“Big sister! Behind you, behind you! Go!”
“Don’t run around!”
Leng Qiongling grabbed the little girl and kicked Daizer, who was about to pounce, away.
She leaped to an island in a lake far from the mad beast horde.
The little boy had already been dragged there by Leng Qiongling.
Watching the clawing mad beasts, he nervously clutched the hem of his clothes.
“You two, stay here and don’t wander off, okay?”
“Is big sister going to fight the bad guys?”
Leng Qiongling brushed the hair plastered against her forehead and forced a relaxed expression.
“Mm, big sister is going to fight the bad guys.”
“Miss Le Paxi!”
“Hmm?”
Le Paxi slammed a Daizer deep into the sandy ground.
Even with the sand as a cushion, the Daizer was shattered by Le Paxi’s giant hammer, its shell fragments splattering everywhere.
Leng Qiongling leaped up from the small island, stepping on the endless stream of Daizer, and arrived beside Le Paxi.
“I’m here to help.”
“Hmm… although I’m glad you want to help… but…”
Le Paxi swung her giant hammer, clearly implying that Leng Qiongling currently had no weapon and probably couldn’t do much.
If she really wanted to help, she’d have to tear them apart with her bare hands.
But Daizer weren’t so easy to tear.
“Uh… this…”
It seemed Leng Qiongling hadn’t thought of that either.
She looked at her hands awkwardly, temporarily at a loss for a solution.
“Hmm… I do have a spare. If you don’t mind.”
Le Paxi drove the giant hammer vertically into the ground and tapped the end of the handle.
Suddenly, the entire hammer split apart, revealing a small space inside.
It was tiny, barely enough to hold a small knife—and indeed, a small knife was stored there.
Le Paxi took out the knife.
Though it was very short, the serrated edge of the blade emitted a chilling gleam.
“This is…?”
“This is Xini—the one who makes our weapons—made from leftover material. It’s still usable. Make do with this for now.”
Leng Qiongling took the knife from Le Paxi’s hand.
Only when she held it did she realize that even this knife’s weight wasn’t something an ordinary person could lift.
In her hand, for the first time, Heng Qiongling felt as if the weapon was connected to her.
A jumble of voices surged into her mind, directly conversing with her thoughts.
“Huh?! What is this?!”
Leng Qiongling felt as if something was devouring her consciousness.
She instinctively tried to throw the knife away, but found she couldn’t shake it off.
The knife seemed glued to Leng Qiongling’s hand—or perhaps it was becoming part of her body.
“What’s wrong?”
Le Paxi noticed Leng Qiongling’s abnormality.
Just then, a smaller Daizer suddenly burrowed out from underground.
Although smaller than a normal Daizer, it could evade both their senses and ambush Leng Qiongling’s feet.
“Watch out!”
Le Paxi tried to block the Daizer, but it was too close—her weapon might accidentally hit Leng Qiongling.
That moment of hesitation allowed the Daizer to approach Leng Qiongling.
“!”
Leng Qiongling’s scattered vision caught the sudden attack, but her fragmented consciousness couldn’t react in time.
“Shlick!”
But instead of Leng Qiongling being pierced by the Daizer’s sharp horn, the Daizer’s body was sliced by a whistling screech, then split in two and fell to the ground.
The small knife in Leng Qiongling’s hand still radiated its chilling gleam, but now it was also stained with a bit of blood and rotting flesh.
“Leng Qiongling?”
Leng Qiongling didn’t answer Le Paxi.
Her hair hung down, hiding her face.
But Le Paxi could feel a very familiar sensation emanating unrestrainedly from Leng Qiongling.
“Leng Qiongling? Damn it…”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“Tch!”
Le Paxi threw her weapon aside and tried with all speed to restrain Leng Qiongling, who had entered a berserk state.
But before Le Paxi could touch her, a sharp little knife flashed in front of Le Paxi, forcing her to dodge.
The tiny knife cut through the air, producing a deafening explosion.
Only then did Leng Qiongling seem to remember someone standing beside her.
She raised her head; through her scattered hair, Le Paxi could barely see her eyes.
There were no red, glowing eyes of a berserk state as people imagined—only pitch blackness, wrapping the most primal killing desire.
Around Leng Qiongling, a chilling red gas gradually condensed—a phenomenon that only appeared with high-concentration Mad Contagion.
Now Leng Qiongling was a humanoid Mad Contagion source, the most dangerous type that could plunge an entire city into despair.
Even Le Paxi felt somewhat uncomfortable under such concentration of Mad Contagion.
Leng Qiongling raised the knife—now a part of her body—the tip pointing at Le Paxi’s heart.
Before the sound could reach, Leng Qiongling’s form was already in front of Le Paxi, the knife pressed nearly against her skin.
Just a little more, and Le Paxi’s heart would be pierced.
With a rush of heat, Leng Qiongling’s knife stopped.
The entire blade trembled at an eerie frequency.
“Oh dear, drawing a blade against a teammate—that’s the first rule the Captain set for us. If you don’t follow it, the Captain will punish you later, you know?”
Le Paxi grabbed Leng Qiongling’s knife-wielding hand, pushed it upward, and lifted Leng Qiongling’s arm.
Her other hand seized Leng Qiongling’s shoulder.
With both hands exerting force, she swung Leng Qiongling over her head and violently slammed her into the sandy ground, leaving only one arm exposed.
“In that case, why don’t we dance together?”
The yellow sand was hurled into the air without visible cause.
Leng Qiongling, beneath the sand, used Le Paxi’s hand to propel herself, leaping up.
In midair, as if stepping on the air itself, she turned almost in a straight line toward Le Paxi in an unimaginable manner.
“!”
Le Paxi clearly hadn’t anticipated this.
She barely dodged the knife that could have split her open, then jumped several meters away.
Regaining her footing, she reassessed Leng Qiongling’s current state.
“What’s going on? That turn?”
Although a madman in a berserk state would exhibit physical abilities far beyond normal, that move just now was clearly more than just physical enhancement.
There was only one possibility…
“Evolution?”
Madmen could evolve like mad beasts—that was one of the earliest discoveries in madman research.
However, madmen could evolve individually, driving the evolution of their population.
But like mad beasts, without specific environmental conditions, evolution was undirected.
That was why, even today, madmen hadn’t developed specialized structures—both a lack of specific environments and human interference played a part.
Had Leng Qiongling just evolved in that instant?
But now, she showed no signs of evolution at all.
The evolution disappeared?
Le Paxi focused on every movement of Leng Qiongling.
She had no idea what Leng Qiongling would do next.
For the first time, she felt the new madman before her was so mysterious.
But just as Le Paxi was on guard, Leng Qiongling’s eyes—covered by her hair—showed a familiar expression.
Before Le Paxi could speak, Leng Qiongling suddenly turned and ran deep into the great desert.
“Wait!”
Le Paxi wanted to chase, but suddenly remembered the siblings she had placed on the small island.
But when she looked back, both the siblings and the entire oasis had vanished without a trace.