Chapter 468: Another High Ranking Zerg

Julius stood over Lilianna with his plasma pistol leveled at her skull, but for a moment, his attention tore away from her. He had heard Sarah’s cracked voice with everyone in the living room.

He looked at the tail end of the feed.

Then suddenly, a falling slab slammed on Catalina’s back.

But Julius wasn’t as worried compared to Sarah because he knew that Catalina was also from a beastman lineage; a simple rock this size could easily be brushed off in a semi-transformation.

But then, an unusual sound came from below him. Not from the holographic screen like everyone thought, but from below him.

Squelch.

Pop.

Tear.

It was the wet, sickening sound of human flesh being unzipped from the inside—a rhythmic, deliberate splitting of skin that made the bile rise in Julius’s throat.

"Get back!" Julius barked, his voice dropping into a harsh, commanding tone.

Julius snapped his attention down. He watched her spine arch, a violent, unnatural bridge against the floor. The fabric of her clothing strained before it finally surrendered with a sharp rip.

Two jagged ridges of bone shoved through the raw, reddening skin between her shoulder blades.

It was not a human bone. A human bone didn’t gleam like that, nor did it pulse with that sickly, bioluminescent green sheen as it broke free from the human flesh.

"Damn it," he hissed.

Julius didn’t hesitate, leveled his weapon, his pulse thrumming in his ears as he fired. He had already lost the half-second; he couldn’t lose another.

The plasma pistol cracked, the sound resonating in the room. A bolt of caged, reddish-yellow light lashed out, striking dead center on the emerging wing-bone.

The impact sent a spray of viscous fluid spattering against the floorboards.

If it were just a normal zerg, that shot should’ve severed it completely. It would’ve ended the transformation before it began.

However, against all expectations, the wing-bone took the bolt, blackened. Waiting for another second, the scorched surface hissing as it instantly began to knit itself back together.

Like Keres’s wounds, it knitted itself back together faster than the scorch mark could fade. The sound was like meat sizzling on a hot plate, masked by the wet slurping of tissues regenerating in real-time.

Julius’s jaw clenched, his teeth grinding audibly.

Another high-ranking zerg. Damn it.

Everyone who saw it knew that another problematic high-ranking zerg had appeared. And it was also hidden inside another one of my friends.

They already knew that at some point, Lilianna would emerge as a zerg, but they didn’t know that the zerg inside her would be this terrible.

Not even the other high-ranking zerg outside managed to transform Helena’s flesh. Even if it was a transformation, it shouldn’t be this fast.

At this rate, it would be completely impossible to extract that zerg from Lilianna.

Damn it, this wasn’t the plan at all. Julius thought and became worried about Grayson if he learned about this.

The more Julius bored holes in Lilianna’s way, the faster the transformation occurred. Soon, the transformation finished in a heartbeat.

No one could react as recklessly as before anymore.

Two pairs of wings unfurled from Lilianna’s back, broad and finely fringed. To those who came from Earth, they would recognize this as a mutated White Plume Moth scaled to monstrous size.

Each plume of the wing, edged in fine white feathering, might look soft, but if one actually touches it, they would have to deal not only with a stab wound but also with a fast-acting poison, too.

Lilianna’s golden hair seemed to have been bleached to a feathered texture, downy white, lifting at the roots as though static-charged.

The tiger-beastman strength of her, the striped predator that lived under the Gringer skin, was simply gone. Like her tiger genes had been overwritten to suit a moth’s body.

Lilianna’s wings flapped, and she rose like a marionette rises when the strings go taut. She hovered and slowly opened her eyes with a blank expression.

Her eyes, like zergs, were bloody red. Her bloody red eyes looked at the people in front and the wrecked living area, devoid of emotion.

Then Lilianna slowly lifted her lips, an expression that had never been seen by anyone in front of her. Then her smile widened; it was wet and delighted.

She showed all of her teeth, the smile that reached her eyes. The eyes that gleamed against the lighting with an expression of finding the people in front of her amusing.

"Oh, you don’t need to greet me all at once," Salia said, in Lilianna’s voice, pitched in an unusual tone.

She flew a little forward, making the people in front of her unconsciously take a step back.

A smirk appeared on her lips, and she said, "Pitiful creatures. No need to be that scared."

No one replied.

Not because they were speechless or scared of this zerg in front of them. Rather, they just didn’t want to waste their time talking to a creature they just needed to kill.

Seeing that she was getting ignored, Salia’s bloody red eyes found the holographic screens. In the live feed, Catalina escaped safely from under the rubble, and the smile didn’t so much as flicker.

"Mm. Pity about saving Mommy dear. Looked like she was safe anyway. Still—a deal’s a deal. I did say I’d save her fast."

Then a maniacal smile formed on her lips, and she continued to murmur.

"Save her the trouble of breathing a second more into this world."

Her words made them even more alert. Everyone knew that this high-ranking zerg was on a different level than the one outside.

Not only did her little hovering carve a hole in the ground, piercing through the basement, but also the little droplets of poisonous acid liquids dripping, spraying from the tips of her wings.

"Aww~. Seriously, I don’t bite." Salia tilted her head, and a murderous mirth glinted in her eyes as she smilingly said, "But I can stab."

Those soft, feathery bristles of Salia’s wings hardened and prepared to be launched and thrown at her enemies.

Salia announced, "Shall we have our fun?"