Chapter 13: Smoke on the Horizon: Venom-Soaked Thorns and the Miracle of Seedlings

The news Old Karl brought tolled like a death knell, echoing above Hope Outpost. Blood Claw's "Mad Dog" squad and the mysterious black-clad raiders hung overhead like two executioner's blades, ready to fall at any moment. The air in the hollow thickened, heavy with a suffocating pressure.

"Get lost!" Sister Ai Li's crossbow still pointed at Old Karl, who knelt begging for mercy, her voice cold as ice.

Old Karl scrambled up as if granted a great pardon, stumbling to his feet, leaning on his cane, and fleeing without looking back toward the direction opposite Hope Outpost. The clatter of his metal prosthetic limb quickly vanished into the depths of the ruins. What he brought was not hope, but a herald of disaster.

Lin Mo forced himself to calm down; the immense fear instead sharpened his thoughts. Run? Where to? Dragging Heavily with supplies, with Xiang Lingna, they would be living targets on the wasteland! Defend? With their current strength, facing either side alone would be grim odds, let alone being caught between both!

"Even if we can't hold, we hold!" Sister Ai Li's voice was resolute, carrying a desperate, burn-the-boats determination. She walked to the crooked, half-built metal workshop frame, picked up the rusty blade Lin Mo had sharpened, and began hacking wildly at the gathered thorns! Her movements were fast and vicious, as if venting some towering hatred. "Reinforce! Traps! Make them… bleed enough!"

Lin Mo instantly understood Sister Ai Li's intent—hold to the death! Use terrain and traps to maximize enemy casualties, buy time, and wait… wait for that slim chance of a variable? Or… mutual destruction?

No retreat! A flash of ruthless resolve crossed Lin Mo's eyes. He immediately sprang into action, shelving the workshop construction and pouring all his energy into the final defensive preparations!

He took the thorny branches Sister Ai Li had hacked off, their sharp wooden spines still attached, and used wire to bind them more densely and sharply into every gap of the fence! The once-sparse thorn wall became a true death barrier bristling with barbs! The spines had even been smeared by Sister Ai Li with a layer of viscous, dark-green venom extracted from the venom glands of the fang-toothed rats! It glinted with an ominous sheen in the sunlight.

Xiang Lingna, fighting her terror, helped gather rubble. Lin Mo directed her to dig shallow pits a few meters outside the thorn fence, along the most likely enemy approach routes. Sharpened metal stakes, also coated in venom, were driven into the pit bottoms! Thin wooden boards and loose soil were used to camouflage them above.

Sister Ai Li, meanwhile, took several shorter steel rods found in the workshop frame, wrapped them tightly with wire and rags, and fashioned a few crude but heavy javelins. The tips were honed sharp on stone and likewise venom-coated!

The crude alarm devices were repositioned, hung on the outer thorns.

The entire Hope Outpost, like a cornered beast baring every spine and fang, radiated a desperate and dangerous air.

Lin Mo loaded the last few shotgun shells into the chamber and set the shotgun in the most accessible spot behind cover. He picked up one of Sister Ai Li's venom-coated javelins—heavy in hand, carrying a cold killing intent.

By the time all this was done, the sun had already sunk toward the horizon. The golden afterglow spilled over the hollow bristling with spikes and traps, yet brought not a trace of warmth, instead painting a tragic, grim scene.

Xiang Lingna crouched beside her potato patch and that broken bowl. The potato seedlings swayed gently in the evening breeze, still spindly, but stubbornly green. And in the broken bowl, those two seedlings with purple veining had actually grown another small stretch taller! The tender leaves unfurled, the purple veins clearer than ever, even faintly giving off an extremely faint, fresh scent of grass and wood—utterly out of place amid the surrounding filth.

Xiang Lingna carefully watered them with a little water, her small hand gently stroking the tender leaves, murmuring something softly, as if in prayer.

Lin Mo looked at Xiang Lingna and those two strange seedlings, then at Sister Ai Li, who was on high alert, radiating an icy killing aura, his heart a tangled mess of emotions. Hope and destruction, intertwined in this tiny hollow.

Just then, Sister Ai Li, who had been watching the western horizon, tensed violently! She dropped low like the keenest leopard, her crossbow snapping to point at the gray-mist-shrouded distance!

"They're coming!" Her voice was barely a whisper, yet it exploded like thunder in Lin Mo's ears!

Lin Mo's heartbeat instantly rocketed to its limit! He followed the direction Sister Ai Li indicated.

There, on the horizon toward Vulture Cliff, under the last afterglow of the setting sun, seven or eight figures were rapidly moving toward the hollow! They rode a kind of vehicle resembling a motorcycle, but cruder and more rugged in structure, with a thunderous roar, the body sprayed with a vicious Blood Claw totem! The foremost was an unusually burly man, clad in studded leather armor, wearing a metal helmet welded with spikes, gripping a chainsaw blade that hummed and crackled with arcs of electricity! Even from a great distance, one could feel that ferocious and ruthless aura!

"Mad Dog!" Sister Ai Li's teeth clenched audibly, the hand gripping her crossbow trembling violently from sheer hatred, her knuckles bone-white! Her eyes locked onto that burly figure, a towering fury burning deep in her pupils—and… a memory of pain etched into her very bones! As if seeing a demon crawling out of hell!

Blood Claw's vanguard, the Mad Dog squad, had finally arrived! And they came with overwhelming momentum!

Lin Mo tightened his grip on the venom-coated javelin, his palms slick with cold sweat. He watched the roaring iron cavalry closing in, watched the terrifying chainsaw blade in Mad Dog's hand, then looked at Sister Ai Li beside him, bristling with killing intent, and Xiang Lingna, terrified, in the shack…

The first drop of blood was about to spatter in this desperate dusk! The battle for Hope Outpost's survival drew back its bloody curtain!