Considering that Phantom Butterfly understood this instance far better than Du Heng, Mo Bai swallowed her killing intent and changed her approach.

Her original plan had been to let Phantom Butterfly take the lead while she simply reaped the benefits of its goodwill.

But she overestimated it. She still couldn't let Phantom Butterfly call the shots because it was just too stupid.

Mo Bai sighed to herself. She didn't mind being in charge since she never liked being a subordinate and preferred having everything under her own control. Moreover, she was also willing to shoulder the blame for failure and step up as team leader to coordinate the players.

But she never expected that romance would also require her to take the lead.

Phantom Butterfly was the one trying to seduce her, yet she still had to provide a plan and tell it what to do.

How utterly absurd.

Fortunately, Mo Bai wasn't one to shy away from trouble. She only had a brief headache before making up her mind.

Trouble was fine, so long as she could squeeze some information out of Phantom Butterfly.

"Cut the nonsense," Mo Bai said. "If you're a player who wants to team up, answer my questions properly. If you don't want to cooperate, get lost. First question: how did you evade the blood test?"

Phantom Butterfly whined, "You're so cold."

Seeing that it was trying to change the subject, Mo Bai said flatly, "Get lost."

Then she spun her wheelchair around and left.

Only then did the Phantom Butterfly realize that Mo Bai was nothing like the dim-witted mutants it had dealt with before. This woman was cold-blooded and ruthless. She could turn hostile in a heartbeat and felt zero attachment to the face it wore.

It hurriedly grabbed her. "I'll tell you a secret. The extract itself is alive, and it works on inanimate objects too."

Mo Bai already knew that. "And?" she replied indifferently.

Her gaze said it all: This one's useless. You’ve got nothing worth squeezing out. Useless trash. It was brimming with impatience.

Phantom Butterfly steeled itself and confessed, "That means it works just as well on blood that has already been drawn!"

That sentence instantly opened up Mo Bai’s line of thought.

She recalled the Manipulation Threads.

Right. The extract could affect not only living organisms but dead matter too.

Du Heng worked at the institute, so getting his hands on a few test tubes would be easy.

Every morning at 8 o'clock, Du Heng made his rounds. The second injection was scheduled for 10 a.m., three days from now.

Before Du Heng came for rounds, he could draw their blood in advance, keep the filled vacuum tubes on his person, and find a way to put the extract into that pre-drawn blood. When the mechanical arm came to get the samples, it could simply collect from the tubes instead.

The gap was only two hours, but the tubes were vacuum-sealed, so the blood wouldn't lose much freshness.

All they needed was a way, like the Phantom Butterfly had found, to keep the mechanical arm from injecting the extract directly into their bodies.

"If you inject the drug into blood drawn beforehand," Mo Bai asked, "why is there still so much of it left?"

"The institute calculates dosages strictly by body weight," Phantom Butterfly replied. "Dump the entire dose into a single tube, and who knows what kind of mutation that blood would undergo. Of course you need to distribute it proportionally. You can calculate the dosage based on the body's total blood volume."

It really knew the institute inside and out. No wonder it had waltzed right in and even disguised itself as a test subject. The blood in its body probably wasn't its own, and it must have obtained it from someone else before arriving.

"You're actually pretty clever," Mo Bai said, looking at it with genuine surprise and real admiration in her eyes.

The Phantom Butterfly felt a flicker of happiness, then immediately despised itself for it. What was there to be happy about?

"Good. Second question: Why did you stop me from entering the archives room?" Mo Bai asked.

"It's a restricted area under the rules. You can't just waltz in," Phantom Butterfly answered.

"Obviously, I know the rules forbid it," Mo Bai countered. "That's exactly why you look for loopholes. Those two got in just fine, didn't they?"

Phantom Butterfly sighed. "I saw how they did it. Test Subject 053 pulled the other person into a shadow. I didn't see him use an item card, so it's probably his ability."

Test Subject 053 was Mao Juncai. From the description, his ability was shadow-related: highly specialized and perfect for infiltration. No wonder he had been so confident about stealing the extract.

"That's great," Mo Bai said. "Maybe he'll manage to steal something useful, and I can trade information with him."

Phantom Butterfly shook its head. "It's pointless. If you'd done this before the injection, no one would've noticed. But you already used the drug. Your blood has been drawn, so your genetic data are already recorded. In that situation, no matter what method you use or where you go, you'll be detected."

The moment the words left its mouth, the Phantom Butterfly frowned and yanked Mo Bai into a corner.

Mo Bai watched their bodies shift to match the color of the wall. Both of them were hidden together, as if melting seamlessly.

This was the second application of Phantom Butterfly's Mimicry ability: Environmental Camouflage.

So that was why she hadn't seen it earlier. It must have been hiding like this all along, tailing her through the environment.

She didn't expect that the Environmental Camouflage would shield the Phantom Butterfly along with its companion.

As expected of an A-rank monster. The Phantom Butterfly was truly formidable.

At that moment, heavy footsteps echoed down the corridor.

Mo Bai glanced at the Phantom Butterfly, and it pressed a solemn finger to its lips, signaling silence.

Holding her breath, Mo Bai looked toward the sound.

A muscular man over three meters tall came into view: bare-chested, squeezed into tight black leather pants, and a gag strapped over his mouth. Behind him trailed an intelligent robot carrying a broom.

"Mr. Du Ying," the robot announced, "Test Subjects 053 and 188, who violated regulations by entering the restricted area, are just ahead. They are hiding in the shadows of this zone."

The robot activated a scanning beam, sweeping it over a patch of shadow behind a No Trespassing sign.

The half-giant called Du Ying walked up to the shadow and knelt. He thrust his long arm inside and dragged out two people: Mao Juncai and Zhuang Xiangyang.

"How... how were we discovered?" Zhuang Xiangyang stammered, trembling all over.

"This isn't the time for that!" Mao Juncai barked. "Throw everything you've got at him! He's just an A-rank monster. We can defeat him!"

As he spoke, Mao Juncai threw out a card. It vanished as if nothing was visible in the air, but a terrifying sound erupted, rolling outward wave after wave with crushing sonic pressure. The high-frequency assault made Mo Bai's ears throb.

Thankfully, her physique had improved enough to withstand it.

But the Phantom Butterfly was a fragile monster. Unable to withstand the sound, it doubled over in pain. The mimicked wall in front of them flickered, and their figures were on the verge of being exposed.

Mo Bai couldn't let that happen. She quickly moved the air around Phantom Butterfly's head and wrapped it in a ring-shaped vacuum barrier to block out the sonic pressure.

The circular vacuum shield cut off sound transmission while preserving the air around its head, making the Phantom Butterfly relax almost instantly.

It looked up at Mo Bai, eyes wide with astonishment, as if it couldn't believe she had just protected it.

Wearing the face Mo Bai liked so much, and with those big puppy-dog eyes gazing up at her in clear, guileless wonder, it actually tugged at her heartstrings a little.

Subconsciously, Mo Bai reached out and patted its back like it was a puppy.

The Phantom Butterfly, who was exquisitely attuned to human emotion, sensed Mo Bai's fondness, yet something felt distinctly off.

Isn't this... reversed?

When it had protected Mo Bai, hiding her inside the wall, she hadn't shown even a flicker of affection. Yet now that she had protected it, she was starting to like it?

The Phantom Butterfly had seduced plenty of mutants over the years, male and female alike. It wasn't human, and after devouring every last butterfly of its kind, it had evolved into a genderless monster. It couldn't care less whether it was a man or a woman.

Based on experience, the best way to seduce a male mutant was to appear as a fragile, helpless woman and stir up his protective instincts.

And to seduce a female mutant, you had to project strength and charisma, constantly shielding and protecting her. Only then could you successfully entice her.

Initially, it had assumed that Mo Bai was a man because the Enhanced Mutant had been tremendously powerful. Whoever killed him surely had to be an equally formidable man.

In the Phantom Butterfly's experience, men like that tended to be powerful, driven by strong desires, and attracted to two types at once: the delicate, innocent lady on one hand, and the irresistibly seductive woman on the other.

In short, they wanted the white rose and the red rose.

To streamline the kill, it had taken on the form of a sultry woman in the previous instance.

But when it finally tracked the aura of Ironhide Skin on Mo Bai, it discovered that its target was a woman.

Not just any woman, but a weak, beautiful, and flawed one, who was even more delicate than any fragile flower it had impersonated.

At first sight, the Phantom Butterfly had thought that every disguise it had ever worn was a joke compared to the real thing.

Right then and there, it had secretly resolved that after killing Mo Bai, it would copy her appearance, wheelchair and all, to wring out even more sympathy from future targets.

But Mo Bai was too cunning, so it was outmaneuvered.

Fortunately, the Phantom Butterfly had discovered her preferences through physical contact. That was an innate ability of its kind: a single touch of skin was enough to sense an enemy's ideal type.

So this time, it had transformed into exactly what Mo Bai liked. The plan was to dazzle her with its intelligence, strength, protectiveness, and perfect boyfriend aura to make her fall hopelessly in love, then reveal its true identity at the final moment and devour her bitter, despairing soul.

Yet here they were. Before it could even protect Mo Bai, she had protected it.

And because she protected it, she had actually developed a trace of affection.

...Hold on. This isn't how the script works! Why is Mo Bai's taste like this?

Blissfully unaware that her vaguely pet-like fondness had thrown the Phantom Butterfly's entire worldview into chaos, Mo Bai was watching Mao Juncai and Zhuang Xiangyang with tense eyes, wondering whether they could escape, and whether she should try to save them.

In truth, she already knew she couldn't.

Du Heng had once told her that Mr. Du Ying was one of the five A-rank monsters guarding the Ultra-Star Rank monster.

Du Heng didn't know Du Ying's full background, but he knew that the man had originally been human. His body was a fusion of genes from bears, eagles, fish, chameleons, and other creatures, granting him a slew of abilities. A novice player stood little chance of beating him in a direct combat.

Even if Mo Bai managed to assassinate Du Ying with a sneak attack, she still couldn't save the two of them. They were already on the intelligent robots' records for breaking the rules. Even if they kill Du Ying, there are still four more A-rank monsters, plus the Ultra-Star Rank monster.

The card Mao Juncai just used was an A-rank card called Soundwave, and it had two attack modes.

The first was a sonic attack: a wide-area strike that indiscriminately hit every living creature within a 200-meter radius, with the user and their teammates immune. The closer to the center of the Soundwave, the stronger the damage, and within ten meters, it could severely wound an A-rank monster.

Mo Bai and the Phantom Butterfly had been hiding roughly twenty meters away, which was why they'd escaped serious injury, though they were still in considerable pain. The nearest intelligent robot was already smoking.

The second mode was a hydraulic pressure attack. It could target a single individual, subjecting them to the crushing force of the ocean floor at roughly 5,000 meters deep. Any ordinary person dropped to that depth without warning would die instantly from the water pressure. Even an A-rank monster would be killed on the spot.

It was a powerful card combining area and single-target attacks, and its pressure strike was completely unavoidable. The target had to withstand the full force head-on.

Mao Juncai had been certain that even an A-rank monster would die to this card.

Unexpectedly, Du Ying merely stepped back. Scales rippled across his body as two gills split open behind his ears. It fluttered as they drew air into his lungs to equalize internal and external pressure, which neutralized the crushing force.

At the same time, he ripped off his gag and unleashed a piercing, eagle-like screech toward the Soundwave. Rings of sound radiated outward from his body, canceling the sonic attack.

Simultaneously, he clapped his hands toward Zhuang Xiangyang, who was already blown back to a safer distance. A pair of air currents shaped like massive bear paws materialized in midair and slammed together with Zhuang Xiangyang between them. He coughed up blood and collapsed.

Before he hit the ground, he had managed to fire one shot at Du Ying.

Mo Bai clearly saw that it wasn't an ordinary bullet. The single shot released three rounds and formed a triangle that detonated against Du Ying's chest in a violent explosion, which successfully blasted a fifteen-centimeter hole clean through him.

An ordinary person would have been long dead.

But Du Ying's body was monstrously durable, and the gaping wound missed his vitals. He roared skyward in agony as his flesh regenerated at visible speed. The charred, rotting tissue rapidly transformed back into healthy red muscle.

At that moment, Mao Juncai pulled out another card, which morphed into a palm-sized mirror. He aimed it at Du Ying, and Du Ying's reflection appeared inside.

Then Mao Juncai slammed his palm into the mirror.

This was his second A-rank card, Mirror's Curse. As long as the enemy's image appeared in the mirror, destroying that image meant an instant kill. It was a lethal trump card.

But just before Mao Juncai shattered the mirror, Du Ying's body turned transparent, and his reflection vanished from the glass.

Mao Juncai's fist broke the mirror apart, but there was no image of Du Ying inside.

After the mirror shattered, Du Ying reappeared. He gave Mao Juncai and Zhuang Xiangyang an almost childlike grin, then his hands shifted into eagle talons. One claw seized each man, and the razor-sharp nails punched through their foreheads.

Du Ying pried two oval-shaped objects from between their brows and popped them into his mouth.

Afterwards, he spoke into the communicator by his ear. "Two rule-breaker test subjects were found on the third floor, Zone C. Subdued. Still alive. Send enforcement robots to escort them to solitary confinement."

He dropped the two barely breathing men and walked away. As he passed the spot where Mo Bai and the Phantom Butterfly were hidden, he tilted his head in their direction.

Mo Bai instantly conjured a vacuum barrier around both of them, sealing their heartbeats and breathing from Du Ying's ears.

Du Ying cocked his head and listened for a moment, but heard nothing.

Just then, two intelligent robots pulling cages rolled up. They flashed their overhead lights twice at Du Ying in greeting.

"Are there other violators?" Du Ying asked.

The lights on the enforcement robots' heads flickered twice. "No."

Du Ying nodded, then glanced in the direction where Mo Bai and Phantom Butterfly were hiding. "Then it doesn't matter even if someone saw us."

After Du Ying and the enforcement robots left, the Phantom Butterfly and Mo Bai released their abilities at the same time and exchanged a look.

The Phantom Butterfly's eyes held lingering fear and the giddy relief of surviving a disaster.

Mo Bai's, however, were full of quiet calculation.

Even in the face of a mutant as terrifyingly powerful as Du Ying, she was already thinking about how to take him down.