The man had barely finished speaking when, perhaps as the adrenaline in their bodies began to fade, dense red spots broke out across his body, the woman’s, and the baby’s on her back. Their faces turned blue before their very eyes.

The cries of the baby, the most fragile of them, grew faint.

Seeing this, Yin Yi acted without waiting for Han Ning’s command, shooting three vines into their bodies.

As a cyan light flowed into them, the complexions of all three quickly returned to normal.

But the baby’s breathing remained shallow. It seemed its fragile lungs had already suffered irreversible damage.

The middle-aged man held the baby, and he and the woman stood together, bowing repeatedly to Han Ning.

"This is an emergency. No time for that," Han Ning said, holding up a hand to stop them.

"Thank you. Are you from Xia Country?" the disheveled woman beside the man asked in standard Xia Country dialect.

"Yes." Han Ning was surprised she could speak the language so fluently. Instead of pursuing the topic with her, he turned to the man. "What’s your name? You said you have important information? About a monster that kills people?"

The woman translated for the man.

The man rattled off something in English.

Han Ning’s English was rudimentary; he couldn’t understand everything the man was saying.

"You can call me Lena. This is Rajkica, my husband."

Lena, who was blonde and blue-eyed, first briefly introduced them before translating with a grave tone,

"I don’t know what the monster looks like, but it’s real. Ever since we were mysteriously transported here, it hasn’t just been the endless floodwaters. There was something in the sky following us."

"The monster shoots out a long, black proboscis, pierces through a person’s skull, and sucks out their brain matter."

At this, Lena took a sharp breath, as if fighting back the urge to vomit.

"It was still following you, right before we rescued you?" Teacher Fang asked, his brow furrowed.

"Yes... It just kept killing." Lena couldn’t stop herself from glancing out at the dark curtain of rain, her voice trembling uncontrollably.

’Could it be... that the screams from before weren’t just from people overcome by the white mist or swept away by the flood?’

Han Ning said nothing. He walked to the window and carefully observed the pitch-black night.

WHOOSH...

The downpour had not let up, tirelessly washing over everything in the world.

Only a minute had passed between rescuing Rajkica’s family and this conversation. In the darkness ahead, seven or eight large buses were still speeding toward the dormitories.

Han Ning motioned for the others at the window to take cover. He pressed himself sideways against the wall, hiding behind the window frame and widening his eyes, trying to spot the brain-eating monster Lena had described.

"AHHHH!!"

But before he could spot anything, a pained scream echoed from the direction of Building A next door.

Instantly, a dozen slender flashlight beams shot out from Building A, illuminating a patch of the darkness outside.

Hearing the scream, Han Ning quickly peered out as well.

There, suspended in the pitch-black night, were eight black beetles, each over two meters long. They had oval bodies, six hooked legs, and jet-black carapaces dotted with white spots on their backs.

Their dark, hooked legs were covered in fine barbs that glinted coldly in the flashlight beams.

Just then, one of the beetles spat out a three-meter-long black proboscis, blasting open the head of a large, blonde man who was bound by Silver Lotus Wood.

The beetle’s attack was immediately followed by the crack of dense gunfire and the whizz of Silver Thorns launched from the Silver Lotus Wood, the flashes illuminating the area around the three buildings.

Han Ning remained still. He felt a sinister chill clinging to him, an aura that he couldn’t shake.

It was the unnerving sensation of being watched by a malevolent gaze, making his skin crawl.

He scanned up and down.

Suddenly, about twenty meters above the roof of Building A, he spotted two points of faint, blue light shimmering in the dark.

It seemed to have sensed Han Ning’s gaze.

The two points of light flickered slightly.

The next moment.

A flash of azure light erupted.

A torrent of frigid, deep-blue energy shot out from above Building A.

The moment the lights had flickered, Han Ning had already ducked behind the wall.

CRACKLE...

The frigid blast struck the outer wall of Building C, instantly encasing the entire surface in a layer of frosty white Ice Crystals. Even the nearby raindrops were affected, turning into tiny icicles that fell to the ground and shattered.

"Back! Everyone, get back!" Han Ning yelled, pulling Teacher Fang with him and urging the onlookers behind them to retreat hastily.

The Ice Crystals spread rapidly across the floor inside.

Fortunately, Han Ning had reacted quickly. The sheet of Ice Crystals stopped its advance in the middle of the hallway.

The entire area before them had transformed into a domain of deathly cold.

BANG!

The frozen wall suddenly exploded outward, revealing the swirling wind and rain—and a pair of faintly glowing green eyes hidden within the storm.

"Everyone, be careful. This thing is strong," Han Ning said, his hand quietly tightening around the Silver Scale he carried.

As Teacher Fang led the others back, he shouted, "Don’t stay here! Get to the back! Anyone with a third-stage Silver Lotus Wood mutation, to the front!"

Suddenly, a gust of wind tore through the opening. A black proboscis shot through the rain, hurtling toward Han Ning with immense Power.

"Ling!"

The Emerald Flower Thorns materialized, transforming into a dense cloud of spinning Rhombic Crystals. With a piercing shriek, they swarmed toward the green lights, blanketing everything in their path.

BOOM.

The Flower Thorns slammed into the proboscis, creating a deep, muffled explosion. The resulting shockwave sent Han Ning’s hair fluttering.

The remaining Flower Thorns, losing no momentum, continued flying toward the creature in the Darkness.

Bathed in the faint Spiritual Energy glowing from the Flower Thorns, Han Ning could now clearly see a bizarre figure in the Darkness. It had the face of a human and the body of an insect, and it was standing atop a colossal, snow-white beetle.

The main part of its Body was a brown, oval torso, similar to that of a moth. Its arms and legs were slender, black, three-pronged insect limbs, and a pair of wings as thin as a cicada’s sprouted from its back.

Dark, bluish-green, wrinkled lines spiraled up its brown, chrysalis-like form. At the neck, the insectoid Body gradually transitioned into a humanoid head.

The skin on its head was brown and deeply wrinkled. Its enormous, faintly green eyes took up a third of its face. Its nose and mouth bore a fifty-percent resemblance to a human’s, only smaller and more shriveled.

Two long, slender antennae grew from its forehead, and its scalp was covered in sparse, fine hairs.

The Insect-man was standing on a snow-white beetle, but the beetle’s Body was obscured by the walls of the hallway, making it impossible to tell its true size.

The faint green light Han Ning had seen was merely the reflection from its pupils.

"My God, what is that monster!?" The people retreating behind Han Ning cried out, their faces contorting in horror the moment they laid eyes on the Insect-man.