She didn’t like this change.
In a daze, she felt as if there were a Death Note in front of her.
This notebook did not even need the other person’s name. As long as she saw their face, she could decide their life or death.
The commotion from Sang Wenhao and Ying Da’s fight was loud. Fu Erdie suppressed the strange feeling in her heart and focused on the ongoing battle.
As an ability user who had already mastered the application of metal attributes, Sang Wenhao was very good at dodging while thrusting. Even with his attribute suppressed on the surface, he could still leap nimbly through the lightning and attack through every opening.
After twenty minutes, Sang Wenhao had barely been injured. Instead, Ying Da had suffered many wounds, large and small.
Ying Da assessed the situation. Knowing he was no match, no matter how resentful and unwilling he felt, he did not dare delay. He looked for a chance to run.
However, although his lightning ability was terrifying, it did nothing to help his speed. His eyes narrowed. Feinting one way and attacking another, he turned his attack toward Han Zhi and Cen Xiyang in a flash.
A sixth-rank attack could crush fifth-ranks, and Sang Wenhao’s same-rank metal ability could not directly withstand lightning.
So it was finally Fu Erdie’s turn to act. Seventh-rank metal ability, even under attribute suppression, steadily blocked the overwhelming lightning and guided the electricity into the ground.
Because the force was too enormous, wild wind, dust, and thunder danced together. No one nearby could see the situation clearly. They only felt the earth shake.
Ying Da took this chance to flee.
Aside from when the apocalypse first arrived, Ying Da had never run for his life so desperately.
He used every bit of strength to escape. His personal off-road vehicle was just ahead. As long as he got into the car, no one could catch up to him!
Two metres.
One metre.
He finally reached it!
Ying Da let out a huge breath of relief.
But the instant his hand touched the car door, a violent gust swept over and slammed Ying Da heavily to the ground.
Fu Erdie stepped on floating dandelion fluff in the air, walking toward Ying Da step by step. Cold and indifferent, she formed a wind blade and cut off Ying Da’s hands.
Blood sprayed and scattered wildly in the gale. Two drops splashed onto Fu Erdie’s cheek.
She did not notice, or rather, she did not care. She descended from the distance to the ground and came to Ying Da’s side, looking down at the screaming man from above.
“Your idea of raising zombies was quite clever.”
Fu Erdie took out a sixth-rank crystal core from her clothes.
“I heard that if you eat one more sixth-rank crystal core, you can advance to seventh rank. How much energy does a seventh-rank crystal core have compared to a sixth-rank one? Ten times? Twenty times? Come on, don’t disappoint me.”
As soon as she finished speaking, Fu Erdie imitated Qing City Base’s method. She cut off Ying Da’s hands and feet, turning him into a complete human swine with no ability to fight back. Then, while he was screaming in pain, she put the crystal core into his mouth, dislocated and closed his jaw, forcing him to fall silent and swallow. She circulated her ability, helping him quickly absorb the crystal core’s energy.
Just like that, Ying Da watched himself advance from sixth rank to seventh rank. The bleeding stumps of his limbs rapidly healed, but they did not grow back. It seemed he did not have the terrifying regenerative power of ability zombies.
He had become a seventh-rank cripple.
Lightning ability gathered and raged inside his body, but it could not find an outlet to be used flexibly. His entire torso began crackling with electricity. From far away, he looked like a leaking battery about to explode.
Fu Erdie pulled away and watched coldly from a safe distance. She was in no hurry to kill him, nor was she in any hurry to control the rampaging ability. Only when Ying Da was about to expand the range and cover the entire square and intersection in explosive lightning did Fu Erdie control a wind blade to split open his skull and take out the seventh-rank crystal core inside.
Ying Da never imagined that after being a hunter for so long, he would become prey at the very end.
The seventh-rank ability user identity he had longed for passed through his body for only a moment, then became someone else’s fruit…
He was unwilling! Truly unwilling!
But no matter how unwilling he was, he was powerless. Agony swept through his entire body. In a daze, he heard the sound of his own skull cracking.
Didn’t that person say that if he listened to him, he could become the strongest person in the world? Why, now… had he stopped here…
Ying Da no longer had time to keep thinking about the answer. The world returned to nothingness.
*
Since the apocalypse began, Qing City Base had always been in a state of savage growth. Everything there respected strength above all. This directly caused a strange contradiction: although the average combat strength here was the highest, with fourth- and fifth-ranks everywhere, the city itself was utterly desolate.
After extreme heat, torrential rain erosion, sudden temperature drops, and raging winds, Qing City’s buildings, tall and short, had become extremely dilapidated.
The wind was strong, carrying sand and stones that damaged many windows. Some window frames with shards of glass had not been shut properly and kept slamming back and forth in the wind. No one knew when they would fall to the ground below.
The high-rank ability users in Qing City had mostly fled if they could. The ones left behind were those stripped of their abilities, whose temperaments had changed drastically along with their status. They wandered around in a daze, not knowing where to go.
Fu Erdie did not bother with them. She continued patrolling Qing City, wanting to gather information on most of the people, zombies, and resources.
Actually, zombies and resources were secondary. The main issue was that group of ability users.
These ability users were very powerful, and the environment of Qing City had worn away their humanity. If any fourth- or fifth-rank Qing City ability user ran to C City or D City, where there were many ordinary people, to cause chaos, they would absolutely become poisonous tumours.
Fu Erdie did not have the patience to give them chances to turn over a new leaf.
She patrolled Qing City day and night. Only on the fifth day did Fu Erdie roughly understand the situation in Qing City, dealing with the high-rank ability users she encountered as needed, while also counting the number of zombie kings in this region.
It was indeed as Xin Nuo and the others had said. Most of the free-range zombie kings in Qing City were non-attribute zombie kings. They had poor offensive power, and their destructive ability was weaker than zombies of the same rank.
Fu Erdie marked out the approximate activity areas of the zombie kings, thinking about how to draw their hatred together and deal with them all at once with the least effort.
At that moment, Xin Nuo gathered her courage and voiced her doubt. “Butterfly Garden Principal, aren’t you going back to protect Butterfly Garden?”
Fu Erdie looked at her.
In the past few days, Fu Erdie had caused a huge stir in Qing City. Ability users with guilty consciences ran as far away as possible. Those who believed they had done nothing wrong and wanted to follow Fu Erdie tried their best to keep up with her group as they moved around.
Xin Nuo’s group belonged to the latter.
After hearing the news that Qing City Base had fallen, they returned immediately to investigate. They helped Fu Erdie with all sorts of errands. Where there were supplies, what terrain changes existed, which restless ability users nearby could be accepted and which could not… they handled everything in an orderly way.
Not only Fu Erdie, even Han Zhi, who was usually highly vigilant, felt that this group handled things reliably.
Hearing Xin Nuo speak now, Fu Erdie realised she might have misunderstood something.
“The mental-type ability user in Qing City Base is dead. Will the zombie kings sent out to find me and Butterfly Garden still keep looking?”
“No.” Xin Nuo’s eyes widened. Because there had been information gaps during their previous exchange, such a major misunderstanding had occurred. “The one who hypnotised the zombie kings wasn’t Qing City Base’s mental-type ability user. It was someone from another base. Ying Da used to call him K.”
Fu Erdie’s hand, which had still been busy drawing the map, paused. Her gaze sharpened abruptly.
There was someone behind Ying Da.
C City was not safe.
Realising this, Fu Erdie immediately chose to return home.
*
The summer of the third year of the apocalypse was the coldest summer this continent had ever seen. The temperature neared minus twenty degrees.
Fu Erdie’s group drove a truck carrying over ten tonnes of supplies, braving the violent wind as they searched for a route back to C City.
To use their limited petrol to get home, Fu Erdie and Sang Wenhao activated their abilities the whole way, lifting the heavy cargo box.
Even so, the vehicle often had problems, large and small. Sometimes, because the road was too slippery, it was completely impossible to drive, and they could only use abilities to lift it over difficult uphill sections one after another.
They could barely manage, but the ability users following Fu Erdie, hoping to make a living in C City, had it much harder.
Second- and third-rank ability levels meant they had to walk while finding cover to block the wind. Their escape progress was slow.
When they reached plains or open areas without cover, these people had to stuff extra stones into their already heavy luggage to increase their own weight so the wind would not blow them away.
Even so, some people still lost their balance in the gale and were blown a long distance before barely stabilising themselves.
Fortunately, everyone who had been able to survive with difficulty in Qing City had some skills. They found teammates who complemented them and supported one another as they headed toward C City, the place where survival seemed possible.
In July, Fu Erdie returned to the riverbank in Jian City where Building Seven was located. She picked up the ordinary person stationed inside, leaving the plant cubs who had already learned how to use the telegraph to continue staying in Jian City as an advance post. Then her group continued on their way.
In mid-July, after drifting outside for nearly half a year, Fu Erdie finally returned to Butterfly Garden.
She returned to her warm house!
The moment she stepped into the house’s domain, Fu Erdie instantly felt a warm current rush over her.
The bone-deep chill gradually faded. The tension and exhaustion accumulated on the road, as well as the scrapes, bruises, swelling, and pain of all sizes, disappeared one by one. Even frostbite rapidly improved under the warm embrace of the house’s ability.
Her house! Her home!
She was finally back! She could finally sleep comfortably!
Compared to before, Senyu Residential Complex—or rather, Butterfly Garden—had changed a lot.
After all, C City had never had snow before. This was the first time anyone had seen C City wrapped in silver, everywhere covered in ice.
The house was very excited. From far away, it flashed with white light. On the wall facing the road Fu Erdie returned from, a huge 【^-^】 appeared.
Looking at it, Fu Erdie’s face unconsciously filled with a smile. She stepped on the accelerator, and the truck sped toward the residential complex gate. For a moment, she did not notice the many large and small flowers and green leaves in the buildings along the roadside, all trying to open windows and doors to greet her.
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