It had to be said—the Z-virus was truly ridiculously powerful.

  Whether it was living creatures, plants, or even inanimate objects, they could all be transformed beyond recognition under the influence and modification of the Z-virus.

  And the Glue Snail was an extremely special existence among them. Although it was not good at attacking, its self-defense ability was incredibly strong— the stickiness of the glue it sprayed was absolutely unrivaled!

  Liam carefully counted. The number of creatures stuck by the Glue Snail’s glue had already reached hundreds, including even slippery creatures like vine snakes, which were stuck to the ground and unable to move.

  Now, most of the ferocious mutated beasts nearby had gathered around the Glue Snail because of the mutated lizard’s screams. Liam knew the time was right. He jumped down from the tree and immediately sneaked toward the Glue Snail’s location.

  “Which two should I choose as the hosts for the Parasite Implant?”

  Sometimes, having too many choices was not a good thing. There were hundreds of mutated beasts stuck by the Glue Snail, and Liam certainly wanted to pick two of them as hosts for his Parasite Implant. Although Devour and Self-Optimization could make him stronger and stronger, there were still some dangerous things that were better left to his subordinates.

  He stopped outside the glue-covered area, looking at the mutated beasts that were stuck like they were in a quagmire, and couldn’t help but curl the corner of his mouth slightly. Originally, he had thought that capturing even one mutated beast would be extremely difficult, but he hadn’t expected help to come so easily—the Glue Snail had actually done him a huge favor.

  “Magic Hair Lion. Its neck mane can be controlled freely, stretching and shortening at will, suitable for both offense and defense. But its physical fitness is not even as good as that of a mutated hyena—putting the cart before the horse and ending up inferior…” When Liam saw the lion with its mane all stuck to the ground nearby, he immediately stretched his tail and inserted it into the lion’s spine.

  The Magic Hair Lion roared in pain the moment it was attacked, then struggled violently. But as time passed, it gradually weakened, and finally lay motionless on the ground.

  Liam pulled out his tail, and the first feeling he had was fullness. He now had two ways to eat: one was to eat with his mouth like a normal person, and the other was to suck with his tail. He would eat delicious things with his mouth, and if something was unpalatable but nutritious, he would suck it with his tail. And Devour was actually a form of eating—except that when the food passed through his spine, it would extract useful genes and apply them to his own body, an ability he didn’t have when eating with his mouth.

  Although Liam knew about his ability, this was the first time he had used it since he had vaguely devoured the brain worm. He had no idea that devouring would leave him feeling so full; now he couldn’t devour a second mutated beast.

  “It looks like I have to digest the Magic Hair Lion first before I can devour another mutated beast…” Liam frowned. If that was the case, how long would it take to devour all the mutated beasts here?

  But there was no help for it—what was done was done. Liam had to put aside the idea of devouring and start selecting mutated beasts to cultivate his Parasite Implant.

  Liam jumped onto a nearby branch and looked carefully at each mutated beast. Although the knowledge he had inherited from the brain worm was rich, he couldn’t possibly recognize all mutated beasts. There were simply too many mutated beasts in the world. Take insects, for example—there were originally more than 1 million species on Earth, and many more that humans had not discovered. After being stimulated and modified by the Z-virus, these 1 million plus insect species had evolved into countless new ones. Even the same species could undergo different mutations under the Z-virus’s modification. Just like lions— the same Asian lion had evolved into more than 30 different types, and the Magic Hair Lion was one of the weaker ones. But it’s important to note that there were originally 11 species of lions; even if each evolved into 30 types, that was an extremely terrifying number! (Extinct ones not included!)

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  Among the hundreds of mutated creatures in front of him, Liam only recognized 30. For the rest, he had to observe carefully and use the unique identification method created by the brain worm to distinguish their strengths and abilities.

  Soon, Liam locked onto his target. He noticed a black giant insect that was also stuck, but instead of struggling, it was spinning silk on the ground, then tearing its own body—despite the pain—and slowly moving toward the silk-covered area.

  According to the brain worm’s identification theory, the smarter a mutated creature was, the higher its evolution level. And the more special its abilities would be.

  Liam immediately jumped down from the tree, then onto a lizard he recognized. He ran directly along the lizard’s body, then jumped onto a giant turtle. The turtle reacted extremely quickly, immediately turning its head to bite him, but Liam had long known that this turtle could stretch its head to the back. So he dodged and jumped directly onto another mutated beast.

  After jumping several times in a row, he finally reached the black giant insect. Liam immediately inserted his tail into the insect’s body. The black giant insect felt a sharp pain, then spotted Liam. It opened its mouth and sprayed a colorful silk thread—obviously, this silk thread was highly toxic.

  Seeing the silk thread shooting toward him, Liam quickly dodged. Placing the Parasite Implant only took an instant. The moment his tail had inserted into the black giant insect, the parasite had already entered its body. Now he just had to wait one night to get a completely loyal subordinate.

  Having placed the first Parasite Implant, Liam returned to the branch to rest with his eyes closed. He still had one parasite left, but he had changed his mind. He didn’t plan to use it immediately. If he encountered a better mutated creature in the future but had no parasites left, that would be a pity. Moreover, the most outstanding creature here was that black giant insect; the other mutated beasts had relatively low mutation levels. Some even only had enlarged bodies without any special abilities. Back when Liam was a decoy, he had liked these only-enlarged mutated beasts, but now he looked down on them— in his eyes, such mutated beasts didn’t even have edible value.

  The night passed quietly. When Liam woke up, he found that his hair could actually be controlled freely, just like his limbs. He knew this was the result of devouring the Magic Hair Lion’s genes. He tested the toughness of his hair—it was roughly the same as steel wire. And the strength of his hair was about thirty times his own. Liam could now easily lift a car, so one could imagine how terrifying the strength of his hair was.

  Although this ability was not impressive on the Magic Hair Lion, after being optimized, Liam found it really useful. His hair could be long or short, thick or thin—though the thickest it could get was the size of a needle, and the thinnest was like silk. Even so, Liam was still very satisfied with this new ability.

  Liam spent the entire morning adapting to his new hair ability, then began experimenting on the poor mutated creatures. In the end, he drew a conclusion: his hair did not absorb blood, water, or oil, but it was helpless against the Glue Snail’s powerful glue—he had to cut off the part that got stuck. His hair could withstand low temperatures below 0 degrees Celsius but could not resist fire above 200 degrees Celsius, and thunder and lightning also seemed to affect his control over his hair.

  By noon, he chose a fire-breathing giant python to devour, then continued practicing his abilities. Just as he was becoming more and more proficient with his abilities, he suddenly felt a stir in his heart, immediately sensing the birth of a life form. He ran toward the black giant insect and saw a giant insect covered in black carapace crawling out of its body.

  Although the black-carapaced insect looked hard, it was actually very soft. It jumped slightly and landed on the mutated beast where Liam was standing, then instinctively approached Liam, as if it knew Liam was its master, its mother.

  The black-carapaced insect was about the size of a motorcycle, completely incomparable to the mutated lizard under its feet. After all, most creatures now were at least three meters long, and the mutated lizard was as long as nine meters!

  Although Liam thought the black-carapaced insect was not small, among the common creatures, it was actually a tiny little thing.

  And it seemed that heaven thought Liam was ignorant and decided to open his eyes. Suddenly, the earth was covered in shadow. Liam looked up and saw an extremely huge beetle—at least 300 meters long—flying across the sky. For a moment, strong winds raged in the forest…

  At that moment, Liam suddenly realized that with his meager abilities, surviving in the apocalypse was still not easy.