RotA – Chapter 34

“This… Is this fucking thing even a carbon-based life form?” Lu Qi was so shocked his eyes were practically popping out of his head. “It’s that huge, and it runs that fast. Doesn’t it get tired?”

“Are you trying to apply science to something like this?” Ren Dong’s finger squeezed the trigger.

The first shot flew out, precisely piercing the left eye of a mutated beast in hot pursuit.

Lu Qi: “Nice shot. You really know how to use one of these!”

Ren Dong, with a motion that seemed unfamiliar yet was incredibly practiced, worked the bolt and re-entered a firing stance. “The first time I went topside, you probably hadn’t even tested into the military academy yet, had you?”

Chai Yuening: “She started going topside when she was fourteen.”

Lu Qi: “My apologies, my apologies. I’ll call you Dong Jie from now on.”

Ren Dong: “Don’t you go making me sound old.”

Amidst the overlapping gunshots, the casual conversation between comrades who entrusted their lives to one another seemed to be the final barrier against despair.

A torrential downpour, carrying a biting chill, poured straight into the vehicle through the cracked windows and the open rear.

A roaring horde of beasts chased the rear of the vehicle, while a piercing, bizarre sound of steel being cut screeched from the roof.

The sounds of approaching death were too loud; everyone was shouting, the only way to keep their words from being swallowed up.

Lao Xiang glanced back and yelled, “Is this working? Should I close the hatch?”

“Don’t close it!” Chai Yuening frowned and shouted back. “We’re not fast enough! Without suppressive fire, they’ll be on the roof in no time!”

She had seen an armored vehicle of the same model, stripped of its weight until only the cockpit remained, still get overtaken by a pack of beasts.

Human vehicles couldn’t outrun mutated beasts. Hiding inside a shell was useless.

The destructive power of the ground-level beasts had long since become strong enough to tear through steel. If the hatch were closed, the roof definitely wouldn’t last long.

As if to prove Chai Yuening’s point, with an ear-splitting screech, a savage gash was violently torn across the super-steel roof.

Right above their heads, a crimson, scythe-like mantis arm probed through the gap.

“See, I told you I’m not the only jinx on this team!”

Lu Qi quickly turned his gun toward the tear. After several consecutive shots, he only managed to repel the scythe-like arm, not even drawing a speck of blood.

Soon, a second gash was torn in the roof, and rainwater poured down from above.

“It’s no use,” Ren Dong shouted. “Its forelimbs are probably the hardest part of its body. The weak point is elsewhere.”

“Hold the rear.” Chai Yuening gritted her teeth and ran to the observation port. “Lao Xiang, open the skylight, lower the ladder!”

“Do you have any idea how high the mutation rate of these beasts is right now?!” Lao Xiang roared back.

Chai Yuening: “Someone has to go up! We can’t let them tear the roof off, or we’ll be completely exposed to their attack range!”

Ren Dong: “Captain!”

Lao Xiang: “Then you fucking drive, and I’ll go up!”

Chai Yuening: “Can you stop trying to be a hero with those old bones of yours?!”

Lu Qi: “What’s all the damn arguing for? You’re acting like going up there is a death sentence. The big one’s already here, what’s to fear from a few small ones? I’ll go!”

Chai Yuening: “You…”

The argument lasted only a brief moment. Just as Chai Yuening was about to say more, she saw Chu Ci walk to her side and pat her on the shoulder.

“I’ll go,” Chu Ci said softly.

Her words were perfectly calm, without a trace of fear or any sense of suicidal determination.

On this brink of despair, it was like a shot of adrenaline.

“You…” Chai Yuening hesitated for a moment.

“I won’t get infected.” Chu Ci smiled at her.

The observation hatch remained closed.

Chu Ci glanced at the tear in the roof, which was being ripped wider and wider. She turned and ran toward the rear hatch, her hands transforming into vines. Wrapping them around the roof for leverage, she pulled herself up and vaulted onto it.

“Ah!” Ren Dong couldn’t help but cry out in alarm.

“Fuck!” Lu Qi was so scared his voice cracked.

“What’s going on?” Lao Xiang, not understanding the situation, turned his head for a look but saw nothing. “How’d she get up there?”

Lu Qi: “What is that thing!”

Ren Dong: “Black… black vines?”

The gunfire, which had paused for a few seconds, rang out again. It was Chai Yuening, aiming at a worm-like creature that had clambered onto the rear of the vehicle.

“Are you all just going to stand there and wait to die?” she barked.

Lu Qi: “Definitely not…”

Ren Dong: “…”

Lao Xiang: “Huh?”

Ren Dong and Lu Qi snapped out of their shock and returned to their defensive positions.

Gunshots echoed continuously inside the vehicle, while muffled thuds of heavy impacts came from the roof.

Suddenly, a mutated beast with mantis arms, as tall as two men, was thrown heavily from the roof. It vomited a spray of blood, which was instantly washed away by the heavy rain.

Lu Qi: “Holy shit!”

A blood-stained black vine coiled tightly around it like a snake’s tail. Then, like a flail, it swung from left to right, instantly sending many of the beasts chasing the vehicle flying several meters away.

The black vine abruptly released the beast after it had been flung several meters, retracting to the roof with astonishing speed. A moment later, another beast was slammed violently to the ground.

Lu Qi: “Awesome!”

Ren Dong’s jaw dropped in amazement. “Oh my god…”

Chai Yuening had been worried that everyone would be unable to accept it, but now it seemed her concerns were entirely unnecessary.

“What happened?” Lao Xiang instinctively glanced back, but once again missed everything.

At that moment, of the five people in the vehicle, only the driver was out of the loop.

But bewildered or not, he still had to drive properly.

Lao Xiang shouted, “That thing is getting closer! I’m heading into the ruins! The roads in there are bad, get Chu Ci down quickly, and you all brace yourselves!”

As his voice fell, the last worm-like beast on the roof was also entangled by the vines and thrown off.

Chai Yuening yelled up, “Chu Ci, get down!”

Chu Ci slid down the vine, and the moment she landed steadily, her arms returned to their human form.

She was covered in blood. Chai Yuening rushed forward to check her, and only breathed a sigh of relief when she found no wounds.

“So cool, so, so, so cool!”

Lu Qi approached as if worshiping a deity.

The young man, in his chuunibyou phase, seemed to have no concept of the word “fear.” He only thought that this “Black Vine Hero” before him was the epitome of cool!

“Is this like the superpowered people in novels? Will superpowered people save the Earth? Can powers be awakened?”

Lu Qi: “Ci Jie, do you think I have any hope of awakening powers in this lifetime?”

Ren Dong: “Uh…”

Lao Xiang: “What? What powers?”

Lu Qi: “Plant-based powers! Controlling plants, whoosh, whoosh whoosh!”

Chai Yuening couldn’t help but frown. “Lu Qi!”

Chu Ci shook her head and replied softly, “As a human, you should be proud.”

Her voice wasn’t loud, but it wasn’t drowned out by the wind and rain.

Lu Qi was taken aback for a moment. When he came to his senses, a flicker of guilt crossed his eyes.

But no one had time to feel guilty for long.

The mutated beasts that had just been repelled were now quickly catching up again.

The enormous figure in the distance was now less than three thousand meters away.

Ren Dong’s expression darkened. “It’s almost within my effective range.”

Chai Yuening: “You keep your eyes on it. We’ll handle the rest.”

Ren Dong’s voice trembled slightly. “It’s too big. Where should I aim?”

Chai Yuening: “Aim for the legs. We can’t kill it anyway, might as well put a couple of shots in each leg. Maybe it’ll slow it down a bit.”

Ren Dong: “Okay!”

As the giant beast drew closer, the increasingly deadly sense of pressure, the cold raindrops on her skin, the roaring of the beasts in her ears, and the jolting of the armored vehicle as it entered the city ruins—all of it made Ren Dong, who hadn’t been topside in a long time and whose physical condition was far from what it used to be, gradually find it difficult to breathe.

Ren Dong: “I can’t get a clear shot!”

Chai Yuening: “Don’t be nervous. You can do it.”

Ren Dong: “Okay…”

She took a deep breath and focused her mind again.

The armored vehicle sped forward through the rain at full throttle.

Under the dense fog, amidst the ruins, even the most powerful fog lights provided less than two hundred meters of visibility. Hurtling through the complex terrain at full speed was like brushing past death again and again.

The vehicle didn’t slow down, and every sharp turn made it difficult for those in the rear cabin to keep their footing.

But the horde of beasts and the giant creature behind them continued their relentless pursuit.

The sniper rifle’s bullets pierced the dense fog and heavy rain, hitting the giant beast time and again, yet they didn’t slow it down in the slightest. Instead, they thoroughly enraged it, causing it to charge toward them even faster.

There was no thunder in the sky, but a tremendous crash came from behind them.

It was the sound of the giant beast toppling a building from the old world.

An already leaning, abandoned skyscraper collapsed at that moment.

Several nearby buildings, shaken by the immense tremor, also began to tilt or crumble one after another.

Lightning suddenly flashed across the sky, and the downpour seemed to grow even heavier.

At that moment, it was as if the heavens themselves were weeping for the final collapse of this old-world ruin.

The lightning faded, and thunder shook the heavens.

The world plunged back into darkness.

Only in the distance, that enormous silhouette became increasingly distinct.

Ren Dong: “There’s something strange about its legs…”

Chai Yuening: “Strange how?”

Ren Dong: “It looks like there’s something on them. Not just on the legs, on its body too, but I… I can’t see clearly. The fog and rain are too heavy!”

Chai Yuening: “Whatever it is, can you aim for it?”

Ren Dong: “I’ll try!”

As she spoke, she calmed her mind and tried to aim at that unknown object.

With a successful shot, the giant beast’s body visibly faltered.

Chai Yuening was overjoyed. “A hit! That’s its weak point!”

Ren Dong let out a long, heavy breath, worked the bolt, aimed again, and fired another successful shot.

The giant beast let out a muffled roar. Its movements were no longer steady; it began to stumble as it chased them, even starting to roar in frustration.

As the giant beast closed in, all the tall buildings in the armored vehicle’s path collapsed.

Before long, it was not only within range of the sniper rifle, but also the assault rifles.

“I’ll take care of these small ones,” Chu Ci said, her hands once again transforming into vines.

Chai Yuening and Lu Qi slapped in new magazines and began firing at the giant beast through the fog and rain.

Although they lacked sniper scopes, the assault rifles’ rate of fire was much faster than the sniper rifle’s. The sudden increase in firepower managed to hit some of the giant beast’s unknown weak points.

Just as they saw the giant beast’s speed clearly slowing, before anyone had a chance to rejoice, they saw the beast, its features now becoming clearer, lean its head forward.

In that instant, a pair of enormous, vacant, blood-red eyes looked down upon the humans, who were as insignificant as ants to it.

It suddenly opened its cavernous maw, like that of a giant Venus flytrap, and let out a deafening roar.

A fierce gale erupted. No one could keep their footing any longer. Even with the vines pulling them tight, they were still sent tumbling backward into the rest cabin behind them, crashing into the vehicle walls or the supplies.

With a curse, the armored vehicle slammed on its emergency brakes, and the cockpit’s airbags deployed in that same instant.

After a long moment of ringing in her ears, Chai Yuening painfully came to her senses.

She looked up and saw that the fog behind them seemed to have dissipated significantly. The colossal beast was just a few hundred meters from the armored vehicle.

Like a black jellyfish, it unfurled its light, flower-like body, emitting strange, yet no longer piercing, sound waves.

Suddenly, all the surrounding mutated beasts turned to look in its direction.

In the thinning fog, a sort of reddish-purple glimmer seemed to slowly drift toward it.

It was the light from the surrounding black vines.

Those so-called weak points on its body were actually a series of succulent-like growths, extremely similar to the black vine flowers.

All the black vines, in the midst of the downpour, were oriented toward it.

It seemed to be…

Absorbing the life force of the black vines.

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Author’s Notes:

Vine Pain Literature

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Sorry for the delay; I’ve been travelling due to work, and of all the times, my laptop decided to take a paid leave now. I’ll try my best to get the chapters out daily.

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