Killing!

Killing!

Xu Zhi slowly approached the door. The girl outside had received no response from inside, yet she never asked whether anyone was there, as if she were certain someone inside was listening to her.

That made Xu Zhi even more suspicious. Since the disaster began, she had never left home. With her healthy routine and need for sleep to maintain her physical condition, she went to bed early every day. There was almost never any need to turn on the lights at home, much less make any noise. And the fog outside made the windows useless for observation. How had the other party come all the way from Affiliated Middle School and decided there had to be someone here?

When the person inside remained silent, the person outside seemed to grow impatient. The knocking became more violent, accompanied by the sound of the doorknob turning.

But the door was locked, so the knob could not be turned open directly. The person outside grew more agitated, repeatedly yanking at the handle and making it rattle.

From that alone, Xu Zhi could already conclude that whoever was outside meant her harm. She even felt a subtle sense of relief.

In truth, she had harbored intense suspicion and murderous intent toward those people since yesterday. She had even been considering how to get rid of this presence that seemed like a ticking bomb to her. It conflicted with the morals and values she had received over more than ten years of life, and that contradiction had been circling in her mind.

Now that the other party had displayed such impatience, her suspicions were confirmed. She could act with more justification. She had to admit that she did not want to follow those old "rules," yet she was still bound by them. A decade of ingrained beliefs could not change overnight. But the longer she remained in this city, the further her thoughts drifted from normal society. Perhaps in a few days, she too would be swallowed by the Black Fog?

Xu Zhi could not say whether that would be good or bad. Her only goal was to leave this place alive.

She steadied herself before finally asking through the door, "What do you want?"

The frantic twisting of the handle and pounding on the door abruptly stopped. There was a strange pause outside for a second, then a gentle, refined female voice spoke again.

"You're home. Then why didn't you say anything?"

Perhaps the Black Fog was affecting her mind, but Xu Zhi found that simple sentence strangely chilling.

Xu Zhi ignored it. From the person outside's frantic twisting of the doorknob, she sensed that the other party might not have much reason left. As a test, she asked, "How many people are there at your school now?"

The other party answered quickly, "Fifteen."

Xu Zhi asked again, "How did you all gather together?"

"After the Federation government issued the notice, the class monitor who hadn't managed to leave came and found us one by one."

Xu Zhi did not quite believe her, so she pressed on. "So you're living at the school now?"

"Yes. The school has everything. It's pretty safe there."

Pretty safe?

How was that possible?!

Xu Zhi asked the question she had been leading up to for a long time. "Don't you have anyone there who's gone crazy?"

The other party suddenly fell silent at that question. Only after a moment did she say faintly, "Gone crazy? We're students, not mental patients. Why would we go crazy?"

"Every one of us is perfectly normal."

A Lie!

And not even a lie told from the perspective of a "normal human."

It seemed that after being affected by the Black Fog, the other party's reason and intelligence had both declined. No, it was probably more than that.

Judging from her actions and words, they had likely become something not quite right.

Having tested out the answer she wanted, Xu Zhi decisively changed the subject. "Then how did you know someone was here?"

Even if the other party would not tell the truth, she was incapable of telling a particularly clever lie. Xu Zhi could glean part of the truth from it.

Unexpectedly, the girl outside fell silent at the question, then suddenly became irritable. "Are you coming with me or not?!"

Xu Zhi's heart sank. She realized that this question had likely touched on something, which was why the other party resisted it so strongly. She said in a low voice, "Did you come alone? But I have a lot of luggage. I'm disabled and can't carry things. You can't take it all by yourself."

It was an extremely obvious test. A person with normal intelligence would never fall for it. But judging from the earlier probing, the other party was clearly no longer human in the normal sense and had no reason left. She would take the bait.

"Why do you have so much stuff? Come with me first. Tomorrow, I'll call someone to help you carry it."

So she had not brought anyone.

"It isn't safe with just you, right? How about you bring someone tomorrow, and then I'll go with you?"

Even after testing that the other party was no longer normal, Xu Zhi did not easily trust her. After saying that, she stood up from her wheelchair and quietly moved closer to the peephole to look outside.

Through the peephole, she saw that there really was only one girl outside, dressed in an Affiliated Middle School uniform. The girl was answering her with an irritated expression.

"Tomorrow? Tomorrow won't work. We have something to do tomorrow and can't come. You have to come with me now!"

The person outside had completely forgotten that she had just promised to find someone tomorrow to help Xu Zhi carry her luggage.

As she spoke, Xu Zhi saw her eyes. The whites of those eyes had completely turned black like the fog. One glance was enough to tell that this girl had already been swallowed by the Black Fog.

Xu Zhi sat back in her wheelchair and pretended to hesitate. "...All right, then. Come in first and help me carry my things."

Xu Zhi gripped the knife, confirmed that it was concealed properly, then slowly opened the door.

A girl in an Affiliated Middle School uniform lowered her head and walked in. When she saw Xu Zhi sitting in the wheelchair, her body was clearly less tense than it had been outside, relaxing instinctively.

Before the girl could speak or do anything after entering, Xu Zhi immediately raised her hand, shut the door, and locked it.

The other girl was probably surprised by her actions. She even forgot to conceal her abnormal eyes and stared blankly at Xu Zhi. She had never imagined that the "prey" would dare lock herself in with the hunter.

Xu Zhi did not let that instant of distraction pass. She pulled out her knife and drove it precisely into the girl's lower abdomen, then pulled it back out without hesitation.

A great deal of blood gushed from the wound. The girl's face twisted, faintly becoming less than human. She raised a hand and struck at Xu Zhi in the wheelchair, moving nothing like someone who had just been stabbed in the stomach. Her strength was even astonishingly great.

Xu Zhi cursed inwardly and raised an arm to block the attack. For the sake of landing that stab, she had deliberately remained in the wheelchair. Naturally, she could not turn around and flee now.

The moment she withdrew the knife, the overflowing blood ran down the handle onto her hand. Xu Zhi could also feel something flowing into her body along with the blood, giving her a little strength.

Bloodlust was probably taking effect.

The girl was clearly attacking with bare hands, yet Xu Zhi felt as though she had been struck by an iron fist. The wheelchair overturned, and she fell to the ground in a sorry state.

But she did not rush to get up. Instead, she tightened her grip on the knife, coughed up several mouthfuls of blood, and acted as if she could no longer rise. Her legs did not move at all, making her look exactly like a disabled person should.

At the sight, the girl in the school uniform gave a cold snort. Being injured in a sneak attack by a disabled person was truly humiliating!

Her gaze toward Xu Zhi, sprawled on the ground, became vicious. A prey that could no longer move posed no threat. Killing her outright would be letting her off too easily. Covering her constantly bleeding wound, the girl came up with a cruel idea.

She would tear open Xu Zhi's stomach and pull out her intestines, letting her know the consequences of sneaking up on her!

So she approached Xu Zhi, who was lying on the ground, slowly bent down, and extended a hand toward her stomach. Her nails had already turned black, becoming claws like those of a monster. With a slight exertion of force from her fingers, two fingertips sank into Xu Zhi's lower abdomen.

A twisted smile appeared on the girl's ferocious face. All her attention was focused on Xu Zhi's lower abdomen. She was already imagining the next moment, when flesh would tear open and blood would spray everywhere. Yet her one-track mind, even after having been fooled once, never considered that such weak prey could continue fighting back.

So, the instant her attention shifted away, Xu Zhi unleashed all the strength Bloodlust had given her. She swung the knife straight at the girl's neck and slashed hard, opening a wound deep enough to sever an artery.

Blood instantly sprayed out and splashed across Xu Zhi's face, but she did not even blink.

That strike had used all her strength. Now, she felt that she could barely even keep hold of the knife in her hand. She suppressed the physical reactions brought on by exhaustion, her vision beginning to blur. She desperately warned herself that she could not lower her guard yet. She watched as the blood flowing from the girl's neck dyed both their clothes red. She watched disbelief fill that ferocious face as the girl tried to say something, only to gurgle out mouthful after mouthful of blood. It was not until the girl collapsed on top of her, the flowing blood seeming to soak her in a red bathtub, that Xu Zhi began breathing rapidly, her hands trembling.

She had won.

Warm blood kept flowing over her body. Xu Zhi knew it was not hers, because she could draw faint strength from that liquid that represented vitality.

Her body, drained and pushed to its limits, eased slightly because of that vitality. She was even somewhat grateful that the girl had so much blood in her body.

Did a person really have that much blood inside them? Or perhaps, because she was no longer purely human, did she have more blood than an ordinary person?

Perhaps because she was too exhausted, Xu Zhi still had the mood for such random thoughts.

She rested in that position for a while. Once the other girl's blood had nearly stopped flowing, Xu Zhi reached out, shoved the corpse off herself, then slowly climbed up from the floor and sat back in her wheelchair.

Her hands and legs were still trembling, but no longer from excitement or fear. It was from weakness.

She had not yet left the Bloodlust state. Even after absorbing some vitality, she was still this weak. If the backlash struck soon...

Xu Zhi had a headache, but it was not as if she had no solution.

With blood still covering her hands, she gripped the wheelchair controls and left the area. After quickly washing her hands, she picked up the Game Console and selected the Snake Kin interface.

After Little One returned, it had enough evolution points to level up. Going from level 10 to 11 should nourish her body a little and help her endure this backlash.

But while the physical difficulty could be overcome, an even greater danger awaited her in reality.

The girl had not been alone in the sense that she belonged to no one. Her group clearly knew she had come looking for Xu Zhi today, and that she had not returned. Xu Zhi did not believe they would simply ignore it. She had struggled so much against one person. If even a few more came, she would undoubtedly die.

Simply put, she could not stay at home any longer.

She had to leave.

But the Black Fog blanketed the entire city. Where could she go?