Chapter 111: Kai

The little dragon, however, seemed deeply reluctant to abandon the cozy, beautiful nest it had worked so hard to build.

Dragons had a natural obsession with nest-building—and a particularly questionable habit of kidnapping human women back to their lairs.

"Come on now. I’ll help you build an even prettier one later," Bunny coaxed gently.

Only then did it agree to leave, though it made sure to pick up the tattered, button-eyed rabbit doll in its jaws before setting off.

This was Bunny’s very first time riding a dragon.

She used every ounce of strength she possessed just to scramble onto its back—and that was with the creature crouching flat on the ground. Having short legs was a truly inescapable handicap.

Once she got a firm grip on the sharp, spiky scales along its neck, the little dragon flapped its wings a few times, built up momentum with a brief sprint, and plunged straight down into the open sky. The sickening weightlessness felt just like a drop tower ride, sending her adrenaline surging through the roof.

With the biting wind howling past her ears, Bunny’s heart rate spiked past 180 beats per minute. Crouching against the dragon’s back, she watched the sprawling ruins below shrink until the buildings looked like tiny black specks.

Wow... so this is what riding a dragon feels like? This is absolutely incredible!

She couldn’t resist running her hand over its regal horns. If only she could have a majestic, powerful mount like this for herself.

The flight was brief. Half an hour later, the little dragon touched down before a sprawling mining site.

It was an abandoned open-pit mine ringed by jagged mountains. The old ore-transport roads had long since collapsed into rubble; the only way down was a single, sheer vertical ladder shaft.

Yet the rust-eaten ladder frame was coated in thick, translucent slime—a telltale sign that made Bunny’s heart sink: This was an Aberration nest.

Descending blindly carried immense risk, yet her scanner picked up zero moving heat signatures. It was eerily quiet.

Bunny signaled the little dragon to scout ahead.

The creature slipped into the shaft first, with Bunny following right behind. They climbed down several hundred meters before finally reaching the bottom.

Together, woman and beast navigated the dark, winding tunnels. Bunny cracked a fluorescent glow stick to light their path. Since a spirit guide could instinctively pinpoint its master’s location, the little dragon led her through the labyrinthine mine for what felt like hours.

Finally, the dragon came to a halt above a massive waste-dump chamber.

Bunny tossed a burning flare down into the abyss, illuminating the chamber below—and immediately felt a wave of nausea.

The entire floor was densely carpeted with hundreds of pulsing, pale-green alien eggs!

Some had already burst open; others were still throbbing with life.

Directly ahead, embedded into the cavern wall, a strange creature lay in deep hibernation, completely encased inside a translucent, slimy chrysalis.

Bunny crept closer to inspect it. It appeared to be a devolved alien queen—weak in combat and few in number, but tasked entirely with egg-laying duties. Typically, a queen would be guarded by swarms of worker Aberrations.

The little dragon suddenly grew agitated. At that moment, Bunny’s Guide senses caught a microscopic, fading whiff of Sentinel pheromones.

Drawing her combat knife, she sliced open the outer membrane. A torrent of fluid poured out onto the rock floor—and when the clearing mist receded, she finally saw what lay inside.

Entangled within the gooey chrysalis was a human being.

Or rather, a man.

His skin was deathly pale and clammy, his eyes tightly shut, his body curled up in an excruciatingly unnatural posture.

Strands of black hair clung to his face, framing sharp, deeply sculpted features and bloodless lips. Completely bare, his chest rose and fell in faint, ragged gasps.

Bunny recognized him instantly—he was the dark-haired Sentinel she had seen in the archive photograph!

Could he be the missing Kai?!

What truly horrified her was a fleshy, translucent tendril fused to the man’s spine. The barbed tip at the end had pierced deep into his flesh, forming a biological conduit between him and the alien queen.

It was actively draining his blood.

Staring at the sea of eggs below, Bunny understood the horrifying truth in an instant.

The radiation zone was a desolate wasteland with virtually no stable food supply. This queen had shed its legs and offensive organs to focus entirely on reproduction, using Kai as a living battery—sucking his blood continuously to fuel its egg production.

It was a nightmare far more repulsive than ordinary parasitism.

Unsure if any worker Aberrations were patrolling nearby, Bunny acted quickly to sever the connection.

She plunged her blade deep into the queen’s heart. The creature twitched violently before collapsing dead. Slicing away the thick surrounding tissue, she watched the fluid-soaked man slide out like a slippery fish.

Lying on the wet, cold rock, the man’s pale skin looked eerie under the dim light, cyan veins bulging distinctly against his lean muscle lines—resembling an exquisitely handsome, freshly deceased corpse.

Bunny set about loading him onto the dragon’s back. But just as she managed to haul the 190-centimeter, 200-plus-pound frame onto the creature, Kai suddenly opened his eyes.

A pair of deep, ghostly violet pupils stared out, empty and utterly unfocused.

Like a striking viper, he coiled his limbs tightly around Bunny with terrifying, superhuman strength.

Bunny was nearly crushed to death in his grip—the involuntary muscle spasms of an uncalibrated Sentinel were harder to break than steel clamps!

Kai gasped for air in rapid, violent hitches, his entire body trembling uncontrollably. He looked like someone who had just jolted out of a terrifying nightmare, driven by instinct to cling to the only source of warmth around him in a desperate bid for security.

"I’m dying... I’m gonna die... Let go, man!"

She was literally going to be suffocated!

Fortunately, three seconds later, he fell unconscious once more.

With the queen dead, the symbiotic egg cluster began a mass premature hatching. Countless newborn hatchlings broke through their shells, and the horrifying rustle of swarming legs echoed from all directions.