“None of us expected the Radiation Laboratory had been secretly developing C1 Mutagen. Absolutely unconscionable.” Gao Jinyue’s voice carried a deep, festering hatred.

“What exactly is C1 Mutagen?” Shen Cong asked.

“A compound that induces mutation. Inject it into an ordinary person and they undergo something resembling natural mutation. The laboratory called the result an ‘artificial mutation human’ — a milestone achievement that would transform humanity’s situation, they said. But the raw materials required extracting lymphatic fluid from people like us — the lymph-laggards — plus cerebrospinal fluid from the brainless, plus some kind of material from ratmen…”

Gao Jinyue’s voice hardened. “A lot of people opposed it. So the Radiation Laboratory went behind everyone’s backs and administered C1 Mutagen to several of the Command’s senior leadership. About a week later, those leaders started experiencing systemic organ failure. The only way to manage it was continued C1 injections.”

The mutagen had transformed the entire Eastern Theater Command from within.

The injected leadership established the rat-catching units — officially framed as capturing ratmen for material extraction and continued mutation research. In practice, the units weren’t only hunting ratmen. They were killing lymph-laggards and the brainless, covertly producing C1 Mutagen to supply the leadership and their inner circle.

Fearing exposure, these individuals began pulling more of the Command’s middle and upper management into the scheme — spreading complicity, building a network too large to easily dismantle.

By the time the jin people, iron people, and uninjected human leaders realized what was happening, the problem had grown beyond easy containment. A Command-wide meeting was convened. Strict prohibitions were issued against extracting anti-mutation lymph fluid or cerebrospinal fluid from human patients — only extraction from mutated creatures was to be permitted.

It changed nothing. C1 Mutagen demand outpaced supply. The killings continued.

Among the ordinary survivors in the settlement, the injected group acquired a name: death-eaters. They consumed materials taken from dead and dying people. They caused the deaths of large numbers of their own kind. The death-eaters themselves preferred a different term — super humans.

This state of affairs had reached an uneasy equilibrium. Lymph-laggards and the brainless were difficult to treat and expected to die eventually anyway. The rationalization spread: better to find some use for them.

Then a maintenance iron person from the nuclear warhead unit found his lymph-laggard sister dead.

The day before, she’d been eating, talking, telling him she’d rest up and beat the illness. The next morning the hospital issued a death notice.

He stood there holding the paper. Nobody saw what was in his eyes.

That night, he began making contacts — every person opposed to the death-eaters he could reach. He planned something enormous and executed it quietly.

He lured Xuanwu to Baguazhou.

The death-eaters, being both the Radiation Laboratory’s patrons and its primary beneficiaries, had concentrated themselves on the island — convenient for research and for their own continued enhancement. Xuanwu arrived and occupied Baguazhou entirely, blocking access to the Radiation Laboratory.

With a hundred-meter mutated snapping turtle now threatening to reach Qixia District at any moment, and conventional munitions unable to penetrate its shell, the anti-death-eater faction pushed the Command leadership toward a nuclear option. The settlement was evacuated from Qixia District. One nuclear warhead — 25,000-ton yield — was detonated on Baguazhou.

The effective kill radius covered the entire island.

A mushroom cloud rose. The Radiation Laboratory became ash. Xuanwu died in the blast.

The death-eaters appeared to die with it.

They hadn’t.

The Radiation Laboratory had long since been reinforced and extended downward — dozens of meters of underground shelter, constructed specifically for scenarios like this. They survived.

Having survived, the death-eaters did something equally insane. They located another creature comparable to Xuanwu — a mutated lizard called the Great Earth Dragon, found near Lake Tai roughly a hundred kilometers away — and guided it toward Jurong City, which had become the Command’s new settlement site. The goal: revenge, and the creation of enough terror to drive more ordinary survivors into the death-eaters’ ranks.

The scheme was uncovered and neutralized. As the Great Earth Dragon advanced to Houbo Town, a nuclear warhead unit ambush was waiting. A second 25,000-ton warhead detonated. The creature died on the spot.

This was in September — corresponding exactly to the two mushroom clouds Shen Cong had observed from New Hefei.

The death-eaters’ scheme had failed. Declared fugitives by the Command, they gathered their followers and disappeared into hiding.

But the Command’s victory had costs. Two nuclear detonations in close succession had produced nuclear fallout that posed immediate danger to survivors across the region. The Command made the decision to move — north, to Huai’an City.

Going west toward Hefei had been considered. A scouting party had attempted the Chuzhou-to-Hefei route and run directly into mass ratman attacks. Ratmen were relatively rare in Nanjing but had reached plague-level density in Chuzhou. The Command expended significant munitions suppressing them and was ultimately forced to withdraw. Combined with Quanjiao County’s sparse Activity readings and barren terrain, the decision swung toward Huai’an — fewer evolved beasts, noticeably more vegetation.

The northward migration was rushed. Fallout from the Jurong detonation began drifting toward the area ahead of schedule. Large quantities of supplies were left behind. The lymph-laggards, brainless, and other patients the Command had been housing couldn’t keep pace with the main column. The death-eaters harassed the migration route continuously. Losses were substantial.

Gao Jinyue and his companions had been separated from the main body in exactly this chaos. Fleeing the death-eaters’ rat-catching units, they’d run toward the nuclear fallout zone rather than be caught. When the fallout dispersed, the units closed in again, driving them further until they ended up in Pukou District.

A week hiding in that collapsed subway station.

As for the Black Blood Group — it was one faction among the death-eaters. C1 Mutagen was scarce, and competition for supply had fractured the death-eaters into multiple organizations with competing interests. The Black Blood Group was one of the larger splinter factions, and had already extended its rat-catching operations into Pukou District.

“We want to leave. Get to Huai’an. But the death-eaters control all the main routes. We can’t go through Chuzhou — too many ratmen. We’re stuck here waiting to die.” Gao Jinyue’s voice carried no particular emotion. Just the flat resignation of someone who had already arrived at the end of things. “We’ll die eventually anyway.”

Shen Cong didn’t argue with that. He was frowning, working through the implications.

The death-eaters controlled the roads to Huai’an.

Which meant any approach he made toward the Eastern Theater Command in Huai’an risked interception.

Death-eaters. He turned the word over. These were people who had discarded whatever made them human. They might become his most dangerous adversaries — not because of raw power, but because of what they were willing to do. Unknown schemes, unknown resources, unknown reach.

I have to be careful. Prepare for everything.

Something cold and sharp moved through him and then settled. He continued working through what he’d learned.

He made the comparison in his head — two vocabularies for the same reality:

Metal radiation beast — jin beast — evolved beast.
Induced mutation radiation beast — iron beast — iron beast.
Natural mutation human — jin person — mutant.
Induced mutation human — iron person — iron person.
Metal radiation tree — greening tree — evolved tree.
Lymphatic anti-mutation patient — lymph-laggard — disease-changed.
Cerebrospinal anti-mutation patient — brainless — half-beast.
Artificial mutation human — death-eater / super human.

(End of Chapter 220)