Infected

Biodata

Feature	Value
Name	Infected (感染体)
Species/Race	Organisms transformed or controlled by Infection Sources; documented forms include mutated humans, reanimated corpses, and fusion bodies 2 54 205.
Occupation/Role	Hosts and carriers of Infection Sources, capable of spreading contamination and forming Infected Tides 2 54 218.
Status	Widespread throughout the Wasteland; both known and unrecorded forms remain active 201 206.
First Appearance	Edmund Lake, infected by a Death Whisper Tentacle, encounters Cheng Ye at Xingfu City's quarantine checkpoint 1.

Power Progression

Infection develops through source-specific stages rather than a universal cultivation ladder. Some sources cannot reach fusion, and hosts infected by the same source can differ greatly in strength 42 173.

Stage / Realm / Level	Chapter	Notes
Parasitic / Incubation phase	2 51	A host may appear normal or remain unaware of infection. Certain sources can reanimate corpses that continue walking, speaking, and living among humans. Activation conditions vary by source.
Outbreak phase — Phase 2	31 54	Mutation becomes overt and the source's abilities emerge. Barrett's Rotten Vine erupts from his neck; Starfish Doppelganger hosts become aggressive and food-driven while their consciousness is sealed inside a tumor.
Fusion / Integration phase — Phase 3	54 205	Source and host develop a more powerful integrated body. Documented benefits include enhanced defense, digestive regeneration, and extensive carapace growth. The Heartbane Worm cannot enter this stage 173.
High-level amalgam	80 81	Zhang Can displays a huge maw, tentacles, and regeneration through devouring other Infected. His surviving Infection Source is fist-sized, much larger than a standard specimen.

Background / History

Old Era Origins

Cheng Ye learns the history of infection from Origin of Infection. Its account traces the first outbreak to fragments shed by a huge luminous object that passed over Blue Star; experts speculated that the object was extraterrestrial life 13.

Virus	Origin and effects	Historical outcome
S-1	Appeared after the fragments were collected. Spread through saliva and blood; scratches or bites caused mutation within ten seconds 13.	Organized human forces suppressed the outbreak over four years. The last recorded S-1 Infected was incinerated in winter 2037 13.
S-2	Created through research into retained S-1 samples, driven by the pursuit of eternal life. Required more than 48 hours of close contact with an Infection Source and produced giant, near-supersonic, flying, and mentally controlling Infected 13.	Appeared in spring 2041 and was suppressed in one year and four months 13.
S-3	Mutated animals and plants and granted humans extraordinary abilities, contributing to widespread chaos and war 14.	Established the supernatural life forms later affected by S-4 14.
S-4	Targeted Transcendent beings. Their corrupted power contaminated others, usually granting abilities at the cost of sanity 14.	Modern Infected trace their abilities back to Old Era Transcendents 14.
S-4.5	An incompletely evolved successor to S-4. Remaining Infection Sources are described as distinct strains that transmit their viruses through parasitism 210.	Explains why different sources produce different abilities and outward mutations 210.

New Era

Humanity severed ties with the Old Era, redrew maps, and buried contaminated history. Some regions containing elusive, effectively unkillable sources were removed from maps to discourage exploration 14 15.

Knowledge remains incomplete: only an estimated one or two out of every ten Infection Sources have been discovered and analyzed. Others continue mutating in unexplored regions or remain hidden until their activation conditions are met 206.

Appearance

Infected have no uniform appearance. Some are outwardly indistinguishable from ordinary people during incubation, while others develop plant growths, animal features, armor, or large fusion bodies 2 31 54 205.

• Rotten Vine: Green vines emerge from the host's severed neck and form a distorted human face; wounds release foul-smelling black-green fluid 31.
• Starfish Doppelganger: A faint starfish-shaped forehead mark develops into a tumor during outbreak. Mutated hosts bear starfish-like head growths 54 55 76.
• Bloodthirsty Rat: Black hair spreads over the skin, the face becomes rat-like, and speech gives way to squeaking 61.
• Gloomwater Burrow Crab: Ordinary hosts develop two crab claws; fusion bodies have four claws and extensive protective carapace 205.
• Multiply infected water corpses: Pale skin carries dark-purple oval spirals beginning behind the earlobe. These markings are later investigated as a possible carrier of mental contamination 206 210 212.

Behavior & Consciousness

• Unaware hosts: Reanimated people can believe they are alive and function within human society until their death is exposed or the source activates 2 31.
• Residual identity: Many S-4 Infected act through biological instincts, surviving memories, and habits, repeatedly reenacting fragments of their former lives 14.
• Suppressed consciousness: Starfish Doppelganger hosts retain human consciousness sealed inside a tumor while the source controls the body 54.
• Emotional distortion: Animal-type hydrophilic sources commonly amplify fear, bloodlust, or greed, though this is not universal 51.
• Persistent obsession: Zhang Can's hostility toward Cheng Ye survives his transformation into an advanced amalgam and directs his pursuit 80.
• Recoverable memories: The talking hybrid Zhou Mazi regains some memories after Cheng Ye extracts his Infection Source 232.
• Retained autonomy: Benign infection and Source-Binding can leave a person capable of independent decisions. Cheng Ye and Yu Yong discuss cooperation despite their shared dependence on Infection Sources 240 289.

Abilities & Skills

Parasitism & Transmission

Transmission depends on the source; proximity, bodily contact, contaminated food, water, and even shadows can be dangerous 13 54 61 217 253.

• Contact and bodily fluids: Starfish Doppelgangers spread through both routes. Brief contact can produce new carriers before obvious symptoms appear 54.
• Contaminated meat: Darrin Lewis's infection follows his team's consumption of infected beast meat 61.
• Freshwater: The Gloomwater Burrow Crab contaminates living creatures through the Whitewater River. Water filters retain a reported 0.1% failure risk 204 217.
• Shadows: The Ghost Shadow Spider occupies biological shadows, gradually removes autonomous consciousness, and can control up to 250,000 hosts 253.
• Death-triggered dispersal: A Dandelion source releases spores across a two-kilometer radius upon death; inhaling a single spore creates another Infected 2.

Resurrection & Survival

Modern Infected are not limited to the decaying physiology of S-1 zombies 201.

• Even an ordinary source such as the Death Whisper Tentacle can immediately reanimate a dead human 2.
• Death Whisper Tentacles are mutations of spring grass and can incubate through human obsessions 5 51.
• S-1 zombies lose combat effectiveness within a month without food; S-4 Infected use radically different energy-replenishment and survival mechanisms 201.
• Some hydrophilic forms move freely underwater or remain in deep hibernation until particular seasons 201.

Physical Enhancement & Regeneration

The host's original strength affects the resulting monster. Infection does not give every host an identical combat rating 42.

• Rotten Vine: Exhibits camouflage, fire-aversion, and unusually rapid learning after bullet impacts 32.
• Starfish fusion bodies: Completely withstand impacts below 300 joules. A host with fewer than seven fatal wounds can fully recover by consuming approximately 50 kilograms of meat; more than seven causes instant death 54.
• Advanced amalgams: Zhang Can regenerates by eating other Infected, but repeated repairs require progressively more food 80.
• Gloomwater Burrow Crab hosts: Gain enormous defensive and strength increases, with fusion bodies exceeding what ordinary people can reliably fight 205.

Mental Contamination & Control

An Infection Source can alter perception without immediately producing an obvious physical monster 110 215.

• Terror Shrimp: Amplifies fear and causes hallucinations that make teammates appear infected. Spreading fear creates conditions for further parasitism 51.
• Soul-Hooking Catfish: Creates dangerous illusions, such as making a person perceive another step beyond the water's edge 206.
• Heartbane Worm: Activates during attempts to obtain protected mission information. The host loses independent thought and mechanically repeats mission-related phrases until exhaustion kills them 173.
• Cognitive-domain contamination: Can distort signals, make humans appear as Infected, and destabilize the victim's perception between human and Infected channels 215 227.

Documented Combat Statistics

The following figures apply to the Gloomwater Burrow Crab's Foulwater Claw Infected, not to all Infected. Actual strength remains dependent on the host and degree of fusion 205.

Attribute	Phase 2 Infected	Phase 3 fusion body
Constitution	+45% 205	+270% 205
Strength	+105% 205	+1,550% 205
Speed	−57% 205	+47% 205
Defense	+350% 205	+2,850% 205
Fatal weakness	Heart-area parasitic core 205	Heart-area core protected by at least 18.5 cm of carapace 205
Recorded strength rating	Not specified	B−; records are incomplete 205

Benign Infection & Source-Binders

“Benign” sources can provide useful abilities without immediately destroying the host's autonomy, but their use still carries potentially fatal costs 215 217.

Infection Source	Granted ability	Cost or limitation
Ground-Shrinking Giant Louse — A−	Changes the host's height between 60 centimeters and five meters; enlargement grants corresponding physical abilities 215.	Bone-deep pain and a hundred-kilometer run after each size change, capped at 2,000 kilometers per use 215.
Bone-Armored Ox — A−	Grants two to five tons of strength and supporting close-combat physiology 215.	A 10%–25% chance of death after parasitism ends, depending on use 215.
Firecracker — A−	Gives objects explosive power equivalent to an 81 mm mortar round 215.	Parasitism beyond 24 hours creates a small risk of irreversible transformation into an explosive 215.
Ten-Thousand-Step Iron — D-rank	Used by Cheng Ye to infect Wang Kang with a benign source and help him perceive Infection Sources 227.	Cheng Ye warns Wang Kang against relying on Infection Sources for strength 227.

• Source-Binder: Cheng Ye is classified this way after Red Tiger records a 100% Infection Level. He is an Infected ability user deeply bound to a Transcendent Mother Source, rather than a purely human individual 240.
• Symbiosis: Described as an exchange of life forms between a human and an Infection Source. Stronger, still-growing sources offer a longer path of development, but safeguarding the human body requires enormous resources 247.
• Possible transformation: Tan Ming turns Cheng Ye's benign Ground-Shrinking Giant Louse into a corporeal Supernatural Creature. Its talent becomes permanently bound and gains revised vitality and exercise costs 238.

Detection & Containment

Inspection

• Xingfu City's main gate confines arrivals in iron cages and assigns eight armed guards behind each conveyor belt. Anomalies are met with immediate lethal force 10.
• Inspection can include wound examination, a Rotten Light Metabolism Detector, and tissue sampling. A negative database-based reading cannot exclude an unrecorded source such as Rotten Vine 38.
• Field detectors identify traces left by sources or recently exposed people. Red readings above 1 indicate source activity within the previous week 197.
• Cheng Ye's Collector can identify infected targets and extract mutated abilities, but extracted powers may retain the original infection's harmful influence 31.

Source-Specific Countermeasures

• Berserk Fish: Exceeding 20,000 steps in one day triggers emotional effects and outbreak. Complete immobility for more than seven days kills the parasite; breaking both legs also prevents successful parasitism 51.
• Starfish Doppelganger: Activation requires humidity above 98% for more than 30 minutes. Xingfu City cuts water supplies to delay eruption 54 55.
• Starfish hosts: The heart, skull, and throat remain fatal-wound targets after mutation 76.
• Foulwater Claw: Destroying the eyes reduces attack precision. Fusion-body carapace can be penetrated with special armor-piercing ammunition or dismantled by attacking connective tissue 205.
• Heartbane Worm: Available medication does not affect it. Surgical removal has a mortality rate above 99%; ingesting fragments periodically shed by the corresponding source can neutralize the parasite 173.
• Ghost Shadow Spider: Containment requires eliminating external clones. Annihilation requires destroying every clone and the main body simultaneously 253.
• Environmental danger after death: A defeated Phase 3 Foulwater Claw's source must be contained within 30 seconds or it seeps underground and threatens the water system 205.

Threat Classification

Infection Sources and Infected Tides share six severity levels, measuring the maximum destruction a source could cause during a full outbreak 213.

Ascending severity	Scale information
Swarm → Tide → Plague → Disaster → Destruction → Extinction	The six official levels 213.
Destruction	Four recorded New Era tides averaged 1.72 million casualties and 170,000 square kilometers destroyed each 213.

Source activity is separately classified as Dormancy, Awakening, Outbreak, and Full Outbreak. These are not the same as a host's parasitic and fusion phases 213.

Notable Hosts

• Edmund Lake — Death Whisper Tentacle host encountered at the quarantine checkpoint; shot by Cheng Ye and finished by the cleanup crew 1 2.
• Barrett — Rotten Vine host whose concealed infection is exposed through the Collector. His outbreak introduces a source unknown to Xingfu City's records 31 32.
• Darrin Lewis — Becomes a Bloodthirsty Rat after memories of consuming infected meat surface during an isolation review 61.
• Zhang Can — Advanced starfish amalgam that pursues Cheng Ye and regenerates by devouring other Infected 80 81.
• Luo Kuke — Deliberately infects himself with Coreheart Flesh Iron to remain conscious during Big Wave Town's mental-contamination crisis 211.
• Zhou Mazi — Talking hybrid crabman whose memories partially return after source extraction; identifies himself as a former resident of Yeyue Shelter City 232.
• Cheng Ye — Inspector classified as a Source-Binder despite retaining his judgment and commitment to human society 240.
• Yu Yong — Ghost Shadow Spider Mother Source host who retains enough autonomy to discuss coexistence, but fears eventually losing control and destroying Big Wave Town 255 289.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Starfish Doppelganger Outbreak

The source spreads between Xingfu City's Buffer and Industrial Zones, including through brief contact. Rain and rising humidity precede a citywide outbreak in which ordinary Infected and amalgams overwhelm multiple sectors 54 67 76 79.

Cheng Ye organizes residents into a combat squad and confronts the Infected. The tide is eventually contained, and the Buffer Zone enters clearance operations 75 77 81.

Whitewater River & Big Wave Town

The river crisis reveals hosts carrying several sources simultaneously, including Gloomwater Burrow Crab, Soul-Hooking Catfish, Face-Changing Fish, and an initially unidentified contamination source 206.

Reanimated flood victims and crabmen become part of a larger threat involving the Demonic Eye Sponge and the Myriad Decrees Earthly Dharma Conch. Newly emerging giant crabs raise the alarming possibility that sources are reproducing, although Luo Kuke cannot determine whether this is caused by the sponge or the relic 218 231 234.

After the relic is contained, Cheng Ye returns to Xingfu City and is officially identified as a Source-Binder 240.

Coexistence & Exploitation

• Xingfu City secretly raises Special Infected to obtain Transcendent opportunities 48.
• Star Ark deliberately triggers the tide that destroys Yeyue, then sends refugees to their deaths along waterways to supply energy to the Immortal Relic 269.
• Black-market merchants weaken and tame Infected for dangerous resource-gathering work; some people lure victims to feed infected relatives 285.
• Cooperation remains divisive among Inspectors. Liu Bi rejects Yu Yong's presence, while Cheng Ye argues that humans and Infected should seek deeper mutual understanding 285 289.

Notable Quotes

“All the Infected we encounter today, when traced back to their origins, can be traced to these transcendent beings of the Old Era.”
— Origin of Infection 14

“Perhaps humans and the Infected should explore a deeper way of coexisting, one where both sides can try to understand each other.”
— Cheng Ye 289

“I don't even know when I might completely lose control and turn back into that C35, destroying Big Wave Town that you worked so hard to build with my own hands.”
— Yu Yong 289