Two figures quickly appeared in the darkness where Lin Ruo and the others had fought. They were both carrying powerful flashlights, wrapped up tightly, fully armed, and still shivering in the cold.

"Have you found them?" The speaker was a woman. The two of them had been ordered to search for Jiang Haochen and the other superhumans.

Another man's voice was full of impatience, "Damn it, where are we going to find someone in this freezing weather with snow falling?"

"The information says that the captain's location signal disappeared here. How could we not find him?" The woman kept shining a powerful flashlight on the ground.

Suddenly she crouched down and swept away the snow with her gloved hands. "Found it..."

"Where are you?" The man frowned and looked to the side, only to see the woman still squatting on the ground. He immediately walked over. "What are you doing..."

His voice trailed off as he spoke. It was a finger, adorned with a huge ruby ​​ring—Shen Yunche's ring.

"They..." The man swallowed hard, glancing around nervously. "They're all dead?!"

The woman stood up without speaking and continued searching with a powerful flashlight, sweeping away the snow as she went. More and more clues appeared around her: torn pieces of clothing, leftover bone fragments, and large patches of blood.

Her face was somber. "We can go back and report now. The captain and Shen Yunche have probably already sacrificed themselves, right here."

"So what should we say?" The man felt nauseous at the sight of the scene gradually unfolding, but considering that the other party was their captain and teammate, he didn't know how to report it.

"What do you mean?" The woman looked around. "This is clearly a scene where a large number of wild animals have eaten. Many bones are gone, and their bodies are gone, so we can't find the cause of death. Take these clues back and let the base investigate."

"We'll just do what we're supposed to do."

As soon as she finished speaking, a vine appeared in the woman's hand. The vine moved forward quickly, hooked onto a large tree in front of her, and used the vine's strength to quickly leave the place.

"Hey! Wait for me!"

The scale of the B City base is now vastly different from what it used to be, with towering city walls and an enormous city.

After the two returned to the base in City B, they reported the results, and Zheng Qiming, along with several senior executives, quickly convened a meeting.

Wood-type ability user Du Xueting and metal-type ability user Guan Zhiheng also attended the meeting.

"Xueting, repeat the results of your investigation."

Zheng Qiming sat at the head of the table, his face looking rather grim. There weren't many high-ranking members in the base to begin with, and the successive deaths had made him unhappy. What's more, there were four ability users this time as well. The base had invested a lot of crystal cores in them during this period, and now it was all for nothing.

"Guan Zhiheng and I were tasked with quickly finding the team leader where the location signal disappeared. We didn't delay and rushed to the scene as fast as we could. When we arrived, we didn't find them at first. Later, we found Shen Yunche's ring. We then swept away the snow and found a lot of bloodstains and pieces of clothing. We could basically conclude that none of the five of them survived."

Yang Songming was taken aback at first, then frowned and looked at them. "Commander Jiang and the four superhumans all perished?! How is this possible? This is completely different from our assessment!"

After a moment of hesitation, Du Xueting said softly, "I saw a lot of animal footprints at the scene. The site had been completely destroyed, and even many bones were missing. They must have been carried away..."

The images that flashed through the minds of the high-ranking officials present turned grim; they meant that all five of them had been torn apart by mutated animals.

"These mutated animals again!" Yang Songming slammed his hand on the table.

Zhu Zhengzhong, another high-ranking official standing nearby, looked regretful. "In the past few months, the mutated animals have evolved rapidly. We have spent too much manpower and resources to resist them. Our weapons reserves have decreased by 60%. How long can our base hold out at this rate?"

“Not only that,” Yang Songming glanced at Zheng Qiming, who was sitting silently in the head seat, “I’m about to start my old spiel again.”

“Our base’s population is growing too fast. In just a few months, the base’s population has reached more than five million, and the population is still increasing rapidly.”

"With our current food reserves combined, we can only last for another six months at most. What will we eat after six months?"

"Wood-type ability users can cultivate the land, but their abilities are limited. How much food can Du Xueting, a single wood-type ability user, produce in a day?"

Ye Lin, who was sitting to the side, remained silent. He had always advocated humanitarianism and wanted to restore the world to its pre-apocalyptic state, but he really couldn't think of a solution right now.

Food scarcity, coupled with the rapid evolution of these mutated animals, meant that just a few months ago, many small mutated animals were being chased by humans with nowhere to escape.

Later, as more and more people in the base contracted strange illnesses, experts discovered that it was due to eating the meat of mutated animals. Humans stopped hunting these small mutated animals indiscriminately, and they ushered in a period of development.

Even though the base later discovered and acquired the crystal cores, most of these mutated animals had evolved over the past few months, and most of them were now over two meters tall. Their fur had also become tougher, and they were no longer afraid of ordinary firearms and knives.

Now the hunting arrows have been completely reversed, and many mutated animals, relying on their formidable strength, keep harassing the B City base. This time, the elephant is the one that comes most frequently.

They also used small-caliber howitzers, but this elephant had very thick hides, and each time they could only wound it but not kill it, which is why they thought of sending superhumans to deal with it.

My dear reader, there's more to this chapter! Please click the next page to continue reading—even more exciting content awaits!