The only chance of survival

[Full of righteous fervor, I decided to be a hero, willing to sacrifice my life to save the Ninth Squad.]

[I charged in from the left side of the battlefield and activated Mayfly. But I never expected the polluted old man to be faster. One of his toes erupted from underground, wrapped around my head, and finally twisted it off.]

[The agony of death filled me with regret. If only I had known, I would have run away. But whose fault was that, really?]

Fuck you!

What a passive-aggressive bastard.

Xu Ye stood behind a military jeep, watching Meng Chengfei lead the others in a charge toward the old man.

An eerie chill permeated the surroundings.

An invisible barrier seemed to seal off an area several hundred meters across. It was not the Ninth Squad's [Silent Forest], but the defiled domain produced by the old man, who was on the verge of his third mutation.

This was a power all Aberrants developed after their third mutation.

It was also why Meng Chengfei and the others had to fight to the death to leave Xu Ye a way out. Otherwise, everyone would be buried here.

Xu Ye ran another simulation.

[I picked up a weapon and attacked from a distance, trying to harass the enemy with a Taboo Object.]

[But I never expected the enemy to still be holding back!]

[His toes had already taken root in the soil like a great tree. Each toe kept splitting, growing, and spreading like branching roots.]

[Ultimately, this bizarre mutation was beyond anything I could have anticipated.]

[My head was twisted off. I died.]

[My heart failed to simulate a future in which I killed the enemy. But it was only a fragile, sensitive little heart. What had it done wrong? The only thing to blame was my stupid brain for not being rational enough.]

Alice clutched her head. "It won't work, Xu Ye. Without an Awakened above Sequence 7, there's no way to deal with a monster that's undergone three mutations. With your strength as an Awakened, you can still escape. Come back for revenge later!"

Xu Ye gritted his teeth. "Alice, you were born from my personality. You should know all my memories. I don't like owing people..."

Alice fell silent. "All right. Do what you want. If you die, I'll be gone too. And this kitty hasn't even worn women's clothes yet."

Xu Ye nodded, then suddenly said, "Since I'm dead either way, I might as well stab through my heart before I die."

He glanced at his heart.

The next second, his heart immediately began to writhe.

[Wise and mighty as I was, I knew I couldn't defeat the enemy. The gap in our strength was too vast. Fortunately, inspiration struck.]

[If I couldn't defeat him, I could try another approach.]

[I remembered what the captain had told me. Every pollution incident had a complete chain of cause and effect. Every effect had a cause, and every mutation had something that caused it.]

[If I could remind the old man of certain things and restore a little of his past memories, could that slow his mutation?]

[I patted my heart. Oh, my God, what a clever little thing you are. The brain really is useless.]

[But this was too dangerous. With my strength, I could easily die. I began to hesitate...]

The cause of the pollution?

Xu Ye's pupils abruptly contracted. Something seemed to have occurred to him.

He raised his head and stared intently at the battlefield.

The old man stood firmly on the ground. His ten toes had pierced his cloth shoes and burrowed deep into the soil, taking root like a plant.

His face had grown as large as a flatbread, his features flowing across it. It looked like a messy, ugly, moldy pizza made by a novice.

His ten fingers were also splitting constantly. White bones thrust out from the finger joints, their sharp tips gleaming coldly.

The old man seemed to be turning into a grotesque tree.

By now, two members of the Ninth Squad had already died.

Their bodies had been pierced straight through and skewered on the white bones. Crimson blood kept pouring from them, only to be absorbed by the old man. The bones extending dozens of meters from his finger joints took on a scarlet hue.

"Xu Ye, go!"

"Retreat!"

"If we all die here, it'll have been for nothing!" Zheng Chengdong turned and roared. The bulging veins across his face had ruptured, leaving blood streaming down.

Xu Ye looked at them.

None of that mattered anymore...

Xu Ye suppressed the tremendous fear of death and the vivid memories of it buried deep within him. He also suppressed his cowardice and trembling, fixing his gaze on the Aberrant.

The next moment, his eyes hardened with resolve.

A voice in his mind said, Xu Ye, take a gamble. It's only one life. You've already died once anyway. Maybe dying again will send you back?

In that instant, Xu Ye made his decision.

"Captain!"

Meng Chengfei was straining to draw most of the old man's attacks by himself. Suddenly hearing Xu Ye's voice distracted him for a moment.

"Work with me!"

"It's dangerous..." Meng Chengfei no longer had the luxury of elegance. Ferocity surged through him, yet when he saw Xu Ye charging over, he felt both heartened and anxious.

The instant he called out, Xu Ye was already prepared to charge.

Alice slowly merged into his body.

Xu Ye's pupils turned dark green, resembling both human pupils and those of a cat. Several marks appeared on his cheeks, like whiskers.

He dropped onto all fours.

Using the Second Personality's abilities did not mean directly allowing it to control the body, but certain traits of the Second Personality would still influence the user to some extent.

Meng Chengfei, for instance, would become cold or irritable. Even the contours of his facial muscles would change slightly, as though he had become someone else.

"Meow~ Go, go, go!" Alice shouted.

Whoosh!

Xu Ye moved.

With a sharp tearing sound, Xu Ye's body shot forward before everyone's eyes, leaving an afterimage where he had stood.

He moved faster and faster, yet his movements remained extraordinarily light as he hurtled toward the old man.

"Cover him!"

Seeing this, Meng Chengfei said nothing more and immediately shouted an order. The Ninth Squad poured on even fiercer firepower, blocking most of the old man's attacks for the moment.

Thud!

A finger stabbed down like a sharp sword.

Xu Ye twisted his body. His waist bent at an uncanny angle, as though his spine had vanished. The old man's finger brushed past his clothes and plunged into the soil, spraying dirt.

[9-666 Mayfly]

Not only could it grow tentacles from his limbs, it could also contort his body like a mayfly and soften his bones, allowing him to dodge attacks rapidly and perform highly difficult movements.

The old man had clearly noticed Xu Ye. He tilted his head, and a vicious light suddenly flashed in his eyes, as though he remembered that Xu Ye was the one who had sung so horribly earlier.

In an instant, he controlled his many fingers and finger joints, sending more than a dozen piercing attacks down from above.

Faster!

Faster!

Even faster!

Xu Ye repeated the words silently.

To everyone watching, his figure moved with uncanny speed, like a loach. With each swift slide, he slipped past the enemy's attacks by a hair's breadth.

Just as Xu Ye came within thirty meters of the old man.

Something suddenly changed.

The toes that had been buried underground all this time burst out of the soil. Vast quantities of dirt flew upward, blotting out the sky.

Half the attacks descended from above, while the other half erupted from underground!

"Kid, jump!"