"Captain, the bearing has been sent," Lan Lan announced over the team's communication channel.

His eyes were fixed intently on the images transmitted back to his monitor by the drones. "The target Swordwood is heading toward the signal tower."

"Received," Captain Shu Xuyao confirmed.

The sound of heavy breathing from teammates running could be heard over the team channel, but such noises were filtered out for Cyrus by Adam to avoid any distractions that might affect her aim.

The K80's magazine was loaded with ten bullets, and Cyrus had brought two spare magazines with her, more than enough for the task at hand. If her teammates successfully apprehended the target, she wouldn't even need to fire a single shot.

Cyrus maintained her composure, tracking Swordwood's frantic dash through her scope.

He was running blindly, without direction or purpose, until he stumbled and fell on the muddy, slippery ground of the slum. He scrambled to his feet, glancing back in panic, ignoring his bleeding knees and the bread that had fallen from his mouth as he continued his desperate flight.

"He's really booking it, thankfully in the direction of the signal tower," Lan Lan noted as the green dots representing teammates and the red dot marking the target on his monitor drew closer together. Captain Shu and the others were about to catch up with Swordwood.

"Hold on," Cyrus, who had been silently aiming, suddenly spoke up. "Didn't you say Swordwood lacks anti-tracking skills? With the captain so far from him, how could he have sensed and fled?"

Lan Lan paused, "Could it be his supernatural ability..."

"No, didn't you notice? Swordwood keeps looking back, but he's not looking in the direction of the captain in the southwest; he's looking behind him," Cyrus shifted her scope, no longer focusing on Swordwood but searching for anything suspicious behind him. "He's not running because he's aware of the captain's presence; he's not that perceptive... There must be something else chasing him that's scaring him into running."

"Your reasoning sounds plausible," Lan Lan muttered.

Cyrus's analysis did make sense. Hesitating for just a second, Lan Lan diverted one drone from the swarm to scan the area behind Swordwood, sweeping the surroundings for anything unusual.

The environment, buildings, small-scale terrain, and even sewers were scanned, with living entities revealed under the drone's scanning light.

Nothing abnormal was detected; nothing was chasing Swordwood.

"You're overthinking it, rookie," Lan Lan said with a relaxed tone.

Cyrus's lips tightened as a clear warning flashed through her mind. Her temples throbbed with a sense of urgency—her instincts were alerting her to danger. But the threat wasn't coming from Swordwood; it was coming from somewhere else—

"Unidentified object detected moving at a speed of 5.9 meters per second in the sewer! Unidentified object detected moving at a speed of 5.9 meters per second in the sewer!" Adam's alarm blared, "Scanning... Scan complete! The unidentified object is a parasitic hydran! Level three alert! Repeat, level three alert!"

Adam's report came through at double speed, clear and swift to all team members' ears.

"Damn it! How did a parasitic hydran leave the coast and get into the city?" Lan Lan, who had been relaxed up to this point, let out a curse, his face turning grim as he maneuvered the control panel, directing the drones to follow the sewer line and pinpoint the hydran's location. "The captain and the others are in danger now; we don't have the weapons or gear to deal with exotic species!"

Exotic species? Parasitic hydran? What in the world was that?

Cyrus's heart raced as she shifted her scope, following the street sewers in search of the hydran.

"Adam! Send drones here with gear and call for backup," Lan Lan ordered urgently. "Captain, retreat! Our combat suits can't withstand a hydran's attack, and the weapons we carry won't do much damage!"

"We can't, this is a residential area; it will kill civilians," Captain Shu Xuyao countered. "Jiang Ming, go drive the police car. There's a flamethrower on it; use that thing to deal with it. Liu Kangyun and I will continue tracking."

"Copy that, Captain," Jiang Ming broke away from the group.

Cyrus wiped the raindrops from her scope and re-entered her aiming stance.

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She was high up on the signal tower, while the parasitic hydran was hundreds of meters below in the sewer. Unlike Swordwood and Captain Shu and the others, she was safe.

Cyrus stopped trying to find the hydran between sewer covers and instead focused on Swordwood. If the hydran was chasing Swordwood, she would concentrate on him and see if he would draw the creature out.

Swordwood was a panicked lab rat, an unintended live bait.

The bait was cast, but what kind of monster would it attract?

Cyrus's palms were sweaty, but she kept her full attention. She forgot to blink, even as the wind blew rain into her eyes.

At a bend, an exhausted Swordwood slipped and fell.

Simultaneously, the concrete beneath him bulged and then shattered.

A horrific monster burst forth from the ground!

Cyrus's eyes widened, shocked into silence.

It was a creature flailing translucent tentacles, possessing a deformed human body not its own, but one it had parasitized. The translucent tentacles wriggled out from the back, mouth, eyes, ears, and other parts of the human body, thrashing wildly in the air.

Swordwood let out a pig-like scream: "Help! Don't eat me! I just stole a loaf of bread from your house!"

He was ensnared by the tentacles, which wrapped around his neck, turning his face purple.

Captain Shu and Liu Kangyun arrived on the scene and didn't hesitate to fire at the monster. Its translucent tentacles were hit and severed, falling to the ground and still twitching.

Snapped out of her shock, Cyrus aimed at the hydran's human host and pulled the trigger.

"Bang!"

The bullet spiraled out of the barrel, missing the target and instead hitting the concrete below the hydran's feet, creating a crater in the impact.

The K80 was the most advanced sniper rifle available, capable of piercing through solid concrete walls.

"Damn it," cursed Cyrus.

"Let's see what's on the reading page, shall we?"

"You forgot to account for the wind," Adam remarked. "The drizzle is light, and the wind speed has dropped to 2.1. The target distance is 722.3 meters."

Lan Lan opened his mouth: "Cyrus, you..."

"Shut up, don't distract me while I'm shooting," Cyrus snapped irritably.

Lan Lan immediately fell silent.

Cyrus exhaled slowly, wiped the scope once more, and tried again.

The K80 spat fire, and another bullet tore through the rain.

It hit its mark with a squelch! The spinning bullet struck the hydran's chest, blasting a hole the size of a bowl through its body. The hole was bloodless, and the shriveled flesh scattered around.

Before Cyrus could relish the shot, she continued firing, bullet after bullet leaving the gun and striking the hydran's head, abdomen, shoulders, spine, and legs. Its parasitized human body was left looking like a broken doll, barely recognizable as human.

Only when all ten bullets were spent did Cyrus stop. She didn't check her handiwork but immediately reloaded and aimed, ready for the next round.

The hydran, now without the support of the human body, collapsed to the ground, releasing Swordwood.

Swordwood, stars in his eyes, gasped for breath, nearly suffocated to death. Barely conscious, he scrambled away on hands and knees, looking utterly pathetic.

The hydran was not willing to let go of its prey. It reached for Swordwood but grasped at thin air. Swordwood's body vanished on the spot, reappearing three meters away under a street lamp, evading the hydran's grasp.

He staggered to his feet, cursing in a panic: "Dammit! The superpower finally works when I need it, good thing it didn't fail me."

Cyrus began another round of shots, severing several of the hydran's thick tentacles. The creature, resigned, abandoned the chase for Swordwood and, using its tentacles to anchor itself to the ground, began dodging Cyrus's bullets.

Captain Shu and Liu Kangyun, several dozen meters away, kept firing as well. Working in tandem, one would reload while the other covered, giving each other time to change magazines.

Just as they ran out of ammunition, Jiang Ming arrived in the police car.

The car lowered its altitude, extending a dark flamethrower that spewed scorching flames, burning the hydran as it crawled on the ground. Its tentacles visibly shriveled from the heat, losing their earlier vitality.

"It's afraid of fire..." Cyrus murmured to herself, her tension easing slightly.

But before she could fully relax, the hydran began to thrash violently. Its tentacles whipped the air, making the sound of a cracking whip.

Straining and stretching, the tentacles wrapped around the police car mid-air, pulling it off course while jamming the flamethrower's nozzle, blocking the fire!

With a loud boom, the fuel tank exploded, and the police car plummeted from the sky, trailing thick smoke.

The hydran severed its tentacles, abandoning the human carcass it had parasitized, and lunged toward Swordwood, who had only crawled ten meters away.

A terrifying scene unfolded as its soft, translucent body enveloped Swordwood, tentacles forcefully pouring into his mouth.

Swordwood's expression was one of ultimate terror, his mouth agape in a futile attempt to resist the hydran's parasitism.

His eyes rolled back, his neck bulged, his chest and abdomen grotesquely swelled, his body taking on a deformed appearance.

Captain Shu raised his gun to aim at Swordwood, but his trigger clicked empty—he was out of bullets. Liu Kangyun wore a grim expression as he shook his head at Captain Shu; he was out of ammunition too.

"The hydran is in a vulnerable state and must not be allowed to complete the host transfer," Lan Lan spoke rapidly. "Cyrus, take down Swordwood! Now! The hydran can't parasitize a corpse!"

In just a few seconds, Swordwood's body was unrecognizable, the hydran pushing its way inside him.

Cyrus pursed her lips, aimed through the scope, and targeted Swordwood.

"Bang—"

The gunshot seemed distant to her, the echo lingering longer than the previous shots.

The bullet spun through the air, piercing the man's head. His body collapsed to the ground, blood spattering and staining the ground red.

"You have killed [Proxy·Swordwood]."

"You have stripped [Proxy·Swordwood] of his supernatural ability."

"You have acquired the supernatural ability [Shadow Shuttle·E-grade]."

"[Shadow Shuttle·E-grade]: You can use shadows to perform short-range spatial jumps."

At that moment, Cyrus's vision was empty, her ears still ringing with the sound of the gunshot, her trigger finger twitching slightly.

She finally understood why the game's land was red

—It was soaked in blood.

This world had finally revealed its brutal, hideous face to Cyrus in full.