Chapter Sixty-Six: Dream or Reality

"Marvelous, truly marvelous! Now everyone is here, hahaha."

“Hm? There’s something off about you. You’re a failure, only this woman is a finished product. It seems I was right—this bizarre foreign substance really can alter the genetic sequence of the living! It has almost no effect on low-level corpses.”

“If I hadn’t arrived here to inhale some before my mutation, I probably wouldn’t have recovered part of my memory, nor developed human thought. What a pity, what a shame that was the last of the dust.”

The lab coat’s arm was severed, yet its smile remained undiminished. Its sinister, blood-red eyes flickered back and forth between me and Huo Bing.

Huo Bing stood with her back to me, blade aimed at the lab coat, her voice ringing with anger: “You twisted monster, you must die today!”

With that, she actually charged him head-on.

It seemed this brutal clash had already been raging for a while.

From my observation, Huo Bing’s speed and strength had both undergone a qualitative leap, far surpassing that of an ordinary person.

That brat Shen Dong likely wasn’t half as agile as Huo Bing was now.

“Hahaha! You think you can kill me? Foolish dreamers! I can feel the power of the moonlight rampaging within me, but today I’ve no interest in a direct confrontation. We’ll meet again if fate allows!” The lab coat suddenly pulled something from behind its back.

Damn it!

It was my grenade!

“Huo Bing! Get down!” I rushed forward, grabbing Huo Bing and diving away with her.

Boom!

After the explosion, I lifted my head to look for the lab coat, but the creature had vanished without a trace.

“That thing got away…”

I looked down at Huo Bing, who lay motionless beneath me.

“Huo Bing, are you alright?”

“Brother Cao… could you please turn around…”

I was a little confused—what was this about?

“I… I don’t look very good right now, I’m afraid I’ll ruin the image you have of me… sob…”

Well, this little girl was actually crying.

I helped her up and forcibly turned her around; she deliberately covered her face with both hands.

What on earth was she hiding?

Could it be she’d turned into a corpse? But she didn’t look like it.

She was clearly still human.

“Come on, move your hands away.”

“No…”

I was growing impatient, so I grabbed her hands and pulled them down.

This… this seemed perfectly normal.

I just noticed she was wearing a hat she must have snatched from somewhere.

Could it be she’d gone bald?

With a whimper, Huo Bing sat upright and finally opened her eyes.

Crimson pupils, just like those of a corpse. And not a low-level one.

Low-level corpses had pale or deep blue eyes. The higher ones had blood-red.

“What’s the fuss? You actually look more alluring, nothing like a nineteen-year-old girl—how wonderful.” I teased her with a grin.

Huo Bing’s face instantly brightened, and then she took off her hat.

Good heavens!

A head of silvery white hair—what was going on?

“You… you woke up like this?” I stared at her in surprise. This was truly bizarre.

Just as the lab coat had said, the dust had altered her genetic sequence.

Her appearance had changed along with it.

But there was an upside—she hadn’t fully transformed into a corpse.

The claw marks on her chest had vanished, and her bare skin was once again smooth and supple.

“Am I… ugly?” Huo Bing looked at me, worry clouding her face.

If I showed even the slightest disgust or any other expression now, she probably wouldn’t be able to take it.

“Haha, ugly? How could anyone I fancy be ugly? I never spare a second glance for unattractive girls.” I flicked her forehead. Good grief, what goes on in this girl’s head all day?

Women are, after all, born to love beauty.

Even now, she cared about her looks—though perhaps it was because I was here.

A person’s last words, after all, are true.

I still remembered what she’d said in the reactor.

“What do you mean, someone you fancy… Ah… Brother Cao, are you saying…” Huo Bing’s face was torn between surprise and delight, her eyes wide as she stared at me.

I shook my head. Was this girl a fool?

“Get up and let’s get to work. There are so many corpses—let’s blow them up!” I pulled Huo Bing to her feet, glancing coldly at the factory district echoing with wails.

The entire factory was in chaos now; getting back in was impossible.

Unless Old Four grew large again, but in his half-dead state, that was wishful thinking.

“There’s still plenty of chemicals left in the tank area. Once the power was connected, the black smoke started billowing—the process began on its own.” I looked at the towering tanks and discussed the plan with Huo Bing.

We’d return to the dorms to fetch incendiary bombs, then split up to place them beside the tanks.

At the very least, the targets had to be exposed, so that even from several kilometers away, I could hit them with a single shot.

With the range of the God of the Waves, as long as I could see the target, nothing was impossible.

Half an hour later.

Huo Bing, Old Four, and I burst out of the chemical plant, everything ready.

All that remained was—

Wait?

Where’s the car!?

Damn it—where did the car go!

I was stunned for a tenth of a second, then realized instantly.

“The lab coat! That damned corpse, next time I see you, you’re finished!” I roared in a low voice.

It had to be him—he must have driven off while escaping!

He couldn’t unlock the car’s system, but driving it was no problem. He’d been a researcher, after all.

He might have even studied automotive technology.

Huo Bing was dumbfounded as she stared at the empty lot, blaming herself. “It’s all my fault. If only I’d killed him, this wouldn’t have happened! Brother Cao, what do we do now…”

I rubbed my throbbing forehead—things were getting trickier by the minute.

Losing the car was a small matter; losing our gear, too.

Those were the immediate troubles.

Looking further ahead—

Now even corpses could drive! Could they also use firearms?

Though corpse types like the lab coat were surely rare, the thought was terrifying.

My mind returned to the present—the most pressing problem was the missing car, along with the God of the Waves sniper rifle.

What a mess!

“He can drive… Thank goodness he can’t shoot. Otherwise, he’d have blown our heads off the moment we showed ourselves. I have no doubt he’d do it—he’d want revenge for that lost arm,” I muttered to myself.

Huo Bing exclaimed, “The corpses are turning the world upside down. If they can drive and shoot… I can’t even imagine. But what do we do now…”

“We go back—to the main control room inside the factory. I checked before; the control room is built extremely solid, probably to withstand explosions. If we seal it off, we should be safe,” I said after a moment’s thought.

“But if we all hide in the control room… how will we blow up the plant?” Huo Bing looked at me anxiously, then lowered her head. “Maybe we should… just leave?”

Honestly, I had considered leaving. Huo Bing, Old Four, and I had only just escaped death.

We’d nearly lost our lives here—rushing into danger again was unwise.