1: Chapter 1, Experiment No. 9

"Experiment Subject No. 9 has escaped!"

Sky City, Celestial God Laboratory.

Inside the transparent glass corridor, red lights flashed and alarms blared, causing a significant commotion.

A long-haired youth with the number [9] printed on his back ran barefoot through the corridor, pursued by four guards wielding firearms.

He tried his best to lose his pursuers, but he was soon caught up. Before long, he was cornered in a dead end by the four guards, who all leveled their guns at him.

Facing such a desperate situation, the youth raised his hands and turned around slowly.

He had a handsome face, though it bore the deathly pallor of someone who hadn't seen the sun in years. A hint of indifference and madness flickered in his narrow eyes.

He glanced down at the several red laser dots on his chest, his lips slowly curling into a wicked smile, his eyes full of provocation.

Then, he slowly raised his right hand.

Without warning, the fingers of his right hand began to 'melt,' turning into a gelatinous form where tiny Worms were rapidly wriggling inside.

Seeing this, the four guards' expressions changed immediately, their eyes filled with tension and vigilance. The lead guard shouted at the youth, "You can't escape! You'd better come back to the laboratory with us quietly!"

Hearing this, the madness in the youth's eyes intensified. He let out a cold laugh and swung his right hand, about to lash out at the guards.

The four guards' pupils shrank. The leader roared, "Fire!"

Da-da-da~

The piercing sound of gunfire rang out. A dense hail of bullets struck the youth's chest like raindrops. At such close range, the bullets easily tore through his body.

The bullets exited through the youth's back and struck the glass corridor, making crisp clinking sounds.

Crack~

With a sharp crack, a hole was blasted through the thick glass, and spiderweb-like cracks spread out from around the small opening.

At this sight, the four guards' faces changed in unison, their eyes filled with shock. The youth, however, was the opposite; a divine light burst from his eyes as if his plan had succeeded, and a smile of victory blossomed on his face.

Despite his heart being pierced, he seemed unaffected. He took two steps back to the shattered glass, gave the guards a provocative look, and then slammed into it with force.

The glass shattered completely, creating a gap. His body fell through the opening, quickly disappearing into the misty void.

The guards' expressions changed again, and panic even appeared in their eyes.

Experiment Subject No. 9 was extremely important. If he escaped, they wouldn't be able to bear the responsibility.

At that moment, the lead guard immediately said, "It's fine. It's hundreds of meters down to the ground. No one can survive a fall from here. Notify the Surface Guard Team to find his body and incinerate it completely."

"It's better that he's dead than escaped!"

...

On the Surface, in an abandoned and filthy alley, sewage ran in gutters and trash was piled high. A few scruffy gray rats were rummaging through the garbage heap.

Not far from the trash, a broken body lay on the hard ground, with half of the corpse soaked in sewage.

The clothes were stained with blood and sewage, but the number [9] on the back was still striking.

His head was completely shattered, with red and white matter spilled all over the ground. Ghastly white bones protruded from the flesh of his ribs, and his limbs were twisted in a nearly grotesque posture. It was a horrific sight.

A bold rat stopped beside the corpse, seemingly hesitating whether to go up and gnaw on the flesh.

After a moment of hesitation, it finally mustered the courage to step forward and take a few bites of the fresh meat.

Just as it was about to feast, a twelve-man guard squad arrived in the alley. They were all encased in sealed biohazard suits, some holding firearms and others holding flamethrowers.

One of them shot the rat without hesitation, killing it along with all the other rats nearby.

Then they approached the corpse. After confirming the identity of Subject No. 9 from the clothes, they immediately poured a viscous liquid over the body and began to incinerate it with flamethrowers, burning the rats along with it.

After a full hour, the corpse was completely incinerated. The remaining bone fragments were crushed into powder by the guard squad, ensuring total destruction.

Having finished their task, the guard squad finally departed.

However, they failed to notice that several meters above their heads, a broken piece of rebar extended from a building. Hanging from that broken rebar was a small piece of skin and flesh tissue.

Eerily, inside this piece of tissue, there seemed to be some kind of tiny Worms slowly wriggling.

A moment later, this piece of tissue became completely vitalized, turning into a thumb-sized ball of flesh.

Then, many toothpick-sized fleshy tentacles sprouted from the Surface of the mass.

From a distance, it looked very much like a ball of meat stuck full of toothpicks.

With its tentacles, the meatball rolled gently, falling from the broken rebar and landing on the alley floor.

By now, the alley had returned to its usual silence. Rats were once again rustling in and out of their holes in the corners to forage.

The appearance of the flesh ball immediately caught their attention.

Two rats quietly approached, circling the flesh ball to inspect it.

However, in the next second, the flesh ball suddenly leaped. The moment it sprang up, it pounced on one of the rats.

As it neared the rat, the fleshy tentacles on its Surface had already entangled the creature first. The flesh ball followed closely, flattening itself out like a dumpling skin to quickly wrap around the rat.

The rat immediately let out a shrill squeak, but it only lasted for three or five seconds before stopping.

When the thin skin formed by the flesh ball reverted to its spherical shape, it was already the size of an egg, more than doubling in size.

The rat on the ground had turned into a shriveled, empty husk, all its flesh gone as if it had been dried out in the sun for many days.

The enlarged flesh ball did not stop its movement; it quickly pounced on the other rat.

The previous scene repeated itself. The other rat was also entangled, wrapped, and then devoured by the flesh ball.

When the flesh ball returned to its spherical form again, its volume had grown significantly larger.

And it didn't stop there. Using its tentacles as legs, it quickly pounced toward the other rats in the alley.

Half an hour later.

In this filthy alley, there were now thirty or forty dried rat corpses. Every rat in the entire alley had been hunted and devoured.

At this time, in a dark corner of the alley, a ball of flesh the size of a basketball was lurking there.

It was covered in dense, numerous tentacles, looking extremely unsettling.

Meow~

Suddenly, a pure white Maine Coon appeared at the entrance of the alley. Its pair of blue vertical pupils stared fixedly at the deepest part of the alley, as if sensing some kind of danger.

With the cat's appearance, the flesh ball in the dark corner also seemed to activate its hunting state, the tentacles on its Surface vibrating violently.

The flesh ball wriggled rapidly, and in an instant, it transformed into a slightly large gray rat.

The gray rat stepped out of the shadows, appearing in the cat's field of vision and giving the cat a provocative look.

The cat seemed to be provoked by this. Its eyes became sharp, its fur bristled slightly, and it walked slowly toward the depths of the alley.

Soon, the distance between the two was only two meters.

The gray rat transformed from the flesh ball seemed indifferent, just standing quietly in place, while the white cat crept along the base of the wall, closing in bit by bit.

When the distance between them was only half a meter, the cat suddenly leaped, pouncing toward the gray rat.

At that very moment, a strange look of mockery appeared in the rat's eyes.

Dozens of fleshy tentacles then extended from its body.

The tentacles flexibly entangled the pouncing cat, forcefully intercepting the white cat in mid-air and dragging it over bit by bit.

The cat also realized something was wrong and let out a series of frantic cries.

Meow~

Meow~

The sharp and high-pitched sounds echoed out of the alley.

However, the cries soon came to an abrupt halt.

Because the white cat had been completely wrapped by the flesh ball.

A minute or two later, the flesh ball detached from the cat's body.

The original white cat had also turned into a completely shriveled corpse.

At the same time, dozens of meters outside the alley, a graceful figure was searching urgently in the rain, constantly calling out, "Doudou! Doudou!"

She was completely unaware that not far behind her, two men had been following her for quite some time.

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