In the monitoring room, Lu Yan hung up the phone. Beside him, the manager was tied to a chair, his expression filled with fear.
"Where is the auction address?" Lu Yan turned and inquired. As he spoke, he plunged a knife into the manager's leg.
Actually, such information could be obtained from the system, but Lu Yan was accustomed to pretending he didn't have that talent.
"You didn't need to stab him. His willpower wasn't that strong; he has given up resistance..." the system remarked.
"I like it," Lu Yan replied.
Regeneration was slowly repairing the damage to his body, making Lu Yan feel a bit itchy around his neck. The side effects of excessive use of his abilities were beginning to show.
The manager, clutching his leg, tremblingly pointed in a direction, "Go that way, use... use my card, you can bypass the access control."
Lu Yan rotated the knife in his hand, bent down, and took the access card from the manager's pocket. "Thank you."
Afterward, he cut off the surveillance and power. Lu Yan had night vision, so the absence of light sources wasn't important to him; darkness helped him better conceal himself.
Suddenly losing the light source undoubtedly made those still on the top floor feel anxious. Many people exclaimed due to the abrupt darkness.
Lu Yan wiped the blood off the dagger with a napkin and calmly walked towards the auction venue. Although he moved on the ground, he made no sound.
The system said, "[It's too late.]"
"What?" Lu Yan asked.
"[Go to the auction site, you won't catch up with Su Chenyang. I suggest finding a way to climb up through the window.]"
At the auction venue, the Golden Tail clients looked displeased. "What's going on?"
"Apologies, it seems there's a power outage due to the tsunami tide. We'll start the backup power immediately. Sorry for the inconvenience," the waiter apologized hastily, bowing.
Su Chenyang's expression was very unpleasant. He was not foolish; he understood that things had gone beyond his control. The Harbingers had invaded the seventh floor, and the mermaids, led by Xu Guanyue, had reached the fifth floor. At this rate, reaching the seventh floor was only a matter of time.
The Golden Tail clients were completely unaware that danger was looming. Almost without hesitation, Su Chenyang chose to conceal the situation and simultaneously reassured other staff, promising a salary increase this month. All of this was just to buy time.
Su Chenyang had already made up his mind to leave this cursed place today.
Years ago, the prophet brought the concept of "space," helping change the location of Mermaid Island and turning it into a truly isolated paradise. Today, on the last day of July, coincidentally the time when Mermaid Island and the external space circulated each month, Su Chenyang rushed into his chairman's office.
In the past, he was satisfied with the tight security here. However, now, he only felt annoyed by the layers of security gates delaying his time.
Su Chenyang opened the last door.
The innermost room was not large and had a separate power supply. In the middle, there was an aquarium covered with a black cloth.
Except for him, no one would come here.
Su Chenyang lifted the black cloth, revealing a mermaid curled up inside the half-meter-long aquarium. The mermaid's entire body was gray-black, and due to the small size of the box, it had been curled up for years. Its limbs had degenerated and deformed, swelled by seawater, with a pair of lifeless fish eyes.
A golden bubble hung on the mermaid's neck, parasitized for an unknown period.
Inside, tadpole-like small fish swam happily, as if about to hatch.
This mermaid was as thin as a skeleton. If it weren't for the slight movement in its body with each breath, one would almost think it was already dead.
Su Chenyang knew he didn't have much time left. He drained the water from the aquarium and quickly scooped up the mermaid, ignoring the dirty water on the mermaid, and ran towards the stairs.
He had learned to fly a helicopter.
Su Chenyang had already planned his escape route in his mind.
As long as he left this island, he would immediately trigger the volcanic eruption below the island. Mermaid Island was built on top of an active volcano, and when it erupted, it would bury all the sins.
Despite the urgency, Su Chenyang did not feel the desperate despair of being cornered.
After reaching the peak floor, Su Chenyang's smile froze on his face.
On the spacious helipad, there was already a person standing.
Su Chenyang blurted out a question, "Why are you here?!"
Lu Yan still held the knife in his hand, turned around, and looked very pleased, "Didn't you ask me to come?"
Except for Su Chenyang's office, there was no passage to the top floor, so Lu Yan climbed up directly.
"You..." Su Chenyang silently took a step back, "You're not a mermaid created by mermaid genes. Why do you have fish scales?"
All the pollution sources of mutated contaminants on the island came from the mermaid in his arms. The mermaid wouldn't harm him, and the contaminants injected with mermaid genes, thus distorting, also inherited this characteristic.
"It's a kin effect," the system explained, "[Whether it's a dragon girl or a mermaid, perfect evolved beings have a 'kin effect' similar to a bloodline suppression in front of ordinary mutants. Ordinary mutants automatically consider themselves in a 'servant' position. Su Chenyang, in his pursuit of immortality and eternal youth, almost drained the genes from the mermaid over the years. Therefore, he is also mistakenly recognized by other pollutants as the master.]"
The difference was that Lu Yan had encountered very strong perfect evolved beings, but this one seemed weak, almost as if it could die at any moment.
"That's because it has been drained of all its life force by the parasitic kingfisher inside it," the system added.
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