Rotten Vine, the Wonders of Searching!

[Searcher: Barrett]

[Current Cooperation Degree: 57%]

[Current Searchable Range: Information, Items, Skills]

[Search Target Selected: Skill (lv.1)]

[Searching...]

[Search successful!]

[Barrett Stuart (Parasitic Ecosystem)]

[lv.1 Skills]: Rotten Vine Life*, Rotten Vine Strength*, Rotten Vine Speed*, Rotten Vine Recovery*, Rotten Vine Digestion*, Lock On*, Lock On*, Lock On*.

[lv.2 Skills]: Lock On

[Remark]: The searcher has been affected by a special power, causing skill mutation. The Collector has issued a warning via *remark. Collector, please be sure to take note: if the Collector equips this special skill, they will be affected in the same way.

[Remark]: After unlocking and equipping 'Rotten Vine*', you can view the specific details of Lock On*.

[Remark]: After unlocking and equipping 'Rotten Vine*', your Information Degree will increase. Otherwise, there will be no effect.

"Why are they all Rotten Vine?"

"Wait, is this an Infected?"

At first glance at the panel, Cheng Ye had been wondering what kind of Old Martial System this guy practiced. All his skill names were so uniform.

And unlike Chu Yunfeng's skill tree, which branched out in different directions, Barrett's panel bluntly listed Life, Strength, Speed, Recovery, Digestion, and so on, making him seem like a Stat Monster.

But the next second, Cheng Ye suddenly realized.

What kind of old-school martial artist was this?

This guy was a bona fide Infected!

Fuck!

What was going on?

The Collector could even search Infected and extract the mutations caused by infection?!

Wasn't that basically a direct way to gain special powers on par with those of a Transcendent?

Unfortunately, before Cheng Ye could get excited, his eyes fell on the remarks below.

The words "affected in the same way" doused his enthusiasm like a bucket of ice water.

If the side effects of infection would also be extracted, why bother searching with the Collector? Why not just let an Infected parasitize you?

"Wait, this function..."

Cheng Ye raised an eyebrow, suddenly realizing another use for the search function:

As long as the target's Cooperation Degree was above 50%, couldn't he use a search to determine whether they were infected at the source?

This was an incredible skill!

In an instant, Cheng Ye thought of several ways to make use of this function.

For example, on field assignments, if he wasn't sure whether a teammate was infected, he could simply search them.

Or during inspections, if he wasn't sure about someone, he could search them and get an answer.

[Collector, please make a selection. If you are unable to choose, you may cancel the search. The Charge Value will not be refunded upon cancellation, which will count as a failure, but you may receive double Action Points.]

A prompt lit up on the Collector Panel.

Double Action Points!

Cheng Ye's eyes brightened. He hadn't expected canceling the search to come with an extra reward, and immediately made up his mind. "Cancel the search."

Since the remark said he had to equip 'Rotten Vine' to gain any Information Degree, what was there to hesitate about?

He'd find it a hassle even if the skill showed up in his Skill Slot.

"Unless I find a way to completely eradicate an Infection Source someday, I absolutely can't touch these skills."

Cheng Ye cautioned himself silently.

Impulsiveness was the Devil. If he ever faced a life-or-death crisis without the abilities of an Infection Source, he might still survive by staying calm and thinking his way out.

But once he was tainted by this mutated power, there was no guarantee he wouldn't start gambling with his life at a crucial moment, thinking, "If I'm going down, I'll take you with me."

That might look like another option, but in reality, it would only shackle him.

[Search canceled. Returned Action Points: '4' (lv.1)]

The panel flashed before Cheng Ye's eyes, then disappeared after displaying the refund.

Although he'd wasted a search, he'd stumbled upon an alternative way to identify Infected and had also gained Action Points.

Cheng Ye didn't feel disappointed. He immediately stepped back a few paces, planning to make up for his loss from another direction.

"S-sir..."

Barrett, who had been leaning against the railing and waiting to be questioned, didn't understand what was going on.

He froze for a moment, then heard a violent rumble beside him. The shockwave made his eardrums ache, as if the blast would blow the top of his head off.

The top of his head?

He reflexively reached for the painful spot on his forehead. But what he touched wasn't red or white. A viscous, black-green liquid was continuously oozing from the bullet hole, accompanied by a nauseating, rotten stench.

I...

This...

The...

His thoughts exploded into chaos. At that moment, he suddenly realized his viewpoint had left the first person. He was looking down at his own body from a third-person perspective.

There was nothing where his head should have been. From the jagged stump of his neck, clusters of green vines surged out like boiling asphalt, intertwining in midair until they formed the twisted outline of a human face.

I... I was infected?

The moment he realized this, the memories locked away in his mind surged out like a tide.

Among the ruins of a city at sunset.

A battered Dajinbei van hurtled into a dead-end alley. Its doors flew open, and eight people stumbled out, their terrified eyes fixed on the entrance.

In the last rays of the setting sun, a green vine monster, more than ten meters tall, slowly emerged. In the center of its enormous body, a warped human shape flickered in and out, like an insect trapped in a web, silently voicing the horror that pierced the human heart!

Everyone opened fire. A storm of bullets roared toward the monster, but they only left black craters in its tough vine-covered hide.

The monster twisted its python-like tendrils, each strike snatching someone from the group and ripping them apart in midair. Blood and shredded flesh rained down.

Seven. Six. Five...

As his companions died one after another, terror engulfed Barrett like a tide.

When he was the only one left, Barrett's legs gave way and he fell to his knees, watched by the hollow, despairing eyes of his dead teammates.

He didn't have the courage to pull the trigger and fight back, nor the nerve to end his own life. All he could do was kowtow to the monster and beg for mercy in a trembling voice.

The monster paused for only a moment, then sent a tendril sliding into his body through his mouth and nose.

Until now, these memories had been sealed deep within his consciousness.

He only remembered that he'd somehow made it back alive. He hadn't known that he'd long since become the monster's puppet.

So I was already dead?

So I wasn't human anymore?

Looking at Cheng Ye, who was standing outside the Isolation Chamber and firing again and again, the broken face suspended in the air and bound by vines suddenly twisted into a sinister grin.

The spread-out vines seemed to respond to some kind of command, surging wildly through the gaps in the Isolation Chamber's bars.

The other three people in Barrett's chamber were terrified out of their minds, but soon they realized that green vines were also pushing through the surface of their skin.

Then the memories surfaced. During all the days they'd been confined together, they'd already been infected by the Rotten Vine inside Barrett. The painful memories of the part where they'd been infected had simply been selectively sealed away!

"Damn, why is this Rotten Vine so hard to kill?"

Blowing the host's head off didn't seem to affect the Rotten Vine's root system at all.

And one Infected had suddenly become four, with hundreds of vines crowding the narrow space behind the bars, trying to pour out.

Fortunately, the Isolation Chamber was sturdy. The bars didn't budge. Otherwise, Cheng Ye would have turned and run without hesitation.

"Why are you standing there? Go get help! What is this, a show?"

After emptying a magazine, Cheng Ye reloaded one-handed and saw Raven and Owl still frozen in place.

His shout jolted them back to their senses.

Raven scrambled toward a nearby pillar and slammed into it, mashing the alarm button.

Owl was even more decisive. He darted to the far end of the passage and snatched up a device that looked like a fire extinguisher.

"Sir, let me handle it!"

With a shout, Owl twisted the valve, grabbed the nozzle, and charged forward. The instant his thumb slammed down on the trigger—

Boom!

A sulfurous jet of flame burst out. The orange-red blaze licked at the Green Vine like a living thing. The roots that had just been squeezing madly through the gaps in the bars curled into charcoal, and black droplets spattered into the fire, charring and smoking.

A strange burning sound rang out. It wasn't a crackle, but a series of sharp snaps like breaking bones, mixed with the hiss of gas expanding inside the vines. It was as if countless trapped souls were shrieking in the flames.

"That's not a water gun. It's a flamethrower?"

Cheng Ye stared in disbelief.

This was completely against the usual playbook. What kind of lunatic installed a flamethrower indoors?

"This is... the Emergency Incinerator for Plan Three..."

Owl turned around, grinning as he spoke.

But at the very moment he turned to explain, a thorn-covered vine shot through the bars. It darted up and down through the flames like a venomous snake.

By the time Owl noticed it, the vine's tip was already less than three meters from his Chest Cavity!

Shit!

Was this thing fireproof?

"Get out of the way!"

Cheng Ye had no time to think. He lunged half a step forward and swept out a leg like an iron whip, knocking Owl to the ground.

At the same time, he reached out and snatched the falling Flamethrower Head, rolled across the floor, then rose with both arms tensing as he slammed down on the trigger.

Whoosh.

A blazing jet of fire burst out from the side, licking toward the thorny vine like a giant python.

But the thing's fire resistance was absurd. It bent and shot to within two meters of Cheng Ye before its outer layer finally crackled and burst into sparks, gradually splitting from tip to root into black charcoal.

Had it been pretending? Pretending to fear the fire and be vulnerable to it?

Cheng Ye's pupils contracted. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, deepening his understanding of Infected once more.

These damn things were far more terrifying than the books described.

And they really were evolving in ways humans couldn't predict. No wonder Brother B had said that caution and vigilance would keep you alive far longer than familiarity with the rules.

Tap. Tap-tap.

The alarm blared, and more than ten guards charged in. The thunder of their rifles instantly filled the corridor.

Seeing that the fuel was nearly gone and the flames had weakened, Cheng Ye stopped firing, grabbed Owl—who was sprawled on the floor in terror—and retreated quickly.

The moment the flames went out, he saw that the vines struck by bullets were healing at a visible rate. Green liquid surged from the breaks, sealing the wounds like a tide. Even denser fibrous tissue grew around the bullet holes.

Damn, what was this Rotten Vine, anyway? It was constantly learning and evolving through contact, developing immunity to the physical impact of bullets.

Still, the farce was over.

Faced with an Infected that had suddenly gone berserk, the guards might have been slaughtered.

But dealing with an Infected trapped in an Isolation Chamber was a piece of cake.

Cheng Ye turned and walked out.

Behind him, the roar of explosions continued. In less than a minute, everything had gone quiet again.

"Reporting to Inspector, Codename 'Unknown' Infected has been successfully eliminated!"

"The station has dispatched a professional containment team. They're expected to arrive in ten minutes to clean up."

Raven came out. As he reported, his peripheral vision caught Owl sitting by the warehouse door, staring blankly into space. He'd clearly been scared out of his wits.

"Codename 'Unknown'?"

Cheng Ye mulled it over. It seemed that not only did the Survival Library have no record of 'Rotten Vine' in its books about Infected, but no one in Xingfu City had ever encountered this kind of Infection Source either.

Was this thing a newly evolved Infection Source, or had it migrated from somewhere else?

"Congratulations, sir. Unknown Infection Sources usually come with generous Contribution Point rewards. Judging by Green Vine's attack just now, you should get at least 40 points."

"Is that so?"

Cheng Ye gave a slight nod.

For an Inspector, killing Infected was the most straightforward way to earn money, much better than exploiting loopholes in the rules for a little gain.

And damn, was it exciting.

Shooting Rotten Vine and shooting an ordinary target were two completely different things, even though neither could move.

Especially when he'd raised the flamethrower at the end. The rush of adrenaline had left him savoring the sensation, a little lost in it even now.

"Sir, I'll handle the follow-up."

Raven respectfully took his leave. He didn't ask why Cheng Ye had been able to determine that Barrett was an Infected after only a few words.

As far as low-ranking staff at the Checkpoint were concerned, all Raven had seen was Cheng Ye stepping in at the crucial moment and saving Owl.

Among the 150 Inspectors at the station, few could do that.

To treat them like people instead of cold, unfeeling tools.

That alone was enough to make them give their lives for him!