Desperate people, accept the seed of my soul!

He turned his gaze away from across the street and quickly completed the risk assessment.

This group is equipped with standard gear and has no special equipment for targeting superhumans. The greatest threat comes from the few handguns they are issued, and the risk is manageable.

He needed to enter the old building before them, find the seed host, and confirm its status.

As for what to do next, whether to take the person away or something else, we'll decide after we see them.

Lin Shen pushed open the car door and activated his illusion weaving ability.

The morning mist rushed in, carrying the smell of dust and rust.

He closed the car door without making a conscious effort to be quiet; the sound of the door closing was particularly clear on the quiet street.

Across the street, a security guard who was checking riot shields subconsciously turned his head to look in the direction of the bread truck. Lin Shen did not stop, walked around the front of the truck, and headed towards the west side of the old building.

The security guard's gaze swept over him as if he were nothing more than an insignificant speck of air, then returned to staring at the main entrance of the old building, whispering something to his colleague beside him.

Lin Shen walked along the base of the buildings on the street, his pace neither fast nor slow, the broken glass making a soft cracking sound on the soles of his shoes.

To the west of the old building is a narrow alley, with walls that are almost touching the body on both sides, and blackened rainwater accumulating on the ground, giving off a rotten, sour smell.

He squeezed in sideways, his shoulder brushing against the red bricks of the wall, brick dust falling down and landing on the shoulder of his coat.

At the end of the alley was a rusted tin door, its hinges covered in red rust, and crumpled pieces of waste paper stuffed into the cracks.

He reached out and pushed, but the door didn't budge. He applied more force, and the tin door sprang open, the hinges creaking and rattling back and forth in the narrow alley like some kind of sharp alarm.

Lin Shen stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

Behind the door was the fire escape stairwell, the cement steps were covered with a thick layer of dust, broken wooden crates and waste cardboard were piled up in the corner, and the air was filled with the smell of mildew and rust, as well as an even stronger smell seeping down from upstairs—the smell of blood, thick like solidified paste.

Lin Shen looked up at the top of the stairs. It was dark, with morning mist pouring in through the shattered windows and swirling around the corner.

He started walking, his steps light, but without making any attempt to hide them.

The first drop of blood appeared on the ground at the corner on the second floor.

Dark red, already half-dry, with the edges solidified into a dark brown ring.

Further up, the bloodstains became denser, turning from drips into drag marks, and from drag marks into large pools of blood.

There were splattered blood spots on the wall, from low to high, like some kind of violent brushstroke, dark red marks embedded in the wall plaster.

Lin Shen's steps did not stop.

He stopped at the top of the stairs on the third floor.

The corridor was littered with corpses, stretching deep into the building, as if swept away from the stairwell by something, lying scattered on the ground, hardly any of them fully human.

The frequency of dark purple seeds reached its peak here, like a blood-soaked mist, enveloping the entire third-floor corridor.

Lin Shen's gaze swept past the corpses and found the source in the middle of the corridor.

A young man lay in a pool of blood. He was very young and thin, his face covered in blood and wounds, his lips were cracked and peeling, and each rise and fall of his chest seemed to be using his last strength, so slow that it was almost invisible.

He was holding the remains of an ancient zither in his arms. The surface of the zither was cracked in several places, and the broken strings were covered with bits of flesh and dried blood. His fingers were still clutching the last broken string, and the skin on his fingertips had been cut open by the steel wire, revealing the white bone underneath.

The dark purple seed was deep within his consciousness, its light dimmed to the point of being like burnt-out charcoal, with only a faint pulse remaining at its very center, ready to be extinguished at any moment.

Lin Shen squatted down and reached his fingers toward the side of his neck.

The pulse was slow and weak, only beating once every few seconds, like a pendulum that might stop at any moment.

The resonance of the seeds surged forth at that moment.

The tingling sensation of vibrating strings, the tearing pain of ruptured tendons, the swollen face of his mother before her death, the gurgling sound of blood gushing from Chen Zhiyuan's throat as he swallowed a pen to commit suicide, and the obsession of "kill them all" etched into his bones, all crashed into Lin Shen's consciousness like a tidal wave.

Lin Shen withdrew his finger.

He understood.

Sounds came from downstairs; the crunching of boots on broken glass came from the direction of the main entrance. More than one person was pushing their way into the stairwell.

Lin Shen straightened up.

The security guards have arrived, and he is now having difficulty walking out the main gate with a dying man in his arms.

The original plan was simply to find the person and check their status, but now he has seen it.

This person traded permanent deafness for the corpses filling the corridor, and half his life for the blood of his enemy. If he is taken away by the authorities, he will die in the isolation unit, or worse, be used as an experimental sample for research.

Footsteps reached the top of the stairs, and a flashlight beam shone up from around the corner, sweeping across the wall and leaving shimmering spots of light.

Lin Shen made a decision.

The mental energy was rewoven in an instant, covering the three floors of the old building and the entire evacuation route from the third floor to the west gate.

The target is everyone who enters the coverage area. The content is woven into a cognitive blind spot, removing the person lying in a pool of blood and Lin Shen himself from everyone's senses.

Lin Shen bent down and lifted the young man from the pool of blood. He was very light, so light that he didn't seem like an adult should have such a weight.

The broken zither slipped from the young man's arms, the broken string hitting the ground with a very faint hum, like a dying sigh.

Lin Shen carried the person towards the west staircase.

The dust in the west stairwell was thicker, and Lin Shen's steps were more steady than when he came up. He made sure each step was firm before taking the next, so as not to bump into the person in his arms.

From the direction of the main entrance, flashlight beams swept across the corridor, and the sound of boots stepping on broken glass echoed intermittently.

Someone shouted, "Here! There are corpses!" Another shouted, "There are some over here too! Lots!" The voices echoed back and forth in the empty corridor, trembling noticeably.

Someone was squatting in the corner, dry heaving. The sound of vomiting mixed with the buzzing of a walkie-talkie came from the other end of the corridor.

The middle-aged security guard leading the team stood in the middle of the corridor, his flashlight beam sweeping across the corpses. The beam paused for a moment at the spot where Shen Qinghou had just fallen, where there was only a pool of blood, and nothing else in it.

His lips moved, but no sound came out. The flashlight beam continued to sweep forward, landing on the door at the end of the corridor.

As Lin Shen walked to the corner on the second floor, a young security guard ran over from the other end of the corridor, his flashlight beam flailing wildly. The beam swept across the stairwell, illuminating the sweat on Lin Shen's forehead and the young man's drooping arms.

The young security guard abruptly stopped in his tracks.

He stared at the stairwell, his pupils contracted, his mouth slightly open, and the flashlight beam lingered on Lin Shen's face for a full two seconds.

A shout came from the first floor: "Xiao Zhou! What's going on upstairs?"

The young security guard blinked, moved his flashlight beam away, and shone it on a pile of clutter on the other side of the corridor. His voice was strained: "N-nothing, I must have mistaken you."

The sound of boots stepping on broken glass faded into the distance as they walked in the opposite direction.