457: Chapter 454 Back in the City.

The plane flew in the sky for a while longer, encountering no further harassment along the way.

Wei Ziqing looked at Shen Mingyuan from the side and smiled.

"That wasn't easy."

Shen Mingyuan waved his hand, lacking the strength to reply. He simply leaned back in his seat, panting heavily. The others also relaxed, and the cabin fell silent, save for the hum of the engines.

It seemed to be over.

Or did they think this was enough to stop them?

Regardless, the plane eventually reached the skies above the city smoothly and began its descent.

Below were familiar buildings and familiar streets. The plane's altitude dropped lower and lower, the landing gear deployed, and it prepared to touch down—

At the very last moment before touching the ground, a dark shadow suddenly pounced.

Bang!

The person slammed directly onto the fuselage, limbs clinging tightly. Their face was pressed against the porthole, eyes wide and bulging, letting out a beast-like roar from their mouth.

Lu Jianchuan's pupils shrank suddenly.

A step too late.

"Transform!"

The four of them pressed their Transformation Devices simultaneously. Silver-white, plain white, matte black, and warm gold armors instantly covered their bodies. The hatch opened, and Lu Jianchuan was the first to rush out. He grabbed the arm of the person clinging to the fuselage and yanked hard, pulling them off the plane.

The person crashed to the ground, struggling to get up, limbs flailing as they let out incoherent screeches.

"Pilot! Fly out of here!" Lu Jianchuan shouted without looking back. "Don't get stuck here!"

An "OK" came from the hatch. The plane's engines roared again as it accelerated down the runway and quickly took off.

On the ground, the person was still struggling frantically. Lu Jianchuan pinned them down with both hands, but their strength was astonishing, nearly breaking free several times.

"What do we do?" Ye Ouyang stood nearby, claws raised, unsure where to strike.

Wei Ziqing walked over and drew the bone sword from behind his waist.

"Let me do it. I'll use Neuroparalytic Toxin to immobilize him first."

Lu Jianchuan nodded, keeping the person pinned down firmly.

Holding the bone sword, Wei Ziqing made a light cut on the person's arm—the wound was shallow, oozing only a little blood. The toxin had already been injected via the blade.

He sheathed the sword and took a step back.

"That should be about it."

After a few seconds, the person's struggling began to weaken. Their limbs were still twitching and their eyes remained wide, but their muscles gradually relaxed until they lay completely limp on the ground, with only their eyeballs still able to move.

He stared at the four people in front of him, motionless.

Shen Mingyuan stood up, holstered his twin pistols, and glanced at the immobilized person on the ground.

"Let's go," he said urgently. "I have a feeling many people will be coming here soon. With the collective's consciousness, if one person knows, everyone knows."

Lu Jianchuan nodded, his brow furrowed.

"This is going to be trouble." He looked at the others. "What should we do?"

Ye Ouyang suddenly spoke up.

"How about we split up?"

Lu Jianchuan turned to look at him, momentarily stunned.

"Are you serious?"

Ye Ouyang nodded.

"I'm serious," he said quickly. "If one person knows, everyone knows. If we split up, we can disperse their forces. There might be other enemies in the city, but with our strength, we should be fine."

He paused.

"The four of us will split into two groups. One group will go rescue people, and the other will find a way to locate his main body and stop him. There must still be survivors in this city; we can't let them get infected too."

Wei Ziqing nodded.

"I agree. I need to—we need to go find survivors."

Shen Mingyuan also nodded.

"Makes sense."

Lu Jianchuan was silent for a few seconds before finally nodding.

"Then we'll split into two groups." He looked at Shen Mingyuan. "I'll go directly to find his main body. That should be relatively easy to locate."

He turned back to Shen Mingyuan.

"Survivors are harder to find. You have the strongest sensing abilities, so I'll leave that to you."

Shen Mingyuan nodded.

"No problem."

"Wei Ziqing," Shen Mingyuan looked at him, "you come with me. As a marksman, I need a front-liner."

Wei Ziqing nodded.

"Alright, let's move together then."

Ye Ouyang looked at Lu Jianchuan.

"Then I'll follow you, Senior Lu."

Lu Jianchuan nodded.

"Let's go."

The four split into two teams and ran off in different directions.

Shen Mingyuan and Wei Ziqing leaped rapidly between the city's buildings, their shadows stretching long in the afternoon sun.

Shen Mingyuan's sensing abilities were fully active—his long-range vision scanned the distant streets, thermal imaging scanned every building along the way, and ultrasonic waves spread silently, outlining the three-dimensional contours of the environment.

Heat sources were everywhere.

A large number of humanoid heat sources were converging toward where the plane had landed, moving in the same direction with stiff gaits. Those were the controlled infected, swarming toward the landing site.

"They're all heading that way," Shen Mingyuan whispered. "We need to bypass them."

The two adjusted their course, using Shen Mingyuan's perception to avoid the patrolling infected in advance. They moved through the shadows of the buildings, occasionally stopping to let a group pass before continuing forward.

While moving, Shen Mingyuan scanned the surrounding buildings for stationary heat sources—people hiding in rooms without moving were likely survivors.

In the thermal imaging, there were indeed some stationary red dots scattered throughout the residential buildings. However, Shen Mingyuan didn't dare approach them recklessly. What if it was a trap? If the collective intentionally placed a few infected to pose as survivors, they would be surrounded as soon as they got close.

He couldn't gamble.

He gritted his teeth and pushed forward. Even if they were to rescue people, they first had to find a safe place to put them.

"Let's head back to the base first," he said to Wei Ziqing.

The two picked up their pace, crossing several blocks and jumping down from a roof into an alley. Outside the alley entrance, several uniformed, armed soldiers were mixed with ordinary infected, patrolling back and forth with stiff steps.

Shen Mingyuan peeked out and his heart sank.

Has the base fallen?

He activated his ultrasonic waves to silently scan the internal buildings. The thermal imaging feedback showed a large number of stationary heat sources gathered deep within the buildings, near the lab and the cafeteria. Furthermore, the exteriors of those buildings had their windows and doors sealed with heavy iron plates, clearly in an emergency lockdown state.

He turned to Wei Ziqing and said, "There are still heat sources inside. The lab area is locked down; the emergency systems must have activated, and the people inside are hiding."

Wei Ziqing nodded.

"Let's be quiet and not trigger anyone," he whispered. "Follow my lead; I can sense other biological entities around us."

Shen Mingyuan gave an affirmative sound, and the two crept toward the depths of the base along the base of the walls. The afternoon sun leaked through the gaps between the buildings, cutting strips of light onto the ground.

Just as they rounded an abandoned guardhouse, a pair of abnormal heat sources suddenly popped into Shen Mingyuan's perception.

Two of them.

One had a significantly high body temperature, unlike a normal human—or rather, it wasn't human at all. The other had a normal human temperature. The two were moving carefully, one behind the other.

Shen Mingyuan narrowed his eyes, carefully identifying the silhouettes.

They looked familiar.

He turned to Wei Ziqing and whispered, "Found two. One has an abnormal temperature, not human. The other... should be someone you know."

Wei Ziqing was taken aback.

"Huh? Could it be..."

Shen Mingyuan didn't say more and pointed in that direction. Using the buildings as cover, the two quietly approached.

Turning a corner, their vision suddenly opened up.

Long Qingyun was crouching behind an abandoned truck, peeking out toward the street corner. Behind him, the calico cat—Qing Lian—was crouching close beside him.