The bug took up a fighting stance.

Its killing intent was bone-chilling.

Su Xi, gun in hand, abruptly retreated. Ever since Zhou Heng confirmed that the bug was still alive, she’d fired several shots into its body—but the Binary Pistol, which had never failed her before, was useless now.

The bug didn’t react at all as the self-destructing parasites continued to burrow into its body.

Only now did Su Xi feel even the slightest fear of the legendary Taboo Species.

Perhaps the bug in front of her wasn’t a monster she should’ve challenged.

It was too late for regrets. The bug had taken up a fighting stance, and in the blink of an eye, it vanished from in front of Su Xi.

Su Xi froze for a moment, but that didn’t stop her from taking a swift step backward as the bug attacked. The instant she touched the shadow behind her, her body turned translucent. Even so, her faintly solid form could still feel something razor-sharp slice past where her physical neck had been. The slash carved a conspicuous mark through the bathroom wall and the distant door.

In a single instant, the bug sliced half the room apart.

But Su Xi wasn’t hurt.

Her ability made her almost immune to physical attacks.

The bug halted its attack. Realizing it had struck the wrong target, it silently turned to face Su Mo behind it, blood spurting from all seven of her orifices. Su Mo gave a miserable smile, then coughed again and again, spitting up blood.

With the bug’s speed and agility, it could’ve taken Su Xi’s head before she had a chance to phase halfway out of reality, even if she’d been ready to defend herself. But at the instant it attacked, Su Mo’s mental assault latched onto it, slowing its strike for less than 0.1 seconds.

To an ordinary person, 0.1 seconds might not mean much. But in a battle between Mutants, 0.1 seconds was the difference between life and death.

The bug began to reassess Su Mo, the human Mutant it had crippled right from the start. After a brief silence, its reasoning organ sent a message to its master.

Kill Su Mo first.

The bug went through the motions of preparing to attack once more. It didn’t need a windup to strike in an instant, but after its battle with humanity’s Upper Calamity Species, injuries all over its body had left it with many openings that would once have been fatal.

Fortunately, neither of the two Mutants present was even capable of seeing those openings.

Its figure vanished from the room again. It moved faster than an ordinary person’s eyes could follow, and its arm blades could slice through diamond—together, the two made it nearly unstoppable.

The bug had no reason to think Su Mo could survive this attack.

Su Mo thought so too. She knew she couldn’t dodge the bug’s attack. Whether she ran, used a mental attack, or called for Su Xi’s help, none of it could save her from being separated from her head by the bug’s overwhelming speed.

But Zhou Heng was here.

When the bug turned to look at Su Xi, she briefly invaded Zhou Heng’s mind. A mental ability user of her level might not be able to completely control an ordinary person’s body, but she could forcibly break through their mental defenses and give them a simple command for a very short time.

As soon as the bug took up its attack stance, Zhou Heng moved away from Zhang Xuan and Lu Yile. The moment the bug vanished, part of Zhou Heng’s body was already in the path of its attack.

The bug’s absolute combat instinct had become its weakness. It always chose the most effective way to attack, which made its next move easy for humans to read.

The bug’s vanished figure finally came to a halt in front of Zhou Heng. Its all-cutting arm blade stopped barely a few centimeters from his forehead.

Zhou Heng’s bleary eyes flew wide open, and cold sweat broke out all over him.

The bone-deep killing intent and the stench of death made Zhou Heng tremble. At last, the young man stopped doubting that all of this was real.

“You guys are seriously doing this?”

Zhou Heng was about to cry.

A hand suddenly appeared behind him and held him by the back. A sharp dagger hovered at his throat.

Zhou Heng instinctively raised both hands.

Su Mo leaned her head out from behind Zhou Heng’s shoulder and said viciously,

“Back off, or I’ll kill him.”

The bug stiffly drew its hand back, calculating how fast it could move now and how long Su Mo would need to slit Zhou Heng’s throat.

Eighty percent.

In the end, the bug figured that if it went all out, it had an eighty percent chance of rescuing Zhou Heng from Su Mo before she cut his throat.

But there was still that other twenty percent.

The bug didn’t dare take the risk.

It took a step back, deciding not to provoke Su Mo.

Zhou Heng heard Su Mo let out a breath from beside his shoulder. Then she shouted angrily,

“Get down over there, hands over your head!”

The bug turned around. Instead of crouching with its hands over its head, it launched another attack at Su Xi.

The bug did care about Zhou Heng, but it wasn’t a complete idiot. It knew perfectly well that Zhou Heng was Su Mo’s shield, and that she wouldn’t dare kill him. So all the bug had to do was capture Su Xi. Hostage for hostage—and then it wouldn’t have to let Su Xi hold it at bay anymore.