…He had fallen for her.
///
Zhou Jiao pressed her biochemical filtration mask tightly without a change in expression and walked under a spraying device.
The intense artificial pheromones instantly masked her own scent.
Just like how the living corpses lost their olfactory clues of humans, the rust-like creaking of necks resounded as everyone shifted their bodies and moved elsewhere.
At that moment, countless pitch-black figures turned around in unison, and the eerie sharp noises of cervical vertebrae moving were utterly chilling.
Zhou Jiao couldn’t help but shiver, then suddenly dashed in the opposite direction.
The terrifying scene, the rapidly dropping temperature, and the uncertainty of her escape made her heart pound wildly, her adrenaline surging.
She no longer had the energy to think—was this excitement or fear?
Yes, even though she could be caught by Jiang Lian at any moment and be permanently confined within that horrifying flesh nest, she still felt a trace of indescribable excitement.
To him, she was nothing more than an insignificant ant.
—Yet he was desperately searching for this ant.
He was omnipotent, capable of influencing the minds of those around him in an instant.
—Yet he could not control her will.
He was indifferent to everything, lofty and untouchable, utterly incapable of falling for her.
—Yet he was gradually being ensnared by the desire to possess her.
She had fallen into a deep coma, and he clearly could have taken this opportunity to keep her confined forever—after all, if she was going to be caged anyway, what difference did it make whether she had consciousness or not?
But he used his actions to tell her—
—There was a difference. He wanted her to wake up.
Recalling the terrifying gaze he had cast at her from the end of the corridor, perhaps at that moment, he had already realized—she had used a chip to put herself into a deep coma as a means to escape.
Yet, he had still sent her back to the company.
And in order to avoid affecting the minds of the medical staff and the operation of the medical equipment, he had stepped away from her, one step at a time.
What had he been thinking back then?
Was he thinking that even if she escaped, he could easily capture her again?
If not for the company’s artificial pheromones, with his omnipresent and terrifying abilities, he indeed could have caught her effortlessly.
But unfortunately, there was no “if.”
Zhou Jiao truly wanted to tell him—
Your feelings for me can no longer be explained by “craving” or “possessiveness.”
But she probably wouldn’t get the chance to tell him in person.
Zhou Jiao cast Jiang Lian from her mind, cleared her thoughts, and carefully recalled the map of the biotech building that she had studied countless times, trying to find the shortest escape route.
After a moment, she opened her eyes, pulled out the electromagnetic gun from her waist, and—Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!—fired four shots, shattering the floor-to-ceiling glass. Then, with a forceful strike of her elbow—Crash!—the fractured glass instantly shattered, pouring down like a torrential downpour!
If she remembered correctly, the biotech security personnel were equipped with a type of grappling gun that could shoot out a hooked rope. The hook’s penetration power was so strong that it could even grip deep into a steel floor.
She reached behind her waist—sure enough, there it was.
Without hesitation, she drew the grappling gun, flipped off the safety, and fired decisively at the ground—
This thing couldn’t be fitted with a silencer. The sharp screech of the hook clawing into the metal floor echoed through the entire floor!
The security personnel who had undergone aberration had lost their rationality, yet they still retained basic vigilance. They immediately turned around and walked toward the source of the noise.
Zhou Jiao looked at the dense mass of pitch-black figures around her. The nearest ones had already stretched out their hands unconsciously, attempting to grab her arm—
There was no time to climb down slowly!
Zhou Jiao took a deep breath, tightened her grip on the grappling gun, took a few steps back, then sprinted forward and leaped out through the broken floor-to-ceiling glass!
In that instant, a random piece of trivia inexplicably flashed through her mind: Do you know why bungee cords are elastic?
Because elasticity absorbs sudden impact. If an ordinary rope were used instead, the tremendous force from the fall would be enough to kill a person instantly.
—Thank the heavens, the rope in her hands was a dynamic rope capable of absorbing impact.
Even so, she still needed to find a few buffer points.
She forcefully twisted her body midair and slammed into the glass in front of her. Utilizing the elasticity of the rope, she forcibly reduced the terrifying impact of her descent!
Any normal person would be dizzy from such a collision, but she clenched her teeth and endured it. Her hands remained tightly gripping the grappling gun handle, her arm muscles strained to their limit as she ghosted down the skyscraper’s metal wall at an astonishing speed!
During the entire descent, she didn’t dare to look closely at each floor’s interior, but she still caught glimpses of blurred images.
—The entire building had been overtaken by purplish-black tentacles. The grand and magnificent steel structure had been transformed into a dark and slimy flesh nest.
In the dim lighting, aside from the shifting shadows of writhing tentacles, the only thing visible was the undulating bioluminescent blue spots beneath the thin membranous flesh.
As time passed, the shadows of the writhing tentacles grew increasingly grotesque and terrifying. The bioluminescent spots also changed color, shifting from an eerie yet beautiful blue to a murky and disturbing blackish-red.
A chill ran down Zhou Jiao’s spine.
Approximately 90% of bioluminescence in living organisms is blue light because blue wavelengths travel the farthest in seawater. This is due to water’s scattering and absorption effects on light waves—starting from ten meters below the surface, long-wavelength light like red is no longer visible.⑴
If Jiang Lian didn’t possess the ability to alter biological light emission, then the only explanation was that his fury had escalated to the point where the blood-engorged coloration of his tentacles completely overwhelmed the blue bioluminescence.
At this level, he wasn’t just enraged—he had completely lost control.
Although he had already influenced the minds of everyone present, he had no patience to let them track her scent gradually. Instead, he intended to wrap the entire building in his tentacles, sealing her inside completely.
—All these thoughts were just fleeting flashes in her mind. She was still midair, yet to land.
At that moment, she glanced downward and her pupils abruptly contracted—
The number of tentacles on the ground floor was several times that of the upper floors!
The worst part was that they seemed to have anticipated her leap from above. Several of the thickest flesh tendrils had spread open like a sea anemone, resembling a giant carnivorous plant, coldly and silently waiting for its prey to fall into its maw.
Zhou Jiao’s eyelid twitched slightly.
In a split-second reaction, she yanked out her electromagnetic gun and fired four consecutive shots at the floor-to-ceiling glass of the level below—
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Then, she kicked off with both feet, swinging herself backward. When she arced forward again, she crashed through the shattered glass with a loud shatter and rolled through the cascade of falling shards.
Perhaps due to sheer luck, this floor had yet to be invaded by the blackish-red flesh tentacles.
She stood up and was just about to search for an exit—
—Suddenly, a cold, skeletal hand shot out from the darkness and grabbed her wrist with force!
Jiang Lian stood on the top floor of the building, his expression icy and violent, gazing down at the scene beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows.
He seemed to have fallen into an unimaginable frenzy. Cracks continuously opened and closed on his face, neck, and body, resembling countless eyes blinking open and shut, as if an immense and terrifying monster within him was struggling to break free.
However, the moment those cracks opened, they were forcibly closed again due to some strange restriction.
Because in this body, he could not wield his full power. He could only rely on human olfactory organs to search for her scent, layer by layer, inch by inch.
But he couldn’t find her.
Couldn’t find her.
Couldn’t find her!!!
She had always been under his control.
Even during those three days when he was hunting her down, he had never completely lost track of her.
Whenever he wanted to find her, no matter what, he could always detect her presence.
She was the prey he had guarded so tightly—there was no way she could escape his sight and senses.
If she were in the ocean, even if there was only a single molecule of her scent in the water, he could still pinpoint her exact location with absolute precision.
But now, no matter how many people’s minds he had influenced, no matter how many people’s olfactory senses he had borrowed, he still couldn’t pick up the traces of her scent from within the overwhelming concentration of artificial pheromones.
—In truth, he could pick up her scent, but every time he managed to catch a whiff of it, it was instantly drowned out by the overpowering artificial pheromones.
It was like a fine thread repeatedly grinding against his nerves—after just a few instances, the sensation nearly drove him mad.
No, he had already gone mad.
Jiang Lian closed his eyes.
Irritation, fury, fear, and… the terrifying dread of losing her clung to his heart like a web soaked in venom, tightening excruciatingly slow.
With every breath, he could feel a corrosive pain searing through him.
Even though he was unwilling to admit it, he had no choice but to face the truth within himself.
…He had fallen for her.
On the floor-to-ceiling glass window, his current reflection was cast.
He had completely lost all human traits—only a warped, indistinct shadow remained.
Before, he hadn’t understood why he cared about such a tiny human. So, he had forced her to accept his pursuit, trying to find a rational answer.
—Yet three days had passed, and the one driven insane by that hunt… was himself.
On the rooftop, even though he had known she was playing him for a fool, even though he had known she wasn’t someone who would commit suicide, when she leaped off the edge—he had still followed her down.
Just like now, he knew she had placed herself in a deep coma to escape him.
And yet, in order to wake her, he had forcefully suppressed his malicious possessiveness, retreated step by step, and personally granted her the chance to flee.
—He knew everything, yet he willingly let himself be deceived by her.
He was a higher lifeform beyond human comprehension.
Between him and humans lay an insurmountable, objective law of nature—just like how a predator was fated to never reproduce with its prey.
—And yet, as a predator, he had fallen for his prey.
Every heartbeat, every breath, every movement of his Adam’s apple, every time he swallowed the saliva she left behind—all of it was releasing signals that he liked her.
An indescribable supreme existence had fallen for a tiny human.
Because of his feelings for her, everyone else had developed an uncontrollable obsession with Zhou Jiao.
…Only he himself remained completely unaware that this violent, irritable emotion—so akin to killing intent—was liking her.
On the floor-to-ceiling glass window, Jiang Lian’s reflection became even more distorted and blurred.
The realization that he had developed human emotions caused his skin and flesh to slough off even more severely, yet in the next instant, another force would immediately fill in the gaps.
His flesh dissolved, large chunks fell away, then regenerated—fall away, regenerate—until his entire face and body were drenched in blood. Combined with the blackish-red tentacles swollen with congestion, his tall figure looked more terrifying and nightmarish than ever before.
Yet this eerie, humanoid monster was now trapped in the kind of complex emotions that only humans could experience.
Zhou Jiao’s escape filled him with regret and fear.
But he didn’t even know what exactly he was regretting or fearing.
Before this, he had never even conceived of the concept of “liking.”
He only understood killing, plundering, and possessing.
A top predator who desires something only knows how to kill, plunder, and possess.
There was no fourth option.
And he could not think of a fourth option.
His existence had been boundlessly long—like the distant, muffled thunder rolling through a stormy skyline, echoing from the primal chaos before heaven and earth had even been divided, before spirit and flesh had ever been separated—yet he had never known who he was echoing for.
Now, he finally understood.
His heart was beating for Zhou Jiao.
But he could not find her. He did not know how to handle her.
Because of her, for the first time in his life—he felt utterly at a loss.