Part 2
It reminded him of the group of heritage chickens his grandmother used to raise. Those chickens were free-range, and you had to close the gates to catch them. If one accidentally slipped out, it might get spooked and refuse to come home.
What did Luo Shizhen do back then?
He would nimbly chase it down, follow it all the way until he caught it, bring it home, and turn it into a pot of delicious chicken soup.
Now… it was the same, wasn’t it?
Luo Shizhen thought fuzzily. Smelling this fragrance, he felt as if his whole being was floating.
Wait, it didn’t just feel like he was floating; he really was drifting upward.
Luo Shizhen had a very strange sensation. It felt like he was growing biggerâvery, very big. Bigger than Yongzhou, bigger than Luoxia City.
A wisp of white fog slowly fluttered upward, quickly becoming transparent and invisible. It passed through the laboratory ceiling and headed outside, following that fragrant, savory scent, leaping across rivers and mountains at an incredible speed.
Cities, mountains, rivers, farmlandsâthese scenes blurred past Luo Shizhen. He saw nothing now except that savory roasted chicken.
Roasted chicken, roasted chicken, roasted chicken, roasted chicken.
After crossing an unknown number of cities, Luo Shizhen saw a colossal Angel.
Its form was enormous, with massive white wings spread wide. Its height alone was at least a thousand meters. It sat upon a mountain range; to it, the high peaks were merely a seat.
As if sensing Luo Shizhenâs arrival, its downcast eyes slowly opened. From a great distance, its gaze fell upon him, as if observing his appearance.
If this were before, Luo Shizhen would have looked at it curiously, but now, his mind was filled with nothing but roasted chicken, roasted chicken, roasted chicken.
Luo Shizhen ignored the Angel. He followed the scent directly, impatiently descending upon a certain mountain peak. As he drifted for longer, his memories and sanity slowly blurred. He became Him.
Inside the mountain peak, a toad-headed creature with twisted human limbs was currently ripping an arm off a corpse and stuffing it into its own body, trying to plug it in more securely.
Its body was covered in viscous liquid and similar venom. Human limbs were scattered all over the ground, and several small venomous toads were huddled over them, gnawing.
Some small venomous toads got into a fight over the food. the loser lost a leg, and several other toads lunged at it, dismembering and devouring their own kind. Soon, not even a bone was left.
The Toad-Man looked at this scene with an expression of disgust.
A venomous toad perched on his shoulder spat out black mist and let out a cackling laugh:
“Youâre disgusted by them? Weren’t you a human yourself once? Now youâre harming your own kind just the same.”
“I am not of the same kind as those lowly biological humans! I will become a supreme existence!”
The Toad-Manâs speech was slurred. His tone would alternate between drawn-out and frantic, and sometimes, he would transition into a toadâs croak mid-sentence.
He shook his head, and a patch of facial skin fell off. He hurriedly pressed it back on, then tore off a human face-skin to layer over his own face.
The black toad on his shoulder, however, spoke with clear enunciation, sounding even more articulate than the former human:
“You humans claim your kind doesn’t eat its own, yet for all sorts of strange reasons, you still prey on one another.”
“We anomalies are different. For all anomalies, itâs the big eating the small, and the small eating the smaller. That is the law of survival. These little toads devour each other to gain more power, little knowing that to me, they themselves are merely snacks.”
As it spoke, it flicked out its tongue, quickly rolling up several small toads into its mouth. It chewed a few times, as simple as eating a piece of candy.
The Toad-Man showed a look of revulsion. “You… are truly disgusting.”
“Before you talk about me, you should look in a mirror. If I hadn’t parasitized you, you would have been killed by a car long ago. Stop talking nonsense and get moving. Go find more food for me.”
The Toad-Man slowly lowered his head and picked up a mascot costume, pulling it over himself.
“Iâve already lured so many people here for you. When will you give me power that transcends humanity? I want to be as strong as you!”
The black toad let out a series of giggles. “That depends on how much food you can bring me next.”
The black mist on its body flowed continuously into the Toad-Manâs mind. As more mist entered, the Toad-Manâs movements became more sluggish. Conversely, the black toad began to acquire more and more of his memories.
In about three days, this body would be entirely replaced by the black toad, becoming its permanent shell.
The black toad felt a bit of regret. The body it had originally set its sights on wasn’t this useless, pathetic human.
That had been a fifth-rank Awakener with a robust physiqueâa fine body, and the best body it could reach at its current stage.
What a pity it had all been for naught.
Just as it had finally managed to pollute the man, a few human Awakeners had appeared, rescued him, and heavily injured the toad.
This forced it to hide in the mountains to recover, relying on such a useless human to obtain food.
But… it didn’t matter.
That strong human had already been polluted by it. As long as he wasn’t dead, once its wounds were healed, it could follow that aura all the way back and reclaim its body.
The black toad looked at the scattered limbs on the ground. Its tongue rolled up an arm and swallowed it quickly, a satisfied look appearing in its bulging eyes.
It loved this place. The food was weak and plentiful; it didn’t have to work hard to get full. The powerful Great Ones were all in deep slumber, so it didn’t have to worry about being eaten itself.
The only trouble was that group of annoying Awakeners. If it showed its head even slightly and ate just a few people, those humans would hunt it down.
Fortunately, it could parasitize. It didn’t need to show its face; as long as it manipulated a few humans, it could find plenty of food.
The black toad stared with disdain at the body of the human it parasitized, thinking that the knowledge in his head was far too shallow. His mind was filled with nothing but finding women, striking it rich, and transmigrating to ancient times to build a harem.
Eating his memories felt like it hadn’t helped at all in understanding humans.
What a waste of its energy!
Thinking about the memories of human academic degrees in its mind, the black toad decided its next target should be a formidable human to parasitize.
For example, in this humanâs memory, there was an expert on TV who sat and talked eloquently about being a descendant of many generations, specializing in treating such-and-such diseases.
Supposedly, the number of diseases he could specifically treat exceeded a dozen. In the useless humanâs memory, the expert appeared in various interview segments, and one only needed to dial a human hotline to contact him.
This expert must surely possess great human knowledge. He would be the next memory to be devoured.
Clad in the mascot costume, the Toad-Man swayed, moving sluggishly as he prepared to walk out. Suddenly, he froze.
“What is… this feeling?”
“Itâs terrifying… like drowning… as if Iâm surrounded by water, crushing me until I can’t breathe…”
The toad head felt the same. “You idiot! This is Rank Suppression! Thereâs a powerful being of our kind nearby! Get me out of here, fast!”
The Toad-Man didn’t budge. His voice turned shrill with terror:
“I can’t move! I can’t move!!”
The black toad understood him, because it couldn’t move either.
No, this shouldn’t be happening.
Those powerful forces should all be in slumber. Even if they woke up, they shouldn’t come to such a backwater place.
Surely the number of humans in any large city added together would be more delicious than it?
The Toad-Man knew nothing. He only knew that the fear rising from the depths of his soul was nearly crushing him. Not only was his body immobilized, but even his gradually rotting heart felt as if it were being squeezed by an external force, constantly shrinking back.
“Help!! Help me!! I don’t want to be an anomaly anymore! Let me go! I want to be human again!!!”
âBang!
A soft, crisp sound rang out. Facing that powerful aura, his polluted heart couldn’t withstand the pressure and exploded on its own.
The Toad-Manâs eyes were wide. Even in death, he couldn’t understandâhadn’t he received help from an external power? Shouldn’t he have become a protagonist of the era, as if heâd been given a “Golden Finger” cheat? How could he just die like that?
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