Chapter 114: The Terrifying Parasite Species

At 9:20 PM, Lin Huang arrived at the Summer Palace Hall within the Summer Palace ruins, earlier than expected.

Observing the 360-degree surveillance cameras in every corner and the dense crowds, he found it difficult to act. He could only pace around, waiting patiently.

By 9:50 PM, the sound of loudspeakers echoed simultaneously through all the exhibition halls.

"Attention, visitors. The Summer Palace ruins are open daily from 8:00 AM to 10:00 PM. We are approaching closing time. Please conclude your visit, leave the halls in an orderly fashion, and do not remain on the premises after hours. Staff will begin clearing the halls shortly... We look forward to your next visit!"

Although the ruins stopped admitting new visitors at 9:30 PM and officially operated until 10:00 PM, the gates didn't actually lock until after 10:30 PM. Visitors were typically asked to leave about forty minutes early.

As soon as the announcement sounded, Lin Huang turned and hid in the restroom.

After 10:00 PM, the Summer Palace Hall was nearly deserted, and a group of security guards began clearing the area.

Strangely, this group of guards didn't check any other areas along the way; they headed straight toward the restroom where Lin Huang was hiding.

In the empty, silent hall, the footsteps of the group sounded particularly distinct.

Hearing them from afar, Lin Huang quickly used a Transformation Card, adopting the form of a Ghost Shadow and slipping into the wall.

"No need to hide. Even if you changed your face to deceive our eyes, you can't escape the Master's ability to sense your aura!" The leader of the group, a man with a small mustache, stood before the innermost stall of the restroom.

With a loud bang, he kicked the stall door open. The group was stunned—the stall was empty.

The security guards looked at each other in confusion. "How can there be no one?"

"Check the other stalls!" the mustachioed man barked immediately.

The remaining stalls were quickly kicked open, but they found no trace of Lin Huang.

"Could the Master's aura tracking be wrong?" After a thorough search of the small restroom, the mustachioed man and his group left, frustrated.

"Good thing I had a transformation card, or the face change wouldn't have been enough," Lin Huang said to himself, emerging slowly from the wall and patting his chest with a chuckle.

He peeked outside the restroom and, seeing that the men had moved far away, shifted back into his Ghost Shadow form and sank into the ground, heading toward the location of the parasitic organism.

After descending for about five or six minutes, Lin Huang finally reached an underground cavern.

It did not look like a limestone cave, but rather a fault space caused by tectonic shifts.

The surroundings were pitch black, but fortunately, Lin Huang’s enhanced vision allowed his eyes to function normally in the darkness.

Since he had descended from the restroom, he was disoriented and had to ask Xiao Hei for help.

"Xiao Hei, in which direction is that anomalous energy?"

[Two o'clock position.]

"Wait, it shouldn't be able to sense me in this state, but it should be able to sense you, right?" Lin Huang asked quickly.

[It is merely residual energy with limited willpower and functionality. I have masked my own energy fluctuations; as long as I am over 100 meters away, I will not be detected.]

"Clever!" Lin Huang couldn't help but give a thumbs up.

[Thank you for the compliment, though given your IQ, you are hardly qualified to judge my intelligence.]

"Hey! I finally give you a compliment and you turn around and insult my intelligence? Do you want me to just turn around and go back to Summer Palace City right now?"

[Do you want me to activate the remaining mission card on you right now?]

"...You win!" Lin Huang backed down. He still vividly remembered the days he had been tormented by that mission card. He had meant to find an opportunity to use it, but had been so busy with Life Power cultivation that he had completely forgotten.

"Once I get back to Wulin Town, I am using that mission card first thing!" Lin Huang was resolute. The temporary missions generated by the card were so infuriatingly difficult that he had developed a genuine fear of them.

Following Xiao Hei's directions and navigating several turns, Lin Huang soon saw the anomalous energy, along with a massive vine-like plant coiled around it.

The anomalous energy was a gigantic spherical body, about ten meters in diameter, radiating blinding white light in all directions like a miniature sun.

The light washing over Lin Huang made his internal Life Power flow much more smoothly. Clearly, this energy was beneficial to both humans and monsters; otherwise, the vine-like creature wouldn't have been coiled around it so protectively.

As for the vine monster, it was not any species Lin Huang had seen in his monster handbook.

Its skin was a seductive, blood-red color, as thick as a grown man's arm, and its length was impossible for Lin Huang to judge.

It lay coiled around the energy body like a giant blood-red python, as if guarding a treasure that belonged solely to it.

Lin Huang also noticed that every ten centimeters or so along the blood vine, a small purple flower bloomed.

The flowers were fluffy and spherical like dandelions, only smaller and purple in color.

Although beautiful, the sight made Lin Huang knit his brows.

He naturally recognized these flowers as clusters of parasitic seeds. Each flower contained at least several hundred seeds, and he could see hundreds of these purple flowers within his line of sight.

"It's only at the Bronze level and it can already parasitize tens of thousands of people. If it were allowed to advance to the Transcendent level, a large B-grade stronghold like Summer Palace City would likely be overturned..." Lin Huang’s eyes were filled with apprehension.

Seeing several parasitic seeds drifting in the air toward a crack in the ceiling, Lin Huang finally understood how the monster transported its seeds from the underground to the surface to infect the people of Little Summer City.

Although Little Summer City was only a small D-grade stronghold, its gates had detection systems, making it difficult for ordinary parasites to enter.

However, this parasite grew beneath the Summer Palace ruins, right in the center of Little Summer City. Spreading its seeds was incredibly simple; it just needed to let them drift up through the cracks in the ruins' floor. While the cracks were small, the seeds were composed entirely of Life Power, allowing them to change shape and trajectory under the parasite's control—they could slip through the smallest gaps.

With the ruins bustling with visitors during the day, the parasite could complete its infection process without the slightest effort.

Moreover, this was a new, unknown type of parasite that current instruments couldn't detect. The seeds could leave the ruins on human hosts without being intercepted at the exits. Furthermore, the seeds could use air currents to drift outside the ruins entirely...

Thinking of this, Lin Huang felt a chill. If given enough time, this parasite could likely infect the entire population of Little Summer City.

"This parasite must be eliminated!"

After his observations, Lin Huang decided not to waste any more time. He summoned Charcoal and launched an attack at the python-like vine parasite.