121: Chapter 121 The Source of Paleness

On the Blizzard Highlands.

The sound of the wind drowned out the death throes of the mutated beast.

The USA Challenger, Scott, knelt in the frozen earth.

Before him lay the torn-open carcass of a Black-Horned Beast.

The beast's blood had frozen into a dark purple thin shell.

Shreds of meat hung from his arms and chest.

They rose and fell violently with his heavy panting.

He kept his head lowered.

The back of his tactical suit had split open along the spine.

Flesh was turned outward.

Dark grey blood flowed down from the rift, white steam rising as it hit the snow.

Scott's fingers clawed desperately at the frozen soil.

A piercing shriek squeezed out of his throat.

The sound broke and splintered.

It was laced with the agonizing misery of a dying beast.

The livestream camera zoomed in.

Under the skin of his back, several objects were pushing upward.

Once.

And again.

"Ah—!"

Scott's head snapped back.

The veins in his neck bulged one by one.

His eyeballs were completely bloodshot.

The flesh on both sides of his spine was being forced apart.

Puchi!

The first forest-white bone spur pierced through the flesh.

Then came a second, and a third.

The bone spurs were curved and deformed.

Their surfaces were smeared with a film of blood.

Fine serrated barbs hung from the edges.

The bone spurs squeezed out section by section, reducing the tactical suit to rags.

The USA livestream room went insane instantly.

[My God! What is happening to Scott?!]

[Close the stream! Close it now!]

[This is evolution! This is the super evolution of our USA Challenger!]

[Evolution my ass! He's turning into a monster!]

Scott knelt by the carcass, saliva dripping from the corners of his mouth.

His originally healthy skin was rapidly losing color.

First turning bluish, then shifting to a sickly ashen white.

Blood vessels protruded under the skin.

They crawled up his neck toward his cheeks.

His frontal bone protruded.

His eye sockets became deeply sunken.

His lips were dry, cracked, and curled back.

He clawed at his own face with both hands.

"I... am still... human..."

The words were forced out through the gaps in his teeth.

With every sound he uttered, his laryngeal bone clicked and rattled.

He tried to stand, the bone spurs on his back swaying with trailing flesh.

Just as he propped up half his body, his spine arched backward.

Bang!

He slammed heavily back onto the ground.

White marks were smashed into the frozen earth.

Scott's fingers shredded the Black-Horned Beast's belly.

He tore off a piece of raw meat and stuffed it into his mouth.

Beast meat laced with ice shards mixed with plasma as he chewed frantically.

His shoulder blades protruded outward, and the muscles in his arms bulged exaggeratedly.

His skin split apart.

Grey-white bodily fluid dripped down his forearms.

He lifted his head.

The pupils in his eyes were shrinking into tiny pinpoints.

He lunged at the beast carcass.

His head buried into the abdominal cavity, taking large bites of the internal organs.

Great Xia Disaster Prevention Administration.

The command hall was deathly silent.

Everyone was staring at the foreign broadcast screen.

On the large screen, the bone spurs on Scott's back opened and closed frantically with his swallowing movements.

Two young information officers in the front row turned their heads away directly.

Director Wei Tiejun stood at the very front.

His face was grim.

Zhou Jianping clutched the newly printed monitoring summary in his hand, the paper crumpled into a ball.

"pollution levels are overloaded."

Zhou Jianping's eyes were bloodshot as he stared intently at the screen.

"This isn't physical evolution; it's an irreversible aberration."

"Sanity disconnected, gluttony, ashen skin, external bone growth. He won't last more than a few minutes."

Lu Chen sat to the side.

Three screens stood before him.

One was Scott's livestream, one was a playback of the Pale Species in the ruins, and the last was a frozen close-up of Lin Ye slaying a monster.

Lu Chen pushed up his glasses.

"Enlarge the thirty-seventh segment of the ruins footage."

The technician operated quickly.

On the screen, a Medium Pale-Type was clinging to a ruined wall.

Ashen skin clung tightly to its skeletal frame.

Broken bone spurs protruded from its spine.

Its limbs were elongated.

Bony hooked blades had grown from the tips of its claws.

Lu Chen raised his hand and pointed at Scott's screen.

"The arrangement of the back bone spurs, the characteristics of the skin lesions, the direction of the mouth muscle tearing, the curvature of the shoulder blade deformation."

His finger moved toward the Pale Species.

"They are of the exact same origin."

The surrounding air grew cold.

Lu Chen tapped the tabletop.

"This isn't just a low-level similarity; these are different stages on the same path of mutation."

Someone took a half-step back, bumping into the corner of a desk.

Zhou Jianping stared at Scott, then turned to look at Director Wei Tiejun.

His voice was trembling.

"Director Wei..."

"If Scott's mutation goes to the end, he becomes a Pale Species."

"Then in the Void Sea ruins, those tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands in the monster tide..."

"Where did they come from?"

"Before the Endgame Simulation, Blue Star never sent that many people in!"

Zhou Jianping gritted his teeth.

"Those 'humans' who turned into monsters, where exactly did they come from? Is this Void Sea a simulation field, or a wasteland world that has already been eaten clean?"

No one in the hall spoke.

Everyone only felt a chill crawling up from the soles of their feet.

Director Wei Tiejun slammed his fist on the table.

"Form a special task force! Analyze all similar pollution immediately!"

Meanwhile.

In the Great Xia Live Stream, someone had uploaded the recording from the foreign web.

After a brief, deathly silence, the bullet comments exploded like a nuclear blast.

[This is freaking identical to the Pale Species in the ruins!]

[Holy crap! Holy crap! Those monsters were all humans before?!]

[This isn't luck! This is absolute strength! It was all within Lin Ye's calculations!]

[Damn, I'm getting goosebumps! How many details has Brother Eye been hiding?]

...

Level 4 Floating Island, rock cave.

By the fire pit.

The third pot of bear meat soup hit the bottom.

A layer of bright white oil clung to the bottom of the aluminum pot as the steam gradually dissipated.

Zhao Mengmeng held the rim of the pot and drank the last half-mouthful of soup clean.

She slumped against the black rock.

"I declare, this pot of soup has dragged me back from King Yama's table."

Lin Ye used a wooden stick to poke at the fire, flipping several strips of bear meat that were half-dried from the heat.

"King Yama thinks you talk too much; it's normal for him to return the goods."

Zhao Mengmeng raised her foot to kick him, missed, and instead pulled a muscle in her calf, making her wince in pain.

"Just you wait until I recover. I'm not bragging, I just don't want to hit an injured person right now."

Lin Ye ignored her.

He stood up and walked toward the passage.

The blizzard bear's carcass had been dragged to the side wall.

Its abdominal cavity was wide open.

Blood flowed along a shallow trench he'd dug, draining into a deeper rock crevice.

The smell of blood had faded, replaced by the scents of bear fat, charcoal fire, and damp rock.

Lin Ye knelt to check the drainage trench.

The blood flow had slowed, and the color had lightened.

He used his Entrenching Tool to clear away scraps of meat from the trench mouth and filled it with two stones to prevent residual blood from flowing back.

He raised his hand to touch the Dark Weaver's alarm lines.

The bottom line was taut.

The middle line was still.

The cross lines had no vibration at all.

No living creatures for now.

Lin Ye activated his left eye.

His vision cut through the front section of the passage and the hot spring cavern.

The residual body heat of the blizzard bear emitted a faint green light.

Dark red high-heat cracks flickered around the edges of the hot spring.

Aside from that, no red light characteristic of biological life was approaching.

He closed his eyes.

A dull pain throbbed in his temples.

He had over-consumed today; he couldn't use it anymore.

Zhao Mengmeng propped up her chin and watched him.

"How is it? No other bear-blindies in the cave, right?"

"None for now."

"What about the hot spring?"

"It's usable. Just don't go near the white crust at the edge; there's a thermal vent underneath. One wrong step and you'll be bear meat shabu-shabu."

Zhao Mengmeng's face stiffened.

"I just want to take a bath, I wasn't planning on becoming a side dish."

Lin Ye shook out the wolf king hide and tossed it into her arms.

"Go to the hot spring and wash off the blood and frozen mud. Don't soak too long, take the crossbow, and stick to the left rock wall."

Zhao Mengmeng hugged the hide tightly.

"What about you?"

"I'm guarding the door."

Lin Ye retreated to the fire pit.

He leaned against the black rock.

The Fire Axe lay across his knees.

The split web of his thumb was wrapped in scraps of cloth, the blood staining the strips dark red.

He closed his eyes, using the heat of the charcoal fire to drive away the chill deep within his muscles.

He listened to the storm outside the ice door and the sound of water echoing from deep within the passage.