Chapter 140 - Conflict
Jennifer’s group didn’t manage to leave the underground city successfully.
Under the red moon of the plateau, a silent assassination was taking place. The ground seemed like it had been flattened by something, the sand and gravel fell unnaturally, and small sections of the stone forest disappeared into thin air like it had been devoured by something.
Visible fluctuations appeared in the air, immediately followed by the appearance of a dark shadow looming over the wasteland. It was like a lotus leaf, layered and stacked to form a giant elliptical object.
The dark object disappeared, and six or seven corpses fell out.
They were Jennifer’s companions, that team of well-equipped mercenaries.
The clothes on the dead bodies were soaked and their eyes were wide open. Some had their throats slit and some had fresh blood on their chests. Most of the bodies didn’t even have a complete corpse, as if they had been ripped apart and eaten by some monster.
A bloody smell instantly filled the air.
A pale hand grabbed the dying Jennifer and dragged her in front of themselves.
“You devil……Red Scorpion……” Jennifer said indistinctly with eyes full of fear.
The owner of the palm seemed to know how to make themselves invisible since their body could not be seen. He gave a strange laugh, and the palm continued to use force without mercy. Jennifer already had no strength left, she didn’t even have the energy to struggle.
Scattered flames sprang from her body, but the fire was very faint.
Fighting inside Red Scorpion’s space had already exhausted Jennifer‘s ability. Then, she was almost suffocated to death by the water. The once bright fire of life has already become as fragile as candlelight.
She is going to die.
Jennifer unwillingly stopped struggling. The scene before her eyes became increasingly blurred and eventually disappeared altogether.
She is covered in water, blood dripped from her calf, and her flesh was bruised and torn. It looked exceedingly terrible, but compared to the bodies of her companions with flesh torn down to the bones, she is already considered more or less intact.
“How beautiful.”
The palm left Jennifer’s neck, still dripping with water.
Under the moonlight, this detached arm floated in mid-air and sinfully stroked Jennifer’s corpse. It lingered on her face and chest, not with impure intentions but with something darker. It was like evaluating a piece of meat.
“Confused with your sister, the protagonist’s first and only true love. The one who couldn’t tell who he really liked, the one who didn’t know the first person he saw in the rubble……is our Saviour!” Red Scorpion scoffed.
Red Scorpion began to pay attention to the surrounding scenery; he had also suddenly appeared here. This group of mercenaries had subconsciously raised their guns, and Red Scorpion found precious prey among them.
Now, he was in bliss. Jennifer’s death had helped his recently depleted abilities to recover.
“There are no spiders here, looks like I’ve returned to Earth.” Red Scorpion was also forced on a random tour of the giant spider world. He was originally lying peacefully in the Holy Gate organization, yet he abruptly encountered a giant spider attack and was immediately forced into a place with no food or drink.
He doesn’t know if it’s bad luck or good luck, but Red Scorpion met Dr. Mad in the forest.
The two people’s abilities are so distinctive that they easily recognized each other.
Red Scorpion saw that the situation was not good and hid in his space. Dr. Mad is S-class, but in a dead and lifeless forest, the vines he can call are limited.
One prepared to fight and one hid. Just as the two psychos started to prepare for psychological warfare, they entered the hallucination-inducing mushroom area. They quickly got lost and started fighting to the death with an enemy they can’t see. They either indulged in the illusory pleasure of being the most powerful person or the thrill of playing with the whole world. They were squandering their abilities without moderation and almost died in their own hallucination.
During the chaos, Dr. Mad was suddenly pulled into a rift by a strong force.
The now sober Red Scorpion wanted to catch up, but the power of his own space ability offset the force of the space rift and pushed him backward. Dr. Mad is gone, leaving Red Scorpion to face a group of startled spiders alone.
He finally managed to dodge the frenzied attacks of the giant spiders by relying on his abilities and walked out of the forest. Yet he found that the outside world is also barren. One could not see any large animals, only some insects, and mice.
Red Scorpion lived in such a harsh environment for several days.
He wasn’t worried about eating and drinking, but this world with nothing but spiders really makes him sick.
One day, Red Scorpion found a few weird little spiders with mushrooms growing from their backs on a dead tree. Their movements were stiff and they couldn’t spit silk. There was even one with only half a body, the other half was filled with white mycelium.
Red Scorpion leaned closer to see because it was so unusual, but the mushroom cap suddenly turned into mycelium and pounced on him.
Red Scorpion quickly dodged, but then he discovered these spiders with mushroom parasites were able to accurately find the position of the space where he’s hiding. They were completely different from the giant spiders that wandered around randomly when they lost his scent.
The outer layer of the space was wrapped by the mycelium and his ability was quickly drained……
Red Scorpion immediately used his ability to dismantle and reorganize his space and quickly escaped from the dead tree. The zombie spiders clumsily chased and the rate at which the mycelium grew failed to catch up to him in the end. Red Scorpion is still suspicious of the mushrooms’ origins.
——If Dr. Mad appeared in the forest, then it’s not impossible that the Devourer is here too.
“Good girl, it seems like your ability was what pulled me back.” Red Scorpion said to himself. There’s not much ability power left in his body, but it was enough for him to become intoxicated.
Prey like an A-class ability holder was not something that one can just casually meet.
“Compared to Poseidon, you’re a lot worse…… but wait, no one will look for your body in the Abandoned World, from this point of view, you’re pretty special already.”
Red Scorpion’s hand appeared out of his space again, this time holding a sharp scalpel.
The blade just touched Jennifer’s neck when a gunshot echoed in the distance along with the sound of ability holders fighting.
Red Scorpion quickly collected his “spoils”.
He walked along the stone forest and soon saw the mushrooms that blocked the hole in the sky.
“Nn?”
Had the Devourer already passed through here? Or is he still stuck in this wasteland?
He is the strongest ability holder after the Saviour.
In other words, he was stronger and scarier than Johnson……
“What an exciting journey. I can’t wait to see what the Devourer looks like.” Red Scorpion said to himself. He looped around the mushrooms and walked a long way, discovered a hole leading underground, and jumped down without hesitation.
***
In the underground city of Kabadusia Plateau, a conflict is breaking out.
A bunch of the higher level ability holders, who originally sat in a cave and prayed to their Gods, grouped together to discuss how to co-operate (use) someone else, to resolve the area occupied by the Demon. Their leader was an A-class earth system ability holder with high status among the believers. However, he was old and frail, unable to join the battle.
But the earth system ability holder has the advantage in deciding the structure of the underground city, he can easily carve out new passages, or collapse a “building” to block monsters outside the “residential area”.
If there are no surprises, in two or three years, the “venerable” Elder will become the spiritual leader of the city and rule all the ability holders here.
As for the ability holders with different faiths, they will have no choice but to leave or die.
In the original plot, the group of ability holders in Turkey did not participate in the global conference. They were a marginalized, or an anti-government, force. Perhaps after the story ends, they will continue to cause damage to this country ——there are many countries in the world with many ability holders, it’s impossible to write about all of them in the book 《Outcast》.
These people didn’t have a long term vision. At most, they’d think about what they can do in their home country and remain indifferent to the outside world.
There are few book transmigrators here. Since Turkey wasn’t introduced this American hero novel series, very few people knew what the appearance of the mushroom meant. They didn’t even know that they can go back to reality and thought that the world will continue like this.
“God did not abandon us, he is giving us a test.”
“As long as we rid of the demon……”
“Yes, defeat the demon!”
The old leader pointed to a direction, and the group of people bowed on the ground. They rambled and desperately asked for atonement; they asked for God’s blessings and prayed for today’s and tomorrow’s food to fall.
Suddenly, their “solemn” ceremony was interrupted.
First, two giant spiders appeared in the cave and the crowd fled in fear. The leader shouted at them to calm down, blaming them for not having the courage and not deserving to be God’s people.
He hadn’t even finished speaking when the old ability holder was knocked to the ground by a man who appeared out of thin air. Even one of his ribs broke.
Such a bizarre way of appearing, it could be a miracle, but it could also be——
“The demon appeared, quickly kill him!” The old leader angrily shouted.
The others took a closer look, the person has black hair and black eyes, different from the people of their race.
“Kill the Outsider! Kill the Demon!”
Red Scorpion heard the movements and gave them back what they sent.
Countless underground ability holders were trying to catch the culprit. Some of these people still had conflicts with each other. While chasing, some people actually started fighting in the middle of the chase.
Those foreigners who traveled to Turkey and ended up stranded here were in bad luck.
There are very few people who actually saw the appearance of the “Demon” and their slogan was kill the outsider……they’d rather kill the wrong person that let the Demon go. Besides, they originally disliked these outsiders who cheekily stayed in their underground city anyway.
The situation became worse as time passed.
Johnson was curious at heart and couldn’t help but inch his head out to watch the commotion.
Li Fei immediately scowled and chased the teenager back to the room.
He moved close to the ventilation pipe. The sounds transmitted from the outside made Li Fei wrinkle his brows. The riots are bigger than they were before.
The sound of messy footsteps, that were originally still trudging in circles, will soon come towards this direction.
Li Fei sneered slightly. He didn’t mind teaching the ability holders here the true meaning of terror——before Jian Hua found a way back, he won’t allow anyone to disturb Jian Hua.
Li Fei slowly walked to the edge of the mushroom field, called out flames, and gazed at the end of the passage with cold calculating eyes.
A man covered in mud charged towards the mushrooms without turning.
He looked up and saw a row of flames about to fall on him, he was so scared that his vision almost bent. He hurriedly yelled, “Li-ge, it’s me, don’t attack!”
“……”
Li Fei was a little surprised, how could Geng Tian be here?
Geng Tian looked like a Shen Nong Jia savage. He was unshaven, wearing clothes made of rags and leaves around his waist, and holding a bent and deformed steel bar.
Even if the fastest ability holder quickly raised their hands to launch an ability, Geng Tian would have already swept them with the steel bar and made them fly.
He rushed into the mushroom bushes and the mycelium wrapped him up as if trying to tie up the prey.
——Ayy, it’s the Reserve Grain No. 2, you’re allowed to go through.