Tianjin City was once a bustling metropolis with soaring skyscrapers and heavy traffic.
Who could have guessed that in a matter of days, it would turn into a wasteland?
Overturned vehicles littered the streets, with shattered glass scattered across the ground like hail.
The stink of decay filled the air. Human civilization and order proved fragile in the face of the mutants.
“Humans are simply too weak after all,” Xia Ran muttered in a low voice, heavy exhaustion weighing down his eyes.
Mutants—these invasive creatures—were terrifying.
No one knew where they came from; they seemed to claim the city overnight.
Ordinary human flesh and blood was their favorite food, while standard firearms in human hands did little to stop them.
Everyone kept their nerves strained; the slightest rustle was enough to make their hearts race.
Xia Qing was the sole exception. She felt little tension—because her hands had long been covered in blood.
Besides, she had a single priority in mind: acquiring the energy cores inside those mutants.
These energy cores were the source of a mutant’s power.
While mutants feasted on humans, humans could return the favor by cutting open their skulls and claiming their cores.
If an awakened ability user absorbed a core of a matching attribute, they could advance their strength even further.
Xia Qing understood this well, so she felt no fear toward mutants—only quiet anticipation.
Survival of the fittest!
Qiao Sheng and the others had thoroughly scouted the suburban route using reconnaissance drones.
The screen showed that this path had the fewest mutants around, with only a few scattered dots moving on the map.
So the group decided to proceed along this relatively safe route.
En route, they passed a row of storefronts.
Most had their metal shutters pulled tightly shut, but nearly all the street-facing glass windows were smashed in.
Jagged shards lay scattered across the sidewalk.
A few mini-marts had been looted, with shelves knocked sideways and cash registers flipped onto the floor.
Inside one store, a rotting corpse lay on the ground, surrounded by buzzing flies.
The person was likely killed over supplies during the initial chaos.
In times like these, no one would bother collecting the body.
Once, human life was considered precious and dead bodies were rare; now, human life was the cheapest commodity of all.
However, unlooted goods remained on the shelves—instant noodles, bottled mineral water, biscuits—exposed in plain view, tempting passersby under the sunlight.
Looking at those goods, Xia Qing felt a pang of regret.
These were pristine supplies, completely free from radioactive contamination.
Lin Yao had stored plenty of goods inside her spatial storage, but with her low ability level and limited energy reserves, she couldn’t handle large-scale harvesting.
As for Jin Chao, he had no intention of stopping.
He marched at the very front of the line with fast, steady steps, focused on making progress.
So everyone hurried past those stores without stepping inside.
Wu Fang’s son, however, couldn’t hold back.
The boy was naturally heavy-set, so everyone called him “Little Chubby.”
After days of roughing it outdoors on cold, hard compressed biscuits and stale bread, he hadn’t touched a hot meal once.
His eyes were glowing green with hunger.
The moment he saw the colorful snack wrappers inside the store, his body reacted before his brain could think.
He violently ripped his hand away from Wu Fang’s grip.
Although Wu Fang was an adult, the boy possessed remarkable brute force—fueled, perhaps, by desperate hunger.
She failed to hold him back. Wu Fang cried out in terror: “Don’t run!”
Before her voice faded, Little Chubby surged forward like a cannonball, charging straight into the mini-mart.
The store door had long been smashed, leaving only half a doorframe hanging crookedly.
Despite his size, Little Chubby moved fast, his short legs pumping rapidly.
Wu Fang chased after him with everything she had, but remained one step too late.
Just as Little Chubby rushed inside—before he could even parse what was on the shelves—a dark figure lunged from a shadowed corner.
“Aah—!”
A blood-curdling shriek echoed from inside the store.
Wu Fang’s face drained of color, freezing her in place as if struck by lightning.
A fraction of a second later, she charged inside like a woman possessed.
It was a mutant!
The creature was compact, covered in dark gray scales, with curved sharp claws and rows of needle-like teeth.
It bit down on Little Chubby’s arm, blood running down the boy’s limb and spattering onto the floor.
Distorted by pain, Little Chubby’s face was covered in tears and snot as he cried out helplessly: “Mom! Mom!”
Wu Fang threw herself onto the creature, trying to pry its jaws open with her bare hands.
The mutant whipped its head back and swung its claws, leaving three deep gouges across Wu Fang’s arm.
Wu Fang grunted in pain but didn’t back down; instead, she used her own body to shield her son.
Seeing this unfold, Xia Ran felt his heart leap into his throat.
Before he could tell Xia Qing to be careful, he saw her sprint forward like an arrow shot from a bow.
“That’s too reckless!”
Xia Ran’s heart tightened, and he rushed to keep up.
Yet the moment he crossed the threshold, he was met with a scene that left him speechless.
Xia Qing was gripping a short blade, dark mutant blood dripping from its tip.
The juvenile mutant lay collapsed on the floor, its skull cleaved open, its body twitching faintly.
In her other hand, Xia Qing held a small, grayish-white energy core.
The whole process took less than five seconds.
Xia Ran parted his lips, unable to squeeze out a word.
Too fast—clean, efficient, decisive, without a moment’s hesitation.
Xia Qing stared at the core in her palm, her brow furrowing slightly.
This core was far too small, and it wasn’t pink—which meant she couldn’t absorb its specific attribute.
She tried channeling her Charm ability toward the mutant’s carcass to see if she could alter its attribute, but the attempt failed.
It seemed altering attributes only worked on adult mutants; she noted this pattern silently.
By then, both Xia Ran and Su Bai had caught up.
Although Jin Chao hated delaying their march, he wouldn’t turn a blind eye when trouble struck—after all, he and Xia Ran were close friends.
Standing at the store entrance, he kept a vigilant eye on the street while urging: “Hurry up. The smell of blood will draw more mutants.”
Lin Yao stayed outside.
Whether in her past life or this one, she remained terrified of mutants. They looked too much like monsters out of horror movies.
Lunging at you from dark corners without warning—that kind of terror wasn’t something everyone could overcome.
Not everyone possessed the courage to face mutants, nor the strength to kill them…
Standing behind Xia Qing and staring at his sister’s back, Xia Ran felt a wave of complex emotions well up inside.
He felt his sister had changed—changed immensely.
Decisive in combat, fearless, and even… a bit unfamiliar.
He suspected she had awakened an ability, but since she hadn’t brought it up, he didn’t ask.
When she was ready, she would tell him herself.
Grasping the small core, Xia Qing turned around to face the mother and son lying on the floor.
Little Chubby was wailing hysterically, blood oozing from the wound on his arm.
The skin around the laceration was already turning gray—a sign of infection. Wu Fang was in no better shape; the three claw marks on her arm were similarly showing expanding grayish-black veins.
Xia Qing squatted down, watching them calmly.
“You have only two choices right now.”
Her voice was quiet, yet crystal clear. “First, wait for the infection to take hold and turn you into a zombie—a walking corpse that doesn’t recognize kin.”
She raised the energy core in front of them.
“Second, swallow this mutant core.”
“You can survive, and you might even awaken an ability.”
“However, there is only one core.”
Two people, one core.
Wu Fang’s eyes turned red in an instant.
She looked down at her bleeding arm, then at her son, who was sobbing uncontrollably.
In that moment, maternal love morphed into the most primal, instinctual force—a sacrifice etched directly into DNA.
Strictly speaking, it was genetically hardwired: protect the offspring to ensure the bloodline continues. Otherwise, whether human or animal, the species would have gone extinct long ago.
“Give it to Little Chubby,” Wu Fang said softly, yet her tone remained firm.
She didn’t hesitate, nor did she spare the core another glance.
Xia Qing pinched Little Chubby’s jaw open and slid the core directly down his throat.
Wu Fang felt terrified, her body trembling faintly.
“How long… do I have left before I turn?”