The man let out a frenzied roar. Realizing it was all in vain, he grew even more unhinged. Clenching his right fist, he slammed it down onto the marble sink—again and again, as if he no longer felt pain.
Boom!
With a deafening crash, the marble sink shattered under his fist. The explosion of sound finally paused his rage for a brief moment.
He slowly raised his head and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, only to be met with a horrifying, grotesque reflection.
The left side of his face barely retained any human resemblance, but the right side looked like it had melted, with skin and muscle hanging like sludge. Worse still, countless worm-like creatures had sprouted from the decaying flesh, writhing and swaying in the air, as if greedily absorbing the nutrients around them.
This man was no longer recognizable as human.
He stared blankly at his reflection, shock flashing through his eyes, quickly followed by a wave of hysteria that tipped him over the edge.
"AAAHHHHH! You monsters! Get off me! GET OFF ME!!"
With his only functional right hand, he began yanking at the squirming worms on his face. He tore them out one by one, pulling away chunks of flesh with them, like ripping weeds from the earth, dirt and all. His face was soon a bloody mess, raw and mangled.
But it was useless.
No sooner had he cleared them than more began to sprout at an alarming rate. The wounds healed rapidly, and even more worms emerged from the regenerating flesh, crawling faster and in greater numbers than before.
"I don't want to see you—I don't want to see any of you!"
"GET AWAY FROM ME!!"
Crash!
He punched the mirror, shattering it instantly. The splintered shards reflected the same nightmare—his face continuously spawning more of those wriggling things, now beginning to spread downward.
To his neck. His shoulders. His chest…
An unbearable itch crawled across his skin. In terror, he tore off his shirt.
Beneath it, his bare upper body was shifting and writhing. The same parasitic worms burst from his skin, one after another, thrashing excitedly in the air.
"I don't want to become a monster!!"
"I'm human—I'M STILL HUMAN!! Get out of my body, you disgusting things!!"
He went berserk, crashing into everything around him—walls, cabinets, anything he could slam into. He clawed at his body, scraping, pulling, desperately trying to tear the worms off his flesh. But no matter how many he pulled, more replaced them, growing faster than he could destroy them.
BANG!
"RAAAAAHHH!!"
Suddenly, a loud crash behind him—zombies had finally broken through the bathroom door. The first wave of over a dozen surged inside, immediately lunging toward the man by the shattered sink.
But the man roared:
"DIE! ALL OF YOU—DIE!!"
The bandages on his severed left arm burst open. From the wound, seven thick tendrils shot out like arrows, each the width of a thumb and tipped with spear-like blades.
The charging low-tier zombies were instantly impaled. Their hard skulls crumbled like tofu under the assault, brain matter splattering in all directions.
The zombies collapsed in rows, like wheat before the scythe. In the blink of an eye, more than thirty of them outside the door were all dead. Not a single one could put up the slightest resistance.
"Hiss... hissss…"
The man said nothing, but the seven tendrils on his severed left arm quivered violently. At their tips, petal-like gill structures trembled in the air, producing a serpentine hiss.
Then—
The tips of each tendril split open, blooming like grotesque flowers, and lunged at the corpses on the floor.
Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle…
The room was filled with the sound of frantic slurping. The seven tendrils began to feast, devouring unknown substances from the bodies of the zombies. The grotesque matter was visibly sucked through the tendrils, surging into the man's body with every pulse.
In his terrified gaze, the thirty-plus corpses were drained dry within seconds, reduced to withered husks of skin and bone. Meanwhile, his abdomen swelled rapidly, bulging outward as something poured into him, writhing just beneath the skin.
"Ugh—!"
"I don't want to eat this! Spit it out! Spit it out!"
"Gah—ugh!"
He collapsed to his knees, gagging and retching, digging his fingers down his throat until it bled—but he couldn't vomit anything except a bit of sour, yellow bile.
The seven tendrils, now bloated and satiated, retracted back into his arm like obedient pets returning to their den. The man, hollow-eyed and dazed, picked up his clothes from the floor and tightly rewrapped the stump of his left arm, pulling the fabric as tight as he could.
"Why… why is it me who has to become a monster…?"
He muttered under his breath. His pitch-black pupils gradually filled with malice, grief giving way to a twisted, festering madness.
"Huan Tian… this is all your fault."
"If it weren't for you, I never would've become like this. All of it—everything—is because of you!"
"I'm going to kill you. I'll tear you apart!"
"Hissssss!"
As if it sensed his excitement, the parasitic creature in his left arm responded with a shrill, eager hiss—like a venomous snake baring its fangs in agreement.
"You feel the same, don't you? Then help me… help me kill Huan Tian!"
"No—no, don't kill him."
"Let him live. Let him suffer like I do. Let him be parasitized too—let him live a life worse than death!"
"HISSSSS!!"
The parasitic mutation let out a piercing cry, like a venomous serpent rearing up, its fangs gleaming in the shadows.
The man's deranged grin spread across his face, madness flooding every inch of his expression. Step by step, he walked out of the bathroom, heading slowly toward the nearby stairwell.
"Huan Tian… come with me. Let's go to hell together."
...
After smearing the flesh and blood of a tier-three zombie outside the room, Huan Tian and Lin Qingqing didn't hear a single zombie howl all night. It was the first time in days that they could sleep peacefully through the night.
Their relationship quietly deepened during this tranquil night. Upon waking in the morning, Lin Qingqing felt exceptionally joyful, a rare, relaxed smile gracing her face.
"Check the equipment, eat breakfast, clean up, change into two sets of clean clothes, and be ready downstairs in fifteen minutes."
Huan Tian's orders were as concise and precise as always, carrying the cold rhythm of military training. Lin Qingqing was already accustomed to this icy, efficient lifestyle.
After breakfast, Huan Tian began the final preparations.
They packed all their equipment into the storage space, leaving only the basic weapons and essential items.
About to enter the thirty-sixth floor, Huan Tian didn't want any extra supplies to be noticed by prying eyes.
He tied a bone dagger on the inside of his calf, hidden beneath his pant leg; another axe, taken from the warehouse and stained with zombie blood, hung at his waist. His backpack contained only two bottles of water and two ration bars.
Lin Qingqing wore a short skirt and tied a bone dagger at the root of her thigh, naturally concealed by the skirt. Then, they each tucked several bone shards, carefully polished by Huan Tian, behind their waists—extremely sharp and deadly in a critical moment.
From the outside, they perfectly fit the image of survivors.
They descended to the thirty-sixth floor through a maintenance worker's passage. Although the passage door was locked from the outside, the inside was clear of any clutter or debris. The ground outside was covered in black, dried blood stains—evidence that someone regularly cleared zombies daily to keep this exit unobstructed.
Huan Tian clenched his fist and knocked on the door.