Parasite

Even Sun Hang himself had not realized that his expression now made him seem like a completely different person.

"But don't worry. I'll be very gentle..."

Under the girl's terrified gaze, Sun Hang bent down, took her slender hand, carefully placed her bony index finger into his mouth, and began to suck on it lightly.

The next second, his jaws suddenly clenched, biting off the girl's finger!

The girl immediately let out a piercing scream and fell backward onto the ground.

"Pah." Sun Hang spat out the severed half of the finger. The gentle expression on his face instantly turned to disgust. "It smells like... rotten meat."

Whether from pain or fear, tears continuously welled up in the girl's eyes. She struggled to crawl backward, but Sun Hang grabbed her ankle and dragged her back.

Just then, a trace of confusion flashed through Sun Hang's eyes.

What am I doing?

I just bit off her index finger?

Was I planning to eat her?

No, that's not right... She's still useful. She can't die yet...

Sun Hang grabbed the girl's wrist again and focused his gaze on the severed finger.

The wound was no longer bleeding. Countless tiny buds of flesh continuously emerged from the cross-section of the tissue, beginning to form a new finger...

Sun Hang looked closely—those were not flesh buds at all, but clusters upon clusters of white mycelium!

The girl's bitten-off finger quickly returned to normal. Apart from its rather deathly pale complexion, everything from the texture of the nail and skin to the shape of the bone at the knuckle was identical to the severed finger on the floor.

"A severed limb can actually regenerate?" Sun Hang examined the finger in surprise. For some reason, compared to the severed finger from before, he found this newly grown one far prettier—and far more appealing.

Was it because this finger had been remade through the power of an aberration? Sun Hang did not know, but he still decided to conduct a small experiment.

He picked up his dagger and used its sharp tip to cut open the pad of the girl's newly regenerated index finger.

No blood flowed from the wound, nor did the girl show any expression of pain.

"I understand now..." Sun Hang said with a slight nod.

"W-What?" The girl's eyes widened. To her, this strange man before her was no different from a demon.

"I understand what the 'price' is," Sun Hang said. "Tai Sui meat did not grant you infinite regeneration. Nor can you truly be considered infected... The relationship between Tai Sui and you is more like that between a parasite and its host. Its 'cells' dwell inside your bodies, growing stronger by absorbing your nutrients. And in order to ensure the host's survival, it mimics the host's organs, replicating any 'malfunctioning' organs and replacing them..."

"What are you talking about?!" The girl looked dazed. "I don't understand..."

"These organs replicated by Tai Sui connect to every system in the human body, including the nervous system, so you don't feel anything abnormal... Every organ in a host's body can be replaced, except for the brain."

Sun Hang paused before continuing, "Once every organ in a person's body has been replaced, that person will be completely supplanted by Tai Sui... Even if you can ensure that you never fall ill or get injured for the rest of your lives, the human body's metabolism will not stop. In the end, you will still become part of Tai Sui..."

As Sun Hang spoke at length, a vicious glint flashed through the eyes of the girl sitting on the ground. Her newly regenerated index finger transformed into a sharp hook claw in the blink of an eye. Her body sprang upward in an extremely bizarre posture, pouncing on Sun Hang and giving him an incredibly intimate embrace.

Her petite body buried itself entirely in Sun Hang's chest, while that sharp hook claw pierced straight through his throat with unerring accuracy.

Yet to her surprise, the claw that had stabbed into Sun Hang's throat melted rapidly like an icicle plunged into boiling water... Meanwhile, the hole in Sun Hang's neck completely healed and vanished within mere seconds.

"How?!" The girl's eyes widened. Before she could even release Sun Hang, a tremendous force struck her shoulder and back—Sun Hang viciously threw her to the ground. Her spine slammed against the protruding edge of a stair, producing a crisp crack as it broke.

Before the pain could reach her brain, the damaged central nervous system had already been rebuilt by Tai Sui. The girl rolled over and had barely risen when a heavy punch struck her abdomen!

Boom!!

Her body smashed an human-shaped shallow crater into the wall, and falling plaster covered her from head to toe... Vaguely, she seemed to feel something about to burst from within her body... After a brief moment of terror came wild ecstasy.

"It's ascension! The ascension the Saints always spoke of!! I... I've finally waited for this day!"

Her fear of the man before her had vanished. Curled up against the wall, the girl recited those incomprehensible prayers in a broken voice, silently awaiting the arrival of the "miracle."

What "replacement," what "aberration"... Those were merely the blasphemies of ignorant fools against Tai Sui. Tai Sui was different from those aberrations. It would grant her new life and make her...

The girl's consciousness abruptly ended there. The skin across her body rapidly erupted with patches of swollen red blisters, as though boiling hot oil had been poured over her... Then, the blisters burst one after another, releasing foul-smelling gray pus.

The lifeless shell slowly slid down the wall... Soon, it turned into a puddle of bloody water, mixing with the plaster fragments scattered across the floor.

Sun Hang frowned.

The portion of Tai Sui parasitizing the girl's body clearly possessed "self-awareness"—it would rather burn through the host's life force and "commit suicide" than allow itself to be eaten by Sun Hang.

Even if he could not eat that "feast," he could at least use the Tai Sui parasitizing the girl's body to "satisfy his hunger"... Yet after he had swallowed only a small portion of the Tai Sui, the rest had unhesitatingly chosen self-destruction.

It was like buying an ice cream cone, taking only one lick, and then watching the scoop piled on the wafer fall to the ground with a plop.

"What a waste."