RotA – Chapter 51

Posted by April Fox, ? Views, Released on July 21, 2025

Facebook Twitter WhatsApp Pinterest Telegram

It was utterly silent here, with no beast packs, nor any lone mutated beasts.

Chai Yuening should have realized it sooner. The Fog Zone was never this quiet. The quieter a place was, the more unforeseeable dangers it held.

This was perhaps a giant beast that had devoured everything around it. It was greedy; it did not cohabit with any other creatures and naturally would not spare a single piece of prey here.

In truth, from the moment she left on her own, Chai Yuening knew she was destined never to be with Chu Ci.

It was just as she had feared from the beginning: a human and a different species, separated by an insurmountable distance.

A different species could only live well away from people, while a human would die quickly away from them.

In their ignorance, they had already missed the best of times.

Chai Yuening unwound the black vine from her body and gently placed it in a dilapidated corner piled with rubble.

Just as she was about to get up, she saw the black vine wrap around her wrist once more.

“I’ll lure it away, then come back for you, okay?”

Chai Yuening spoke softly, but the slender vine refused to loosen its grip in the slightest.

“You’re not as easy to coax as you used to be…”

A bitter smile touched Chai Yuening’s eyes.

She no longer tried to placate the stubborn little thing. Instead, she forcefully pulled it from her hand, heartlessly tossed it to the ground, and turned to run downstairs.

She had to lead that giant beast away. She couldn’t let it destroy this dilapidated high-rise, or the still-weak little black vine would be hurt.

She ran downstairs and immediately saw the behemoth suspended a street away. A reddish-purple halo flowed over its body, its massive silhouette still clearly visible even in the dense fog.

—Hunting humans was the instinct of every mutated beast.

Chai Yuening wasn’t sure if the current Chu Ci still retained a human scent. If she did, and Chai Yuening left like this, the giant beast would still head for this high-rise.

After a brief hesitation, she drew the gun from her waist.

“Bang!”

The gunshot echoed through the silent, dense fog.

Chai Yuening turned and ran toward the distance, a continuous series of shots erupting from the dark muzzle of her gun.

The bullets struck the giant beast’s body. Although they failed to penetrate its “skin,” they instantly caught its attention.

The giant beast flew toward her at high speed—a speed that no human could possibly outrun on foot.

She could only try to lead this thing as far away from here as possible.

She ran into the depths of the unknown fog, running toward her own, inescapable death.

Along the way, black vines grew everywhere, rooted in the dust and mud that had accumulated in this city over the years.

Suddenly, these black vines seemed to come alive.

They swayed in the misty light without a breeze, slithering like snakes as they grew toward the giant beast.

The giant beast in the distance froze, seemingly hesitant.

The ground beneath Chai Yuening’s feet suddenly began to tremble.

She saw the massive black vine spanning two old buildings in the distance suddenly begin to writhe slowly, like a great serpent. A deep purple halo flowed from its trunk, which was as thick as an ancient tree.

The giant black vine flower blooming between the high-rises slowly began to sprout fangs, like an abyssal maw, silently facing the behemoth. Its dark red glow resembled mottled bloodstains, somber and oppressive.

Broken pillars of mud and shattered bricks rained down. The two precarious buildings teetered on the verge of collapse, yet were held in a delicate balance by the vine.

Soon, all the other black vines seemed to have received some kind of summons, all turning to face the giant beast.

The indescribable behemoth let out a low roar like muffled thunder, and the black scales scattered across its body suddenly bloomed like flowers.

Chai Yuening had seen this before. On the night they awaited rescue in the Underground City, that jellyfish-like giant beast had also bloomed its “flowers” in such a way—they were used to absorb the energy of the black vines.

Having spent a long time in the research institute, she had naturally heard a theory.

In the current, new mutated ecosystem, the final form a species could evolve into was one similar to the giant beast that had appeared above the Underground City Base—a form capable of growing black-vine-flower-like organs and absorbing the black vines’ energy for its own use.

The behemoth before her clearly wanted to absorb the life force of these black vines.

Chai Yuening’s breath caught for a moment, but she quickly came to her senses and turned back, running at full speed toward the old building where she had left Chu Ci.

In the next second, the surrounding fog was tinged with a reddish-purple glow, swirling with an eerie strangeness through the hazy city ruins before her.

The black vines’ power was not absorbed by the giant beast.

On the contrary, the behemoth suddenly began to struggle and wail in pain.

The light on its body, which resembled that of the black vines and perhaps even belonged to them, was being drawn out, bit by bit, converging toward the giant black vine.

It began to try to escape, its enormous body appearing incredibly clumsy at this moment.

Countless madly growing vines silently entangled it, piercing its terrifying body, greedily absorbing every inch of flesh and blood from its massive frame.

The giant beast let out a mournful howl as it plummeted to the ground. The moment it fell, the entire earth shook.

It struggled with all its might, its horrifyingly large body tearing through the vines again and again. Each time it seemed on the verge of breaking free and escaping, but in the end, it was bound immobile by the relentless, successive waves of black vines.

The behemoth died, gradually perishing as it was “devoured” by these black vines.

It lost all its luster, and the strange, black-vine-flower-like organs on its body withered.

The originally dim flow of light on the black vines became clearly visible at this moment.

Chai Yuening couldn’t believe her eyes. This was a sight she had never seen before.

For over fifty years, the black vines, which countless human scholars had judged to be completely non-infectious and non-aggressive, had just killed such a massive beast.

Her heart still pounding with fear, she stepped into the building where she had left Chu Ci.

The dilapidated building, filled with rubble and dust, had at some point become completely covered by black vines.

After the giant beast died, these black vines grew quiet.

They stopped their frenzied growth and did not attack the approaching person. They just lay quietly on the shattered ground, hid in old pipes, or pierced through stone walls, entwining broken steel bars.

The black vines emanated a demonic purple and a blood-like red, no longer as dim as usual.

Chai Yuening’s brow furrowed tightly as she hurried upward.

Having survived a desperate situation, she felt no joy.

She was afraid of what had just happened, afraid that she had made the wrong decision again, afraid that when she returned to where she had left Chu Ci, she would only find a monster that had completely mutated to protect her.

But as she drew closer to that floor, this fear transformed into a resolute determination in her heart.

Following the glowing vines, she walked step by step toward what she was destined to face.

The moment she returned to the floor with the shattered walls, Chai Yuening’s eyes reddened, and tears began to stream down her face uncontrollably.

She saw countless vines piercing through the floor tiles, penetrating the walls, and extending in all directions along the rusty steel bars.

These black vines connected to the earth more than a dozen floors below, to the surrounding levels, and to every other black vine within Chai Yuening’s line of sight.

Brilliant red black-vine flowers bloomed in this gloomy world.

The sinking fog was tinged with the faint glow of the black vines, swirling around like rosy clouds, as if they had never left that suspended city.

And at the center of it all was a silhouette enshrouded by countless vines.

It was a vague, human-like outline, lying silently on the broken ground like a dead thing.

It was like the main trunk of a banyan tree, extending its tangled roots outward, desperate to take root in this wasteland.

“Do you want to stay here?” Chai Yuening asked softly.

She could no longer be sure if the black vine, mutated to such an extent, could still remember her.

Before its mutation, it had undergone a fusion experiment with the highly aggressive giant beast from the Underground City, a beast capable of absorbing the life force of black vines.

It had evolved, just as the human scholars had said, into the final form of the mutated ecosystem.

It had already acquired the powerful aggression of every mutated beast. Perhaps it now also possessed the infectious ability of every mutated beast. Perhaps it was no longer the person she remembered.

It was surrounded by a jumble of vines, on which sharp thorns grew like roses, as if to keep everyone at a distance.

But even so, after a brief hesitation, Chai Yuening slowly walked forward.

The sharp vines cut her skin. Blood dripped onto the vines, slowly blooming into blood-colored flowers.

In a daze, she seemed to hear a familiar voice.

Right by her ear, in her heart.

In that most placid tone, it softly recited the lines of poetry committed to memory.

【I am a desperate man, a word without an echo.】

“Do you still remember me?”

She knelt beside it, probing softly, but received no response.

“If Dr. Yi didn’t lie to me, if human research wasn’t all for nothing, maybe you still remember.”

She said, a slight smile on her lips, as she leaned forward a little, reached out her hands, and gently drew the thing that no longer resembled a human into her arms.

【Losing everything and possessing everything.】

“I’ve been thinking about something a lot lately. Since you can’t save humanity anyway, if I could have been a little more heartless back then, only caring about my own survival, would you… have been a little more selfish too, hiding all your secrets and staying by my side forever…”

“But there are no ‘ifs’ in this world. You’re like a fool. If someone shows you a little kindness, you think you’ll never meet anyone better…”

【Last hawser, my last anxiety creaks in you.】

Her voice began to tremble. “What did I ever do to deserve this from you? I clearly…”

For a moment, all words caught in her throat.

She could no longer speak the words in her heart, and tears had long since blurred her vision.

—There are no more roses in this world.

—Why not?

—I learned when I was little that base biologists announced over thirty years ago that the last rose seed in human hands, including those in the Floating City, had failed to cultivate.

—The world is so big. Maybe there really are some left.

【In my sterile land, you were the last rose.】

Chai Yuening smiled bitterly. “If you want to stay here, I’ll stay here with you…”

The surrounding vines began to move again. Without a trace of hesitation or retreat, she simply closed her eyes, waiting with a sense of relief for the death she expected.

The black vine in her arms was cold, as if devoid of any life.

But this was the first time she had ever embraced with all her might the person she never had the chance to embrace before.

“Can you infect people now?” she asked in a low voice. “Will I become like you? Will I forget you?”

She thought, I’ll just die here.

She would die here, at Chu Ci’s hands, in a distant, unknown place.

From now on, the survival of humanity would have nothing to do with her, and this world would have nothing to do with her either.

At least she had accompanied the girl who had been trapped her whole life, walking freely through the final leg of her journey as a human being.

“Why don’t you… just eat me? Like those mutated beasts that hunt humans, just eat me…” she said with immense calm, almost a plea. “I’ll be your nourishment. I’ll live inside your body. Even if humanity ceases to exist, I’ll always be with you.”

Thus, she would never again leave that sterile land, never again let that desperate person face the world’s hardships alone.

The morning wind swept through the dilapidated old building.

A slender vine, carrying a hint of coolness, touched Chai Yuening’s cheek.

The vine root she held in her arms underwent a reverse transformation at that moment.

One by one, the black vines faded in color, tearing inch by inch into incredibly fine threads. A portion slowly coalesced into human skin, while another part wrapped around the milky-white flesh, forming tattered human clothes.

The vines on her body had not completely receded.

Cold fingertips were already gently caressing that tear-streaked cheek.

“Chai Yuening…”

The familiar voice finally sounded by her ear again, yet to Chai Yuening, it felt as if several seasons had passed.

She had truly waited for too long.

The moment she opened her eyes, she stared in astonishment at the scene before her.

In that instant, countless vines were contracting and gathering toward the faintly glowing reddish-purple heart of the person in her arms. Her limbs, not yet recovered, were still connected to innumerable vines, as if rooted in the ground, unable to break free.

Her face was pale, and even her breathing seemed extremely faint. The bruises and bloody marks on her body were likely injuries from the giant beast just now.

“I can’t trick you into leaving, and I can’t scare you away, can I…”

She said softly, her breath as faint as a thread, still in the same tone as before, without a hint of blame, only curiosity.

How could there be such a person in this world, who would care about her, whom no one else wanted to care about?

How could there be such a person, who would disregard their own life for her time and time again?

Even… even when she became a monster, that person never thought of abandoning her.

“You still want me to go?” Chai Yuening said. “I’m not going…”

She thought, this different species was the strangest being in the world. It clearly didn’t want her to leave, yet it tried to push her away again and again.

But this time, no matter what Chu Ci said, she would not leave again.

A ray of morning light shone through the thinning fog, illuminating them as they gazed silently at each other atop the high-rise.

The all-devouring giant beast was dead. There were no beast packs here, no humans.

In this dust-filled city ruin, only the two of them remained.

The vehicle wouldn’t run, and the communicator was lost.

Even if they looked to the horizon, they couldn’t see through the great fog to that city high above.

Everything that belonged to the human world no longer existed for them.

Neither of them could go back.

The sound of the wind broke the momentary silence.

Chai Yuening heard a suppressed sob by her ear.

She heard Chu Ci ask her, “You want to stay on the surface? Aren’t you… afraid of dying?”

She thought, I’m not afraid.