Ethan continued to use his Corpse Domain ability to launch internal attacks, preventing blood from spilling and the scent from alerting the other Evolved. Their sense of smell was extremely sharp.
After dispatching the three people, Ethan moved to the adjacent room.
A female Evolved was sleeping there, also deeply. Ethan repeated the method, extracting her Brain Pellet.
In this manner, Ethan killed and absorbed the Brain Pellets of five Evolved in a row.
The sensation suddenly reminded Ethan of his childhood. In the orphanage's backyard, there was a cherry tree. When the cherries ripened, he and Lois would gather the children to pick and eat them.
Even after all these years, Ethan remembered it vividly, as if it were yesterday—it was his lost childhood...
He never expected to recall that time in such a setting.
With this fond memory, Ethan planned to continue his killing.
But when he passed through the wall again, he entered a huge Warehouse. It was stacked with supplies: cooking oil, salt, rice, tea, drinks, Instant Noodles, sausage, bread. Everything the supermarket could offer was there.
Ethan made himself at home, sweeping everything into his Inventory with a wave of his hand.
He walked further, entering another large Warehouse.
This one contained fresh meat and seafood: frozen shrimp, crabs, and the like. Thanks to the backup Generator, everything was perfectly frozen.
Ethan swept it all away.
Continuing on, he found yet another Warehouse.
There were four such large Warehouses, demonstrating the immense storage capacity. They held everything from home appliances to brooms, mops, and detergents.
Only the vegetable Warehouse showed signs of large-scale rot.
But Ethan didn't mind. He was a Carnivore.
...
Just then, the two Evolved on guard duty outside began to sense that something was wrong.
"Nan, it's already five past two. Why hasn't Gos come to relieve us?"
"I don't know!" The middle-aged man was puzzled too.
"Did he... exhaust himself and turn into a Wimp last night?"
"I'm going to go call him. Maybe he's intentionally trying to slack off." The young man looked disgruntled.
He walked straight to the first room and knocked loudly.
"Gos, time to take the shift! Get up, hurry!"
"Hey, did you hear me? Don't pretend to be dead!"
...
No matter how hard he knocked, there was no sound from inside. The young man felt increasingly uneasy.
He used brute force to shove the door open.
Looking at the bed, he saw one man and two women lying there. Their skin was deathly pale, completely drained of color.
They were dead!
"HOLY SH—! Something's happened! Quick, someone help!" The young man cried out instantly.
His shaky, panicked cry exploded in the lobby like a clap of thunder, completely shattering the quiet of the night.
Countless people were awakened from their sleep, rubbing their eyes groggily and walking toward the commotion.
"What's going on?"
"What happened?"
"Did a zombie get in?"
...
The crowd of survivors gathered, murmuring among themselves.
No one noticed the tall, slender young man standing in the crowd, watching everything with a cold, detached expression.
The other guard, Nan, who had been on watch earlier, came over. He was an Evolved who had condensed a Crystal Core and was the leader here.
"Liu, what's wrong?"
"Nan, Gos... he's dead!" the young man quickly said.
"What?" Nan looked into the room, his brows instantly furrowing.
The survivors behind him started debating.
"How did he die? Did he get too excited and overdo it?"
"No way! The two women are dead too."
"Could they... have had some kind of infectious disease?"
...
Nan's frown deepened. With his keen senses, he realized that Gos's internal energy was completely gone. Clearly, his Brain Pellet had been taken.
But... there wasn't a single wound on his body!
"That's impossible. His head is fine, but his Brain Pellet is gone. What about the people next door? Call them out and ask."
"I don't know," Liu said blankly.
Nan looked ahead and saw that the doors of the next four rooms were still tightly closed. His heart immediately sank.
Evolved senses are sharp. There was no way they wouldn't hear such a commotion!
Unless...
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
Nan forcibly kicked open the four doors in succession.
Inside, without exception, lay cold corpses.
"Hiss..."
Everyone gasped in cold shock.
Dead! They were all dead!
Just then, a girl came running from the Warehouse direction, her face frantic.
"Nan, the Warehouse... the supplies inside the Warehouse are all gone too!"
"What?" Nan's vision went black; he nearly fainted.
He rushed to the doors of the large Warehouses.
He saw that the previously full Warehouses were now completely empty.
"Illusion! This has to be an illusion! I must be under someone's Mind Control!" Nan shook his head repeatedly, refusing to believe the reality before him.
Some Evolved or mutated creatures did possess Mind Control abilities.
But no matter how hard he focused his mind, he realized this was reality, not some phantom.
"This... How is this possible?"
Nan's face was utterly grim, looking as though it might drip water.
The others were silent too. The hundreds of people were quiet; not a single person spoke.
Five of the original twelve Evolved were inexplicably dead, leaving only seven.
Most importantly...
The Warehouse supplies were all gone! How were they supposed to survive now???
"Something definitely got in!" Nan analyzed calmly.
The woman next to him asked, "Nan, what kind of ability could silently kill five Evolved and steal hundreds of millions worth of supplies?"
"I don't know," Nan frowned, looking around. "But... he might not have left. He could still be lurking in this building!"
"Ah?"
Terror gripped the hearts of the others.
The entire supermarket had six floors, and they didn't dare turn on the lights for fear of attracting zombies or powerful mutated beasts. With only dim emergency lighting, their visible range was less than twenty feet.
Everything around them was pitch black.
The thought of a monster that had killed five Evolved lurking in the darkness sent a powerful wave of unease through them.
People glanced around nervously, terrified that some creature might leap out.
But Ethan, at this very moment, was standing in the middle of the crowd.
The opposition still had seven Evolved, five of whom had vigorous energy, suggesting they had condensed Crystal Cores, though their abilities were unknown...
He decided not to launch a frontal assault just yet. He could play with them a little.
Following the events, all the survivors looked anxious, their negative emotions at an all-time high. Compared to the five dead Evolved, they were more concerned about food and the monster in the darkness.
"There's no food here. What do we do now?"
"Xue, I gave you a piece of chocolate yesterday, right? Give it back to me quickly."
"Nan, please take us back to Tech Corp! Or... at least request some supply reinforcement!"
...
People spoke over each other.
Nan nodded. "I'll consider it!"
Though he said this, he was thinking to himself: he had lost hundreds of millions in supplies and five men, and now he was going to request backup from the company? That would certainly be considered a huge offense.
If the company blamed him, they might even use him for live experiments...
The best solution now was to keep it a secret from the company, find the 'monster' during this time, and recover the supplies.