Invaders

"Dr. Brian, are you truly going to implant this thing into the infant's brain? Wouldn't that be too cruel..."

"Hmph, cruel? Once those things descend upon the surface, that will be the true cruelty!"

Where is this place...

Is it hell...

Gradually, Xia Leng regained a sliver of consciousness, though his vision was blurred and tinted a deep emerald, as if he were submerged in a thick, green liquid.

He wanted to gasp for air but could not open his mouth; he tried to force his eyes to focus on his surroundings, but his eyelids refused to lift, only parting by a tiny, narrow slit.

Before him, he could vaguely see two figures in white lab coats arguing with one another, and he could faintly catch words like invasion, mutation, and modification.

Furthermore, the shelves surrounding them were filled with many other green canisters containing humanoid life forms.

Could it be that he, too, was trapped inside a canister...

Xia Leng felt cramped and uncomfortable in the narrow space. He wanted to stretch his body, only to discover that his entire frame was riddled with wires of various colors, making it impossible to find a comfortable position.

He listened fuzzily to the two men in lab coats arguing desperately, unable to interject.

BOOM!

Suddenly!

A deafening roar from an explosion erupted at that very moment!

The intense tremors caused by the blast even knocked several green canisters over, shattering them against the floor!

"Dr. Brian, Subject No. 0 has broken through the perimeter again!! They've breached the facility, we must leave now!!"

Not long after the explosion, another man in a lab coat rushed in, shouting anxiously at them.

"Another failure... Initiate the facility's self-destruct sequence."

"Doctor! If we initiate the self-destruct now, then we..."

ROAR!!!!

"Initiate it!! Do you want these things to be exposed to the world ahead of schedule?! For the greater good of humanity, what does our death matter?!!"

"Doctor..."

Through his distorted, blurry vision, Xia Leng saw one of the men in lab coats walk to a control console. His hand hovered over a button for a long moment before, finally, he pressed it with a trembling finger.

Immediately, the entire spacious room began to flash with red warning lights, signaling imminent danger!

And Xia Leng's final sight was completely engulfed by the flames that filled his entire field of vision, ending everything...

After the deformed scavenger brought his mace down with a heavy thud, he saw the "food" before him finally let its head drop, moving no more.

Seeing this, the scavenger excitedly leaned down, preparing to lick the warm cerebral fluid from the wound in Xia Leng's head, never once considering why the blood pooling from the head was black.

Just as he brought his mouth close, the "food" that had clearly been beaten to death suddenly snapped its head up, scaring the scavenger so badly he nearly tumbled to the ground!

He saw that Xia Leng's eyes were now completely consumed by a pitch-black darkness, with not a single trace of white to be seen!

It was like a black hole capable of devouring everything, enough to make anyone who looked upon it shudder to their core!

The other deformed scavengers, who were busy gnawing on Xia Leng's limbs, gradually noticed that the flesh and bone were becoming harder to chew, until finally, they couldn't bite through it at all, causing them to look up in confusion!

They saw that from the horrific wounds where Xia Leng had been gnawed, countless black tentacles were writhing frantically, beginning to weave themselves together and fill in the missing flesh!!

Seeing this, the deformed scavengers were so terrified they dared not take another bite, retreating in haste.

In this post-apocalyptic world, parasites were equally terrifying and lethal; they mistook these tentacles for parasites, and some even began frantically shoving their fingers down their throats, trying to vomit up the flesh they had already consumed.

As for the scavenger who had struck Xia Leng's head with the mace, he was blinded by an intense, overwhelming hunger, determined to tear a piece of meat from the body regardless of the cost!

When he opened his rotting mouth, missing most of its teeth, and lunged toward the neck, SNAP!

Xia Leng suddenly moved with even greater speed, biting down fiercely into the neck of the deformed scavenger first!

Struck by sudden, agonizing pain, the scavenger panicked and tried to break free, only to find he had no strength left in his body.

If viewed from the perspective of the other scavengers, they would have seen the body of the one bitten by Xia Leng begin to melt like a candle under a scorching sun, decomposing into a mass of blood until it was sucked into the other's stomach!

This transition from food to diner took less than three seconds...

After devouring the scavenger, the tentacles within Xia Leng's wounds writhed even more frantically!

In a short time, they repaired nearly every wound on his body!

Restoring skin that was even smoother than it had been before!!

Finally, the deformed scavengers were so frightened by this bizarre and horrific scene that their reason overcame their hunger, and no one dared to approach him again...

"What's wrong with those guys? Don't tell me they aren't hungry anymore? Or have they suddenly developed a taste for pickiness?"

The leader, who had been sitting in the back struggling with his own severed arm, suddenly noticed the crowd gathered in front beginning to scatter, their faces filled with terror.

He stood up in confusion to take a look, his expression instantly becoming no different from those refugees, shocked to the point of being dumbfounded, his mouth hanging open as if it could swallow a fist...

He saw that the prey bound to the cross by sharp barbed wire had miraculously seen every wound on his body disappear; even the chest that had been caved in from his own kick had almost returned to its original state!!

"What the... hell is going on?!"

The startled leader's mind went completely blank at the sight before him. Could this guy also be a Baptized One??!

Among the branches of wasteland warriors, there was a category that possessed extremely formidable recovery abilities; even if their heads were severed, as long as the brain remained unharmed, they would regrow a new body within a certain amount of time!

"No!! That's absolutely impossible!"

The leader quickly dismissed his own thought. If the other party really were a Baptized One, how could he have been knocked unconscious by his kick so easily? Unless the guy belonged to the brain-enhancement type, but then how to explain the wounds healing right now?

Could he be a dual-Baptized One possessing both Warrior and Sage abilities??

Heh, the probability of such a thing was basically one in ten million. It existed, but those individuals were almost all serving in high-ranking positions within top-tier fortresses or mercenary agencies.

There was another possibility: that the other party was also a potential Baptized One who had been drenched in the Black Rain, and had triggered a hidden ability while on the verge of death.

In the wilderness, such cases of mutation did indeed exist.

Regardless, the leader quickly calmed down, and a greedy smile gradually spread across his face.

If the other party really was a mutated Baptized One, then his skull must contain the priceless crystal exclusive to Baptized Ones!

Digging out the crystal from his skull would allow him to trade for more valuable items at those high-level fortresses, or perhaps install an expensive mechanical arm to replace his severed right one, or even exchange it for a potion that could raise his own stage!!

Thinking of this, he gripped his steel blade with his remaining left hand and, with a sinister grin, stepped closer and closer to the prey bound to the cross ahead.

As for Xia Leng, he sensed the aura approaching from the front. He lifted his head slightly, fixed his completely pitch-black pupils onto the approaching leader, and spat out three words in a mechanical tone.

"Invader..."