Zhou Jiao calmly pressed her biochemical filtration mask tighter and walked beneath one of the overhead mist dispensers.
A blast of concentrated artificial pheromones instantly smothered her natural scent.
Like corpses losing the trail of a living human, all the others emitted harsh, metallic creaks from their neck joints as they twisted their heads in unison, turning away and dragging themselves toward other directions.
That moment—when those countless shadowy figures turned at once, accompanied by the sharp grating of moving bones—was enough to chill the blood.
Zhou Jiao shivered uncontrollably, then suddenly turned and sprinted in the opposite direction.
The grotesque scene, the plunging temperature, the chaotic uncertainty of flight—her heart pounded violently, adrenaline surging.
She no longer had the clarity to tell if this feeling was terror… or exhilaration.
Yes, even though she might be captured by Jiang Lian at any moment and locked away forever in some monstrous, fleshy nest—she still felt a strange, unspeakable thrill.
To him, she was nothing but a tiny ant.
And yet, he was desperately searching for this ant.
He was all-powerful—capable of twisting the minds of everyone around him in an instant.
And yet, he could not control her will.
He was aloof, above all things, incapable of feeling affection for anyone.
And yet, he was slowly becoming enslaved by his desire to possess her.
She'd once fallen into a deep coma, and in that moment, he could've locked her away forever—kept her, regardless of whether she had consciousness or not. After all, caged is caged. What difference does it make whether the bird is awake?
But he made his answer clear through action:
There is a difference. He wanted her to wake up.
She remembered him standing at the end of the corridor, eyes full of terrifying intensity. Maybe, just then, he'd realized that she had used the chip to induce the coma on purpose—to escape.
But still, he sent her to the company's care.
And to avoid disturbing the medics or interfering with the equipment, he had backed away from her, step by step.
What was he thinking at that moment?
Was he thinking, even if she tries to run, I can always bring her back easily?
If not for the company's artificial pheromones, he really could have.
But unfortunately for him, there were no what-ifs.
Zhou Jiao almost wanted to tell him:
What you feel for me is no longer just desire or possessiveness.
But she probably wouldn't get the chance to say it to his face.
She shoved Jiang Lian from her thoughts, cleared her mind, and tried to recall the biotech tower's floor plans—blueprints she had memorized countless times—searching for the shortest escape route.
After a moment, she opened her eyes, pulled out the electromagnetic gun at her hip, and fired—bang! bang! bang! bang!—four shots, shattering the floor-to-ceiling window. Then she slammed her elbow into the weakened glass, and with a sharp crash, it burst like a wave of glass rain.
If she remembered correctly, biotech security personnel were equipped with grappling guns—firing lines with metal claws sharp enough to dig deep into reinforced steel.
She reached behind her waist—yes, it was there.
Zhou Jiao yanked out the grappling gun, flipped off the safety, and fired without hesitation.
—There was no way to suppress the sound of that thing.
The moment the claw bit into the metal floor, a teeth-gritting screech rang out, loud enough to shake the whole level.
Though the corrupted guards had lost their minds, they retained a predator's vigilance. At once, they turned toward the noise and began walking toward it.
All around her, dense black shadows began to shift.
A few of the nearest figures were already stretching their hands toward her, reaching for her arms without awareness.
There was no time to climb down.
Zhou Jiao took a deep breath, gripped the grappling gun tight, stepped back—then sprinted forward and leapt straight through the shattered window!
In that instant, a bizarre memory flashed through her mind:
Do you know why bungee cords are elastic?
Because elasticity absorbs the impact. If you used a regular rope, the sudden jolt of the fall could kill you instantly.
Thank god, the rope in her hand was a dynamic line, designed to absorb shocks.
Still, she needed to find some impact buffers.
In midair, she twisted her body and slammed hard into the glass wall ahead. Using the rope's elasticity, she absorbed a massive portion of the downward force—painful, but survivable.
Anyone else would've been dazed by that collision.
But she grit her teeth and pushed through. Her arms were taut with tension, gripping the grappling gun with white-knuckled strength as she ghosted down the building's metallic surface at high speed.
She didn't dare to focus too closely on each floor as she passed, but fragmented images still flickered through her vision.
—The entire biotech tower had been overrun by purple-black tentacles. What was once a shining monument of steel and glass had turned into a grotesque, dripping nest of flesh.
In the dim light, all that could be seen were the shadows of the writhing limbs and the shifting glow beneath a membrane of meat—ghostly blue spots pulsing beneath the surface.
As the seconds ticked by, the shadows grew more twisted, more terrible, and the soft glow began to change—from haunting, ethereal blue to an ominous, blood-black hue.
Zhou Jiao felt a chill crawl down her spine.
About 19% of all bioluminescent light in nature is blue. In seawater, blue travels farthest—red wavelengths are lost just 10 meters below the surface.
So unless Jiang Lian had altered the biology of light, it could only mean one thing:
He had become so consumed by rage—so utterly unhinged—that the blood-flushed mass of his tentacles had swallowed even the bioluminescent blue glow.
He wasn't just enraged anymore.
He was completely, terrifyingly out of control.
Although Jiang Lian had influenced everyone's minds, he lacked the patience to wait for them to slowly sniff her out. He was preparing to wrap the entire building in his tendrils, sealing her inside completely.
—But these were only fleeting thoughts flashing through Zhou Jiao's mind. She was still in midair, not yet landed.
Just then, she glanced downward—and her pupils contracted sharply.
The tendrils on the ground floor were several times more numerous than on the other levels!
The worst part was—they seemed to have anticipated that she would leap from above. Several of the thickest fleshy appendages had spread out like the fronds of a sea anemone, poised like a massive carnivorous plant, cold and patient, awaiting its prey to fall into its maw.
Zhou Jiao's eyelid twitched.
In a split second, she yanked out her electromagnetic gun and fired four shots at the glass wall of the floor below—BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
Then she pushed off with her feet and swung backward. As the momentum carried her forward again, she crashed through the newly shattered glass—shards raining down like a storm—and rolled as she hit the floor.
By sheer luck, this level hadn't yet been overrun by those black-red tendrils.
She sprang to her feet and turned to find an exit—
Suddenly, a cold, skeletal hand emerged from the shadows and clamped tightly around her wrist!
·
Jiang Lian stood on the top floor of the building, expression dark and violent, gazing through the panoramic glass at the scene below.
He seemed to have plunged into a state of unimaginable madness. Cracks kept opening and closing across his face, neck, and body—as if countless eyes were blinking open and shut—trying to unleash the monstrous force trapped within him.
But every time a crack opened, some strange force forcibly closed it again.
Because of this human shell, he couldn't wield all his power. He could only borrow human olfactory organs to search for her scent—floor by floor, inch by inch.
But he couldn't find her.
Couldn't find her.
COULDN'T FIND HER!!!
All this time, she had always been under his control.
Even during the three-day chase, he had never truly lost track of her.
Whenever he wanted to find her, he could always sniff out her presence.
She was prey kept tightly within his grasp—she couldn't possibly escape his senses.
If she were in the ocean, even if only a single molecule of her scent existed in the water, he could still locate her with terrifying precision.
But now—no matter how many people's minds he hijacked, no matter how many noses he borrowed—he couldn't detect a single trace of her through the suffocating artificial pheromones.
—He could, barely. But every time he caught the faintest whiff, it would be overwhelmed by the next surge of synthetic scent.
Like a thread sawing at his nerves over and over again, the sensation was enough to drive him mad.
No—he was already mad.
Jiang Lian closed his eyes.
Irritation, rage, terror... and a creeping fear of losing her, wrapped around his heart like a poisoned spider's web, slowly tightening with excruciating pressure.
Every breath felt like acid eating away at his chest.
Even if he didn't want to admit it, he had to face the truth—
…He had fallen in love with her.
The reflection in the glass revealed his current appearance.
He had lost all human traits, now just a warped and shifting silhouette.
Before, he hadn't understood why he cared about such a tiny human being. So he had forced her to endure a relentless hunt, trying to extract some logical explanation.
—But after three days, it wasn't she who went mad. It was him.
On the rooftop, he had known she was playing him. Known she wasn't the type to kill herself. Yet when she jumped, he had still leapt after her.
Just like now—he knew she'd induced her coma just to escape him.
And still, to wake her up, he had suppressed the overwhelming urge to possess her and backed away step by step, personally giving her the chance to flee.
—He understood everything, yet still let her fool him willingly.
He was a higher being, something humans couldn't even begin to comprehend.
Between him and humans lay insurmountable natural laws—just like predators and prey could never reproduce together.
—But he, a predator, had fallen for his prey.
Every heartbeat, every breath, every swallow of her saliva—his body screamed that he loved her.
This unfathomable, godlike entity had fallen for a mere human.
And because of that, everyone else had become hopelessly obsessed with Zhou Jiao under the influence of his emotions.
…Except for him. He alone had failed to realize it—that the raging, restless violence he mistook for killing intent was in fact love.
In the reflection of the glass, Jiang Lian's figure became even more distorted.
Realizing he was feeling human emotions made his skin and flesh peel away more violently—but each time they dissolved, another power surged in to fill the gaps.
Blood and meat melted, sloughed off in chunks, healed, melted, healed again… from face to body, he was now drenched in gore. With his grotesquely swollen, black-red tendrils and tall figure, he looked more monstrous than ever.
Yet this abomination was trapped in emotions only humans could possess.
Zhou Jiao's escape left him filled with regret and fear.
But he didn't even know what, exactly, he regretted or feared.
Until now, he hadn't even understood what "love" was.
He only knew slaughter, plunder, and possession.
That was how a top predator got what it wanted—there was no fourth option.
He couldn't even imagine a fourth option.
His life had been so long, like low thunder rumbling endlessly across a clouded horizon, existing since the dawn of creation, before flesh and spirit were ever divided—yet never knowing who it was rumbling for.
Now he finally knew.
His heart thundered—for Zhou Jiao.
But he couldn't find her.
And he didn't know what to do with her anymore.
Because of her, for the first time in his life—
He was completely, utterly at a loss.