Chapter 125: The Giant Plant

When Lv Ping left, the Captain and several comrades were still alive; yes, even though they were severely wounded, they were definitely still alive.

However, just as he was using his personal first-aid kit to bandage them, a change occurred.

It was an extremely uncomfortable smell, like some kind of concentrated acid evaporating and entering the respiratory tract; it took only a few seconds to make his breathing difficult, and his brain immediately became sluggish.

Realizing what this was came only because of the increasingly dense red color in his field of vision.

Red Mist!

Breaking down and restructuring, stimulating and lethal, possessing unpredictable and uncontrollable Mutation.

The Special Operations Team could always obtain classified intelligence at the first opportunity, and they had seen this dangerous mist several times during their operations.

Now, he saw it, spreading from the destroyed Base center toward the surroundings.

It was too late; what should he do?

Damp cloth strips could not stop these gases from entering his body at all; what about his severely wounded teammates?

As the vanguard unit, they had the most intuitive understanding of how terrifying the Urban Laboratory created by that perverted woman Song Yulin was.

He did not want to become that kind of monster!

At this moment, fear ultimately overcame his camaraderie for his teammates.

No, he couldn't say it like that; he had searched the ruins alone and rescued them, he had already done his best.

Right, Mutation requires consuming a large amount of food.

But food—where was there any food here?

Lv Ping's hands trembled, his brain thought incessantly, and in the end, he did everything he could.

People undergoing Mutation have no humanity; whether they can survive it depends only on themselves; hadn't even Xing Tianyang said that no one can help those undergoing Mutation?

"Captain, once the mist clears, I will come to pick you up!"

Lv Ping left, carrying his rifle, and departed the valley as if fleeing from hell.

In the distance, he looked back and saw his comrades completely submerged by the Red Mist.

"It's fine, I only inhaled a little, I won't undergo Mutation; this amount is much less than what is recorded in the Laboratory."

"I just need to find a place to hide for a while, yes, just hide for a while."

"I must live; only if I live can I go out to seek help and come back to save people."

"Yes, that's it, I must hold on, everyone is still waiting for me, I must..."

Several months of continuous heavy rain made the hilly terrain full of crises.

Lv Ping wanted to head to higher ground because it was not far from the sea, and it gathered floodwaters coming from the interior. What might have been a small ditch before was now a man-eating beast.

He had clearly been very careful, but the rock under his feet collapsed the moment he stepped on it...

He wanted to grab onto something, but the soil was too loose, the rocks were sliding—it was a mudslide...

The pain of the impact kept him conscious; fortunately, he was not buried by the mudslide, but unfortunately, he fell into the floodwaters gathered in the narrow gully.

The flood was too big and too fast; he could not find a point of leverage.

Damn the Burning; it hadn't even left him half a piece of driftwood.

His struggle only resulted in being washed away faster; exhaustion was inevitable. He didn't know how much mud he had swallowed or how many times he had collided with things. When he opened his eyes again, he found himself floating in a vast ocean.

His whole body was swollen and in intense pain; he twisted his neck extremely slowly, wanting to distinguish how far he was from the coastline.

But there was thick fog all around, and his eyes, filled with mud and sand and stinging, could not see land at all.

He wanted to call for help, but he spat out mouthfuls of mud; his throat could no longer make a sound.

In his hazy state, he seemed to hear the roar of machinery and saw a massive black object approaching from not far away.

That was... a ship, a big ship that could save his life.

Moving his completely swollen arms, he wanted to grope for his emergency whistle, but he soon discovered that his clothes were reduced to mere shreds, and his equipment was long gone.

He slapped the water surface with force, using extreme effort from the depths of his throat, but... everything was in vain.

This bit of movement was not enough to attract the attention of the big ship at all, but it did attract something terrifying.

A giant tentacle coiled around his body, dragging him down into the water.

A Bone Thorn pierced through his body; he discovered in horror that what flowed out was not blood, but red mud, dissolving and spreading in circles.

He was powerless to resist that enormous pulling force; before he sank into the water in despair, he saw...

He saw that big ship, and he also seemed to see a person standing by the ship's railing.

The ship's hull dispersed the thick fog, and his gaze met that person's—it was Liu Mu.

Had she seen him?

Or did she only see the churning tentacles?

Why didn't she save him, why!

He clearly still had to go back to save people, he still had to go back!

He couldn't die; his comrades were still waiting for him to save them, he couldn't die in the sea...

One week later, Lv Ping woke up again.

Crawling on a submarine Huoshan emitting thick smoke, he opened his giant compound eyes.

Scrap Station Pier,

The continuous heavy rain caused the sea level to rise, and the steamship successfully docked at the not-so-large pier.

The thick fog did not follow, and the visibility in the rain curtain was good.

"Boss, is that... our Scrap Station?"

The telescope equipped on the ship pierced through the rain curtain; he did not see the small building, but only a huge, sprawling patch of vines stretching for several miles.

The emerald green color was nourished by the rainwater, radiating vigorous vitality.

At the center of this vibrant vitality, a massive red flower flaunted its open petals, the layers rising and falling as if receiving a baptism of rainwater, blooming in a rage.

Bewitching, beautiful, dangerous!

"You all stay here," one wave of pain had not yet vanished before another arrived in a rush; Liu Mu's face was ashen, "I will go take a look."

Li Gang raised his hand, pulling back Hong who wanted to follow, and shook his head slightly.

"Take the walkie-talkie; we will provide support at any time."

Unfastening the Raincoat that hung down to her ankles, Liu Mu gripped her twin blades with pale fingers and nodded slightly.

Her figure dashed out, facing the heavy rain, and leaped down from the ship's rail, which was dozens of meters high.

While falling, a massive wolfhound leaped over, catching her just in time.

The person and the dog rushed rapidly toward the direction of home.

This time, before Liu Mu could even speak, Niu Boyi had already charged straight into the pile of plants.

"Be careful yourself," Liu Mu was burning with anxiety and could not worry about whether Gouzi could protect itself; her twin blades severed the incoming vines one by one, and she had already leaped out.

The vines were intertwined and coiled, making it impossible to see the original concrete ground. Leaves with serrated edges swung like sharp blades, actually leaving scratches on Niu Boyi.

One must know that the current defensive power of Gouzi was such that even bullets could not penetrate it, yet it had been cut.

Gouzi, usually accustomed to acting wildly, dared not be careless, but as it charged and crashed about, it consistently avoided damaging the main vines.

Precisely because of this, it was quickly bound tightly by the swarming vines.

The serrated edges, over an inch long, pierced into its fur but could not go any deeper, resulting in only superficial wounds.

Liu Mu did not receive any toxicity alerts, so she did not concern herself with Gouzi's situation; this level of Mutated Plant did not pose much of a threat to them.

Moreover, with Niu Boyi's abilities, breaking free was not a difficult task.

She herself sprinted between the vines and the massive leaves,

"Big Sister, Xiao Yong, where are you?"