Chapter 84
Zhou Zhi rarely encountered such a helpless situation. He was submerged in the acidic water gushing from the wall, his hands and feet were bound by tentacles. These tentacles were not only impossible to kill, but even after his knife was dulled, they kept growing back.
Surprisingly, the liquid corroded his clothes but not his skin.
The pollutants seemed surprised that what they had ingested was so difficult to digest; the walls heaved violently, as if their stomachs were contracting.
Zhou Zhi tried to control this behemoth, but couldn't find a way to get started.
This pollutant doesn't have a brain at all!
But that's impossible. A pollutant without any intelligence cannot control Meng Yangzhou, nor can it control those pollutants, unless the pollutant is of a higher level than him.
Meng Yangzhou sat on the top floor, surrounded by clumps of flesh that enveloped him, soft and warm.
As he lay on it, he suddenly remembered when the purification zone was built. Many people gathered around, full of hope. They had indeed carved out a settlement on this wasteland.
When Meng Yangzhou discovered that the parasites could keep the polluters conscious, he wavered. He wondered if becoming a polluter would allow him to survive better on this land.
He had no answer to this question, nor did he dare to.
Was the path taken back then the right one?
He has become one with the tower and hasn't seen the city he guarded for a long time.
The Black Tower is located at the highest point of Mengchuan City, offering a panoramic view of the city. Unfortunately, Meng Yangzhou cannot see it, nor could he foresee the distorted living environment that would later develop in the city.
He had given everything for this city—events, his body, his freedom—and he didn't care about his life anymore.
Zhou Zhi lay in the mucus, his consciousness somewhat blurred, and he had little strength to resist.
He thought of his unfinished research, of Tang Rong'an—his mother, and of Xiao Shengyun.
The first person I've ever liked in my life, but I've fallen for pollutants.
It was truly a twist of fate.
That night, the slightly salty soup and the dazzling fireworks—people are always moved by certain moments.
He couldn't kill his opponent, yet he felt fortunate.
The pollutants gradually became agitated. They could tell that this human was delicious, but they couldn't pry open the shell no matter what they tried. A tentacle pierced through Zhou Zhi's chest.
A small amount of blood dripped onto the ground.
The next second, the tentacle detached as if scorched by flames, and the pulsating black crystal in the human's chest released a powerful force.
Pollutants throughout the city stirred, and the polluters felt a fear—the fear of being dominated by a higher-level predator.
Zhou Zhi's fingers twitched. A tiny change occurred without his knowledge. Logically speaking, no matter how strong a human is, he cannot exceed a certain limit. But Zhou Zhi is different. He has coexisted with pollution for more than ten years. The source core in his body makes him immortal. Like steel being polished countless times, his body becomes stronger with each outbreak of pollution and the rise and fall of stability.
Meng Yangzhou felt something stir in his mind.
...
Xiao Shengyun entered the lowest level of the breeding area.
I don't know why, but the pollutants have been very irritable lately, and I've been feeding them much less frequently.
But that's fine too; he's not that cold-blooded after all, throwing a group of disabled polluters into cages.
"Ah!" A scream came from not far away. This was a common occurrence; some zookeepers would accidentally feed themselves while feeding the animals.
Xiao Shengyun glanced at the unfortunate fellow as he passed by. Only a bloody arm remained outside; the man was gone, beyond saving.
He stroked the contaminant, a snake with more than a dozen legs, blood dripping from its mouth.
Sensing the presence of its own kind, the snake gently nuzzled against Xiao Shengyun's hand.
He might be related to this thing.
The next second, a thread pierced the snake's mouth, shattering the "relative's" heart.
A life for a life, that's fair.
Soon an administrator arrived and was surprised to see the contaminated corpse. "It's dead?"
"It's dead," Xiao Shengyun said, feigning ignorance, his mind racing as he wondered whether the snake would be canned or made into jerky.
"Take this thing to the room at the very end of the third floor and just throw it in." The staff member looked disgusted. No matter how strong this thing was when it was alive, it was just a lump of flesh when it was dead.
"good."
Xiao Shengyun loaded the corpse into the handcart; the cold touch of the snake's body made his hands ache slightly.
The room at the far end of the third floor was locked. After explaining his purpose, Xiao Shengyun got the key from the administrator and walked to the door.
The moment his fingers touched the doorknob, he suddenly stopped.
A sense of crisis rose in my heart. This feeling came from intuition. There was something powerful behind the door. Just getting close to the door made my brain tense up, as if a hand was stroking back and forth in the grooves of it.
Xiao Shengyun hesitated for a few seconds. He was not a very brave person; in fact, he valued his life very much.
The phrase "clinging to life and fearing death" might seem ridiculous when applied to pollutants, but when they acquire human emotions, they also experience their own timidity and fear.
He wanted to go home; Xu Qing was still waiting for him there.
In the few seconds he hesitated, the energy fluctuations of the source core spread to every corner of the city. Xiao Shengyun suddenly turned his head and saw the gray sky through the window at the end of the corridor.
The pollution outbreak in Zhouzhi seemed to have been similar, indicating that the situation on the other side was clearly not good.
Xiao Shengyun pondered. If he wasn't mistaken, there should be a very powerful pollutant in this city. This pollutant could curb human pollution and the riots of other pollutants. At the same time, there were normal humans in the industrial area. So there were two possibilities: one was that this was the pollutant's will, and humans were beneficial to it; the other was that this was the city lord's will, and he knew from Yang Xin's words that the city had always stood on the side of humans.
The division in Mengchuan City can then be explained; there must have been some kind of agreement between people and pollutants.
So, where is this pollutant that controls the entire city?
Two tigers cannot share one mountain. Since Zhou Zhi's side has already entered the battle, what is behind the door?
Xiao Shengyun opened the door.
Just as he had guessed.
Behind the door was a huge, tumor-like creature that looked like a brain magnified hundreds of times, with crisscrossing grooves and tubular structures protruding, somewhat like human blood vessels or nerves.
The moment Xiao Shengyun saw the mass of brains, his eyes stung. He closed them, but the feeling of being stared at intensified.
Standing before this mass of brains, as if being watched by countless cameras, a strange frequency resonated throughout the room.
Wings unfurled from behind him, and he involuntarily transformed into the form of a feathered serpent.
"haven't seen you for a long time……"
In the strange frequency, Xiao Shengyun heard the voice of this brain.
Was He greeting him?
Xiao Shengyun's consciousness seemed to be pulled into a strange space, where time rapidly rewound, and he saw the original appearance of the inner world.
It was a place with a higher dimension than the human world, where countless strange creatures were born, which humans called—gods.
The pupilless eye high in the starry sky, the feathered serpent spreading its wings and soaring through the wind at the edge of the sky, the towering tree piercing through the sky and the ground, and the giant whale that exists in the space without a sound or form... these were once the rulers of the underworld.
Through the gaps in the space, Xiao Shengyun saw towering buildings and pedestrians coming and going on the well-connected roads, completely unaware of the impending disaster.
Two worlds met.
Humanity suffered heavy losses, and the vast majority of creatures in the Otherworld were also pulverized by the spatial fragments ejected from the collision. The top predators of the Otherworld were suppressed and bound by the rules of the human world, and they fought each other to the death.
The feathered serpent had its long wings bitten off, and the king of the sky lay prostrate on the ground, where it was devoured by a swarm of vultures.
Xiao Shengyun seemed to be able to feel the excruciating pain as his flesh was being eaten piece by piece, and his broken wings were covered in blood.
Only the black crystals lay quietly on the withered grass, and no one dared to devour those little things.
Many years later, the crystal began to pulsate with life again, and an egg gradually formed.
The newborn chick hatched from the egg, trembling as it crawled out. Hesitant because it hadn't grown legs yet, it lay flat on the edge of the eggshell. When it looked up, all it saw was the dark sky.
The young can only feed on small flying insects, stumbling and growing up in a world surrounded by enemies, until one day, a shadow falls over its head.
"Is this... a cat?" The human in the protective suit gripped a gun, his tense body indicating he was on guard.
"Waaah—"
After confirming that the little creature was harmless, the human walked over and sat down not far from him; he looked very tired.
This was our first encounter.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com