Still hoarding supplies in the apocalypse? I'll just go on a killing spree and looting!

Behind her, Mu Xue asked in a trembling voice, "What's wrong?"

Lin You had already jumped off the bike and looked at the bewildered Mu Xue, saying, "You ride your bike home, I'll come find you."

He then handed a bundle of banknotes to Mu Xue, saying, "Take this money and remember it. Go back and buy supplies immediately."

"Supplies?" Mu Xue nervously accepted a bundle of banknotes.

"Yes, supplies. Gasoline, compressed food, drinking water, whatever you think you need for daily life, buy it."

"Okay... alright." After hesitating for a moment, Mu Xue said tentatively, "This is my phone number 1xx..."

Before Mu Xue could finish speaking, Lin You said, "Give me the phone."

After a brief hesitation, Mu Xue handed the phone to Lin You, who looked at the phone's contacts and memorized a few numbers.

He handed the phone to the bewildered Mu Xue.

"Stay home for at least three days and don't go out unnecessarily." After saying that, Lin You gave Mu Xue a deep look, then turned and disappeared into the woods on both sides of the road.

Mu Xue sat on the pink electric scooter, staring blankly at the stack of brand-new banknotes in her hand, before she came to her senses after a long while.

She sniffed, trying hard to hold back the urge to cry.

I rode my pink electric scooter toward the cordoned-off intersection ahead.

The pomelo trees in the woods on one side of the road are rushing about.

As she ran, she was thinking about things. After all, she had finally gotten her revenge today. However, she was still a little surprised by her decision to treat Mu Xue.

After all, she almost pulled the trigger back then, and now she has mixed feelings about it.

It's like Cao Mengde's mindset when he encountered Zhao Zilong and Guan Yu.

She glanced at her watch; it was 4:10 AM, almost dawn. But then, Lin You stopped running.

Because she sensed danger.

It was that familiar feeling she had when she was in danger during the apocalypse, as if something was watching her from the dark woods.

Their hurried steps came to an abrupt halt.

Lin You drew a pistol with one hand and held a fruit knife in the other.

His eyes darted around warily.

The surroundings were completely silent, as if the palpitation I had just felt was just my own illusion.

But Lin You would never believe it was her hallucination, because this feeling of palpitation had saved her life more than once.

Lin You listened intently to every rustling sound around her, not missing even the faintest noise.

The stalemate continues.

Lin You faintly heard a dog barking, and the sound kept getting closer.

Mu Xue has been exposed!

Lin You instantly realized that the barking dogs were from patrol officers who had set up roadblocks on the road and were chasing after them.

Mu Xue is just a college graduate who has just entered the workforce.

Her experience and living environment simply couldn't escape the eyes of the police officers at the checkpoint.

It seems normal for problems to surface.

Of course, there is another possibility: that Mu Xue directly reported herself.

Regardless of the situation, for Lin You right now, survival is the only thing that matters.

The barking of dogs behind them grew closer and closer, and soon beams of flashlight light shone over, revealing Lin You standing motionless in place.

And of course, there was the gun and knife in her hand.

The atmosphere instantly became incredibly tense.

"Put down your gun!"

"Don't move!"

"We are police officers, put down your weapons!"

Several warning shouts came from behind, along with the sound of guns being released.

Lin You remained motionless, listening intently to any sounds around her.

The bushes on the left suddenly shook violently, and Lin You immediately turned sideways and aimed her pistol directly in the direction from which the sound came.

Lin You's movements also attracted the attention of the police officers behind her, and a beam of bright white flashlight shone in the direction Lin You was pointing.

A green monster, taller than a person, burst through the darkness and appeared in the light.

That's... a praying mantis?!

Its entire body is covered with dark green carapace, and when light shines on it, fine vertical lines appear on the surface of the carapace.

On the inverted triangular head, two compound eyes are like inlaid dark green gemstones.

Lin You was momentarily stunned. This was a strange beast that appeared after the apocalypse, but... there were still two days until the apocalypse.

How is that possible!

However, no matter how Lin You reacted, the phantom mantis had already closed in extremely quickly.

Standing nearly two meters tall, it's not particularly imposing among monstrous beasts; in fact, it's quite slender. But the sight of it standing there is more terrifying than any giant monster—because it was born for "precision killing."

Lin You heard the sound of the wind and her body reacted instinctively.

The bullet left the barrel and shot directly at the rapidly approaching Phantom Mantis's compound eyes, which resembled dark green gemstones, causing the mantis to fall backward.

Two sharp green sickles grazed Lin You's nose before she heard the whistling wind, like a deathly harvest.

The pistol bullet struck the phantom mantis's upper limb, producing a metallic clang and a few sparks.

Small-caliber pistol bullets simply can't penetrate this thing's casing.

Even if a bullet hits a weak point, it only gets stuck in the casing. Only high-powered weapons, such as the famous Desert Eagle, are designed to hunt large wild animals.

Only then can the Phantom Mantis's shell be truly penetrated.

Lin You, who had fallen to the ground, rolled to one side.

The Phantom Mantis's scythe pierced directly into the spot where Lin You had just fallen.

A slightly slower reaction could result in being disemboweled.

Lin You, who was rolling under the belly of the Phantom Mantis, heard a burst of gunfire, with countless bullets whizzing past.

In an instant, Lin You was on the verge of extreme danger.

"Run! There's more than one!" Lin You shouted as she rolled around, but with gunfire all around, no one heard what she was saying.

Sparks appeared on the Phantom Mantis's body; these were ricochets from bullets hitting its outer shell and bouncing off.

Occasionally, bullets will strike the joints of the Phantom Mantis, creating small wounds, but these do not pose a significant threat to the Phantom Mantis.

Lin You, hiding under the body of the Phantom Mantis, is an even greater threat.

However, due to its body structure, the Phantom Mantis cannot quickly determine the exact location of the lycoris beneath it and can only constantly adjust its position using its secondary legs.

A faint flapping sound came from above the woods.

The people who were firing wildly were completely unaware of this slight anomaly when a tall, slender green figure descended from the sky.

The sickle on its forelimb swings once.

A man firing his gun had his neck instantly severed, and blood gushed out like a fountain.

The other person standing next to him then came to his senses.

He seemed to have heard a strange sound just now, the sound of the wind being cut.

The second sound is the sound of the throat splitting open.

By the time he realized he needed to turn around, the long, slender shadow had already retracted its forelimbs.

Then everything spun around him, and he saw his own body spurting blood from his neck.

Mantises in nature are also purely carnivorous insects, and they only eat live insects. This dietary habit indicates that...

It is a top-notch hunter.

The common perception of praying mantises is one of "deadly romance," involving mating and cannibalism.

Female praying mantises eat male praying mantises during or after mating, not out of cruelty, but as an evolutionary strategy.

Consuming males can provide females with valuable nutrients, helping them to produce more and healthier eggs.

But the phantom mantises in front of Lin You no longer need to cannibalize each other, as they have plenty of food.

Because a new species has entered their diet—humans.

The female phantom mantis, which suddenly attacked from the air, killed two people in one fell swoop, immediately causing panic among everyone.

The bullets that were originally aimed at Lin You all turned towards the female phantom mantis that was so close at hand.

The absence of the whistling sound of bullets made Lin You feel a little more relaxed, as the indiscriminate bullets and ricochets of the Phantom Mantis were far more deadly.

The Phantom Mantis is not without weaknesses; on the contrary, its fatal weakness is relatively fatal compared to other alien beasts.

For example, the nerve tubercle below the throat is a core hub connecting the head's sensory organs with the body's various segments' motor commands. If this area could be precisely severed with a sharp blade or bullet...

This effectively interrupts its control over the whole body, especially the sickle.

This doesn't require penetrating the thick carapace; a simple touch from the intersegmental membrane of the carapace is enough to make the two blades instantly lose control.

However, almost no one can directly confront the Phantom Mantis's dual blades, as the Phantom Mantis is far faster than a human.

The other place is its "heart".

It is a tubular organ located below the carapace, running through the dorsal and ventral regions, which contracts and pumps blood segmentally.

Lin You was located in the most vulnerable part of the phantom mantis's abdomen.

This is why Phantom Mantis ignored the bullets from those people and wanted to find Lin You beneath it.

Lin You was also searching for the Phantom Mantis's most vulnerable spot.

found it!

Lin You's heart suddenly pounded, and she sprang up from the ground, which had been rolling around on the ground, at an incredible speed.

The fruit knife, which had been held in reverse, stabbed fiercely into the gap in the mantis's abdominal exoskeleton.

The fruit knife was inserted directly into the handle.

Lin You twisted the handle forcefully, and blood gushed out instantly from the gaps in the outer shell.

The phantom mantis shuddered, then began to jump wildly; insects have a vitality far exceeding that of other species.

Even if the heart is pierced directly, it can survive for a period of time.

The phantom mantis went berserk, leaping and rolling, but it couldn't shake off Lin You, who clung tightly to its slender waist like an annoying plaster.

Lin You wasn't doing well either; the Phantom Mantis's madness left Lin You covered in wounds as it clung to its body.

Bloodstains appeared on my back, marks left from scratching against tree branches and rocks. They hurt a lot, but they were all superficial wounds.

After a brief period of frenzy, the Phantom Mantis lost all its power.

He fell heavily to the ground, pinning Lin You beneath him.

Lin You coughed up a mouthful of blood.

The continuous impacts injured her internal organs, and she felt excruciating pain as if all the bones in her body were falling apart.

Lin You tried to push the corpse on top of her, but couldn't budge it.

After all, although the Phantom Mantis is relatively small among the alien beasts, it is still nearly two meters tall, and its thick shell weighs three to four hundred kilograms.

Moreover, Lin You's other hand was still outside the Phantom Mantis's corpse, wrapped around its waist.

It is clearly impossible to push away such weight with one hand.

Lin You was breathing heavily, and the fruit knife she was holding tightly in her hand loosened, the wet, sticky, and warm liquid spreading down her right hand.

Lin You immediately noticed something was wrong.

Because her hands were burning hot, it felt like they were being roasted by flames.

Lin You's expression changed slightly. She had never heard that the blood of the Phantom Mantis was corrosive. Could it be that she had just killed a variant?

There wasn't time to think it through.

Lin You withdrew her other hand, and with both hands she pushed open a tiny gap.

Then she saw her own hands.

It is burning.

Golden flames burned directly on his arm, forming lines that looked like... his skin was being ripped open by an invisible blade, his blood vessels clearly visible in the golden light, and his blood evaporating and then condensing again as it burned, eventually rebuilding into flesh and blood.

It was as if something was awakening from her veins, scrutinizing her body.

The flames flowed slowly down her arm, like flowing gold.

Wherever it passed, extremely regular golden patterns appeared on the skin's surface, layer upon layer, forming a strange pattern shimmering with golden patterns on her arm.

Text information appeared in front of Lin You's eyes, or rather on her retina.

The reforging system is now activated.

[Proxy identity being bound...]

[Binding successful]