Drenched in Blood

Is it disgusting inside the corpse? Definitely. It's all bloody organs.

But with the strong wind outside, Tom, who was brought down, had no choice but to hide inside the dog's carcass. As long as he dared to go out, the fierce typhoon could blow him and his armor into the sky. Then, where he would land would be anyone's guess.

So Tom could only hide in the dog's abdominal cavity. Although the stench was heavy, at least he wouldn't be blown away. For him, while these smells were unpleasant, they were still better than the stench of decay, especially since this was a dog, not a human. The psychological aversion wasn't as strong.

Tom shrank for a while and slowly got used to it. Just as he rested for a while, he suddenly thought of a question that had been lingering in his mind.

With the city deserted, how much could those large animals find to eat?

Due to the explosion of the crystal at the time, it exploded in the dog's stomach, blowing up the person who had just been eaten, so the small and large intestines of the dog's body should also have been affected. Therefore, the digestive and undigested food residue would definitely emit a stench, even... the smell of feces.

But Tom, inside the dog's abdominal cavity, smelled nothing but blood, without any other foul odor.

So Tom decided to take a look. Although it was dark inside the cavity, according to the logic mentioned by the Black Cloaked Man: creatures that have eaten humans, if they haven't undergone sleep digestion and their blood adheres to the gem, the gem will glow.

So Tom took out a piece of yellow crystal from his Street Zero metal backpack, dabbed it with some dog blood, and it immediately emitted a faint yellow light.

"Well, this is quite good for illumination." Tom held up the glowing yellow crystal and slowly groped deeper. Before long, he saw the long large intestine.

Tom licked his lips, took a deep breath, and took out his butcher knife to cut open the intestine. The incision immediately oozed out some blue liquid.

Blue liquid? Tom was stunned... he had never heard of dogs... or any mammal having blue bodily fluids... unless it was caused by the light refracted by the yellow crystal in his hand.

But among the four colors of crystals, yellow light had the least influence on color. So Tom had reason to believe that the liquid inside the dog's intestine was indeed blue.

Well, since crystals could already grow inside the dog's body, a little more blue liquid wasn't that surprising.

At this point, the yellow crystal extinguished. He quickly dabbed some more dog blood and it lit up again. By the light, Tom searched inside the intestines and indeed found no food residue. That meant this dog hadn't eaten anything in the past few days, confirming one of Tom's suspicions.

Throughout the evolution and reproduction of life on Earth, the various sizes of organisms were the results of their adaptation to nature, a result of generations of continuation, with a relationship constrained by food and physiological structures.

Take the yellow ants, for example. Their size is the smallest among all ants. The source of food acquisition and the influence of the surrounding environment over hundreds of years gradually made them so small. In a limited environment, allowing them to survive and reproduce to the greatest extent possible with minimal food consumption.

Similarly, why are yellow ants on average only about 2 millimeters in size, while African driver ants are about 7 millimeters? Because the natural environments of Africa and South America are more complex, with more diverse life forms and richer food sources, and of course, the creatures there are more ferocious. Ants that are too small to hunt will perish.

Now, breaking the natural selection that had lasted for hundreds or thousands of years, yellow ants ate human flesh, and their bodies suddenly increased several times in size, naturally increasing their demand for food. Not to mention the ant nest in Tom's rental building, there were at least hundreds of mutant ants, plus so many smaller ones. How did the ant colony sustain its food supply?

That was something Tom found strange.

Moreover, here on Lao Pu Street, Ban Thirteen had taken people out to feed the Haba dogs and other creatures. Until Tom swept through Lao Pu Street, more than a month had passed. Why could those mutant insects sustain themselves for so long?

When a person was reduced to 1/24th of their original size, where did most of their energy and material go? Tom felt that the liquid in the dog's intestine might provide some answers.

These substances were like nutrient solutions, providing the nutrients needed for the mutated dogs' bodies. Perhaps not all, but sustaining some of them should be possible, after all, the intestine itself was a place for nutrient absorption.

If the large crystal dug out by Boyo and the others was blue, it would prove that these blue liquid substances were related to the crystal inside the mutated dog's body.

But at the moment, he couldn't confirm it, he could only survive this typhoon and return to the camp.

Tom decided to go out and find a slightly more comfortable place to lie down. As a result, the yellow crystal dimmed again, so he took some blood from the intestines nearby and lit it up to find a suitable location. However, the yellow crystal didn't light up; instead, the red crystal in his crystal backpack did.

In order to keep track of whether the enhanced power crystal in his backpack was operational, there was a small window on the side of the backpack. With just a turn of his head, Tom could see if it was lit. In the pitch-black surroundings, the red crystal in the backpack emitted a bright red light, very conspicuous.

"I didn't activate the crystal!" Tom was stunned, then he felt a powerful suction force on his hand from the position where he touched the dog's internal organs. In an instant, the red light emitted from the window of the backpack became extremely bright. Since the conductor material connected from his arms to his back, waist, thighs, and head inside the armor, Tom felt a hot mass of air spreading at the contact points of each conductor with his body. Soon, his whole body felt hot, and it felt like there was fire about to erupt from his throat.

Tom let out a painful scream, desperately flailing his hands, trying to knock off the scorching gas sucked in from his hands. However, his efforts were futile. No matter how hard he tried to knock it off, he couldn't alleviate the burning pain that spread throughout his body. Instead, it intensified, as if he were in a furnace, being roasted by flames at temperatures of several thousand degrees.

He struggled desperately, swinging his fists and feet, smashing whatever internal organs or bones he hit. After a few hits, he rolled around in agony inside the dog's abdominal cavity, causing blood to seep out from the flesh walls. But as the blood touched his gradually reddening metal armor, it immediately made a sizzling sound, turning into streaks of light that flickered and slowly disappeared.

Tom rolled around several times, then fell silent and passed out.

When the typhoon started, Boyo, Uncle Wei, and the others were anxious. They didn't know the situation in the neighboring clinic. As the wind blew harder and harder, whistling through the cracks in the door, they became even more worried, afraid that the plan would fail and Tom would suffer.

Finally, when they heard the heavy bang of the door closing, their previous worries vanished, and everyone cheered loudly to celebrate Tom's and their own efforts.

Only Boyo secretly felt uneasy. He pulled Uncle Wei aside to a corner and whispered his speculation, "Uncle Wei, things might not have gone smoothly. After the sofa fell down for quite a while, the door didn't close until later. There might have been some complications."

"I noticed it too. I hope Tom is okay."

Boyo sighed, "I hope so too. Tom is younger than me, but he handles things with great skill, thinks things through thoroughly, doesn't flaunt his abilities, and every suggestion he makes is for everyone's benefit. When faced with danger, he's the first to charge forward. We can't afford to lose someone like him."

"I understand! I knew this kid was special from the moment you brought him here." Uncle Wei looked around and, after confirming that there was no one nearby, whispered to Boyo's ear, "The night he had a high fever, I heard him muttering 'the survival of the fittest' repeatedly, and there was a faint light emanating from his forehead. At first, I thought I was seeing things, but it lasted for quite a while, and I didn't tell anyone."

"His forehead?" Boyo was astonished. "After the crystals are activated, they only emit light in the areas where they are effective. That night, when the Black Cloaked Man punched and killed the Haba dog, Tom didn't see it, but from my angle, I could see that the forehead of the Black Cloaked Man was also glowing!"

"Hiss... are you saying... Tom is on the same side as those black-clothed people?"

Boyo shook his head, "I don't know, but I can be sure that Tom is not in the same boat as those people who don't value human life. I fought alongside Tom, and I could feel firsthand his selflessness in battle. That kind of demeanor can't be faked."

"Of course, I didn't doubt his stance. I just thought his background might be related to those people. After all, he mentioned being an orphan."

"Let's not talk about this to anyone. I'll find an opportunity to talk to Tom again and prepare him mentally."

"Okay! I'll go organize everyone to rest first. When the typhoon stops tomorrow, there's a lot of work to be done."

"Alright, Uncle Wei!"

The typhoon raged all night, with strong winds blowing throughout. Cool breezes occasionally seeped in through the cracks in the doors and windows, accompanied by the sound of raindrops hitting the glass windows, all indicating to the residents that if they stayed outside, their lives would be in danger.

The typhoon didn't stop until the next morning, and it wasn't until noon that the rain weakened and the wind subsided. Boyo crawled out first, then came to the front door of the clinic and saw the deformed metal door underneath the door crack. He immediately realized it was not good and hurriedly ran into the clinic.

Inside the clinic was a mess. Several chairs were blown askew, and two large tables were squeezed into one corner, with three vats of medicinal alcohol smashed.

Boyo shouted for Tom, searched around, but couldn't find any trace of Tom.

After searching the front hall and the back room, having searched around, Uncle Wei had already brought everyone over. "What's wrong? Tom isn't here? Did he... leave?"

"It's impossible. Tom wouldn't leave without saying goodbye, and the typhoon just stopped!" Boyo thought for a moment, then ran outside. "Outside, go downstairs!"