At the very end of another corridor stood yet another familiar metal door.
However, the uppermost part of it had already melted more than halfway, exposing the cold ceiling of the laboratory and the glaring incandescent light.
Su Su’s heart eased considerably.
With the metal door in such a state of disrepair, even if Jiang Hong had encountered the same Tier 7 zombie, he should have been able to escape in time.
“Let’s go in and take a look.”
As soon as the words fell, the serpent’s tail slammed down the remaining half of the door.
The scene within the laboratory was laid bare.
Before even stepping inside, Su Su sensed something was wrong—
“Ah Xuan, retreat quickly!”
“Hiss!”
The serpent’s tail, swift and agile, recoiled a dozen meters in an instant, while the white light Su Su released blocked the front in time. The residual energy filth in the air dissipated the moment it came into contact with the white light.
Su Su’s heart, which had just settled, abruptly clenched.
The arm wrapped around Xuan Mang’s neck tightened suddenly.
She realized something was off.
“This level of energy filth… at least the accumulation of a hundred crystal stones…” Su Su’s voice trembled. “Jiang Hong and that cheetah…”
With such dense filth lingering in the air, just breathing it in for a few seconds would be enough to rupture an ability user from the inside out!
It was the Research Guild. Only the Research Guild could orchestrate such a large-scale act! And only they had the means to collect, preserve, and release energy filth!
If Jiang Hong hadn’t escaped in time… Su Su dared not imagine his fate.
She could only do her best to use her ability to eliminate the lingering filth in the air. She didn’t know how long had passed until her ability was completely drained, and only then did the air return to normal.
Staring at the laboratory, now finally “clean,” Su Su suddenly found herself hesitant to step inside.
A few seconds later, her voice was barely above a whisper:
“Let’s go in… and take a look.”
What if? What if Jiang Hong had somehow managed to escape? What if Qi Huiling had suffered the consequences of her own actions?
Clinging to this sliver of hope, she and Xuan Mang slithered into the laboratory.
Passing over the collapsed metal door, they saw only a pool of blood… extending into the narrow interior space.
Moving forward…
The moment she saw the floor and walls, Su Su abruptly covered her mouth, her eyes turning red in an instant.
Blood.
A large expanse of it.
Flesh, scattered everywhere.
And that familiar, now completely tattered black combat uniform.
All hope collapsed.
The most tragic ending lay before her eyes.
Su Su could not bear to look any longer. She turned her head and buried it into Xuan Mang’s neck.
She had never thought that something like this would happen to Jiang Hong.
Someone who was alive and well not long ago had now been reduced to nothing but a pool of blood and flesh, without even a complete body left behind.
If Lin Weiran’s trap had been meant for her, then this place—this room filled with energy filth—was the burial ground that the Research Guild had long prepared for Jiang Hong.
Su Su tried to stay calm.
But in her mind, scene after scene of Jiang Hong reaching out a helping hand replayed relentlessly, including his past invitation—
“Miss Su, one day, you will understand me and willingly join me.”
At this moment, Su Su was overwhelmed with immense sorrow.
With Lin Weiran present, she could understand why the Research Guild would want to kill her. But Jiang Hong? Did the Research Guild truly collect such an enormous amount of energy filth just to deal with a high-level ability user who merely harbored suspicions about them?
Just how unspeakable were their secrets that they would go to such ruthless lengths to eliminate dissent?
Two teardrops fell onto Xuan Mang’s neck.
At this moment, the usually petty and jealous black python showed no dissatisfaction. He silently stared at the pool of blood and flesh before suddenly coiling his tail around a tuft of brown fur.
“Hiss.”
He called for the female’s attention.
When Su Su saw that clump of fur, she instinctively scanned her surroundings.
There were no traces of the cheetah’s flesh or remains.
Su Su was stunned. “Where is the cheetah?”
“Hiss.”
Xuan Mang’s gaze shifted toward the damaged metal door and the bloodstain just beyond it.
Su Su immediately understood his meaning. “It escaped.”
She knew that the cheetah had a metal-based ability. Perhaps, while it was desperately trying to melt the door, Jiang Hong had already perished from absorbing too much energy filth, his body rupturing under the strain.
And yet, the cheetah had escaped.
Where had it gone?
Could it have gone after Qi Huiling?
Su Su took one last look at the blood-splattered laboratory, forcing herself to suppress the grief welling up inside her. “Can you track that cheetah?”
Xuan Mang flicked out his crimson forked tongue in front of the female.
He was sensing the cheetah’s unique scent. After a few moments, he slowly nodded.
“Hiss~”
“Then let’s go after them.” Su Su’s voice was no longer trembling. “They killed someone and still think they can return unscathed? Impossible!”
It had taken everyone two to three days to reach this desert. Only a day had passed—if they moved fast enough, it wasn’t impossible to catch up with those two.
Su Su picked up a blood-stained car key from the ground.
After a brief moment of silence, she turned away from the hidden laboratory buried beneath the yellow sand and found the car Jiang Hong had concealed behind the cluster of buildings.
Inside the vehicle, a red safety amulet hung from the rearview mirror.
Su Su stared at it for half a second before forcibly suppressing the sourness in her heart.
“Let’s go.”
Xuan Mang straightened up, towering over the entire vehicle. If he tried to squeeze into the passenger seat now, there wouldn’t even be room for his tail.
He silently stared at Su Su.
It took her a moment to realize. “Y-you… can you still change back?”
“Hiss…”
Xuan Mang shook his head.
While the female had been unconscious, he had already tried countless times to revert to his original form, but no matter what he did, it was impossible in such a short time.
“Then you’ll have to sit in the back.”
Xuan Mang was highly displeased, but he also understood that tracking down their enemies was more important. Reluctantly, he coiled himself into the backseat, his overly long body barely fitting under the seats. He looked like a legendary serpent spirit, forcibly bound in an ill-fitting space.
Su Su started the car, and through the rearview mirror, she caught sight of this scene—
Almost immediately, those sharp vertical pupils sensed her gaze. He lifted his head, locking eyes with her through the mirror.
That cold and unfamiliar feeling struck her again.
But this time, Su Su was not as flustered as before. She feigned composure and withdrew her gaze.
Right now, finding Qi Huiling and Lin Weiran was the priority.
With a press of the accelerator, the off-road vehicle roared forward, charging into the desert.
Along the way, they relied on Xuan Mang’s keen sense of smell to track the cheetah’s scent. Fortunately, the cheetah was injured, and its lingering bloodstains left a thick, easily traceable trail.
During this time, the freshly transformed snake-man in the backseat remained fixated on the female.
The very tip of his tail quietly slithered forward, tentatively wrapping around her slender ankle.
Su Su’s heart still felt heavy.
But she allowed his intimate gesture.
The closer they got in a certain direction, the stronger the cheetah’s lingering scent became. As they approached a sand dune, Xuan Mang suddenly shot upright, his cold gaze piercing through the gap between the front seats, locking onto something beyond the dune.
Su Su was instantly alert. “Is it behind the dune?”
Xuan Mang nodded—then shook his head.
“Hiss!”
This time, Su Su couldn’t quite grasp his meaning.
It was only when the off-road vehicle soared over the dune that she finally understood—
At the lowest depression behind the dune, a nearly totaled car lay abandoned.
It was Qi Huiling’s vehicle!
Su Su’s pupils contracted. She immediately stopped at a safe distance, observing for a few seconds before realizing—
The car was empty.
“No one’s inside?”
She hurried to get out of the car, instinctively squeezing the tip of Xuan Mang’s tail, signaling him to release her.
The ever-jealous and petty snake, upon feeling this natural act of closeness from the female, obediently loosened his grip for once.
Su Su stepped out of the vehicle, and with practiced ease, Xuan Mang pried open the car door and slithered smoothly behind her.
“Hiss~”
He was the first to notice a large patch of bloodstains near the right car door.
Su Su walked over, staring at it for a moment before circling the entire vehicle.
She could roughly piece together what had happened here—
The cheetah had caught up to Qi Huiling. Using its metal ability, it had instantly wrecked her car. The two had even engaged in an intense battle. But whose blood was this?
“Huh?”
Su Su’s gaze suddenly locked onto something underneath the front seat.
It looked like something had rolled under there.
She instinctively leaned into the car, reaching out to pick it up.
But Xuan Mang was faster than her. His agile tail effortlessly slipped through the wrecked car door, hooking out a pitch-black metal chunk and placing it in Su Su’s palm.
She stared at it for a long while, unable to determine what it was.
Forget it. She would keep it for now and study it later.
Su Su looked at Xuan Mang. “Can we still track them?”
Xuan Mang slithered closer to the bloodstain.
His thin and elegantly shaped lips continuously flicked out his crimson forked tongue, as if capturing the lingering scent in the air. The first time she saw this, it had seemed eerie. But after watching him for so long, she had grown used to it.
Soon, the vertical pupils of Xuan Mang locked onto a specific direction.
“That way?”
“Hiss!”
“Get in the car. Let’s keep chasing.”
The off-road vehicle sped past the wrecked car, once again charging toward the unknown.
This time, as they drove forward, the remaining scent in the air grew thicker.
A fleeing ability user without a vehicle wouldn’t be able to get far. Even Su Su could now vaguely sense it—they were close.
Buzz—
The off-road vehicle leaped over another sand dune.
Through the dust-covered windshield, Su Su suddenly spotted a shadow racing ahead at full speed.
“It’s that cheetah!”
She immediately turned the steering wheel, pursuing the rapidly fleeing figure.
Hearing the commotion behind it, the severely wounded cheetah turned its head for a brief moment.
Perhaps recognizing a familiar scent, it finally stopped running and let out a wretched, piercing cry toward the approaching vehicle—
“Meow—!”
At last!
The car skidded to a stop in front of the cheetah.
The moment Su Su saw its condition, her heart clenched painfully once more.
Its limbs were mangled, its fur completely burned away, its entire body scorched black. Most strikingly, its left eye was caked with dried blood, forming a dark brown scab—it was clearly blind!
The once-proud cheetah that Jiang Hong had meticulously raised to peak condition was now reduced to this pitiful state…
“Meow—”
The cheetah’s legs trembled as it stood in place. Even so, it stubbornly dragged itself toward the driver’s side window, its voice raw with grief as it howled in a specific direction.
Su Su felt a sharp sting in her eyes but forced herself to remain composed. “Over there?”
The cheetah nodded.
“Get in. I’ll take you to find them.”
The cheetah studied Su Su with its remaining eye for a long moment.
Su Su did not avoid its gaze. “I will avenge Jiang Hong.”
Upon hearing those words, tears welled up in the cheetah’s remaining eye.
Then, in a flash, it shrank into the form of a small cat and leaped into the front passenger seat.
As soon as it climbed up, the cheetah collapsed onto the seat, its abdomen rising and falling rapidly, panting heavily as if it had long since reached its limit.
Su Su sensed a considerable amount of energy filth within its body. If not for its relentless pursuit of its enemies, fueled by sheer vengeance, it likely wouldn’t have lasted this long.
Both she and Jiang Hong had underestimated their foes.
They had only considered that the Research Guild would be cautious, even cunning and paranoid, but they had never imagined that they would be so ruthless—setting up this trap so far in advance.
A burst of white light seeped into the cheetah’s body.
The exhausted Tier 6 battle pet finally managed to take a few steady breaths. Tears welled up in its dried-out eyes, dripping into the bloodstains below, vanishing into the desert sand. Only an overwhelming hatred remained in its gaze.
The off-road vehicle continued forward for another seven or eight kilometers.
Then, almost simultaneously, the cheetah in the passenger seat and Xuan Mang in the backseat rose abruptly.
“Meow—!”
“Hiss!”
They had found something!
Su Su immediately became fully alert.
She gripped the steering wheel tightly and pushed the accelerator further.
After cresting another sand dune, two familiar figures finally appeared within her line of sight!
One of them clutched their arm, visibly injured. Upon hearing the roaring engine from behind, their expression shifted drastically. In a panic, they forcefully grabbed their companion’s arm and hastened their pace, desperately sprinting toward the endless desert.
But it was destined to be futile.
No matter how fast an ability user was, they couldn’t outrun an off-road vehicle at full speed.
In mere seconds, the chase closed in.