After All Species Mutated, I Activated Cheats [Apocalyptic] - Chapter 15

The homeowner was incredibly hospitable, ushering them to sit while he busied himself pouring water for everyone. Lu Mian and the others felt a bit uneasy under this sudden wave of warmth, except for Old Wang, who sat there with a straight face, chatting away with the host as if they were old pals.

“How did you end up being chased by those giant mantises?” the host asked.

Old Wang pulled a long face. “You might not believe it, but we were just out for a drive. Everything was fine when we left, but we had the rotten luck of running into those huge things while they were hunting,”

The host stood to the side, taking tiny sips from his own glass. Upon hearing Old Wang’s explanation, he immediately put on a look of deep empathy. “It’s been dangerous outside lately. It’s better if you don’t go out at all. By the way, I didn’t catch where you all are from?”

Old Wang scratched his head. “From East City, about ten kilometers from here.”

Hearing this, Lu Mian gave Old Wang a mental thumbs-up for his quick thinking. Their actual complex wasn’t far at all, within a kilometer at most. He had been wondering how to subtly remind Old Wang to be careful, but it seemed Old Wang had already noticed something off about this guy.

The host casually set his glass down on the TV cabinet behind him. He reached out to gently stroke a glass terrarium on the shelf, then turned back to them with a beam. “Drink up! Don’t be shy!”

Lu Mian went through the motions of picking up his glass, but he didn’t let a drop pass his lips. His eyes kept drifting toward the row of glass boxes on the cabinet.

They were stacked neatly, the glass polished until it was spotless. He could clearly see the different miniature landscapes inside each one.

These boxes were clearly meant for pets, but for some reason, they were all empty now. Not a single creature was in sight.

The host kept the conversation going. “How many people are left over where you are?”

As if realizing the question was a bit abrupt, he quickly added, “Sigh, you have no idea. Remember that rain a couple of days ago? The environment around here isn’t great, and every house has drainage ditches around it. These things grew this big,”

The host gestured with his hands, indicating a length of about twenty centimeters. “Leeches this big crawled out of the ditches. In the dead of night, they slithered right into people’s homes. Those things suck blood. So many people here were bitten, quite a few were sucked completely dry,”

The host shivered. “A lot of people died here, which is why I wanted to ask about your situation.”

Lu Mian leaned forward, setting his glass on the coffee table with a look of feigned horror. “Leeches that big? We don’t have those where we are! That sounds terrifying!”

The host blinked. “You don’t have them?”

Lu Mian shook his head. “Never seen them.”

At those words, the host stared directly at Lu Mian. His deep brown pupils began to expand silently.

Suddenly, the host’s neck tilted to the side at a grotesque angle. A loud crack of breaking bone echoed through the room, but the man didn’t seem to notice. “You’re lying.”

As if that wasn’t enough, he added, “You’re all lying.”

Watching those pupils bloom until they turned the entire eye socket pitch black, Lu Mian swallowed hard. He grabbed the person next to him and stood up. “We’ve been sitting here a while, we really should be heading back,”

The host reached up and physically snapped his neck back into place. He flashed them a massive, unsettling grin. Ignoring Lu Mian’s goodbye, he asked again, “Why aren’t you drinking the water?”

Old Wang shifted a few steps to the side. Perhaps the movement was too sudden, as the host’s gaze snapped toward him.

Old Wang trembled, freezing in place. “Uh, well, water is precious these days. We wanted to… save it for you!”

A low, muffled chuckle filled the room. The corners of the host’s mouth stretched wider. “It’s fine. Drink.”

Lu Mian glanced at the empty glass boxes again. His lips moved, but he bit back the question burning in his mind.

He was afraid of tripping a wire and provoking the man. Even now, he couldn’t figure out exactly what this homeowner had become.

But the host didn’t miss Lu Mian’s gaze. “What do you keep looking at?”

After asking, the host seemed to remember something exciting. The black voids of his eyes grew even larger, filling the sockets until they had nowhere to go but out, beginning to protrude hideously.

Lu Mian held his breath. The host was rapidly losing his human shape, “eerie” didn’t even begin to cover it.

The host’s voluminous skirt rustled. He carefully picked up one of the glass boxes. “Are you looking at this? This is Cuicui’s house! She’s a lovely giant shield mantis! She’s so smart and well-behaved, she always answers when I call her! And this one! This is where Alan lives. Alan is an orchid mantis, incredibly beautiful, a bright purplish-red. She looks just like an orchid. And this one, this is…”

The host prattled on excitedly, cradling the empty boxes and reminiscing about the “little darlings” that used to live there. Lu Mian and the others took advantage of his trance-like state to slip out the front door. Before leaving, Lu Mian grabbed a bamboo pole leaning nearby and jammed it through the door handles to bar it. Then, the four of them bolted like their hair was on fire toward one of the alley exits.

Old Wang’s face was ghostly pale. “I almost knelt down and begged him for mercy!”

“I am never stepping foot in these narrow alleys again,” Chen-ge panted.

Lu Mian rubbed his arms, trying to smooth down the goosebumps that wouldn’t go away. Even the scorching sun couldn’t chase away his cold dread. A bizarre thought kept clawing its way to the front of his mind. “Tell me, what do you think was under that ridiculously large skirt of his?”

Lin Feng looked back at Lu Mian, his expression complicated. “Like the Butterfly Queen?”

Lu Mian shook his head. “Different. He can stand and walk, so he must have legs. The Queen only had hands and had to crawl. My guess is it’s a massive, elongated abdomen, which is why he wears a hoop skirt. Also, those empty glass boxes, any thoughts?”

Chen-ge looked pained. “I don’t want to think about it. I’m scared to think about it. But I did anyway! God, I hate my brain sometimes. Of those four mantises chasing us earlier, I wonder if one was Cuicui,”

“And that purplish-red Alan,” Old Wang added. “Alan my foot! I hope to god she isn’t some hidden boss, I’m terrified!”

Just then, a dark shadow streaked across the ground. The familiar sound of beating wings caused their hearts to stop for several beats.

The four of them scattered instinctively. With a thunderous boom, a massive mantis leg slammed into the spot where they had just been standing, cracking the pavement.

They looked back, and the vibrant purplish-red color made their heads throb with fear.

“Great!” Chen-ge yelled. “Alan’s here! Old Wang, you and your big mouth!”

Old Wang let out a wail, then clamped his mouth shut and whimpered.

Behind them, a white figure strolled casually toward them. Lu Mian looked up, his legs turning to jelly.

The homeowner had completely discarded his human form. Massive, black, bulbous eyes hung from his face. His chin was sharp enough to impale someone, and his mouth had shifted downward so far it couldn’t even be seen from the front.

His face was now the face of a mantis.

“Why did you leave?” the host asked.

Without waiting for an answer, he continued talking to himself. “Cuicui and the others are so hungry. It’s my fault. I didn’t hold onto them and they all escaped. Now they have to go out and hunt for themselves. It’s all my fault…”

The host clutched his head and crouched down in agony, bloody tears streaming down his cheeks. “Are there a lot of people where you live? It’s not enough to eat, I can’t keep them fed…”

The host sobbed inconsolably, two dark red stains appearing on his pristine white dress.

The purplish-red mantis leg didn’t attack them again. Instead, it gently nudged the weeping host. A sharp tarsus accidentally caught the host’s waist, snapping the belt of the dress.

The heavy hoop skirt, along with the fabric, slumped to the ground.

Lu Mian took one look and knew his guess had been right.

Below the host’s waist, a long, grayish-green insect abdomen had replaced his backside, growing outward. Unlike the Butterfly Queen, he wasn’t missing any parts, his human legs were still intact, he simply had the added abdomen of an insect.

Comforted by Alan, the host’s emotions stabilized slightly. He looked up, the bloodstains on his cheeks vivid. “You’re all so kind. You knew Alan was hungry, so you came to us! I wanted to be nice to you. I put Alan’s blood in the water. If you had drunk it, you would have fallen asleep. That way, it wouldn’t have hurt when Alan ate you. But you just wouldn’t drink!”

As the host’s voice escalated into a roar, a sense of impending doom washed over Lu Mian.

The host hugged the purplish-red mantis leg. “Good Alan, I know you’re hungry. Eat these little snacks first. I promise, I’ll find more for you! Oh, they’re from the neighborhood next door. I know them, I’ve seen them. There are so, so many people there. You and Cuicui and the others will finally be full!”

Lu Mian and the others felt their hearts sink. This guy wasn’t just after them, he was targeting everyone in their complex!

The purplish-red leg pulled away from the host and retracted upward. A massive mantis head squeezed down through the gap between the two rows of houses.

A giant purplish-red mantis appeared before them. Its body color was quite pale, almost white, with the color deepening only at the tips of its limbs and wings. Its head and compound eyes were a fresh, pale yellow, making it look like a delicate orchid.

But Lu Mian knew this “orchid” was no pet. Its pale yellow eyes scanned the area, seemingly locking onto their positions. Then, it raised a rock-hard leg and lunged toward them with terrifying speed.

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