Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 548 Parasitic Experiments
This world has always been cruel.

Many people are unaware of this, and even if they are, they are powerless to change the status quo and can only choose to numb themselves in various ways.

Take the current Federal Parliament for example... Although some people have been complaining that the world is just a huge makeshift organization, those who are capable of sitting in that position are definitely not stupid. They know better than anyone else that in the not-too-distant future, human civilization will face a crisis even more severe than the first monster war.

But their current attitude is like that of an ostrich burying its head in the sand, only seeking to maintain the status quo—when people are trapped in a desperate situation of helplessness, wishful thinking always takes over their rationality. They think that perhaps the crisis won't come in the next month... or perhaps it will be a year, or perhaps an entire term.

When this sense of complacency is amplified, the brain gradually numbs itself, and people will think that the current situation will continue indefinitely... A crisis may come, but by the time the crisis arrives, they may have already stepped down or passed away—so what does this so-called crisis have to do with them?

It can be left to future generations.

There's a saying that goes, "After me, the deluge."

Pei Zongjun wanted to change the status quo, but he died.

Not only did he die, but he also dumped this huge burden all on Sun Hang.

Sun Hang also wanted to be an ostrich, but if even he became an ostrich, this messed-up world would really be doomed.

He genuinely disliked the world of monsters, and even felt a deep-seated disgust for them—whether it was those mutated creatures that would drive you crazy and cause your sanity to drop if you looked at them for too long, or the nauseating pus, blood, and rotting flesh, or the mind-bending bizarre logic and paradoxes… Perhaps only a psychologically twisted pervert would like such a world?
Sun Hang then turned his gaze to the giant cordyceps sinensis that was still in the pit two kilometers away. Around it, a large number of fine white particles were scattered in the air. From a distance, it looked like a thick fog that was trapped in place by some kind of force field.

According to the mastermind's observation and analysis, these white particles are actually spores sprayed out by the monster. Once these spores come into contact with an animal, they will immediately attach to it and quickly germinate into a large number of germ tubes.

Next, these bud tubes secrete a highly corrosive enzyme that can rapidly break down the host's epidermal cells, helping the bud tubes invade the host's body, absorb the host's nutrients, and multiply rapidly within the host's body.

The host's brain and nervous system are the first to be damaged. This fungal monster generates a similar "organ" to replace them and connects to the host's body, thereby achieving the purpose of manipulating the host's body.

Sun Hang caught a gerbil and a scorpion from the desert and threw them into the spore diffusion zone. Within two minutes, both of them were covered with white spores. These spores would dissolve their hard shells upon contact with the host, turning into a mucus-like substance that would adhere to the host's skin.

It looks like a spider web wrapped around the host's body.

Five minutes later, the gerbil's fur fell off completely, revealing the ulcerated skin underneath due to corrosion. During this process, the gerbil remained remarkably quiet, showing neither tension nor agitation, nor attempting to escape. The mastermind speculated that the spores of the Cordyceps monster, in addition to their corrosive properties, likely also had a paralyzing or sedative effect.

As for the scorpion, it simply lay motionless on the ground, letting the cotton-like mycelium envelop its entire body.

Many fine mycelia could be vaguely seen penetrating the scorpion's carapace and invading its body. At the 22-minute mark, the gerbil, which had undergone a dramatic change, began to exhibit some strange behaviors. As if it were drunk, it stood up on its hind legs, staggered forward a few steps, and then collapsed to the ground, beginning to pupate like the giant cordyceps.

“The gerbil’s brain and nervous system have been replaced by the fungal monster,” Zhulong said. “Judging from this, the fungus that controls the gerbil probably hasn’t gotten used to how to manipulate this body yet.”

In the twenty-fourth minute, the scorpion, which seemed dead, suddenly came back to life and began crawling around on the ground... Soon, it bumped into a gerbil that was still in its pupa.

The scorpion hesitated for a moment before piercing the gerbil's body with its stinger.

The gerbil, under attack, leaped up and ripped off the scorpion's tail, then whipped the scorpion away!

The broken scorpion stinger remained on the gerbil's body, and fungal hyphae at the break point began to spread across the gerbil's body. At the same time, many fungal hyphae also emerged from the gerbil's body, beginning to invade the remaining scorpion tail.

"We are all born of the same root, why are we so eager to harm each other?" Seeing this scene, Sun Hang couldn't help but sigh softly.

“This is probably one of the survival strategies of the monsters,” Zhulong pondered. “After a spore has parasitized different hosts, it becomes an independent individual. Although they share a common mother, in a harsh environment, even brothers become competitors… It’s like raising Gu gu; only the strongest individual is qualified to survive.”

After a brief regrouping, the scorpion, which had been thrown aside, charged at the gerbil again, its powerful pincers instantly clamping down on the gerbil's hind legs.

But at this moment, the fungus inside the gerbil seemed to have figured out how to manipulate the body. It used its forelimbs to press down on the scorpion's back and bit off several of the scorpion's limbs in just one second.

Immediately afterwards, the gerbil used its sharp teeth to bite open the scorpion's carapace and held on to that position.

After magnifying the image hundreds of times, Sun Hang saw many fungal hyphae emerging from the gerbil's eye sockets, nasal cavity, and mouth, burrowing into the scorpion's body. At the same time, many fungal hyphae from the scorpion's body also emerged from the wound, intertwining with the gerbil's hyphae and mixing into the gerbil's body.

The two animals, who were fiercely fighting just a second ago, are now completely frozen in place, with only the mycelium inside each other still launching an "attack".

Sun Hang suddenly felt that this kind of aggressive behavior might not be the so-called survival of the fittest, but rather more like a kind of... integration.

More and more hyphae emerged from their bodies, eventually completely enveloping the gerbil and scorpion's bodies, forming a large clump of cotton-like material.

At this point, the hyphae parasitizing the gerbil and scorpion had long since become indistinguishable—according to the results of meme testing, the meme frequencies of the two had also merged into a single entity after undergoing multiple changes.

(End of this chapter)