"Du Ying is far too strong. There's no way we can beat him. I've gathered some intelligence that there are four more monsters like him. This instance is much harder than you think." The Phantom Butterfly gazed at Mo Bai with deep emotion and held her hand. "I can help you escape. I know a route that leads out of the institute."

Mo Bai glanced at it, genuinely baffled. They were both A-rank monsters created by the Biological Research Institute No. 7, so why was the gap between Phantom Butterfly and Du Ying so enormous?

Of course, it wasn't that Phantom Butterfly was weak. It was just that Du Ying was overwhelmingly strong.

His power practically exceeded the very concept of an A-rank monster.

He was a near-perfect creation.

He had unique genetic traits that enhanced his abilities: fish genes that enabled him to withstand aquatic attacks; wolf genes that granted him extraordinary speed; bear genes that provided strength and endurance far beyond that of ordinary players; chameleon genes that allowed him to blend into his surroundings and conceal his tracks; and eagle genes that... Mo Bai suspected he could even glide at low altitude if necessary.

On top of that, he possessed derivative abilities from each of these creatures.

His transparency and shadow manipulation were likely tied to the chameleon's environmental adaptation, while his powerful regeneration stemmed from his beast genes.

Most terrifying of all, Du Ying had once been human, and he still retained human intelligence.

Even though Mo Bai had shielded herself and Phantom Butterfly with a vacuum barrier, making them invisible, inaudible, and scentless, Du Ying had still guessed that someone was lurking in the corner. Yet he chose not to punish them.

That was human wisdom and judgment.

Detecting their hiding spot was instinct and experience. Ignoring them was a deliberate choice: they had only witnessed him disciplining rule-breakers. They themselves had broken no rules.

Mao Juncai and Zhuang Xiangyang didn't perform badly at all.

They were strong, especially Mao Juncai's two A-rank cards that boasted devastating attack power.

Even so, they had been utterly helpless against Du Ying.

And there were four more monsters like him.

As for the Ultra-Star Rank monster that had created them all, its power had already reached a conceptual level.

How could they possibly beat these things? Mo Bai frowned, deep in thought.

"What are you thinking about?" The Phantom Butterfly circled her restlessly. "Don't hesitate. Come with me."

This time, it was genuinely sincere. After witnessing Du Ying in action, it really wanted to run.

The institute was nothing like what it had been when the Phantom Butterfly escaped.

It had encountered Du Ying before, and it was even chased by him during its escape. But back then, he wasn't nearly this strong, nor was he able to see through its Mimicry.

It never expected that after some time away, Du Ying would have evolved so drastically.

"If I leave, what happens to my teammates?" Mo Bai said calmly. "If I try my hardest and still can't clear the instance, I'll figure out how to be the last one standing. But running before I even try? That's not my style."

More importantly, they still had hope.

Mo Bai was confident she could help Du Heng recover his strength as an advanced player. No matter how powerful Du Ying was, he couldn't evade Du Heng's Soul Reaping.

Even if Du Heng failed to regain his power, they still had other options for dealing with Du Ying.

As long as Du Heng could identify Du Ying's weakness first, Sheng Yan could incinerate it with his searing flames.

And even without either of them, Mo Bai could still kill Du Ying on her own if she exerts everything she had.

She could upgrade the A-rank card Spatial Blade to temporarily elevate it to S-rank. She didn't know what abilities the upgraded card would gain, but an S-rank spatial card would absolutely be capable of handling Du Ying.

There were plenty of options.

The prerequisite was intelligence. They needed to understand the abilities and weaknesses of all five A-rank monsters. Know your enemy, know yourself, and you'll never be defeated.

More than three strategies for dealing with Du Ying flashed through Mo Bai's mind. She was just beginning to plan how to investigate the five monsters when her watch buzzed.

She opened the message. It was from Du Heng.

Du Heng: [ I observed the three test subjects, 025, 107, and 251, from a distance. I saw two shadows on 025 and 251. They looked very strange. I'm no longer sure if they're even human. You were right not to let me get close to them. Additionally, Test Subject 107 is extremely abnormal. His body has become a container for the extract. Most of his bodily fluids have been replaced by it, leaving him with almost no weaknesses. The most terrifying part is that he's still rational. It's horrifying. ]

Mo Bai's mind raced.

Meanwhile, the Phantom Butterfly kept circling her, muttering, "Are we going or not?" and "Come with me," over and over like an anxious parrot.

Mo Bai looked at it and said abruptly, "There are only seven players in this instance."

Phantom Butterfly's heart skipped a beat and immediately replied: "I know."

"I've found five players," Mo Bai said, her voice cold. "That leaves two. I originally thought you were one of them. But just now, my teammate found two more players."

Phantom Butterfly: "..."

Mo Bai's gaze was frigid. It couldn't help but take a step back.

The Spatial Blade in Mo Bai's hand and the ability she just used to protect it made one thing painfully clear: Mo Bai was no longer the frail girl from the last instance.

She had an A-rank item card. Her abilities had improved. And with the boost from the extract, she currently possesses a healthy body.

Even against the Phantom Butterfly by herself, she could put up a real fight.

The reason Phantom Butterfly's approach had shifted from I must kill her to It would be best if she fell in love with me was precisely because Mo Bai had grown stronger. It could no longer guarantee a kill, so it had to find another way.

Now that Mo Bai suspected it, now that her eyes were this cold, Phantom Butterfly felt something it rarely experienced: fear.

It stepped back and opened its mouth. "I..."

It was still scrambling for a lie when Mo Bai sighed, her expression softening into sympathy. "The system told us it sent three batches of investigators, meaning three batches of players. The first batch all died. In the second, aside from two who went missing, the rest died too. You're one of those two missing players from the second batch, aren't you?"

"Ah! Yes, yes, exactly!" Phantom Butterfly nodded frantically. "I was just about to come clean. I'm one of the lucky survivors from the second batch."

"No wonder you figured out how to avoid the injection," Mo Bai said with a nod. "It must have been hard, hiding all alone in this instance."

She looked at Phantom Butterfly with tender warmth, even holding its hand reassuringly. Her gaze was full of almost maternal softness.

The Phantom Butterfly truly felt her affection.

If it didn't have to maintain its Mimicry, it would have shifted back into its true butterfly form right then and there, just to savor this emotion that it had never encountered before.

But Mo Bai's affection wasn't for it. It was for the missing player: the human it was pretending to be.

It wasn't human.

So the Phantom Butterfly forced a smile. "It wasn't so bad. You saw it yourself, my ability to hide is strong. I can even disguise myself as a researcher, and I haven't slipped up yet."

"You've been at the institute this long, so you must know quite a lot," Mo Bai said. "You mentioned four more monsters like Du Ying. Do you know their abilities, or where they usually operate?"

The Phantom Butterfly fell silent. It did know the five monsters, but during its time away, they had evolved again, so it could no longer gauge their true strength.

"Oh, you don't know?" Mo Bai added, with a hint of disappointment in her voice.

A sudden wave of fear washed over the Phantom Butterfly.

It recognized that look...

Whenever a researcher gave a test subject that expression, it meant the subject had lost its value.

It was worried that it had become worthless in Mo Bai's eyes.

In the institute, only valuable specimens survived. Those without value were sent underground, fed to the thing hidden beneath the earth that every test subject dreaded.

The Phantom Butterfly knew Mo Bai didn't have the power to decide its fate, but instinctively, it feared that gaze.

Then Mo Bai comforted, "You did the right thing. In a place this dangerous, survival should always come first. Keeping yourself alive is what matters most."

The Phantom Butterfly blinked and couldn't help but ask, "You... don't think I'm useless? I can't beat Du Ying, I don't have any information, I'm a useless experi... ah, no, a useless man."

Mo Bai pretended not to hear the slip. "How are you useless?" she said earnestly. "You survived in a place this terrifying for so long and even found an escape route. That's already incredible. And even if you knew nothing at all, you still wouldn't be useless. Don't measure yourself by your utility. Your life, the simple fact that you're still breathing right now, is the most precious thing there is."

As she spoke those words to the Phantom Butterfly, the image of Du Heng flashed through her mind. That was what made her emotions genuine.

The Phantom Butterfly could sense human feelings, so in front of it, words and emotion had to be perfectly in sync, or it would detect her true intentions.

Hearing Mo Bai's words, it felt a little happy.

"Still, I do hope you can help me with something," Mo Bai continued, smoothly pivoting toward her real objective.

"What is it? Investigate the other four monsters?" Phantom Butterfly flinched. "That's too dangerous. Let's just run away."

If it could lure Mo Bai out of the institute and into the Butterfly House in the Lost Forest behind the mountain, it could use its domain to make her fall in love.

"If we still haven't found a way to clear the instance by the ninth day, I'll leave with you," Mo Bai said. "But I'm not ready to give up yet. And I won't ask you to do something that dangerous. What I want is for you to look into Test Subjects 025 and 251. My teammate thinks they might be players, but something seems off. Could you check on them for me?"

"Oh, they're players?" Phantom Butterfly breathed a sigh of relief. "Sure, no problem. I can transform into their assigned researcher. That'll make gathering information easy."

"You can transform into other people?" Mo Bai asked, feigning casual curiosity. "That's somewhat similar to Phantom Butterfly's ability."

She was far too smart to keep playing dumb; Phantom Butterfly knew that. If Mo Bai pretended she had zero suspicions, it would only make the creature more suspicious. The better move was to openly point out the inconsistency and let Phantom Butterfly come up with its own explanation.

No matter how childish the excuse, it would believe its own cleverness had fooled Mo Bai, and would never suspect she was simply playing along.

Mo Bai's repeated prodding at its identity was forcing the Phantom Butterfly to the verge of a nervous breakdown. If it had sweat glands, it would have already been drenched.

It plastered on a bright smile. "Right? I was shocked when I learned about the Phantom Butterfly too! I never expected a monster to have abilities so similar to mine."

Its IQ is just too low! That's the only excuse it could come up with? I can't even convince myself to believe it! Mo Bai thought impatiently.

She stared at the Phantom Butterfly, causing it to wilt under her gaze. It retreated step by step until its back hit the wall.

Mo Bai sighed and decided that it would be faster to just hand it a reason herself.

"That's true," she said. "After all, the Phantom Butterfly is a monster that excels at reading hearts. You're just a player who's naive to the point of being silly. You two are nothing alike."

"Exactly! Hahaha!" the Phantom Butterfly laughed awkwardly.

It couldn't even tell whether she was praising or insulting it.

Unable to endure being alone with Mo Bai a second longer, it blurted, "I'll go investigate 025 and 251 right now."

With that, it quickly left the third floor. Behind it, Mo Bai called out, "Xia Fei, be careful. Your safety is the most important thing."

The Phantom Butterfly felt another surge of joy and waved without looking back. "I know!"

Once the creature had disappeared from her sight, Mo Bai slumped in her wheelchair and muttered, "Finally done. I'm exhausted."

Playing the fool to fool a fool was more tiring than fighting an A-rank monster.

"Player, you've worked hard," Xiao Qi said sympathetically.

"Are all A-rank monsters this stupid?" Mo Bai asked.

"The Phantom Butterfly is a special case. It's still just a butterfly, after all. Its intelligence is already at the upper limit of the insect world," Xiao Qi replied.

"Fair enough."

After resting briefly and replenishing some of the mental energy the Phantom Butterfly had drained, Mo Bai made her way to the intelligent robot Mao Juncai had destroyed.

The enforcement robots took Mao Juncai and Zhuang Xiangyang, but not the wreckage.

Rummaging through the remains, Mo Bai found a chip.

She carried it down to the second floor and approached an intelligent robot identical in appearance to the destroyed one, and showed it the chip. "I found this. Do I need to turn it in?"

The robot scanned her and asked, "Did you destroy this?"

"No," Mo Bai said. "I just found it on the third floor."

The robot scanned her again. "Test Subject 007 did not damage institute property. No rule violations detected. No punishment required. Refuse detected on the third floor. Dispatching cleaning robot to the third floor."

Soon, a trash-can-shaped robot rolled up to Mo Bai, droning, "Garbage collection. Garbage collection."

"If it's garbage, can I keep it?" Mo Bai asked.

"Garbage collection. Garbage collection."

Mo Bai thought for a moment, then tucked the chip into her hair like an ornament. "I think it's pretty. I want to use it as a hair accessory. This isn't garbage."

The trash-can robot scanned her up and down, said nothing more, and turned to work.

Mo Bai turned back to the scanning robot. "This chip came from an intelligent robot that looks exactly like you. In your eyes, it's just garbage?"

"A non-functional robot is a metal shell. Garbage. A functional robot is institute property. Not garbage."

"So test subjects can't damage institute property, but they can dispose of garbage however they like?"

"Yes."

Xiao Qi chimed in, "Don't lump these low-level robots with smart assistants like us. They're far too primitive. They don't feel a thing about a companion's destruction."

"I'm not trying to understand its feelings," Mo Bai said. "I just want to bring this chip back to my room without breaking any rules."

Once she confirmed that the robot wouldn't punish her for the chip, Mo Bai returned to her room to wait for her teammates.

Sheng Yan's task had been the simplest, so he was back before five.

"I recorded everything the researchers said," he told her. "I'll send you the audio now."

Mo Bai had asked Sheng Yan to extract useful information from the researchers' conversations, but he didn't have the brain for that. He simply recorded the entire thing and sent it over for her to analyze.

After receiving the recording, Mo Bai said, "Give me the Information Extraction card. I need to check this chip."

Information Extraction was a B-rank card that could retrieve data from damaged computers, chips, phones, and even ordinary notebooks. Even deleted electronic files or altered handwriting could be recovered, but it only had three uses.

Since this instance was set in a high-tech facility like the Biological Research Institute, Mo Bai believed intelligence was the key to everything. Before entering, she had specifically selected this card from Sheng Yan's collection.