Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 554 Sweet Scent
What does it mean that no matching data was found in the database?

"Could it be that because her face is so severely deformed, it's impossible to identify her through facial recognition?"

"Ignorance is truly terrifying! Current facial recognition technology records skeletal data. As long as her bones haven't dissolved, it will definitely still be able to identify her!" one hunter said. "This guy... could he be an illegal infected person?"

The so-called "illegal infected persons" literally means those infected persons who have not been legally registered. These infected persons do not cause enough of a stir to attract the attention of the Public Security Bureau or the Bureau of Anomalies when they are infected with the monster meme. They often turn from normal people into infected persons quietly, and sometimes they may not even know that they have been infected by the monster meme.

This often manifests as a strange high fever, a sudden coma, or an accident occurring in a blind spot of surveillance... Within the federal territory, such illegal infected individuals appear almost daily. Some of these illegal infected individuals, lacking professional medical care and inhibitors, will enter a rapid transformation phase in a short period of time, thus transforming into strange creatures or undead.

Another group will be discovered by the Bureau of Anomalies, either voluntarily or involuntarily, and then become infected with legal identities.

Of course, besides these, there is another type of illegal infected person who is the most troublesome for the police department.

Those are infected individuals artificially created by cult organizations that believe in bizarre things.

Ordinary infected individuals, as long as they haven't entered the acute phase, don't pose a significant threat to human society. After acquiring the abilities of the monsters, these infected individuals, as long as their cognition and values ​​aren't distorted, are unlikely to commit any heinous acts—firstly, these people still retain some basic human morality; secondly, they fear being hunted by monster hunters.

In fact, after the initial panic subsides, most people who find out they are infected will immediately seek help from the local Institute of Mysteries... In this era where meme monitoring devices and surveillance cameras are so widespread, it is very difficult for an undocumented infected person to conceal their identity unless they do not use any public facilities or go to any public places—which is almost impossible for someone living in a modern city.

Even the most reclusive homebodies are subject to the census conducted by the police every six months. During the census, the police officer will also use a portable meme detection device to scan them, and if they are undocumented infected, they will be immediately exposed.

But infected individuals artificially created by cult organizations are different.

From the moment they were born, they harbored extremely dangerous motives... These illegal infected individuals are like time bombs, lurking in the corners of the city, waiting for the "detonation command" to the "person" they created.

For monster hunters, even if these illegal infected individuals still retain their sanity, they will not treat them as human beings, but will directly regard them as monsters or monster remains.

"Impossible! How could an illegal infected person have gotten on this train!" one hunter immediately retorted. "Are the people in charge of inspections at the station all incompetent?"

“It seems those people are indeed useless.” Yu Duo stood up. “If she is an illegal infected person, then she was very likely 'dropped' into this carriage on purpose…”

"You mean, this woman is part of a cult?" The hunter who had just spoken paused, taken aback. "What's their purpose? What is their motive for doing this?"

"Does a cult need a reason to cause destruction?" He Dawei said in a deep voice. "Those lunatics, every single one of them, are antisocial and inhuman scum! Maybe their target is us!"

"The train must be stopped! I want to get off!" A hunter kicked the partition door connecting the two carriages hard. However, after he kicked it, the polymer covering the partition door shattered and fell off, revealing the heavy door panel made of alloy material inside.

"Damn it! The door to our carriage has been replaced too! Are they trying to kill us all here?!" the hunter cursed in shock and anger.

“A train car full of infected people would definitely have some additional ‘safety measures’,” Yu Duo sneered. “Didn’t you notice that the passengers in the two carriages next to ours have already been evacuated?”

Upon hearing her words, everyone immediately looked out through the window on the partition door—sure enough, the two adjacent carriages were completely empty, and the passengers who had been sitting in their seats had all disappeared.

"Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!" The irritable hunter kicked the door several more times, but his actions were meaningless in front of the thick alloy door.

"Could there be a mole within the Heavenly Pivot Tower?" a hunter suddenly suggested a conspiracy theory. "They deliberately concentrated us on this train, and then deliberately let this illegal infected person through the station's security checkpoint... Holy crap, this is terrifying to think about!"

"Think about it for a second! Who do you think you are? Why would we need to use such methods to frame you?" He Dawei shouted. "Even if there's a mole in the Heavenly Pivot Tower, someone with the authority to do these things must be someone of high status. We might even have seen this mole on TV. Using such a valuable mole to exchange for our lives? I definitely wouldn't do such a losing deal!"

"What...what if it is..."

"Alright! Stop arguing!" a voice interrupted everyone's argument. "Look, these two people's bodies have changed again!"

Everyone's attention immediately focused on the two bodies in the middle of the carriage.

The flesh and blood on these two bodies had almost completely dissolved, and the male hunter's hunched spine was directly exposed to the air. On the surface of his spine, clusters of dense tumors had grown out of nowhere.

From a distance, these nodules look like clusters of insect eggs piled up. The smallest are about the size of a grain of rice, while the largest are about the size of a grape. They have a smooth surface and are a color between yellowish-brown and off-white...

Cheng Ming suddenly felt a tingling sensation on his scalp, and goosebumps crawled up his spine and neck. He subconsciously rubbed his arms, forcing himself to look away from the tumors.

"What is this?" a hunter asked in a low voice.

"It looks like...an egg?"

Is this thing hard or soft?

"I don't know, why don't you try poking it?"

"Don't touch it! Absolutely don't touch it!" He Dawei hurriedly dissuaded them, "If you want to die, don't drag others down with you!"

Just as everyone was filled with doubt and uncertainty, a crack suddenly appeared on the surface of the largest tumor, and a sweet and cloying smell filled the carriage.

"What...what is this smell?" "It smells so good...like a fruit that's overripe and about to rot..."

"Could this smell be coming from inside these 'eggs'?"

Cheng Ming naturally smelled these scents as well. In a daze, he felt his vision become somewhat blurred, and an unbearable hunger surged up from his stomach.

Those tumors that he had just found disgusting suddenly looked tempting to him.

An impulse compelled him to walk over, remove the tumors, and put them in his mouth...

Before Cheng Ming could act on his impulse, a hunter walked up with a dazed look on his face, knelt down directly in the pool of pus and blood that had been so terrifying not long ago, reached out and picked off the largest, cracked tumor, and put it into his mouth.

With a strange smile on his face, he chewed the tumor he was feeding himself, then slowly slumped down and lay comfortably in the aisle.

Then came the second, the third... More and more hunters approached the two dissolving bodies with eerie expressions, plucking fruit-like tumors from their bones and putting them into their mouths.

This even includes hunters wearing gas masks!
He Dawei, who was sitting diagonally opposite Cheng Ming, suddenly pulled out a ballpoint pen from his backpack and forcefully stabbed the pen tip into his forearm!
With a cry of pain, bright red blood gushed from He Dawei's forearm. The intense pain also brought He Dawei back to his senses, which had been somewhat dazed. He raised his hand and slapped Shen Rui, who had already stood up, hard across the face. Then he punched Yu Duo to the ground and hissed, "Get them to wake up! Those tumors have the power to lure people! And it's not the lure of smell, it's not even a gas mask!"

"Then, what do we do?!" Shen Rui asked in terror, jolted awake by a slap.

"Don't look! Don't think about it! Just pretend those things don't exist!" He Dawei hissed. "Based on my experience, many of these strange creatures' abilities are actually very much based on supernatural forces! This kind of self-deception is especially useful when dealing with these supernatural creatures!"

"Covering one's ears while stealing a bell?" Shen Rui subconsciously reached out and covered his ears, but he quickly realized that He Dawei was just using a metaphor.

"What should I do? What should I do?" Shen Rui felt his head was in a mess, and there was a strange impulse driving him to get up from his seat... As for what He Dawei had just said, it seemed like it was far away and very vague to him.

As for Yu Duo, she had already fallen into a coma—it must be said that He Dawei's punch was extremely heavy, not like he was trying to wake her up, but like he was trying to kill her.

Blood flowed down Yu Duo's forehead, her fingers were still trembling unconsciously, but her breathing had become weak.

"Huff...huff..." He Dawei gasped for breath. Because he was wearing a gas mask, he couldn't smell the sweet aroma coming from the other hunters' mouths, but the strange feeling deep in his mind and the abnormal behavior of those hunters made him realize that the problem had become quite serious and that measures had to be taken... measures...

A strong sense of drowsiness surged up, and for a moment he wanted to give up control of his body and let his instincts drive him. But then, his inner rage dispelled the drowsiness.

But at the same time, his remaining rationality was also swept away... A strong urge to destroy and violent impulses took over his mind. He Dawei glanced at Yu Duo sitting next to him, then suddenly pounced on her and grabbed her by the neck.

"Wei... Brother Wei?!" Shen Rui was stunned by the scene before him. "What are you doing?!"

"You fucking mind your own business!!" He Dawei roared.

With a muffled thud, He Dawei collapsed onto Yu Duo.

Cheng Ming threw Shen Rui's power bank on the table, slumped into his seat, and gasped for breath.

A dozen hunters had already gathered around the two men, frantically scrambling for the tumors growing from their bones and greedily stuffing them into their mouths.

Cheng Ming also wanted to join in, but the last shred of reason in his heart kept warning him that all of this was so abnormal... However, the warning was getting weaker and weaker, while the cloyingly sweet smell that seemed to drown people was becoming more and more intense.

In a daze, Cheng Ming seemed to see the hunters who had devoured the tumors; their flesh began to dissolve, revealing white bones, and on the surface of their bones, identical tumors grew...

Shen Rui finally stood up and swayed as he walked towards the group. Cheng Ming tried to stop him, but found he couldn't even raise his arm.

"How could this happen?" Cheng Ming's mind had lost the ability to think. "Why...why is this happening?"

He kept asking himself the same question, but for a moment, he was horrified to discover that he had even forgotten the meaning of the question.

His brain kept repeating the same question in an attempt to hold onto that last sliver of clarity.

Cheng Ming felt he was about to succumb.

"This feeling is very uncomfortable, isn't it?" A pleasant female voice suddenly rang out.

Cheng Ming was stunned. All the pain disappeared in the blink of an eye. He felt as if he had fallen into a very mysterious state. Time and space around him seemed to have stopped. Even his heartbeat and breathing were frozen. Only his self-awareness could still function normally.

He subconsciously looked in Yu Duo's direction, only to find a dazzlingly fair-skinned girl sitting on the back of Yu Duo's chair with her slender legs crossed.

Cheng Ming had never seen such a beautiful woman before—if his body could still move, he felt that some parts of his body might have already shown some embarrassing reactions.

"You want to know who I am, don't you?" the girl asked, looking into Cheng Ming's eyes.

(End of this chapter)