67: parasitic

[Detected a parasitable creature – a Beast Soldier Level Tiger Mastiff. Initiate parasitism?]

'Yes!'

At Qiao Yu's command, the spores floating in the air and the fungal swarm inhaled by the Tiger Mastiffs began to act.

First, the fungal swarm within the Tiger Mastiffs flowed through their blood vessels towards their brains, attempting to establish a foothold deep within their brains and take control.

Next, the spores floating in the outside air continuously adhered to the bodies of these Tiger Mastiffs, and the flesh and blood mycelium steadily covered the surface of their skin.

The Tiger Mastiffs, who were originally driving the silver chariots, had all noticed that something was wrong.

First, they felt an itch in their heads, as if brains were growing.

Immediately after, their entire bodies began to itch.

The Tiger Mastiffs present immediately started to scratch.

Some rubbed themselves against the ground, others vigorously scratched their bodies with their hind legs, and some severely itching Tiger Mastiffs even began to bite themselves.

However, none of this helped. As the Tiger Mastiffs continuously rubbed, their surface fur rubbed off, and their dark manes drifted in the air.

The Tiger Mastiffs couldn't stop whimpering, a sight that made one feel both pity and satisfaction.

Some Tiger Mastiffs, infected by the fungus in sensitive areas, suffered unbearable itching. Their hind legs dragged on the ground, rubbing incessantly, unable to stop even as their 'magic pellets' fell off.

'Damn, it makes my legs feel cold just watching.'

Qiao Yu clenched his legs, sighing internally. The parasitism of these Tiger Mastiffs was truly gruesome.

As their skin surface continuously festered from fungal erosion, the impatient Tiger Mastiffs began tearing at each other's skin, revealing the stark white bones beneath.

But this only provided a better growth environment for the fungal swarm.

The fungal swarm directly attacked the Tiger Mastiffs' bones.

As cracking sounds echoed, it was the Tiger Mastiffs gnawing on their own bones.

The scene was excessively grotesque; Qiao Yu no longer had the heart to watch.

The fungi wrapped each Tiger Mastiff into a ball of bloody, red flesh, like newly growing embryos.

'Now, we wait.'

Time passed minute by minute as Qiao Yu waited. The fleshy lumps, which were originally just over a person's height, grew larger and larger with each throb, like a beating heart or a breath.

The area centered around the fleshy lumps, a radius of twenty to thirty meters, was covered by a blood-colored fungal carpet. Where the fungal carpet spread, not a blade of grass grew, and snakes, insects, rats, and ants were devoured before they could escape.

But ominously, a strong smell of blood wafted through the air.

'Tsk, this will probably attract other monsters nearby. If a Rat Swarm forms, it will be hard to leave.'

'Has the parasitism not finished yet?'

Qiao Yu clicked his tongue, somewhat worried about the consequences of the strong bloody smell.

Sure enough, what he worried about came to pass.

As soon as Qiao Yu's thought subsided, he heard faint sounds.

"Squeak!"

Qiao Yu quickly used his binoculars to look around, but under the night vision filter, he found no abnormalities.

He then set the binoculars to infrared mode, which could detect heat sources up to eight hundred meters away, but still found no sign of monsters.

If Qiao Yu hadn't trusted his own judgment, anyone else might have thought it was an illusion.

"Squeak! Squeak––"

'Indeed!' Qiao Yu heard the faint sound again, calmed himself, and listened intently.

'The sound seems to be coming from underground?'

Qiao Yu frowned and pressed his ear to the muddy ground.

"Squeak, squeak!"

This time, Qiao Yu was certain the sound was coming from underground.

And it wasn't just one sound; the sharp timbre of the sounds was very similar to the cries of rodents.

Qiao Yu seemed to have thought of something, and his throat gulped.

'Could it be a Rat Swarm?'

A Rat Swarm is also known as a rat plague.

Each Rat Monster is about thirty centimeters in size, only slightly larger than an average person's arm. The combat power of each Rat Monster is not strong, but their sheer numbers are overwhelming.

As the saying goes, 'ants can kill an elephant.' Tens of thousands of Rat Monsters can devour even Warlord Level martial artists like a swarm of locusts, leaving not even a bone.

However, Qiao Yu didn't clearly detect the Rat Swarm's direction of advance, nor did he see any activity from the Rat Monsters.

It was also possible that the underground Rat Monsters were attracted by the smell of parasitism and were calling out in hunger.

With this thought, Qiao Yu's peripheral vision caught sight of some loose bricks in the broken concrete ground of the farmhouse residential area, subtly shaking.

As soon as he turned his head, he saw three to five Rat Monsters, each only the size of an air conditioner remote, scurrying onto the ground.

They looked at the Tiger Mastiffs, now transformed into fleshy lumps, with greedy expressions.

Before Qiao Yu could stop them, those three to five Rat Monsters leaped onto the fleshy lumps and began to feast.

The chattering sounds were incessant.

Qiao Yu was still some distance from the incident site, so to save time, he picked up a few not-too-large pebbles from the ground, aimed at the Rat Monsters' location, and flicked one.

The first shot missed, and the few Rat Monsters noticed but didn't pay it any mind.

Instead, they freely roamed on the fleshy lumps, gnawing desperately.

The second shot hit its mark. From hundreds of meters away, the pebble directly pierced through one of the Rat Monsters.

"Squeak, squeak!"

"Squeak––"

Seeing their companion injured and dead, the Rat Monsters sounded a loud alarm, continuously warning their other companions.

The other Rat Monsters responded with a few squeaks, but their mouths didn't stop moving; their actions instead became more frantic.

They ate here, then there, then over there.

Some Rat Monsters even bit off meter-long chunks of meat, calling for their underground rat brothers and sisters to join the fray.

The already cracked floor became even looser. What were originally only a few Rat Monsters now, like ants, began to separate the flesh of the parasitized Tiger Mastiffs, piece by piece, transporting them back to their burrows.

No sooner said than done, all of this happened in less than ten seconds.

In just these ten seconds, Qiao Yu watched as several Tiger Mastiffs, which had become fleshy lumps, were disemboweled and meticulously carved up by thousands of Rat Monsters, disappearing without a trace.

'Damn! So, is this parasitism considered a success or a failure?'

Qiao Yu summoned his system panel.

[Fungal Squad Member Count (0/10)]

The number remained unchanged, so this parasitism attempt seemed to have failed.

Meanwhile, the underground Rat Monsters were chattering in celebration.

This made Qiao Yu even want to release all the fungal swarm underground, but the surface area was too vast, and without a clear target, releasing the fungal swarm underground would be useless.

As he pondered, the ground began to shake. Qiao Yu felt that if he stayed in this spot any longer, the ground might even collapse.

Just as Qiao Yu was about to leave, another notification popped up in his mind from the system.

[Detected a parasitable creature – Advanced Beast Soldier Level Rat King. Initiate parasitism?]