Infinite: Dawn Game

Chapter 968 Gathering

hum-

Inside the carriage, the dark red pollution particles that were attached to various places seemed to be attracted and began to slowly converge in the direction of Yu Shijiu.

At first, it gathered very slowly, looking from a distance like dark red dust being blown by the wind.

But soon... the speed at which these dark red particles converged accelerated.

Before the eyes of all the players, thin streams of red, formed from dark red particles, slowly seeped out from the gaps in the seats, cracks in the floor, and gaps along the edges of the windows...

They twisted and tangled in the air, and finally, as if drawn by a fatal attraction, they all rushed madly toward Yu Shijiu's left arm.

"Brother Lin, he's started absorbing it..."

Mulanzhi spoke softly, gripping the Emei dagger in her hand, watching warily the thin, dark red streams that could barely be seen with the naked eye.

Lin Hai leaned back in his chair, his face pale, but the light in his small pupils remained relatively stable, maintaining the mental barrier that enveloped Yu Shijiu and Xu Han.

His gaze fell on Yu Shijiu, his expression somewhat complicated.

The processes of luring and absorbing were going much more smoothly than he had imagined. At the current rate, he estimated that Yu Shijiu would be able to draw out and absorb all the residual pollution in no time.

Lin Hai speculated that this might be due to the contamination that was already present in Yu Shijiu's left arm, and the residual contamination in the carriage being essentially of the same origin. Or perhaps it was because the dungeon had reached its final stage, and the contamination itself was beginning to "yearn" to be eliminated...

But Lin Hai felt a vague unease in his heart.

Everything was going too smoothly... almost unbelievably smoothly.

This doesn't seem like the usual progression of a dungeon's storyline.

Can things really continue to go this smoothly?

Lin Hai felt something was off, but so far everything seemed to be going smoothly.

Maybe I'm just overthinking it?

Lin Hai pursed his lips, suppressing the unease in his heart.

"Lingling, how is it?"

Anjie suddenly spoke up and asked.

Holding a short blade, she warily scanned the other corners of the carriage for the fine red discharge that had also been "lured" out.

He Lingling's eyes were open, and her huge black pupils trembled and contracted violently under the overhead light, making her look somewhat terrifying.

"Shi Jiu is absorbing the pollution faster... The residual pollution is being attracted to it... It's slowly flowing towards him... It's going smoothly... It should work—no!"

She suddenly opened her eyes, and black, viscous liquid seeped from the corners of her eyes again.

"what happened?"

Chen Yi, who was standing nearby, quickly helped her up.

“No…the emotions are wrong…they…why…why are they radiating joy…”

He Lingling's voice was filled with disbelief and fear as she murmured incredulously:

"No... these residual pollutants, they weren't forcibly absorbed... they were... they were actively integrating into Shi Jiu's arm!"

Her words had barely faded—

Yu Shijiu's left arm suddenly swelled up a size!

The cloth strip was instantly torn apart, revealing a ferocious beast's claws underneath, completely covered in black and yellow fur, with bulging muscles and sharp claw tips.

Those dark red, polluted streams seemed to have found their home, rushing wildly into the tips of the beast's claws and the roots of its hair.

Yu Shijiu groaned, veins bulging on his forehead, ruining his facial expression.

He felt a sudden, intense, tearing pain deep in his left arm, but then a strange...satisfaction welled up inside him.

It's like... the satisfaction of a long-starved beast finally getting its food.

"His expression..."

The three people opposite Mulanzhi stared at Yu Shijiu's face in astonishment.

The boy's originally well-behaved and calm face now revealed an almost joyful, satisfied, and strange smile.

His smile, combined with his trembling left arm and the dense cold sweat on his forehead, looked particularly eerie.

"Shi Jiu! Wake up!"

Anjie felt a chill run down her spine and shouted sharply.

Yu Shijiu was startled by her shout, and the confusion and satisfaction in his eyes faded somewhat.

"Sister An..."

He gritted his teeth and forcefully suppressed the increasingly strong "appetite" deep in his left arm.

"I...I can still control it..."

Yu Shijiu forced out a few words through gritted teeth.

Anjie's heart pounded, and she encouraged him:

"I believe you can control yourself!"

But despite what they said, everyone present could clearly see that Yu Shijiu was losing control.

As more and more dark red pollution surged into every corner, Yu Shijiu's left arm began to undergo visible changes.

Dark red blood beads began to seep from the roots of those originally densely growing black and yellow hairs.

The blood droplets quickly coagulate at the hair roots, forming a dark red, translucent keratin layer that covers the hair and skin surface.

Yu Shijiu's left arm claw also began to grow longer and sharper, and the tip even had a dark metallic luster, looking somewhat like the color of the metal structure inside the bus.

Even more terrifying, as the number of blood droplets increased, the skin on Yu Shijiu's left shoulder began to swell.

It felt as if something was wriggling under the skin, trying to break free.

"The contamination on Shi Jiu's body... has begun to mutate..."

He Lingling's voice was filled with despair as she forced herself to speak, despite the sharp pain in her eyes:

"Sister An, Brother Chen! These residual pollutants aren't being neutralized... they're... strengthening the original sources of pollution within Shi Jiu's body!"

Lin Hai's expression changed abruptly because of He Lingling's words.

He stood up abruptly, trying to stop Yu Shijiu from absorbing the contamination—but it was too late.

The mutation in Yu Shijiu's left arm is happening too fast.

The dense, dark red keratin layer spread rapidly, almost covering his entire left forearm, and was still extending towards his shoulder.

Xu Han was closest and saw it most clearly. At this moment, he was so frightened by the mutation on Yu Shijiu's body that his calves went weak, but he still endured the fear and desperately poured healing energy into Yu Shijiu's body.

"Shi, Shi Jiu, cheer up... I believe in you!! Go go go!"

As Xu Han spoke, he tried to look away—nothing else, but seeing humans being forcibly mutated by pollutants up close was just a little, a little, a little hard to accept.

I could almost see the fine, vein-like dark red lines pulsating and writhing beneath those dark red stratum corneum!

For the first time, Xu Han felt that it was better not to have too much imagination or writing ability.

Waaah... It seems being too cultured and knowledgeable isn't a good thing after all...

Xu Han gritted her teeth and persevered, though she felt like crying.

"Stop! Shi Jiu! Force an interruption!"

Seeing that Yu Shijiu's condition was getting worse, An Jie rushed directly towards the mental barrier without hesitation.

In an instant, the blue light on the short blade in her hand surged, and she slashed fiercely at the area on Yu Shijiu's left arm where the polluted streams were most densely connected.

clang!

The short blade was deflected by an invisible force field.

It wasn't Lin Hai's mental barrier, but rather a distorted barrier emanating from Yu Shijiu's left arm, a mixture of pollution and negative emotions from dark red particles.

"No... Sister An! Shi Jiu is in great danger right now. He could be corrupted and lose his mind at any moment... cough—"

He Lingling coughed up a mouthful of black blood, which dripped from the corner of his mouth. She forced herself to speak, her voice hoarse and anxious:

"Shi Jiu's consciousness is being eroded... Well, we have to find a way to wake him up, or... or we can forcibly interrupt it!"

—Let's put everything else aside for now! Surviving is the most important thing right now!

As He Lingling spoke, Yu Shijiu's expression began to shift between clarity and emptiness.

When he is lucid, his eyes are filled with a frenzied struggle and angry rage; when they are empty, that eerie, satiated smile reappears, and even the hair on his left arm undergoes a rapid, bizarre transformation.

These two rather unusual emotional shifts left Li Ye and Ma Ming speechless.

"sky……"

Ma Ming said in a low voice, "Why do I feel like no matter how his emotions change, it's like his brain has been taken over by residual pollutants?"

Li Ye: "..."

Li Ye coughed, feeling uncomfortable all over. "Ma Ming, you should talk less."

Didn't you see how ugly those "alive" guys looked? And you're still spouting nonsense. Isn't Ma Ming afraid An Jie will come and stab him in the back?!

Li Ye was terrified for him—not only did he say it, but he also spoke so loudly! Did he really think those players were deaf?!

They have absolutely no sense of priorities!

Ma Ming also realized this, and awkwardly shut his mouth, looking at Yu Shijiu in the mental barrier with the same worry.

They've already "joined forces"... Of course, he doesn't want to see Yu Shijiu turn into a monster... Li Ye is overthinking it; how could he be making sarcastic remarks!

Li Ye doesn't understand me at all! All those years of being a good teammate have been for nothing!

Everyone, captivated by the strange changes in Yu Shijiu, failed to notice the driver's seat not far behind them.

The driver's sobs had stopped sometime earlier.

He was hunched over, his hands hanging limply on the steering wheel, his faded red hat tilted slightly by the wind outside the car door, and he looked like a soulless shell, staring blankly at the chaotic scene unfolding in the rearview mirror.

As for Yu Shijiu, he was currently entangled by countless subtle, cold, polluting thoughts.

The contaminated blood, composed of countless dark red particles, entered his left arm, then rapidly dissolved and seeped into his bloodstream, affecting his emotions...

Despair, fear, numbness, and a sense of relief that it's none of my business...

Yu Shijiu's body trembled violently again!

In an instant, he felt as if he had been thrown into the perspective of countless people—

Lin Hai's anger and despair, Ah Xiu's pain and pleas for help, the bystanders' relief and guilt... even the murderer's pleasure and madness—the emotions of countless people intertwined, violently impacting Yu Shijiu's fragile consciousness—one after another!

These emotions did not all originate from the tragedy in Lin Hai's memory, but rather were the emotional impurities that the bus absorbed and accumulated from countless "passengers" during its long "journey".

They are the underlying, logically operating forms of spiritual pollution within the "Homecoming" instance.

"Uh……"

Yu Shijiu let out a suppressed groan, and fine beads of cold sweat instantly appeared on his forehead.

It's nothing... It's just a tiny little thing, he can control it... He could control things in the past, there's no reason he can't control this time...

He forced himself to endure the overwhelming emotions surging through his mind, his right fingernails digging deep into his flesh, using the pain to forcibly hold his consciousness in place.

He Lingling's pupils also contracted to their maximum size.

In her vision, the beast claw on Yu Shijiu's left arm was no longer a simple physical form.

Instead, it transformed into a greedy, spinning dark red vortex.

This dark red vortex is now frantically devouring the dark red blood that has gathered and solidified from every corner of the carriage.

After the blood was sucked into the dark red vortex, it did not calm down as if it had returned to the "mother body". Instead, it engaged in fierce conflict and tearing inside, causing the vortex itself to fluctuate violently.

This is the real culprit behind the abnormal change in Yu Shijiu's left arm!

Tragically, He Lingling found herself unable to think of any way to stop it all.

How to do?

How to do?

He Lingling's brain, filled with excruciating pain, trembled as her pupils contracted, frantically searching for a solution.

Could it be that only by having Shi Jiu—no way!

It's not time yet, it's not time yet!

"All the residual contamination is fusing inside Shi Jiu's left arm... Lin Hai! We can't let them continue to fuse!"

A trickle of blood oozed from the corner of He Lingling's mouth again. With Chen Yi's help, she forced herself to turn her head to look at Lin Hai in the opposite seat.

Only Lin Hai—only Lin Hai, who also possesses mental-type talent skills—can try to stop those pollutants!

Lin Hai's expression changed suddenly when He Lingling mentioned him, and he stood up abruptly as if he understood something.

Ignoring the excruciating pain caused by the overuse of his mental energy, he forcibly contracted his mental barrier, making it even tighter around the area where Yu Shijiu was. At the same time, he inserted a wisp of extremely pure will, which he had extracted after becoming "awake," into Yu Shijiu's left arm like a fuse.

Xu Han was suddenly pulled by the shrinking mental barrier around him, and his already precarious legs buckled and he knelt on the ground. He was then bounced away by the shrinking mental barrier.

"Holy crap—"

Xu Han, who was thrown off balance, was caught by An Jie, who was standing nearby, and narrowly escaped injury.

Otherwise, he would probably have been seriously injured like Meng Lang before him.

“An, Sister An…”

Having steadied himself, Xu Han grabbed An Jie's arm and said in a trembling voice:

"Shi, Shi Jiu, what should I do about Shi Jiu? I, I've been ejected..."

As he spoke, his eyes reddened, and he even seemed a little afraid to look at Yu Shijiu.

Anjie was also extremely anxious, looking in the direction of He Lingling and Lin Hai, waiting for their next instructions.

Therefore, she hates game instances that require "mental strength" the most.

Players like her, who rely on physical attacks, have virtually no way to forcibly intervene in these kinds of game instances.

"puff--"

Because Lin Hai suddenly contracted his mental barrier, all three of them vomited blood.