The warm, clear light of dawn gradually brightened the pale blue morning sky, waking Chimeric City perched high in the mountains.
The brick walls sprawling across the slopes awakened layer by layer, flickering with golden points under the sunlight. It was a clear, windless morning, yet screams, clashing metal, pounding footsteps, the wet splatter of blood, and the frightened cries of children flowed out of windows and ceiling gaps, streaming like a glimmering river under the sun.
It wasn't just cries for help emerging from windows and ceiling gaps. In the chaos, panicked people, both ordinary and posthuman, fled in every direction.
Some leapt from the city walls, landing on the open ground between structures. Some mounted Special Items and soared into the air. Others tried to fight back. Some lost their balance and tumbled out of the corridors, rolling in despair into the grasp of the spreading mutations.
Lin Sanjiu realized that the mutation sweeping through Chimeric City's corridors was no longer limited to just the middle-aged woman; others in the city must have mutated simultaneously.
Even though these mutations were mysterious, they clearly followed a single pattern once they occurred, spreading and developing in the same way. But as she gripped Eight-Heads De and ran through the corridors alongside Zhong Qing, warning others, she saw at least three new types of mutants, each vastly different from the middle-aged woman. Each type surged through corridors like a flood, engulfing everything and continuing to spread in all directions.
"There!" Zhong Qing pointed ahead. Though he wasn't as physically capable as Lin Sanjiu, his reflexes and calm demeanor were impressive; no wonder Eight-Heads De had hired him. "If we run toward the outskirts of Chimeric City, we'll be safer! The mutations started in the center, so the further out we go, the better."
"You know the way?" Lin Sanjiu yelled, gripping Eight-Heads De's arm tightly and dragging him forward. She feared that without her hold, he'd stubbornly turn back and try to reason with the mutants or calm the fleeing crowd.
"I know the direction!" Zhong Qing shouted to those in the air. "Anyone who can get over the walls, follow us!"
Those who could scale the walls were mostly posthumans. Even the most agile ordinary people couldn't match their speed. Eight-Heads De, who had seemed lost in a dream, finally reacted and urgently called out, "We can't leave the ordinary people behind! If we abandon them now, they're doomed. Take as many as you can—"
"How many can we take? How many ordinary people are there in this place?" Zhong Qing retorted.
"Then go on your own!" Eight-Heads De snapped, stopping so abruptly that Lin Sanjiu stumbled.
"Can we block the corridors?" Lin Sanjiu suggested, unwilling to see the ordinary people slaughtered and worried that Eight-Heads De might get himself killed. "If we can stop the spread, we can save more people. Zhong Qing, lead everyone out. I'll stay with you to block the corridors."
"Yes." Eight-Heads De's eyes lit up as if a floodgate in his mind had been released. He immediately took action, calling to the people in the corridor, "Follow this man! Go! Posthumans from Chimeric City, help the others! We'll stay and prevent its spread. Block the corridors!"
In that instant, Lin Sanjiu realized that he'd almost said "block the mutants" but changed his wording at the last second.
So he still held on to the hope that the ordinary people of Chimeric City weren't truly mutating?
Now wasn't the time to question his thinking. As Eight-Heads De turned back, Lin Sanjiu followed close behind. Zhong Qing hesitated briefly, then stomped his foot in frustration and ran the other way, shouting, "Follow me!"
From the corridor's far corner, the sound of a buzzing, like thousands of wasps, rolled toward them. Countless feet—some carrying children, some pulling companions—pounded the ground. Cries, screams, and panic thundered past Lin Sanjiu and Eight-Heads De.
Lin Sanjiu exchanged a grim glance with Eight-Heads De. Neither looked optimistic. The buzzing was a sound they'd never heard before. Clearly, another new mutation was ahead.
"What's in front of us?" Eight-Heads De tried to grab someone for an answer, but no one stopped. A posthuman shook him off and shouted, "Just run!" before disappearing into the fleeing crowd. Ꞧ𝘼Ŋ𝙤ВĚs
"We don't have much time!" Lin Sanjiu shouted to Eight-Heads De, her voice barely cutting through the tremors of the corridor, amplified by the chaotic noises around them. "Use whatever's nearby!"
As she spoke, she shoved aside flailing faces, shoulders, and bodies in front of her. Finally breaking free of the crowd and reaching an open stretch of the corridor, she grabbed a heavy wooden cabinet and hurled it into the middle of the path. Eight-Heads De wasted no time either, hefting a large bed—whose owner was unknown—and tossing it next to the cabinet. Within moments, amid the growing, buzzing vibration of the oncoming threat, a barricade took form. The ground trembled beneath their feet; the makeshift barricade of tables, chairs, and cabinets wouldn't last long against the mutated beings.
Lin Sanjiu only hoped it would buy the fleeing crowd a few precious seconds. If Chimeric City wasn't such a maze of narrow, winding corridors, she wouldn't have felt so trapped and helpless.
"They're here!" Eight-Heads De shouted. His voice was cut short by the sudden surge of the deafening buzzing sound, an overwhelming, tsunami-like roar. At that moment, a clear thought struck Lin Sanjiu: The barricade is doomed.
She grabbed Eight-Heads De and yanked him to the ground at her feet. As she crouched down, the black iron scale appeared once more, forming a shield in front of them.
The crash of impact erupted in a deafening blast of sound and wind. Their hastily built barricade crumbled instantly into fragments, hurled skyward by the shockwave. Lin Sanjiu braced herself against the iron scale, the thudding impacts reverberating through her arms and legs, nearly forcing her off balance. The air around them became a sandstorm of debris, stinging their skin as it swept past the shield.
When Lin Sanjiu finally stood up, the mutated being—or mutated thing—surged into view before her.
Eight-Heads De scrambled to his feet and breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness, it's not human."
Lin Sanjiu didn't dare take her eyes off it, but she understood what Eight-Heads De meant. He couldn't believe this thing had once been human.
It didn't look human, or at least, not at first glance.
From around the corner, countless thick black tendrils poured into the corridor, filling the space. Each was as wide as a person, tangled with debris, torn clothing, and broken items from the path they'd traveled.
These tendrils weren't like vines, nor were they rigid like steel rods. They had a bizarre texture—tapering at the tip, coated in a slick, oily sheen that made them gleam ominously. They seemed elastic, bending outward in flower-like arcs as they strained to advance.
As they scraped along the corridor walls, the black tendrils produced that unsettling, buzzing sound, like a swarm of wasps. Now, sensing obstruction, they paused, quivering in mid-air, almost as if they were watching.
"Look again," Lin Sanjiu muttered, staring at the countless black tips, each as large as a human head, trembling in the air before her.
In her peripheral vision, Eight-Heads De's face turned increasingly pale.
Yes, anyone who'd ever lost an eyelash would recognize these things the more they looked.
"No... No way. How do we fight this?" He wiped his face, mumbling, "Maybe... maybe we should just run..."
If every mutated person turned into something like this, perhaps the only way to ensure survival was to flee Chimeric City completely. But Lin Sanjiu knew she couldn't just sit back and watch from the safety of a departing aircraft while the city below was destroyed.
"There's no point in running now," she said, gripping the iron scale tightly. "I'll handle this one. You go organize the evacuation."
The next barricade was going to be Lin Sanjiu herself.