Several kilometers away on a mountaintop.
The gentlemen watched the town engulfed in total rebellion,
The clothes they wore seemed to sense the bloody scent wafting from the town and became restless.
With a large belly pouch, Teacher Suman's face was almost squeezed together,
"If this large-scale forced infection breaks out tonight, it will be hard for anyone to survive until tomorrow afternoon... I suggest we bring the exam to an end at dawn."
This proposal received the agreement of many gentlemen.
Even the usually strict white-haired Professor Qian Bosen silently consented.
While most gentlemen's gaze focused on the town center and the surrounding areas where fierce battles erupted,
Gug~
The owl perched on Qian Bosen's shoulder cried out, pulling his gaze towards the "Green Shadows Inn" on the edge of town.
Two "patients" with independent consciousness did not participate in the town's rebellion but instead quietly slipped out the back door,
Pushing a wooden cart in tandem,
On which lay six bodies covered with a thin film of 'fish eggs' and filled with a large amount of mucus inside.
One of the bodies at the bottom was the young man whom white-haired Qian Bosen had taken an interest in earlier.
Qian Bosen simply watched, without making any comments,
The wooden cart was pushed to the lakeside,
Tilting the cart's head,
Splash~ the water splashed as all six bodies were dumped into it.
The siblings responsible for the transport also jumped into the lake,
They carried the six bodies to the deepest part of the lake using their sticky bodies as transport means.
"This is…"
White-haired Qian Bosen's pupils changed at this moment, the first time he utilized his abilities since supervising this exam.
His sclera turned blood-red,
His normally rounded pupils were completely blackened,
Greatly enhancing his field of vision, he easily looked through Green Lake, focusing on Yi Chen, who pretended to be unconscious and wrapped in the thin film.
"This guy actually managed to get this far…"
Qian Bosen pointed his finger,
The owl on his shoulder immediately spread its wings and flew out, its white silhouette flashing through the night sky toward Green Lake.
...
[Under the lake]
The bodies carried by the siblings were not corpses,
but perfectly cultured, suitable for 'Fishification' infected bodies… all used as decoys to hide Yi Chen, the 'sixth person'.
These fish egg films wrapping their bodies,
not only effectively isolated the impact of lake water,
but also preserved a sufficient amount of air, enough to support them to the bottom of the lake,
Moreover,
Yi Chen himself took some precautionary measures,
'Equipped with a mask'
Root-like nets were set between his throat, nostrils, and ear canals… even if exposed to the lake water, they prevented water from entering his body, effectively filtering pathogens.
With eyes tightly shut,
pretending to be unconscious,
Yet a mouth quietly opened on the back of his head, containing eyes, stealthily spying on the situation under the water.
According to observations of Green Lake.
[Upper half of the lake]:
Floating, crowded with dense green-lit parasitic eggs and fish eggs,
[Lower half of the lake]
The tiny egg bodies no longer existed, replaced by a terrifying 'human egg.'
Those who successfully passed the first stage of fish-scale infection were curled up among the egg bodies,
A cord-like strip of flesh at one end connected to their navels, the other end connected to the lake bed.
This was how 'Fishification' was carried out.
Once the body grew enough fish scales and internal organs evolved completely, forming perfect gill structures, they would break out of the eggs and transform into merpeople.
Of course,
Some already matured fish people were also swimming around here, inspecting the human eggs and guarding against intruders.
Slowly,
Drawn by the siblings, they gradually approached the deepest part of Green Lake.
A hair-raising sense of being watched returned, clearly something in the deepest part was watching them.
"That is!"
After bypassing several human eggs and patrolling merpeople,
An extraordinarily large "[Eye]" was discovered, embedded deep in the lake bed… a super large green pupil constantly moved, monitoring everything in the lake bed and Green Lake Town.
"Super huge green grape!"
Little Grape became exceptionally excited at this moment,
At this moment,
Yi Chen also understood why Little Grape was being proactive; perhaps it knew all along.
However, one thing puzzled him,
"Why would the root be a giant eye rather than a mother?",
In Yi Chen's expectation,
What caused the fish scale disease, turning the townspeople into merpeople, should have been a parasitic mother… its image should be that of a massive, egg-laying bug-like monster.
But the giant eye before them seemed completely unrelated to 'egg-laying' or 'parasite'.
As Yi Chen felt puzzled, Little Grape's voice came:
"What is the disease? Where does pathology come from? These questions are basically hard for anyone to understand, and the diversity, variability involved are even less known.
Perhaps there never was any parasitic mother,
This giant eye was merely a 'Watcher' after all,
It might have been instructed to bring a 'parasite swarm' to this town, monitor and witness the town's pathological transformation… and subsequently might take some quality patients away.
Its eyes can control parasites through staring alone.
Anyway,
This super grape is the source... That's our target now.
In a moment, all you need to do, William, is one thing—[make physical contact with this eyeball].
The moment you touch the surface of the eyeball, I can transfer directly inside it and suck the grape juice."