As the fat man lunged forward with a ferocious grimace, Yin Zhen cried out and swung the knife wildly like she had lost control, the blade slicing erratically through the air.
"Stay away! Don’t come any closer—" she shrieked.
Her trembling sobs perfectly portrayed a desperate victim, but the trajectory of her swings intentionally exposed a massive opening.
"Fuck!"
As expected, the fat man grabbed her wrist. Yin Zhen took the opportunity to release her grip, allowing him to snatch the knife and plunge it fiercely into her left shoulder. Warm blood instantly soaked her clothes.
She let out a muffled groan of pain. In the split second the fat man smirked triumphantly, a cold light flashed in her eyes.
Fueled by rage and the adrenaline rush from their life-and-death struggle, her hands clamped like a vice over the fat man’s knife-wielding hand. Like the final, desperate counterattack of someone on the brink of death, she shoved his hand forcefully upward!
"Get away from me!!!"
SQUELCH!
The blade precisely slit the carotid artery on the side of the fat man’s neck. The angle was perfect, and the force was just right. Boiling red liquid instantly sprayed out, scalding Yin Zhen and making her shudder.
"Urgh... Urgh..."
The fat man clutched his spurting neck in shock and collapsed to the floor, his convulsing legs kicking over the trash can.
The surveillance camera in the living room was pointed directly at this scene.
With her back to the lens, Yin Zhen lay face down in the pool of blood. Her shoulders heaved violently as if she were terrified and breaking down in tears.
However, on her face that was shrouded in shadow, the corners of her lips were curling up uncontrollably.
She lowered her eyes, admiring the entire process of the fat man’s pupils dilating until his body slowly stopped twitching.
At this moment, the despair after the car accident, the humiliation of being confined to a wheelchair, the devastating truth of her Identity, the fear of being treated as an experimental consumable, the agony of broken bones, and the fury of almost being strangled to death...
Everything found its ultimate release!
"Help... Help me!!!"
Her hoarse scream pierced the dead silence. As if she had just come to her senses, Yin Zhen dragged her paralyzed legs and crawled toward the front door. Her bloodstained fingers fumbled several times before she managed to pull the door open with trembling hands.
Outside, the hallway was crowded with neighbors who had rushed over at the noise. They froze in terror at the bloody scene inside.
Yin Zhen raised her head. Beneath her messy black hair, her blood-smeared face was mostly red and swollen, and the corners of her mouth were split. She played the perfect role of a victim.
"Help me... call the police..."
Amidst the chaotic uproar, Yin Zhen leaned quietly against the doorframe, staring at the countdown that still hovered above her head.
[71:52:05]
She looked down at her hands, which were covered in the fat man’s blood.
Now that the sense of danger had passed, a strange sensation exploded from the depths of her soul. Her throat bobbed uncontrollably.
Acting almost on instinct, Yin Zhen raised her hand. With a sense of exploration and an involuntary craving, her bloodstained fingers slowly brushed across her dry lips.
The moment her tongue tasted that slightly salty, rusty metallic flavor, her pupils shrank sharply!
"I’m in the late stages of liver cancer and beyond saving. I will definitely handle this matter beautifully for you and make her disappear without a trace, as long as you..."
"Don’t worry, the cash has already been handed over to your son. Keep it clean. I’ll wait for your news."
Fragments of the fat man’s memories flashed through Yin Zhen’s mind, exactly like what had happened after she killed the Fallen Species.
This fat man really was hired by someone from Sheng Yehan’s family to kill her!
Yin Zhen closed her eyes, focusing her vision on the two Gray Cards in the darkness.
The card depicting her in a wheelchair remained tattered, but in contrast, S717’s Gray Card seemed to have become somewhat "sturdier."
The illustration on the back of the card had changed; it now showed the short-haired S717 wearing goggles, aiming a gun with a focused expression.
With a thought, Yin Zhen flipped both cards over and looked at S717’s first.
[Character: SHL-717]
Race: Blood Clan
Identity: Saint Group Experimental Subject
Life Value: 19% (Severely Injured)
Strength: 23 (Made progress)
Constitution: 25 (Can take one punch from Victor; the second will kill you)
Wisdom: 8 (Brain is itching)
Agility: 25 (Moves like a hare but still slower than a bullet)
Luck: 1
Skills: Basic Fighting, Basic Firearms, Basic Driving
Transcendent: B-level Blood Source Resonance (D-level Super Sensing)
Yin Zhen wasn’t in a hurry to check the Transcendent category; instead, she looked at the card of her original body.
As expected, by equipping S717’s Character Card, she had gained S717’s power!
[Player: Yin Zhen (S717 Equipped)]
Race: Human
Identity: Cannon Fodder in a CEO Novel (Total word count: 1233)
Life Value: 71% (Stabbed in the shoulder)
Strength: 5+23 (Equipping a Character Card will stack the card’s attribute value; the same applies below)
Constitution: 5+25 (A strong cripple)
Wisdom: 10+8 (Wisdom does not directly equal IQ; it is also related to the Character’s spiritual power, focus, etc.)
Agility: - (What use does a cripple have for Agility?)
Luck: -1+1 (Ummm... a qualitative leap)
Skills: Basic Fighting, Basic Firearms, Basic Driving
Transcendent: B-level Blood Source Resonance (D-level Super Sensing)
[Important Addition!] Character Assimilation Degree: 19% (When a Player equips a Character Card, the traits of the other Character will also influence the Player. As the Assimilation Degree increases, the Character’s side effects will gradually intensify. 50% is the warning line; if it exceeds 90%, the Character Card cannot be unequipped, and you will become an anomaly in your own world.)
While she was reading, the Character Assimilation Degree rose by another 1%, reaching 20%.
The smell of blood in the room suddenly became overwhelmingly intense. The extreme craving for blood almost made Yin Zhen lose control, tempting her to crawl back and feast. She quickly chanted in her mind to unequip the Character Card.
[Character Card unequipped.]
Her body felt as if all its strength had been drained in an instant. Pale-faced, Yin Zhen slumped to the ground like a puddle of mud, completely sapped of energy.
Her heart began to beat violently, and she shivered uncontrollably, her limbs numb and weak.
Compared to being S717, this current sensation was truly unpleasant and left her feeling utterly insecure.
However, after unequipping the Character Card, the Assimilation Degree dropped by 1%. Yin Zhen continued to observe it, figuring that it would slowly return to zero over time.
The onlooking neighbors in the hallway dared not come forward to help her up. They stood far away, watching and whispering among themselves.
Yin Zhen pushed herself up into a sitting position and leaned against the door, closing her eyes to study S717’s Extraordinary Ability.
Under normal circumstances, only Pure Blood Nobles in the Red Corpse World possessed Extraordinary Power; a small number of human survivors and very few of the Dusk People would awaken them accidentally.
But S717 was clearly not normal; she was an artificially manufactured product of the Blood Clan.
[Transcendent]: B-level Blood Source Resonance
[Effect]: By ingesting blood, one can read a portion of the target’s memories and has a probability of gaining a resonance ability matching one of the target’s Extraordinary Abilities. The upper limit is 3.
Grants immunity to blood source pollution among the same kind. The amount of memory read and the probability of gaining a resonance ability depend on the quantity and quality of the ingested blood.
[Note]: You can only achieve resonance with Extraordinary Abilities that are ≤ B-level; abilities exceeding B-level will be forcibly downgraded to match. Once the limit of 3 abilities is reached, any new ability will randomly replace an old one, and you cannot designate which to keep (the first to arrive isn’t necessarily the first to go; an Advanced ability might be replaced by a Basic one).
[Resonated Abilities]:
D-level Super Sensing (From an unfortunate Blood Clan grunt)
Effect: Enhances basic sensory acuity.
Explanation: When this Fallen Species was alive, it awakened A-level Super Sensing, which could perceive spiritual power fluctuations and emotional buzzing. Due to your insufficient Blood Source Resonance Level and inadequate blood intake, only its lowest-tier D-level form was extracted (Seller’s showcase: A-level; Buyer’s reality: D-level).
After reading this, Yin Zhen felt something was amiss. The Blood Source Resonance ability seemed like standard equipment for a main character.
Yet it had somehow ended up in her hands.
Could this be a gift that had its price secretly marked, one that would force her to pay a massive toll in the future?
Yin Zhen only worried for a moment before pushing the anxiety aside. For every day she had this ability, she would make good use of it. Every extra day she got to use it was a profit!
"System, can you tell me what the Invasion Game is really all about now? Why was I chosen? What is your goal?"
[Gray Card authority is insufficient; unable to disclose.]
"If I were the main character, would you tell me?"
[I would tell you everything I know.]
"..."
So cannon fodder really isn’t treated as human, huh?!