No one noticed the strange change in Liora. Not a single person questioned the eerie calm around their vehicle or the corpses of the insects that lay untouched by weapons.
Everyone was too busy trying to survive—to fight, to kill, and to get the hell out of this godforsaken place that had turned into an insect-infested nightmare.
The quiet, luxurious villa area had turned into a war zone. The team had never imagined, not even in their worst dreams, that this peaceful-looking place would be hiding such a terrifying truth.
They were surrounded by villas with beautiful lawns, trimd hedges, and marble statues, yet the place had beco a nest for thousands of mutated insects. And all of it had started after the strange acid rain that fell a few days ago.
Mutated mosquitoes, hornets, and even houseflies had sward the entire area. Their wings buzzed like thunder, their bodies ten tis or sotis twenty tis their usual size. So of them could even pierce through tal with their stingers.
The team didn’t even know whether this insect plague was limited to just this area or if the entire region had fallen to this horror. But there was no ti to stop and check. First, they had to get out of here alive.
The vehicles swerved and dashed across the winding roads of the villa complex. They passed opulent mansions with shattered windows and blood-streaked gates.
So hos had broken doors where signs of struggle and escape were still visible. Insects crawled over the corpses of forr survivors, feasting on what remained.
Inside the car, Liora sat silently, holding Eli in her lap. Her head was still heavy from what had just happened. She hadn’t shared a word about her soul ability, and no one had asked. Everyone was too preoccupied. Maybe it was for the best.
But she could feel it. Sothing inside her had changed. The thirst for souls had not faded completely. It now sat sowhere deep inside her, quiet for the mont, waiting to be fed again.
They kept going. The vehicles killed insects with every pass—squashing them under wheels, slicing them with mounted blades, and shooting them with their abilities when necessary. But sothing was wrong.
"There’s not a single zombie," Zhao Ren muttered from the passenger seat of his jeep, glancing around. "Not even stray zombies are visible."
"Yeah," Liang Zihan agreed, wiping sweat from her brow. "Where the hell did they all go?"
"It’s like the insects took over and drove them away," Zhou Yinuo added, stabbing a hornet trying to crawl through the side window. "Those bugs don’t leave anything behind. Even zombies are prey to them."
Everyone’s nerves were on edge. They could only hope that once they left this cursed place, things would return to sothing remotely manageable.
But just as they were reaching the outskirts of the villa district, just when a sliver of hope lit up in their eyes, screams rang out from another road nearby.
"RUN!!"
"THE BEES—THEY’RE COMING—!!!"
Everyone turned their heads sharply toward the sound.
From the bend in the road ca a ragged group of survivors, n and won running for their dear lives, covered in blood and dirt, their clothes torn and their faces twisted in terror.
Behind them buzzed a swarm of mutated bees—larger than any they had seen so far. Each one was the size of a dium-sized dog, their wings flapping so fast they created a sharp, piercing sound. Their thick black bodies glistened with an oily sheen, and their stingers were long, sharp, and coated in venom so potent that it burned on contact.
The buzzing grew louder. So loud, in fact, that everyone had to cover their ears.
Liora snapped out of her daze and instinctively pulled Eli closer to her chest. She turned and looked out the back window, her eyes narrowing as the scene unfolded.
The swarm of bees chased the survivors like a cloud of death. The insects weren’t flying randomly—they were focused, enraged, and vengeful. Their behavior was too aggressive, too intentional. It wasn’t normal.
"What the actual—" Zhou Yinuo’s voice cracked.
"Don’t wait!" Zhao Ren barked. "Go! Start the damn engine!"
No one needed to be told twice.
The cars roared back to life with a loud vroom and accelerated without hesitation, kicking up dust and cracked stones. Tires screeched as the vehicles sped forward, trying to put as much distance between themselves and the swarm as possible.
They weren’t heroes. They weren’t going to wait and risk their lives for strangers. Not when those strangers might have been the cause of this chaos.
Behind them, the survivors shouted with panicked desperation.
"WAIT! WAIT FOR US!"
"PLEASE—TAKE US WITH YOU!"
"YOU BASTARDS! DON’T LEAVE US!"
Their voices were shrill, full of disbelief and betrayal. One woman even tried to run faster and bang on the last vehicle’s door, but she couldn’t catch up.
One of the survivors—a younger man with a hard face—suddenly clenched his jaw. His eyes, filled with hate and desperation, locked onto the speeding vehicles.
"Fine," he muttered under his breath. "You wanna abandon us? Let’s see how far you go."
He was a low-level tal-type awakened. Weak but still capable of crafting small tal objects from thin air. With a flick of his fingers, sharp nails ford in the air around his hand.
He aid them toward the vehicle’s tires and shot them like bullets.
CLANG! POP!
The vehicle’s rear tire burst with a loud bang, and the car swerved violently, coming to a screeching halt. Smoke and burning rubber filled the air.
Zhao Ren’s group didn’t notice it imdiately. They were too busy escaping.
Inside the damaged vehicle, Chen Wei cursed loudly. "What the hell?!"
Liora jerked slightly as she looked behind. Her eyes caught a glimpse of the man who had just lowered his hand after using his ability.
A smirk was on his face.
He didn’t plan to survive with the others.
He planned to use them as bait.
"Shaless," Liora muttered through gritted teeth. Her eyes glinted dangerously.
But there was no ti to go back now.
The swarm of bees surged past the halted vehicle and chased after the others, not noticing that one had stopped. The man’s plan had worked. At least, for now.
But Liora knew one thing—she would not forget that face.
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