A strong, broad back appeared before the two of them. The muscles were full and well defined, yet there was no sign of the parasitic house mice.

“This…”

Yang Yi had no explanation. He even began to suspect he had wronged an innocent man.

The tension at the scene kept rising.

The guard had already started trembling. His hand rested on the pistol at his waist, but he did not dare draw it.

“Captain?”

He called out, his voice shaking, unsure what to do.

Because even if he drew his gun… he still wouldn’t be able to win.

“Don’t panic!”

Yang Yi suddenly raised a hand, signalling the guard to calm down, then reached toward Horace’s jeans.

The moment he undid them, a small house mouse darted out. Yang Yi crushed it underfoot on the spot.

“See?”

Yang Yi yanked down Horace’s pants and discovered seven or eight house mice parasitizing his buttocks. They scattered in panic, trying to flee, only to be stomped to death one by one by Yang Yi.

After killing all the mice, Yang Yi let out a long breath.

Just moments ago, he had noticed movement beneath Horace’s pants and suspected house mice.

Upon checking, that suspicion proved correct.

And luckily, there really were mice. Otherwise, it would have been hard to explain.

It seemed Horace had first been parasitised on the buttocks, and only later had the infestation spread to his back.

For now, there was still time. It was not yet the moment when First Mate Horace would stab the captain in the back.

Yang Yi continued searching him and found a concealed silver dagger tucked inside Horace’s sleeve.

So, he had already harboured thoughts of assassination. He just had not found the right opportunity yet.

“The first mate really was infected…”

The guard looked dazed, but his professional training kicked in. He quickly steadied himself and explained why he had come.

“Captain Dije, the men below have taken heavy casualties. They’re about to collapse.”

Yang Yi frowned deeply after hearing this.

“How many people do we have left?”

“Two hundred and seven security troops. Six hundred and two civilians.”

“And the number of enemies?”

“Other than us, everywhere is the enemy.”

The corner of Yang Yi’s eye twitched.

That meant the enemy rat slaves numbered over seventy thousand.

No wonder Captain Dije ultimately chose suicide. The disparity in strength between the two sides was simply too great.

The security force had only managed to barely construct a defensive line by relying on terrain advantages.

And the core of that defensive line was Captain Dije himself.

“Captain, have you recovered?” the guard urged.

Yang Yi understood what he meant. He wanted him to return to the battlefield and stabilize the line.

But Yang Yi had no intention of doing that.

Because if they kept defending like this, the outcome was already set. Everyone would die.

With just these people, it was impossible to kill all the rat slaves and turn defeat into victory.

In the end, Captain Dije even chose suicide. Most likely his maximum vitality had been reduced to single digits. Weak beyond measure, he detonated himself in despair…

Yang Yi closed his eyes and thought for a moment.

This was a dream. Everyone had already died.

Everything before his eyes was nothing more than a reenactment of history.

But since Yang Yi was here, he had to change something.

If he deviated from the historical path, he might uncover truths long buried beneath it.

As for whether those truths were real or false, that would be for him to judge.

Yang Yi opened his eyes and set his goal. He wanted to try to win this battle.

To win, he had to seize the only chance of victory-the potion known as the Mouse Killer.

“Hey, you…

Right, what’s your name again?”

Yang Yi suddenly asked for the subordinate’s name, rubbing his head theatrically as if he were in great pain.

“I was badly injured. Severe lack of blood to the brain. A lot of things just won’t come back to me.”

He found a perfectly reasonable excuse.

“So that’s it!”

The guard suddenly understood.

He had thought the captain had been possessed by someone else. Turns out it was cerebral ischemia.

That explained everything.

He immediately introduced himself. “My name is Liu Dong. Former deputy captain of the security force. I can send you my stats-”

“No need.”

Yang Yi raised a hand, cutting off Liu Dong’s long-winded explanation.

“From now on, you, Liu Dong, are the first mate of this ship. I order you to hold the defensive line until death. Can you do it?”

He spoke with sudden gravity, his expression unusually solemn.

“Captain… what are you-?”

“I’ve thought of a way to deal with the rats, but I need to act alone for a while. During that time, the defense of the position is entirely in your hands.”

“Really? There’s a way to deal with the rats?”

“Of course!”

Yang Yi answered decisively, even smiling to give Liu Dong some confidence.

But he had clearly underestimated him. Liu Dong understood very well what kind of situation they were in.

From the very beginning of this war, he had known the Shelter was doomed. There was no chance of victory, only the difference between dying sooner or later.

But Captain Dije was different. He was strong. If it weren’t for everyone else holding him back, he might even have escaped…

So-

“Captain, you’re planning to run, right?” Liu Dong grinned, baring his teeth.

“It’s fine. Even if you tell the truth, I’d completely understand.”

As if he had seen through everything, Liu Dong shook his head with a self-mocking smile and turned to leave.

Only his final words lingered in the room.

“Go, Captain. I’ll hold the line as you ordered. Because the only things I can still do are kill rats… or be killed by them.”

Liu Dong’s figure disappeared completely.

Yang Yi stood there, stunned for a moment.

He had only given a simple order to hold the line, yet the other man had acted as if he’d seen through everything, casually showing him up in the process.

“I really did come up with a way…”

Yang Yi muttered under his breath.

But he didn’t chase after him to explain. Instead, he moved immediately. His lower jaw split open like a blooming petal, and a proboscis extended from within, piercing Horace’s corpse and draining it of blood.

Though the first mate was dead, the help he gave Yang Yi was no less than anyone else’s.

Yang Yi checked his maximum health and found it restored to 117. His blood-thirst state had been lifted, and his attributes had increased by three points.

“This high-ranking vampire is pretty strong.”

Yang Yi felt the surging vitality coursing through his body.

Unlike werewolves, vampires did not have keen senses of smell. They were only sensitive to the scent of blood.

To a vampire’s perception, the smell of blood was rich and intoxicating, almost addictive.

Once they sensed it, their throat would grow dry and itchy, making it impossible to resist the urge to drink deeply.

Yang Yi quickly adapted to his new identity.

He left the security office and entered the corridor outside.

This should have been the passage leading straight to the captain’s cabin. The severe damage it had suffered back then was probably caused by this very battle.

Deafening explosions echoed from below, followed by the sound of machine-gun fire.

He glanced downwards, then his body transformed into a swarm of bats and flew down.

The fighting below was intense.

The security forces had blown apart the metal stairway beneath them, using the terrain to block the rat slaves’ advance from below.

But this kind of defense was doomed not to last.

The rat slaves also had heavy weapons. Yang Yi even saw a rotary beam cannon-high rate of fire and terrifying power.

If the stairwell hadn’t been so narrow, limiting them to bringing in only one such weapon, the security forces above would probably have been wiped out already.

The surviving civilians were hiding farther up the corridors or inside the captain’s cabin.

Yang Yi quickly grasped the situation.

These guards should be able to hold out for another four or five hours.

He then flew out through a breach in the wall.

From time to time, house mice slipped in through this opening, which meant rats had already begun probing attacks from the outside of the tower, though in small numbers for now.

Once outside, he saw large numbers of house mice trying to climb up, but the smooth walls made it difficult, and few succeeded.

As time passed, however, these rats would inevitably appear in every corner of the tower.

“No time to waste.”

Yang Yi didn’t linger and didn’t bother with the rats. He flew straight toward Zone C.

His plan was to find Wei Qian, obtain the Rat Killer, and then return to wipe out the rats.

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