Chapter 190 – The Tentacle Monster Girl

The cold, unnerving sound of constant collisions echoed from the corridor behind them, making everyone feel a bit on edge.

The recent superpower attack had left nearly everyone feeling weak and shaky.

Among the group, Ye Lian and the three girls appeared the most normal, but only Ling Mo knew that their power had significantly diminished as well.

However, the recovery speed of zombies, especially senior zombies, was quite rapid.

If they could hold on for about ten minutes, Ye Lian and the three girls would regain most of their strength. By then, even if a leader-level zombie or a powerful mutation beast appeared, they would have a fighting chance.

Old Luo hurriedly led the group to a laboratory and forcefully shut the door behind them.

“This place should hold them off for a bit. You all take a quick rest. If things get too dangerous, we can escape through the adjacent room.”

Many of the laboratories were connected to the neighboring rooms, providing an escape route.

The messy laboratory was littered with broken test tubes, and some putrid specimens had fallen to the floor.

Meng Jiayu accidentally stepped on an unknown specimen, letting out a low gasp of surprise.

Despite the pain he was in, Old Wang managed to drag himself to open the door leading to the adjacent room.

Everyone instinctively gathered near that door, ready to flee at a moment’s notice.

“We have two options now: find another way to get to B3, or fight until the end. With the power cut off, they won’t know the situation here. So, the threat from the survivors is temporarily gone.”

Ling Mo took a deep breath, enduring the pain, and said.

“There isn’t another way… That route was blocked off long ago. It would take at least a day to clear it.”

Old Luo’s face remained grim, but it seemed he had made up his mind, and his voice had finally stopped trembling.

At this point, he had no way of turning back.

His legs were still shaking slightly, making him appear somewhat cowardly.

“What exactly is out there?”

Listening to the approaching sounds of collision, everyone grew increasingly tense. The unknown is always the most terrifying, so Ling Mo quickly asked, “What exactly is out there?”

“This… well, you should have heard it. What Stella mentioned about the variation… she wasn’t guessing; it was based on an experimental result. Everything they said is true…”

Before he could finish speaking, a loud crash erupted from the doorway, and the door was immediately forced open a crack.

Old Luo screamed while the door was fully broken down, and a dark figure rushed in from outside.

As soon as the dark figure appeared, a red, flesh-like tentacle, resembling a blood vessel, whipped around from behind and wrapped around Old Luo’s neck.

What shocked Ling Mo immensely was that the surface of the tentacle seemed to be covered with suckers. As it coiled around Old Luo’s neck, it started to swell, and Old Luo’s skin quickly began to shrivel.

With eyes wide open and hands flailing uselessly, Old Luo soon collapsed, going completely limp and ceasing to struggle.

Simultaneously, gunshots rang out, fired by Zhang Haoyu and Old Wang.

Bullets whizzed past Old Wang, aiming at the dark figure at the door.

The problem was that the dark figure moved incredibly fast, dodging most of the shots. However, one of its tentacles was hit and fell to the ground, still twitching violently.

“What the hell is that thing…?!” someone exclaimed.

By this time, the group had retreated to the adjacent door, ready to close it and run at any moment.

Although there was a rare opportunity to see their enemy clearly, Ling Mo fully extended his Psychic Tentacle while enduring the risk of potentially fainting, and directed his flashlight at the creature.

The dark figure seemed unaccustomed to the bright light and was momentarily stunned.

“Holy crap…”

Under the flashlight’s beam, they didn’t see a horrific Tentacle Monster but rather a girl with a surprisingly pretty face.

She had long hair cascading down her back, and her torn clothes revealed at least a D-cup figure.

However, wrapped around her wrists were coils of red tentacles… those tentacles must be blood vessels!

Probably due to her attack mode, these tentacles floated behind her like strands of hair.

She gazed at Ling Mo and the group with her blood-red eyes, scanning them up and down while letting out a muffled, unclear hiss: “Meat…”

Ling Mo felt a bit of a chill run down his spine. Although her face was beautiful and her chest was ample, the combination of those elements with the tentacles was utterly terrifying.

Just then, 2 spoke indignantly, “Is this the mad scientist’s handiwork? This is worse than a psychopath turning such a busty woman into this mess! Who knows, she could have been my true love…”

“Well, why don’t you have a chat with her about life then,” Ling Mo replied, sensing danger instinctively. Given his currently weakened state, self-preservation was paramount.

As he slowly retreated behind the door, Ling Mo pondered if this was what they called a variation?

It seemed somewhat similar to human superpowers but still involved using their bodies as weapons.

This D-cup variation zombie felt like a mismanaged experiment—a monster cultivated incorrectly. Despite reaching the level of having a variation, her eyes were wild, showing little sanity.

Indeed, human tampering certainly introduced unexpected changes to zombies, changes that weren’t necessarily favorable.

Thankfully, Ling Mo’s primary goal was to restore Ye Lian’s and Xia Na’s memories, so his methods were conservative and gentle, not reckless.

Even now, facing a bottleneck, he was risking his life to find answers here.

This variation zombie clearly wasn’t just a bloodsucker. Her gaze hovered on Old Luo’s corpse, seemingly about to pounce.

At that moment, Zhang Haoyu fired his gun again.

“Bang!”

This time, the bullet unexpectedly hit the variation zombie, causing her to stumble, indicating her arm was injured.

But then a tentacle shot out fiercely. The speed was so fast that Ling Mo barely managed to block it with his Psychic Tentacle.

However, the tentacle still reached Zhang Haoyu. Although Xia Na promptly severed it, the remaining segment had already burrowed into Zhang Haoyu’s body.

“Ah! Ah!”

Zhang Haoyu screamed in pain as Old Wang dragged him inside, and the rest of the group quickly followed.

Just as the door closed, another loud thud echoed through the building.

The continuous banging from before seemed to have been caused by the variation zombie’s tentacles hitting the walls or doors.

So, her searching abilities are still quite limited…

But her attack power is formidable—capable of both close and ranged combat.

The crucial issue is that everyone’s strength has been diminished, and for some reason, their superpowers haven’t fully returned.

Old Wang and 2 pushed a table against the door to barricade it. Then, they hastily snuck out through another door.

The variation zombie continued to slam against the barricade…

“Stop screaming,” Meng Jiayu said, shoving a short knife into Zhang Haoyu’s mouth, while Ling Mo smiled at Ye Lian.

She understood immediately, moved toward Zhang Haoyu, and swiftly used her Tiger Claw to make an incision, simultaneously pulling out the tentacle with the knife’s tip.

Zhang Haoyu’s eyes widened, his forehead was drenched in sweat, and his entire body trembled violently.

“What exactly is this tentacle? It looks oddly similar in form to my Psychic Tentacle…”

Ling Mo examined it, noting the suckers on its surface. It didn’t look like something that would naturally grow on a human.

Variations are indeed terrifying—able to transform the human body to such an extent.

Who knows how Zhao Zhi and the others are feeding it. But their goal is clear.

They intend to use Ling Mo and the group as nutrients for this variation zombie…

“The tentacle is quite formidable, but I wonder if your tangible tentacle or my intangible one is stronger.”

The pounding had ceased, likely because Old Luo’s corpse was buying them some time.

“Five minutes. In five minutes, I’ll show you who the real Tentacle Monster is.”

Ling Mo glanced sideways at Ye Lian, thinking to himself that if it weren’t for her and Xia Na’s need to recover, he might have used a sip of nectar to speed up his recovery.

Fortunately, what he needed to restore wasn’t physical strength but psychic power.

Dealing with this tricky tentacle girl requires the use of psychic power to be effective.

But just then, from the end of the hallway, another shadow emerged!

This one wasn’t the tentacle girl, but a massive male zombie that looked like it could explode at any moment!

This zombie probably used to be quite fat, and now it looks even fatter. The key point is that beneath the bulging fat, it seemed like something was flowing…

“Is this thing filled with water or something…”

That was the first thought that popped into Ling Mo’s head.

Even though this zombie was huge, it moved with surprising agility.

Like a giant snowball, it rolled quickly towards Ling Mo and his group.

“Bang! Bang!”

Two more gunshots rang out, but hitting this zombie seemed to have had no lethal effect.

Ling Mo barely managed to raise his crossbow and fired a bolt, striking the zombie in the thigh.

The zombie only let out a low growl and yanked the crossbow bolt out.

Clear liquid mixed with blood splattered out, and where it hit the ground, it immediately made a sizzling sound.

“Crap, this thing’s poisoned!”

Ling Mo hurriedly led the group back, diving into another hallway.

There were now two zombies; fighting them without restored strength was out of the question. They had to retreat.

But one thing Ling Mo couldn’t understand was that if Zhao Zhi and his group had fled to B3, it meant they couldn’t control these two zombies.

In that case, why were they raising them? Just for research?

Nonsense. Someone this malicious wouldn’t be doing it for some noble cause. Ling Mo refused to believe such a thing.