounds could still inflict devastating damage.

Gliding through the air, Li Wei watched helplessly as his left arm was blown clean off by a large-caliber bullet, falling toward the ground below.

A few shambling infected spotted the arm dropping from the sky and caught the sweet scent of a higher-level viral entity in the air. They quickened their pace, howling as they charged toward the severed limb on the ground.

Viral lifeforms attract and devour each other. Higher-level individuals instinctively seek to consume even higher-level ones—it's their nature: devour, grow stronger.

Li Wei wasn't a special individual like Alex Mercer. He was a separate viral strain split from the DX-1118 virus. Individuals created from the virus within his body were subservient and could be controlled by him.

He had tested this three days ago on the thugs who lent him the house. The process wasn't pretty, but once those thugs turned into Redlight-infected, they became obedient puppets he could order around.

Infected created by the Blacklight virus didn't have that function...

Hovering in midair, Li Wei adjusted the gas compression within his cells. Facing the ground, he frantically drove the internal pressure, a thin layer of airflow wrapping around his body. He plunged downward, executing a high-damage skill from the game: Bullet Dive.

His body accelerated to a speed barely perceptible to the naked eye. In less than half a second, he crashed from over a hundred meters up into the ground.

Under the immense air pressure impact, a crater one meter deep and six or seven meters in diameter instantly formed on the ground. The shockwave blasted everything not fixed to the earth flying.

Several shambling infected were launched into the air. Before they could fall back down, several twisted, blood-red tendrils pierced through them. After hovering for half a second, the tendrils retracted quickly, re-entering Li Wei's body.

The infected pierced by the tendrils were assimilated and absorbed, becoming nutrients to strengthen himself and adding 0.2% to the Key's energy.

This was a precision version of Alex's ultimate move—a skill Li Wei had created ahead of time using his foresight. He shot several tendrils from his body to precisely impale enemies, then pulled them back for assimilation and absorption.

The biological material cost of Tendrils of a Thousand was enormous. Even Alex had only created it after devouring countless lives, and each use weakened his life force.

If Li Wei used a real Tendrils of a Thousand to destroy everything now, he'd probably need to consume over a hundred infected just to recover.

They were all adults now. They had to clearly understand the law of conservation of energy.

Even a Prototype had to follow science!