Infection

Ten seconds later.

Marcus's head in the goldfish bowl stared in stunned disbelief.

The hundreds of Zombie Rats that had packed the entire passage just moments ago were now gone in an instant, with only a few tufts of fur drifting through the air.

These pack-dwelling Zombie rodents were terrifying. Their fangs could easily chew through rebar, let alone flesh and bone, and they were every bit as aggressive as the Zombie Piranhas, if not more so.

Even a Tyrant with bones of steel, tossed into a swarm of hundreds of rats, probably wouldn't have a skeleton left after a minute.

Yet this young man hadn't backed down when faced with these mutated rodents. Instead, he'd gotten even more excited than a cat spotting a mouse.

With only one or two moves, he'd instantly cleared out the rat nest ahead, leaving not a single corpse behind!

And while slaughtering the rats, he'd held the goldfish bowl containing his own head in one hand without spilling a single drop of water.

Marcus finally understood why he'd been so confident about going after Spencer alone. He really did have the ability...

"Just who are you? Is that Seven-Colored Spiral Rainbow Virus really that powerful? Once we kill that old geezer, could you let me study it?"

Marcus couldn't help asking again. He'd actually believed the virus name Xia Tianming had just made up...

"If you say one more word, I'll smash this bowl."

Xia Tianming lowered his head and stared coldly at the fishbowl with his pitch-black eyes.

The virus leeches that made up Marcus's head shuddered under that stare. In his current leech form, he shouldn't even have been able to feel the temperature around him.

After the warning, Marcus really did stop chattering for the rest of the journey. He only spoke up to guide Xia Tianming around corners and along detours.

They climbed through the pitch-black, maze-like pipes, turning this way and that for nearly fifteen minutes before traveling some distance horizontally. After climbing an unknown number of meters, they finally reached the end of the pipe.

A filter grate covered the opening at the end of the pipe, and faint light shone down through it. At last, they'd found a light source.

Even in the pitch-black pipe, where he couldn't see his own hand in front of his face, the Blacklight Virus gave him powerful night vision on par with night-vision goggles. It even granted him a degree of infrared thermal imaging, allowing him to detect any living thing hiding in the dark.

"Be careful from here on. After we get out, there's still a stretch to cross before we reach that old bastard," Marcus muttered.

Xia Tianming reached out and silently lifted the filter grate, then poked his head up.

He found himself in a dim, dry restroom that looked long abandoned. A thick layer of dust covered the sinks, stall toilets, and everything else.

"Once we leave this restroom, we'll pass through a corridor. I don't know if they've installed cameras or set up patrols there, so we should still be careful and avoid tipping them off," Marcus reminded him.

Suddenly, at that moment—

Footsteps sounded outside the door!

"Damn it, I wonder if the cook gave us leftovers from the boss's dinner again. My stomach suddenly started hurting."

"Maybe you caught a chill. I'm fine."

"Whatever. Wasn't there a restroom around here?"

"Hey, hurry up. I don't know what's gotten into the boss today, sending people to patrol a dump like this. Don't let them catch us with our pants down."

Creak—

The door, untouched for ages, swung open, sending a great cloud of dust drifting down.

A fully armed soldier, clutching his stomach and grimacing in pain, rushed inside. Ignoring the filthy surroundings, he made straight for a stall.

He didn't see the dark figure appear behind him as the restroom door swung shut on its own...

After a while, the soldier waiting outside grew impatient and was about to knock.

He raised his hand to rap on the door, but it suddenly opened. The companion who'd just finished relieving himself looked cold and expressionless, and was holding a goldfish bowl?

Looking closer, the soldier saw a head floating in the bowl, grinning eerily at him?!

The soldier froze for a moment, then realized what he was seeing. His mouth fell open, about to let out a scream.

But the moment he opened his mouth, a cluster of tendrils surged into his throat. All he could do was stare wide-eyed in terror and gasp helplessly...

Two seconds later, the soldier's expression had also turned cold and vacant. He was now a viral puppet who would obey Xia Tianming's every command!

Marcus watched Xia Tianming devour Camouflage and infect the soldier from start to finish. He couldn't help exclaiming, "That's so cool..."

Smack!

Xia Tianming punched into the water, scattering the head formed from leeches and making the old man shut up.

Then he took on the soldier's appearance and continued patrolling alongside the other soldier under the virus's control.

That was the great advantage of Camouflage: it let him infiltrate anywhere he wanted without anyone realizing, in any form he pleased.

Even if he disguised himself as someone's father, the Blacklight Virus's powerful replication abilities could make a paternity test come back without a single discrepancy.

After devouring the soldier who'd had an upset stomach, Xia Tianming learned from his memories that their superiors had suddenly pulled them in to patrol without explaining why. They'd only been told to report any suspicious person immediately, even if it was someone they'd seen before.

The higher-ups probably already knew Xia Tianming could disguise himself as other people, but had no way to tell the real from the fake.

Judging by the patrol deployment on this floor, Spencer should be nearby.

"I was going to have you watch out for cameras and the like, but I didn't realize you could change your appearance like that. Go ahead and continue down this corridor," Marcus said as his scattered leeches gathered into a head again.

Xia Tianming, disguised as a soldier, continued forward in broad daylight.

As he went, he also quietly assimilated and infected the other patrolling soldiers he encountered, turning them into puppets on the Blacklight Virus's strings.

When those infected soldiers came into contact with other people, they infected them in turn. For now, the infections were latent, and the victims had no idea the virus had already devoured them.

Before long, the dozens upon dozens of patrol soldiers on this floor had all become Xia Tianming's people!

With a command sent through his Blacklight sense, he could instantly turn them into ferocious Blacklight Zombies and make them Blacklight puppets!

Even Leech Man Marcus was left dumbfounded by what he saw. This ability was even more twisted than his own Leech Queen Virus!

The Leech Queen could also create puppets that obeyed her every command, but she had to implant virus leeches in their brains to control them. They became hideous and lost their intelligence, and if they ever lost her control, they turned into ordinary Leech Zombies.

The Blacklight Virus, on the other hand, could make its hosts carry out any command on their own. Take the soldiers still patrolling normally, for example: their eyes had already been consumed by darkness...