Chapter 88 Get off the bus quickly
The basement level was a large space with a U-shaped structure, and a large laboratory in the middle. Red Eyes pulled them into a laboratory and placed them in the same 'birdcage' they had seen before.
Clearly, this is also a warehouse-like structure.
Inside, dozens of humans were unconscious, swaying about, all wearing rings with characters around their necks and their hands were bound. Only the nine newcomers were not yet marked.
It's just like marking a lab rat, Bai Chenzhu thought.
Red-Eye activated some kind of instrument, spraying out white mist and increasing the concentration of hypnotic ingredients in the air. It then closed the warehouse door and left on its own.
Thick white fog gradually filled the room, and the weak and terrified humans spontaneously gathered together, squatting by the large food bowl, trying to push the food box out and then out of the hole.
But eventually, unable to resist the drooping eyelids, they fell down one after another.
The fog grew thicker, and the three imposters, who were not experimental subjects, stood out from the crowd, appearing particularly different at this time.
Tang Zhao, standing to the side, wrinkled his nose, then suddenly had a flash of inspiration. He took out the 'black brick' from his bag—the food that had almost choked him to death—and with a flick of his wrist, threw it directly at the sprayer in the corner.
But then there was a loud bang, and a piece of the sprayer collapsed, blocking the nozzle and preventing the spray from coming out.
Tang Zhao fanned the wind from his nose and looked at the two of them proudly.
Bai Chenzhu glanced at Tang Zhao and said mischievously, "Don't worry, I still have enough for you."
Tang Zhao: ...
At least give me a compliment!
Jiang Ye used a small knife to cut the ropes, untied the two of them, bent down and touched the food bowl to check its material. Then he kicked the food bowl away. With a loud bang, the food bowl flew out and hit the wall, shattering into pieces, immediately leaving a hole in its place.
The remaining few conscious humans watched them warily, as if they were looking at some kind of monster.
Bai Chenzhu stepped over the unconscious people and was bending down to squeeze out of the empty space in the food bowl when he suddenly straightened up, turned around, and used his knife to quickly cut the ropes binding the conscious people.
Jiang Ye raised an eyebrow and said nonchalantly, "A-Zhu, you want to save them?"
"I suppose so." Bai Chenzhu finished picking the ropes for three or five people, stood up and moved his arms. "For them, and for us."
With only the three of them, they're too obvious a target; some chaos needs to be created.
Jiang Ye threw a small knife directly at the nearest man. The man clumsily caught the knife, quickly took two steps back, and held the knife tremblingly at Jiang Ye.
"What are you standing there for? Untie them! You few are outnumbered and outmatched. Do you think you can escape from thousands of aliens?" Jiang Ye didn't care what he thought. After saying that, he crawled out of the cage.
Bai Chenzhu took one last look at these people before following Jiang Ye out.
They emerged from the room within the room. The laboratory outside was empty; only the data on the electronic screens continued to scroll. A small window by the door offered a view of the corridor outside.
The entire basement level belongs to Kula.
Here, almost no sound can be heard. The quiet corridors, clean walls, and the silent, unapproachable foreigners create an immense psychological pressure.
Tang Zhao swallowed hard and reached for the door, when suddenly an arm blocked his way.
It's Jiang Ye.
The two stared at him with suspicion.
"There's something else I haven't said." Jiang Ye looked at Bai Chenzhu and said in a low voice, "Azhu, if a fight really breaks out, remember to run first and don't worry about me. Your special ability is only suitable for use in secret, not for face-to-face combat. You'll be at a great disadvantage if you do that."
"What's going on?" Bai Chenzhu asked curiously, not finding it strange that Jiang Ye brought this up for no reason.
Unexpectedly, Jiang Ye said, "Kula is a female insect, and she is the person in charge of the alien race on Earth."
He paused, "I've never seen it, I've only heard rumors that it can tear people apart with its wings alone."
As for where the rumors came from, they are most likely related to the hostages Jiang Ye once detained at the base.
Tang Zhao felt as if he were facing a formidable enemy. "Could it be another being like the 'Zombie King'?"
Jiang Ye said, "Then it's a zombie king with brains."
Wasn't it said that males were a special class? Bai Chenzhu was somewhat surprised. In his imagination, he had always thought that they were a different race with very strong spiritual power.
Since he was a mental being, Bai Chenzhu always thought that Jiang Ye could directly deal with him by capturing enemies outside, since he had damaged the mental sea.
Tang Zhao gasped, stammering, "Brother, can the two of us... can we win?"
"You think you can just run away after you've already boarded the pirate ship?" Jiang Ye saw that he was backing down and glanced at him ambiguously.
Tang Zhao took a deep breath.
In stark contrast to his attitude towards Tang Zhao, Jiang Ye turned his head and lowered his voice, "Even if I can't win, I'm confident I can protect myself..."
“Mr. Jiang,” Bai Chenzhu interrupted him, offering a rather unfriendly reminder, “out with the old, in with the new; the next one will be young and beautiful.”
Jiang Ye's forehead veins bulged, "No way!"
Bai Chenzhu looked at him with a half-smile, appearing somewhat like a refined scoundrel.
Jiang Ye hesitated for a moment, then said, "A-Zhu, there are no male insects here. Can you sense where the fragments are? Just like before?"
Bai Chenzhu nodded and carefully extended his spiritual power.
His vision was magnified infinitely; his mental power was his eyes. He could clearly see everything, from the chattering humans behind him to the three or five zombies locked in the next room, even their bulging muscles and ferocious faces. Beside the zombies, two female insects were organizing materials. Further on, there was a laboratory storing specimens…
Bai Chenzhu's spiritual power slowly crawled through room after room, trying to sense the location of the fragment.
There was no sign of male insects here, so Bai Chenzhu became bolder, and a circle of waves rolled outwards from him.
Jiang Ye felt a gentle breeze brush past him from front to back, making him feel refreshed.
“In the storeroom.” Bai Chenzhu slowly opened his eyes, seemingly still confirming. He paused, then said with certainty, “The third room on the right after you go out. Also, there are hundreds of ‘people’ here, but I haven’t found ‘Kula’.”
“Its mental strength isn’t strong, so it’s normal that it’s hard to tell,” Jiang Ye said.
"What a waste!" Tang Zhao clenched his fist. They had searched for so long, only to have the alien race simply throw it into their warehouse.
Upon hearing this, Jiang Ye gave him a hard smack on the head. "Whose side are you on anyway? Wouldn't it be better for us to stay in the warehouse?"
"Huh? Oh right!" Tang Zhao slapped his fist, realizing it was a good thing.
Bai Chenzhu looked out the small window at the situation outside. Tang Zhao's joke made the heavy weight in his heart feel less unbearable. He took a breath and said, "Let's finish this quickly."
Grab the things, then run. It's that simple. Bai Chenzhu repeated this to himself several times, his heart pounding.
He pressed the button, and the door slid open to the side, revealing an empty corridor.
Bai Chenzhu rushed out. The warehouse wasn't far from them. He held Lyca's ID card in his hand and quickly swiped it on the door lock.
Bad news, Lyca's ID card can't open this warehouse.
Good news! This warehouse wasn't locked; it opened with a simple press.
The door unlocked with a click, and the three quickly went inside and closed the door.
When the light came on, a dense, messy pile of clutter appeared before my eyes, as high as a small mountain.
It was practically a dumping ground for discarded junk. But no one would leave single beds, miniature robots, weapons, clothes, and other everyday items in a warehouse. Bai Chenzhu's face immediately turned cold.
Tang Zhao wiped his face and spoke for everyone, saying what was on everyone's mind: "This isn't a warehouse, this is someone's bedroom!"
Now that things had come to this, Bai Chenzhu composed himself and said, "Never mind that, just keep looking!"
——
The items were a jumbled mess, and they searched separately for a long time. Jiang Ye finally dug out the small ball, about the size of a fist, from a corner. Bai Chenzhu held it in his hand and examined it carefully, confirming without a doubt, "It's it."
It's the same scent.
There's no time like the present, so Jiang Ye quickly took out the other four fragments from his pocket and pieced them together.
Just then, the room lights came on.
Bai Chenzhu realized that her hands were already empty.
Jiang Ye quickly stuffed all the fragments into his backpack and looked at the newcomer warily.
A tall figure stood at the doorway.
It seemed somewhat surprised, its gaze shifting back and forth between the three people's heads and backs. Bai Chenzhu knew that the other party was confirming their identities.
Frail humans without wings or tentacles.
This person was dressed in training clothes, with fine lines on their forehead and cheeks, indicating they were not young. They possessed an arrogant posture, a disdainful gaze, and an imposing presence, with a pair of large, steel-blade-like wings folded behind them.
After it opened the door, a cacophony of sounds entered the room.
It turned out that while they were looking for something, people in the laboratory had started to wake up one after another and were planning to escape.
The result was obvious: they clashed head-on with the alien race, causing unrest.
Dozens of superhumans, facing off against test subjects from an alien race whose combat strength is not particularly high, might not necessarily be without a chance of winning.
Unexpectedly, Kula didn't take it seriously, leaving the matter to his subordinates and returning to his bedroom. Bai Chenzhu stared intently at the tall figure, his gaze quickly sweeping over the man's brown hair and eyes.
He had already discovered that when aliens were alert or emotionally agitated, their antennae would stand straight up. But this one in front of him, even after discovering a thief in the bedroom, still had its antennae pointing backward, indicating that it didn't take people seriously.
Kula blocked the doorway and suddenly spoke, her voice full of certainty, "Outside, you did it."
It slowly scanned the ransacked bedroom, asking, "What did you take?"
Even Kula couldn't immediately connect the communicator to its memory, after all, it was someone it had personally ordered to be smashed on the spot. Less than six months into the apocalypse, let alone humans, who, even among them, could quickly locate and collect these fragments?
No one can do it—except for Jiang Ye, who is a variable.
Bai Chenzhu was on guard when he felt a weight on his chest; Jiang Ye had shoved a backpack into his hands.
"Hold this for me," Jiang Ye said hoarsely. He pulled a stick from his waist, flicked it with practiced ease, and a beam of light appeared from its sheath. The blade was sharp and scalding hot enough to cut through flesh and cook it at the same time.
Kula stared at the alien weapon, which Jiang Ye wielded with such fluid grace, as if it were a weapon born for humankind.
This shouldn't be happening. Kula's composure gradually faded. It drew a lightsaber from behind its back, the tip pointing directly at Jiang Ye. "You've gone too far. You can't be allowed to live."
The two sides were locked in a stalemate when, at a certain moment, a gust of wind swept past Bai Chenzhu, and Jiang Ye and Kula's blades clashed together. His wrist was then violently pulled, and he was dragged toward the door.
Tang Zhao led him along the corner of the wall and ran out, his voice low and menacing, "Let's go first."
Jiang Ye had said beforehand that he would cover the rear, and Tang Zhao had complete blind trust in Jiang Ye. Since Jiang Ye said so, he would run away with Bai Chenzhu.
The lightsabers clashed with a crisp sound. Kula didn't react at all to the two little ants fleeing. In its eyes, dealing with this one and then killing the other two would only take a few minutes.
But it soon realized what its repeated arrogance had brought about.
A cool breeze gently brushed across its mind. In that instant, Kula clearly felt the connection between its mind and body being severed. It could see clearly, but it couldn't move its body and couldn't react at all!
So much so that it watched helplessly as Jiang Ye flashed in front of it, kicked it into the wall, and the lightsaber precisely cut its right arm, almost severing it.
Could it be those two from earlier? Kula struggled to free her hands and feet from the wall, her narrow, vertical pupils darting around as she gritted her teeth and looked toward the doorway, only to find it empty and devoid of anything.
"Where are you looking?" Jiang Ye pressed closer, forcing Kula to focus her attention on what was in front of her.
After a few exchanges, Jiang Ye had many burns on his body, but Kula wasn't much better off. He thought he could finish the fight quickly, but his lightsaber was knocked away. The great force of the blow caused Kula's tiger's mouth to split open, and his right arm, which was already injured at the beginning, was now even more injured.
It clutched its right arm, blue blood slowly dripping down, utterly horrified.
First came the inexplicable mental attack, and then the powerful human before them.
It only learned about the superhuman today, but that's just a small ant turning into a big ant. How can an ant be taken seriously?
When the mutated ants silently crawled into the nest and killed the elephant, Kula felt a chill run down its spine. Its antennae stood up, its wings spread slightly warily, and it felt a sense of crisis. Suddenly, its killing intent was revealed. It twisted its wrist and became serious. "You deserve to die."
Jiang Ye did not answer. He gave his opponent no chance to breathe. His sword flashed like thunder, slashing down one after another. Kula narrowly missed the edge of the blade. He pulled out the particle gun from his waist with his left hand and aimed it at Jiang Ye's back.
"Bang—" Jiang Ye turned around and kicked the particle gun high into the air. The off-target bullet pierced his right shoulder, the bloodstains hidden by his dark clothes. The two exchanged a glance and simultaneously began to grab the fallen gun during their fight.
——
Tang Zhao ran too fast, and Bai Chenzhu was being dragged along by him like a kite.
After being freed from their restraints, the humans exerted all their strength to leave the base. The mess and noise spread from underground to the surface, attracting the attention of the base's upper guards.
While dodging and firing a few more shots with his particle gun, Bai Chenzhu looked up and could vaguely see the alien figures spreading their wings and flying down from above. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, they would all rush to the aid of their superior.
"Wait!" Bai Chenzhu's mind raced. He couldn't let them go down so quickly, or Jiang Ye would be surrounded!
Tang Zhao only had time to utter a questioning sound before he was jolted awake. Something intangible and invisible passed through his body, rippling outwards like water waves, forcefully invading his body and severing the connection between his consciousness and body.
His face went blank, as if he had been frozen in place by a time freeze button.
Not only him, but the alien races, who were even more sensitive to spiritual energy, noticed something amiss, and all sorts of eyes turned towards the source of the spiritual energy. The male insects, in particular, began searching for the location of that powerful spiritual energy.
Who? Who is it?
But there was no one there; the doorway was empty except for a wisp of spiritual energy reaching out like a hook—a very conspicuous trace.
A male insect had been abducted! That was their instinctive deduction. So the descending aliens began to split up, with only a portion heading towards the lower level.
Bai Chenzhu casually wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, and in an instant, his mental power burst out, controlling everyone present, including humans and non-humans. Bai Chenzhu took the opportunity to pull Tang Zhao away, and deliberately left a trace pointing outwards to attract the alien race.
The base was surrounded by various vehicles. He found a usable car and pushed the man onto it.
When Tang Zhao came to his senses, Bai Chenzhu had already pulled him into the car. "Brother, you've used it several times in a row, are you still okay?"
"Don't worry, he's still conscious."
Whether it was a problem with his skills or the car itself, Bai Chenzhu felt that the car was very awkward to drive. Each of the four wheels seemed to be moving independently, and he struggled a lot to control it. He couldn't help but regret that he should have asked Jiang Ye to teach him for a few more days.
The alien race, realizing what was happening, were following the trail he had left behind. Bai Chenzhu, with a terrible headache, threw his backpack into Tang Zhao's arms and stepped on the gas. "Assemble it now."
Tang Zhao was still in a daze, slapped himself to barely stay awake, and asked, "What?"
"Assemble that damn communicator right now!" Bai Chenzhu was unusually impatient, glancing frequently in the rearview mirror.
Tang Zhao glanced at the rearview mirror and was startled by the huge sea of people.
Without saying a word, he quickly emptied the fragments and reassembled the thing that had been through so much trouble for them in the swaying car in a few quick steps.
Two intertwined rings revolved around a small sphere, gradually emitting a fluorescent glow. The glow resembled a human heart, flickering on and off.
It's both scientific and bizarre.
"Brother Jiang said that as long as it works, it's fine." Tang Zhao looked left and right to make sure he hadn't installed the wrong thing.
The communicator hovering in his hand was spinning on its own, emitting a faint light. Just in case, Tang Zhao quickly put it back into his backpack after checking it.
Bai Chenzhu's breathing became heavier. Behind their car, a dense army of insects followed closely. Of course, besides them, some humans also took the opportunity to steal the car and escape, following behind them as well.
By a twist of fate, they ended up leading the escape, and a chase ensued in the woods.
Before the alien race could react, a barrage of high-energy shells rained down, creating craters in the forest, and the fleeing convoy scattered in all directions.
In a short time, Bai Chenzhu realized that they were getting further and further away from the others, while the alien race was hot on their heels.
Amidst billowing smoke and dust, the car veered left and right, dodging shells and trees. Bai Chenzhu struggled to turn the steering wheel, while Tang Zhao was tossed around, clutching his seatbelt and screaming.
Another shell landed ahead, creating a deep crater. The car couldn't avoid it in time, and its tires got stuck in the crater, preventing it from moving.
Tang Zhao looked back and shouted, "We're being watched!"
So many cars, so many people who escaped, yet they kept chasing after them.
Bai Chenzhu slammed on the gas pedal, and the car, like a wounded tiger, roared anxiously, trying to climb out of the deep pit, but to no avail, the wheels spinning in the pit.
They are getting closer and closer to the other races.
If we don't leave now, they'll catch up.
"Get out of the car, let's go!" Tang Zhao called to Bai Chenzhu, pushed open the car door, grabbed his backpack and jumped out, intending to abandon the broken-down car.
Bai Chenzhu also abandoned the car, and he placed his left hand on the car door, preparing to get out.
Unexpectedly, the car, which had been stuck in the rut and unable to get out of the pothole, shot off like an arrow, crashing into several small trees and hurtling forward. Bai Chenzhu was almost thrown off balance by the force and landed on the driver's seat, feeling dizzy.
The accelerator pedal drops uncontrollably, while the brakes do not respond at all.
"Brother! Brother! I haven't..." Tang Zhao stretched out his hand towards the back of the car, dumbfounded. Seeing the people behind him catching up, he covered his mouth and quickly chose a place with more trees and bushes to crawl into.
What a piece of junk! What a piece of junk!
The problem was with the accelerator, now it's with the brakes. Bai Chenzhu was so angry he laughed, slamming his fist on the steering wheel. Those damned aliens, always picking up useless trash.
The sound of water was getting closer.
That sound of water he had heard on the basement level.
Beyond the lush forest, sunlight streamed down, revealing vast expanses of shimmering water accompanied by a rushing sound, dazzlingly bright.
It was a massive waterfall, estimated to be nearly a hundred meters wide and tens of meters high, with a rapid current. The alien races had chosen to establish their base near the water source, and now he had inadvertently driven his car to this waterfall.
Bai Chenzhu's face was grim. With his last hope, he jerked the steering wheel and slammed on the brakes.
The out-of-control car plunged into the river and was pushed forward by the current. Soon it was about to slide down the waterfall. Bai Chenzhu's hand was on the car door. His heart was pounding. The current seemed to be pushing against the door and he couldn't open it. He was about to be tied to the car.
As dusk fell, the wrecked black car was swept down the waterfall, tumbling through the air before crashing into the river with a huge splash.
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