Chapter 37
As it was getting dark, the convoy arrived at a small town near the mission destination.
Along the way, we encountered mutant creatures and groups of zombies. The number of zombies was not large, and it only took some time to deal with them, but it was relatively smooth.
It had only been two months since the end of the world, but the town looked like it had been abandoned for two years, with weeds growing everywhere and many houses collapsed.
Gu Yuan glanced at the sky and asked the convoy to stop in the small town to rest for one night and then rush to the mission site tomorrow.
“Knock knock knock…”
There was a rhythmic knock on the door, and Gu Yuan was a little confused. Who would come to see him at this time?
He paused and asked, "Who?"
"It's me~"
A familiar voice came from outside the door. I don’t know if it was because of the door, but the voice sounded slightly distorted.
Hearing Gu Qi's slightly raised voice, Gu Yuan immediately became alert and placed his right hand on his weapon.
“Knock knock knock!”
The knocking on the door became more urgent.
"Brother, why don't you open the door for me? I need you for something~"
The voice became muffled, as if someone was talking to the door.
This made Gu Yuan even more certain that the person outside the door was not his sister Gu Qi.
He stood up and took a few steps.
The thing outside the door seemed to have heard his movements and said excitedly: "Open the door for me quickly, it's so cold outside~"
Gu Yuan stopped in an empty part of the room and didn't move closer to the door. He just couldn't help but rub his arms with his hands, feeling goose bumps all over his body.
His sister would never speak in such a delicate voice with a long tail tone.
What a pity.
Gu Yuan sighed in his heart: It’s a pity that I don’t have anything to record this sound, otherwise it would be very interesting to let my sister listen to it.
It seems that there is a way to let Xiaoqi listen to it.
Gu Yuan took out the ink-colored stone tablet and input a supernatural power into it according to Gu Qi's teachings.
At the same time, Gu Qi, who had sensed something was wrong and was rushing over here, took out the slightly hot stone tablet and input spiritual power to activate it.
"Brother~Why don't you open the door for me~I really have something to do~If you don't open the door, I will be unhappy~"
Hearing this voice speaking in a drawn-out tone, which was exactly what she imagined, Gu Qi almost dropped the stone tablet.
Gu Qi quickly guessed his brother's bad taste and rolled his eyes speechlessly, but at the same time felt a little relieved.
He still has such a bad taste. It seems that his brother is fine for the time being.
"I'll be there soon! Brother, be careful. If anything goes wrong, just crush the jade talisman I gave you." After saying that, Gu Qi put away the stone tablet and quickened his pace towards Gu Yuan's room.
The town was eerily quiet at this moment.
Under the thick night sky, the whole town seemed to be covered with an ominous darkness.
A faint fishy smell permeated the air. Whether it was the people resting inside the house or the people on guard outside the house, they fell to the ground silently, and only the rise and fall of their chests showed that they were still alive.
Reddish-brown roots that emerged from nowhere tried to wrap around their wrists, but before they could get close, they were pulled apart by another jade-green root that suddenly appeared. Some were even broken directly.
If someone were here, they would see countless roots of two different colors fighting with each other.
Some of the jade-green roots would occasionally whip the big yellow dog lying in the corner, or pull the somewhat wilted raspberry branches.
Gu Qi, who was passing by Lan Lan's real body, threw down a bottle and said, "Give them some medicine and they will wake up."
Looking at Gu Qi's back as he ran away, Lan Lan couldn't help but ponder for a few seconds.
The mutant yellow dog is easy to deal with, just feed it directly into its mouth.
Also, how do I feed the mutant raspberry medicine?
Where are its roots buried?
Lan Lan manipulated the roots to pull out the reddish-brown roots that were trying to suck human blood, and quickly fed the mutant yellow dog another pill.
As for the mutant raspberries.
It simply and casually pulled out a half-filled glass bottle of water from the bag of the sleeping human in the house, threw the pills into it, and then poured the water on the roots of the mutant raspberries.
*
“Bang, bang, bang!”
"Brother~open the door~open the door~open the door~I will be really angry if you don't open the door...ah! It hurts!" The voice of the last few words became hoarse and unpleasant, sharp and a little piercing.
The long sword that fell from the sky instantly cut off its reddish-brown tentacle that kept banging on the door.
The tentacle, as thick as a bowl, fell to the ground and scattered into countless tiny reddish-brown roots, and a fishy reddish-brown liquid flowed out from the broken ends.
The scattered tiny roots and the blood-like liquid soon merged into the endless "carpet" covering the ground.
Gu Qi looked at the root man, who he didn't know whether to call a mutated plant or a mutated beast, with cold eyes as if he was looking at a dead object.
The Root Man's severed tentacles quickly grew back, looking exactly the same as before.
"You! Damn it!" The root man said in a hoarse voice, waving his tentacles towards Gu Qi.
It now felt that the food in front of it smelled more delicious than the food in the house that was protected by something and had not fainted like the others.
Its intuition told it that if it could eat the human in front of it, it could at least level up again.
As long as it gets one more level up, it can go somewhere else to find food and no longer have to go hungry for many meals here.
"Xiaoqi, is that you?"
Gu Yuan's inquiring voice came from behind the door, followed by the sound of the doorknob turning.
"Don't come out!" Gu Qi hurriedly stopped him, "Brother, just stay inside."
This root man of unknown species is at the peak of level five and may break through to level six at any time. In addition, he has the ability to knock people out without their knowledge. If she had not set up a formation in her brother's room as a precaution, he would have been in danger like everyone else.
If he came out at this time, he might accidentally become a snack to help the Root Man upgrade.
Gu Qi was not 100% sure that he could protect him.
Inside the house, Gu Yuan felt powerless, but he had to agree to this arrangement.
"I'll stay in the house and you focus on dealing with that thing."
Gu Qi felt a little relieved, dodged the tentacles that wanted to pierce a bloody hole in her body, and slashed down with the long sword.
The tentacles were cut off and fell to the ground, and the "carpet" made of countless reddish-brown roots on the ground was cut open, and a sword mark was also left on the floor.
However, in just a few seconds, the hands on the root man grew back and the carpet returned to its original state.
Gu Qi frowned slightly.
She couldn't continue fighting like this. The root man wasn't hurt at all, but her spiritual power was constantly being depleted.
She thought about using mental power to attack, but the root man's crystal core was not in his head at all, and there was no difference in the aura of his whole body, as if he had no crystal core.
Wait...it seems that this possibility is not impossible?
As we all know, whether it is a mutated plant or a mutated beast, or a zombie or a mutant, they all have an energy core, which is a crystal core or a mutant core.
Once the crystal core or the energy core is broken, life is basically over.
The energy cores of zombies and mutants are all in their heads, unlike some mutant creatures, which can hide the crystal cores in other places in the body.
Especially the mutant plants, they will basically find ways to hide their crystal cores.
Logically speaking, with Gu Qi's mental power, she would be able to roughly sense the energy core of a sixth-level mutant creature, let alone a peak-level fifth-level one.
But what if this root man didn’t hide the crystal core somewhere in his “human body”?
Gu Qi's eyes fell on the "carpet" covering the ground.
This carpet seems to have no end, where is the end?
Gu Qi changed his battle plan and released his mental power, exploring in the direction where the numerous reddish-brown roots were spreading.
Seeing Gu Qi put away his sword and just dodge, the root man suddenly felt proud.
It knew that even if the human in front of it was powerful and a bit tricky, he would definitely not be able to defeat it.
Just like before it grew up, even if those humans were stronger than it, they were eventually consumed by it and turned into its food and nutrients.
The human in front of me is about to die, right?
Feeling that Gu Qi's aura was gradually weakening and her movements were getting slower and slower, the root man excitedly waved more tentacles towards her, wanting to wrap up and eat this delicious food that was exhausted and panting.
Gu Yuan in the house couldn't help but feel anxious when he heard the noise. He wanted to open the door several times, but stopped after remembering Gu Qi's previous words. He was worried that if he went out, he would not only be unable to help, but would become a burden that needed protection.
"ah!"
The Root Man let out a sharp cry of pain.
The reddish-brown ball wrapped around Gu Qi was broken open by a sword, and the tentacles fell to the ground and scattered into countless roots, and reddish-brown liquid flowed all over the ground.
But this time, neither the blood nor the roots were reintegrated into the carpet as before, and the Root Man's severed tentacles could not regenerate.
"This is impossible! What did you do!?" the Root Man asked in disbelief.
While questioning, it desperately absorbed energy with its roots that seemed to have no end and were rooted somewhere.
Gu Qi raised the corners of his lips slightly and gave it a gentle smile without answering.
The look in her eyes as she looked at the Root Man was filled with cold murderous intent, mixed with some inexplicable anger that the Root Man felt, as if it had ruined something.
But not only did it fail to hurt the human in front of it, it didn't even see the little snack in the house, let alone touch it.
The Root Man didn't understand why this human, who had found his own crystal core by some unknown means, would look at it this way.
Gu Qi naturally had no intention of clearing up its confusion.
After noticing that the Root Man's momentum began to rise continuously until it crossed the threshold of level six.
Gu Qi moved.
Without giving the root man a chance to speak, he mobilized all his mental power towards the silver and blue crystal core.
"Bang!"
The man, who was determined to upgrade his roots to level six even at the cost of his foundation, fell to the ground and was silent.
“Knock knock…”
"Brother, you can come out now."
The first thing Gu Yuan did when he came out was to take a closer look at Gu Qi. Seeing that she was not injured but just looked a little pale, the heavy stone in his heart finally fell.
"Go in and rest for a while." He looked at Gu Qi's pale face worriedly.
Gu Qi shook his head slightly: "There is still work to be done."
There was something waiting for her in the root man's lair.
She was worried if she didn't get it quickly. Her mental strength was almost exhausted and she could only stare at the place and do nothing else. If some mutant creature appeared and sucked up the little energy left in the ore, she would suffer a huge loss!
Meeting his brother's worried look, Gu Qi simply took the mutant cat Xiao Xiaohua out of the cave.
"Meow?"
What are you doing? I haven't finished planting yet!
Xiao Xiaohua tilted her head and looked at Gu Qi in confusion, her right paw still holding a hoe.
"With Xiao Xiaohua here, I'll be fine." Gu Qi reached out and rubbed the cat's head, which felt very nice, and said, "The rest of the team is still unconscious. Don't you want to go and check on them?"
Gu Yuan was still hesitant: "But your expression..."
"Don't worry about that. I just used too much mental energy all at once. I'll be able to recover after a while."
After that, he took out a bottle of Qingxin Pills and stuffed it into his hand, saying, "Dirty this bottle of pills with water and feed it to the unconscious person. He will wake up soon."
Seeing that her expression suddenly became a little anxious, Gu Yuan had no choice but to nod in agreement.
Gu Qi turned over and sat on the back of the enlarged Xiao Xiaohua: "Then I'll be leaving first. If you have any questions, use the voice card to contact me."
"Oh right! On the ground is the corpse of that level six mutant plant. It's perfect for making a whip. Remember to put it away."
Only then did Gu Yuan notice the reddish-brown roots on the ground. Among them, there was a group of thicker ones that looked like a human figure. It was probably the thing that had disguised itself as Xiaoqi and knocked on the door before.
When he looked up again, Gu Qi and Xiao Xiaohua were no longer in his sight.
Gu Yuan sighed helplessly, his eyes looking a little lonely.
Unconsciously, his sister had grown up. She had grown from a little girl who would hide behind him when frightened by the swaying shadows of trees to a grown-up girl who no longer needed his protection and could even protect him in return.
But he quickly composed himself, collected the roots on the ground into his space, and rushed to where the rest of the convoy were resting with the medicine.
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