After the apocalypse, a lingering stench of decay always permeates the air, and this building in front of us is no exception.
The building's surface is covered with countless branches of mutated ivy, with palm-sized dark green leaves layered on top of each other, covering the wall. When the wind blows, the dense leaves curl up like snake scales.
The building was even more dilapidated, with old and broken items piled up haphazardly at the first-floor entrance. The high-end revolving door was gaping open, and the carved glass was shattered all over the floor. Clearly, no one had visited this place for a long time, and a thick layer of dust had accumulated on the ground.
Despite it being daytime, the interior of the building was dimly lit, and the huge "HAPPY Shopping Center" sign was rusty. Surprisingly, the solar-powered lights were still working.
The faint red and blue lights shone on the ground, barely enough to illuminate the interior of the building's first floor.
This place must have been a shopping center before the disaster; you can still see many goods in the shops—but most of them are useless.
In the ten years since the apocalypse, countless people have come here to scavenge for supplies, so basically all edible and usable items have been taken away, leaving only large pieces of furniture behind.
The abandoned robot shopping guide lay forlornly on the ground, its casing covered in dust, its former exquisite appearance completely unrecognizable. Unidentified weeds sprouted from the robot's circuit board, making it look as if plants had devoured the human at first glance.
Disassembled robotic vacuum cleaners can be seen everywhere on the first floor. Their heads are wide open, revealing messy wires and circuit boards inside, indicating that someone has removed the chips from these robots.
—On the black market, anything can become a commodity.
Each person carries a portable light source, which is a cylindrical shape similar to a glow stick, but it is solar-powered. When in use, simply shake it vigorously, and the light source can illuminate an area within a two-meter diameter.
Xu Milu followed silently behind the group, even helping Emil who nearly stepped on a corpse, earning the latter's gratitude in return.
"Thank you! You're very observant."
As he spoke, he gave a look of disgust and carefully avoided the pool of already waxy corpse:
"When exploring outdoors, the worst thing is encountering this situation. Even with light sources, you can easily step on them if you're not careful—oh my god, I really don't like washing shoes."
Xu Milu remained noncommittal and did not answer the other party's question.
"Is this the mutant banana we're looking for? I've never seen a mutant banana before, but shouldn't bananas only grow in tropical regions?"
The building was dimly lit and had many obstructions, so even though the team members carried light sources, their progress was still not very fast.
But in Xu Milu's eyes, everything was clearly visible in the darkness where no light could reach:
Mutant earthworms, their plump bodies wriggling, are hiding in holes in the ceiling; two or three mutant cockroaches are mating in the corner; and in the corner lies a dead dog, its body ravaged by blood loss, with several blood-sucking mutant mosquitoes crawling on its back…
Behind the counter I just passed, there were several mutated lilies emitting a ghostly glow in the darkness to attract prey, and a large patch of mutated dandelions were coiling their roots, transporting the corpses of dead rats like a miniature world moving house...
"Haha, sometimes I'm really curious, which bunker did you come out of, you freak, that you don't even know such basic common sense?"
Emil waved the hand holding the light source and couldn't help but complain:
"Tropical? Two years ago, the world stopped dividing regions according to climate. After the catastrophe, these plants went crazy. Bananas can grow in snow, coffee can sprout in volcanic ash, and dragon fruit can grow in the sea. These strange things are like God rewriting the 'Compendium of Biology'!"
That's not necessarily true. If there were gods in this plane, how could they let Lavinia wreak havoc on Earth like this?
Xu Milu shook her head. She was about to try to get more information out of him when she suddenly stopped and looked calmly into one of the corners.
"Rustle, rustle..."
"Rustle, rustle..."
The footsteps startled the snakes, insects, and rodents living in the darkness. Several black shadows darted past the feet of the lead team member with incredible speed, leaving only a few shallow footprints.
Dingxiang's eyes scanned the area like a cat's, then suddenly she leaped forward, her right foot firmly planted on a large black cockroach, about the size of a kitten, with a snake's head.
"It's nothing, just a mutated snake-headed cockroach. These things are a bit troublesome; they reproduce quickly. If you see one, try to get rid of it completely, like this—"
"Whoosh!"
He skillfully raised his right hand, and a laser beam shot out from the base of his palm, cleanly severing the cockroach's head and tossing it aside.
"The mutant cockroach isn't very strong, but it's fast and has a lot of vitality, making it hard to kill. But if you cut off its snake-like head, it'll be dead in less than a minute."
Xu Milu stared at the mutated cockroach with some curiosity; it was a creature whose very appearance was enough to make one's sanity plummet.
Its pale brown shell gleamed with a blackish sheen, it had a pair of half-elliptical fan-shaped wings, a head covered in blackish-brown snake-like markings, and two long, thin, black, thread-like tentacles that were struggling violently, which was unsettling.
Its head was located beneath that mutated snake head. As Dingxiang chopped off the mimic head, a few drops of foul-smelling green blood dripped onto the ground, their sticky texture inexplicably reminiscent of snot.
"It looks a bit like a slime?"
Xu Milu poked the pool of blood with a twig, watching helplessly as the roots of the mutated plant beside her pulled the mutated cockroach's corpse into the ground.
She touched her chin thoughtfully and couldn't help but ask Dingxiang, who was walking ahead:
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