Chapter 100: What Other Way Was There?
Inside the South Wall.
The special strike team successfully received Mori and brought their captain back behind the ramparts.
Yves rushed forward immediately to assess her condition.
Mori was covered in wounds, but her color wasn’t too bad.
“Mission accomplished, sir.”
She managed a wry smile at Yves.
Supported by her squadmates, she even offered a salute.
Now that the violent, high-stakes battle had ended, all the energy inside Mori was spent, and her adrenaline plummeted.
The lacerations across her body began to assert themselves with a vengeance.
Agony rushed in like a tidal wave, draining every scrap of strength from her limbs, and her entire frame was caked in grime and muck.
Only the fact that she had successfully awakened as an ability user allowed her to speak at all; otherwise, having just walked through hell and back, she wouldn’t have possessed the breath to utter a single word.
Yves solemnly returned a military salute.
Then he ordered, “Save your breath. Get her bandaged immediately and transferred to the medical ward.”
The surrounding squad members chimed in: “Yes, sir!”
He added a few more urgent directives, instructing the accompanying city guards to reassign another field doctor to the post, fully stocked with pharmaceuticals.
At that moment, two city guards hurried over from the north, their boots pounding against the pavement.
“Commander.”
One of them spoke with frantic urgency, clearly carrying critical news.
“What is it?”
Yves’s heart, which had barely begun to settle, clenched again as he registered his subordinate’s face.
The guard leaned in close, whispering something directly into his ear.
“What? Neither has returned? What about the records at the other checkpoints?”
Yves’s brow knotted into tight furrows once more.
“We checked both the East and West Walls; nothing there either,” the guard reported. “We’ve held our post until now, and there isn’t a single trace of them outside the North Wall.”
“…”
A foreboding premonition seized Yves’s chest.
Two full squads of Awakeners, deployed simply to purge a single B-rank mutant.
How could there be absolute silence for an entire day?
It was precisely because he feared the Red Flag Society lacked sufficient offensive firepower that he had ordered Dark Star to coordinate with them.
Heixi and his people had never crossed blades with a B-rank mutant, but Zhou Xue’s crew possessed direct combat experience.
With the combined strength of two squads… Could an unforeseen variable have manifested with that B-rank mutant beyond the North Wall?
“Commander… could it be…?”
The reporting guard hesitated, biting back his words.
Yves read the unspoken implication in his eyes. “No. I know the leaders of both Dark Star and the Red Flag Society.”
The factions within the city were a chaotic, tangled mess, and supernatural abilities were like a wild blaze that defied containment once sparked. He would never allow such embers to rest in the hands of loose cannons.
At least within Seed City, he possessed the authority to enforce that boundary.
Neither Zhou Xue nor Heixi were the type to defect.
“Keith, assemble Team Y and have them deploy beyond the North Wall.”
Yves deliberated for a fleeting moment before issuing the command.
Team Y was the forward reconnaissance unit led by the soldier with [Cloak].
“Yes, sir.”
“Assign two standard fireteams to reinforce them and scour the designated coordinates,” Yves ordered grimly. “Dead or alive, I want confirmation.”
If a mutant had appeared that even Dark Star and the Red Flag Society combined could not bring down… Seed City was in grave danger.
“Move fast!”
“Understood!”
…
The urban ruins.
“President! How are you holding up?”
“Cough, cough—I’m fine.” Heixi exhaled a ragged breath, gingerly touching the dark bruising encircling his throat.
Those were the fresh marks from being strangled by creeper vines, nearly asphyxiated just moments ago.
“Hall, look out!”
Quick petrified his own flesh, stepping in to intercept a lashing tendril aimed straight at Hall.
They had drawn close to the coordinates Luo Xianghuai pinpointed, arriving at an overgrown municipal landscape park completely choked by green overgrowth.
Yet before they could unearth the “decorative rockery” Luo Xianghuai had described, the dormant vines carpeting the periphery suddenly began to twitch.
“Damn it—it finished absorbing the ghost birds!”
As if confirming Zhou Xue’s dire assessment, the sprawling mass of emerald vines, where previously only a handful of thick runners had been active, sprang into motion all at once.
They thickened at a pace visible to the naked eye.
Brimming with stolen vitality.
Whoosh—
Swish, swish, swish—
The A-rank mutant Virginia creeper turned its full fury upon the vermin encroaching on its core.
The swollen runners were far sturdier than before, cracking like barbed whips through the air. Once coiled around a limb, they resisted even multiple direct chops from steel blades.
Even when fire rolled over their bark, the vines neither flinched nor retreated, pressing their murderous hunt against the intruders who had dared breach their sanctuary.
“Cough, cough, cough…“
“Shelley!” Zhou Xue brought her longblade down several times, barely hacking away the coils throttling Shelley’s throat before Turner beside them was snared around the waist.
Every member of both strike teams was forced into a tight cluster, throwing every technique in their arsenal into checking the relentless assault.
Yet their efforts yielded next to nothing.
Locked in grueling combat since midday, their physical stamina and inner energy pools were thoroughly drained, and their supply of crystals was on the brink of exhaustion.
Meanwhile, having just gorged itself on the massive flock of ghost birds, the A-rank mutant creeper was operating at the absolute peak of its power.
Pfft—
[Seduction] coughed up a mouthful of dark blood, gasping, “No good… I can’t command it. The psychic backlash is tearing me apart.”
[Heal] stepped up immediately, channeling her ability to mend his trauma.
The glow coalescing over her palms flickered for a few seconds before dying out completely. Turning paper-pale, she stumbled, caught just in time by Zhou Xue.
Zhou Xue popped the very last energy crystal on her person into the medic’s mouth.
All along the route, [Heal] had been mending everyone’s injuries, exhausting her reserves several times over.
Zhou Xue’s own energy was nearing rock bottom as well.
Everyone was fighting on pure fumes.
“Zhuo Tian!!!”
A panicked roar echoed from the flank. [Ignition] Zhuo Tian had been snared around his mouth, neck, torso, and legs by massive, ropey runners, which were violently hauling him toward the writhing thicket.
The A-rank organism was terrifyingly astute; it knew precisely who was responsible for torching its foliage all afternoon.
Whoosh—
Heixi reached out to yank Zhuo Tian back, only for a thick tendril to snap around his own waist, dragging him into the tangled underbrush at blistering speed.
“Save them!”
Before Hall could even condense an ice blade, another whoosh tore through the air.
A vine bound his arms tight against his torso. Then came another whip of motion.
A thick runner coiled over his face, cinching down with brutal force and severing his airflow in an instant.
“Mmph…“
In rapid succession, Luo Xianghuai, Turner, [Levitation] Cecil, [Piercing] Clive, [Haste] Kuiping, and [Seduction] Xucang were all snared.
And countless more vines were surging toward the rest of the survivors.
It unfolded with blinding speed. Before Zhou Xue could mount a countermeasure, virtually every comrade at her side was bound in wooden coils and dragged into the darkness.
Even Shelley was snared once more.
With a desperate slash, Zhou Xue sheared through the runner biting into her shin, then spun to parry a thick bough lunging for her arm, only to feel her waist constrict violently.
A third tendril striking from her blind spot had landed clean, catching her completely off guard.
Every Awakener across both squads was incapacitated.
This was the true, terrifying apex of an A-rank mutated organism.
Everything prior had been nothing more than child’s play to this creature.
Whoosh—
Swish, swish—
More vines surged forward, binding tight around Zhou Xue’s longblade, wrapping over her nose and mouth.
Dragging her inexorably toward the undulating thicket of death.
What other way is there?
Zhou Xue’s mind raced at frantic speed, thrashing against the crushing coils in a final, desperate gamble.
No, they couldn’t end like this…
Hm?
Through the dense, sky-blotting lattice of writhing vines, she caught a glimpse of a faint point of light glowing in the far distance.
It looked… remarkably like that familiar dome of white light.
