Chapter 552: Old Ruins, Ghouls?

Feng Yuhuai leapt lightly, her red dress spreading like butterfly wings, landing gracefully on the monster's spine.

"Come, all of you, come be family," she called out softly.

In an instant, the terrifying giant spider began to run, the ground trembling with a rumbling boom, bricks cracking, dust flying.

Dense masses of arms thrust toward the windows on both sides of the street; the people hiding inside had no time to flee before the deformed arms crashing through the windows violently seized them.

Those who were grabbed were flung out, spinning as they were dismembered and discarded, like insects falling into a spider web, devoured into the giant spider's body.

In less than half a minute, the spider giant's physique swelled like an inflated balloon, growing wildly taller and larger once more, its evil aura making the air within a hundred meters turn viscous.

Several scavengers' faces changed drastically; they dodged and retreated frantically, but two legs could not outrun a hundred legs, and one after another they were caught, merged into the family.

New heads continuously bulged on the giant spider's face, all laughing heartily together.

Only the hunchbacked old man advanced instead of retreating; at the very moment a spider hand seized him, his withered body suddenly erupted with astonishing transformation.

His spine extended, his hunched back instantly straightening, like a trapped dragon ascending to heaven.

Then his arms extended, his feet shifting and leaping, his spine springing, his shriveled muscles swelling as if inflated, tearing his tattered robes apart, a terrifying body with steel-bar-like knotted muscles, every tendon gleaming with a bronze-like cold light.

"Heh—"

His exhalation was like thunder; the old man leapt ten meters, crashing onto the giant spider's back like a meteorite.

Vast power exploded; the ever-growing colossal spider was actually forcibly pressed into the ground.

The bloated body shattered with a boom like a glass vessel, rotten flesh and bone fragments splashing down like rain within a ten-meter radius.

"Pa!"

The old man's cloth shoes could not withstand the immense force and exploded into fragments, his black toes coated in mucus digging deep into flesh and blood, his voice hoarse like grinding sand:

"Little girl, the thing you created looks quite intimidating, scaring city folk is fine, scaring peripheral scavengers barely passes, but this old man is different from them, this old man crawled back from the deep circles of the Old Ruins... a Ghoul!"

Scavengers also have ranks.

Those who only dare patrol the edges of the ruins with a shovel are the lowest-level scavengers.

This type of scavenger is the most numerous; most live in the Transfer Towns on the city outskirts, they gather in groups, yet have never tasted the rotten flesh and marrow of Old Era Corpses.

At most, they are merely lice living on the surface of Old Era Corpses.

Only those who truly delve underground, who break into the civilization graveyards buried by the Great Cataclysm, qualify to be called Ghouls.

The meaning being:

A group of lonely souls and wild ghosts wandering in the cracks of the era.

They spit on the New Era's hypocritical order, and are likewise rejected by the New Civilization's radiance, forced to curl up in the depths of the Old Era Civilization's ruins, surviving by gnawing on the bones of the previous civilization.

Ghouls mostly dwell in the deep circles of the Old Ruins, rarely appearing in the city, at most only active in Transfer Towns.

And the lice in the Transfer Towns are responsible for smuggling the Old Era "trash" dug up by Ghouls into the Steel Forest, exchanging it for the New Era's "nutrition."

The city's masters contemptuously call the refugees hiding in the Old Ruins Ghouls, while the refugees in the Old Ruins despise the city's masters as turtles hiding their heads in shells.

They despise each other, oppose each other, fear each other, yet must transport the nutrients each needs to the other.

This twisted symbiotic relationship weaves an intricate ecological web.

This is also why the Executive Government knows full well yet always turns a blind eye to the Transfer Towns.

Yet Feng Yuhuai does not understand this principle, only thinking that arriving at the Transfer Town means she can act without law or restraint, wantonly creating family.

Little does she know, no laws, no Executive Government, does not mean one can do as one pleases.

The old man shrank his body and lowered his waist, his large hand clenching into a fist, swinging it down; the force on his fist was like exploding thunder, the air emitting cracking pops wherever it passed, unable to bear the load.

Feng Yuhuai's pupils contracted sharply; she felt the entire world pressing down on her.

Death's chill rushed from the soles of her feet straight to her crown; it was the third time since becoming a Parasite that she felt pure fear.

Space in all eight directions was collapsing; terrifying killing intent surged like a tide.

Feng Yuhuai abruptly woke from the mad dream of creating family, hastily raising her arms to block, but heard the crisp snap of her own bones shattering.

Pong!

Feng Yuhuai's arms exploded into blood mist; the crimson threads melted rapidly like silk encountering fire.

Her body slammed downward, only stopping after smashing the giant spider beneath her completely to pieces.

This impact was the final straw; the monster's already shattered body finally collapsed entirely.

Hualala—

The giant spider's remains, like overcooked stewed meat boiled by fierce fire, emitted a strange meat fragrance, chunks of scalding hot flesh pouring down like mudslides.

Sticky meat pieces buried Feng Yuhuai layer by layer; scalding corpse oil burned her skin; rotten juices poured into her mouth and nose.

"This move, Subdue Demon Exorcise Evil Fist,"

The old man slowly withdrew his fist, lifting his foot to shake off the rotten meat stuck to it, a flash of mockery in his turbid eyes,

"Was dug up by this old man from a Bronze Coffin in the Old Ruins. Little girl, wanting to be this grandpa's granddaughter, looks like you're still far from qualified."

Buried layer by layer by her own family, her mouth and nose sensing her family's scent, her ears hearing the old man's mocking ridicule, the red rings in her brows and eyes rotating madly.

At this moment, countless thoughts drilled into her Nao Hai.

She thought of the Nano Spine controlled by Zuo Bai — technology can bring me death;

Thought of 【Mask】 · Boyfriend · Zheng Hang — the Curse of the Evil Sacrifice can also bring me death;

And now, this ragged dogshit Ghoul actually used the most primitive fist to prove — pure Martial Dao can equally bring me death?!

Feng Yuhuai suddenly laughed maniacally, her voice like it was squeezed from a broken phonograph:

"Then what was the point of being reconstructed and parasitized by the Puppet Mother? Is it that my talent is too worthless, or that the Puppet Mother is too weak?"

The old man bent down, his hand reaching into the "meat soup," precisely gripping Feng Yuhuai's skull, pulling her out of the rotten meat pile inch by inch like pulling a radish.

In the dark shadows, a beast's breathing suddenly grew rapid:

"Bad! Should I act?"

The Master of Ceremonies was equally anxious, the whites of his eyes trembling madly.

"Wait!"

The master of ceremonies abruptly pressed down on the beast's shoulder,

"The Investigation Corps has arrived, no wait, another direction — what's that?"

On a distant fork in the road, two completely different convoys were both rapidly approaching.

One side was an Armored Convoy bearing the Investigation Corps insignia, steel tracks crushing rubble along the way; the other side had only a single Vehicle...

The master of ceremonies' Byakugan looked towards that one Vehicle, and upon seeing the scene inside Che Nei, his expression changed slightly as he lowered his voice urgently: "Retreat, retreat quickly!"

"Retreat, retreat quickly!"

End of Chapter