The hole was dug by Millet, but the people were pulled in by Pothos.
The reason was simple: whether it was Millet’s branches or roots, they were now the hardest and sharpest among all the plants. Although they had not yet reached the point where they could pierce out like bamboo spikes and be used directly as weapons, digging through soil that had already been loosened by mutated plant roots was more than easy enough.
Pothos, on the other hand, had been the leader ahead of all the mutated plants since the very beginning of the apocalypse. At almost every stage, it had been growing at an extremely rapid pace.
Just now, when it had worked together with the other plants to restrict the ability users’ movements, it had looked as if the other plants were going easy under Fu Erdie’s instructions, while Pothos had only managed to achieve the current result by putting in serious effort.
But in reality, even if Spider Plant and the others had used all their strength to tear at the ability users, the result would not have been much better. The only difference was that before, they could hold on for one second; at full strength, they could hold on for three.
When Fu Erdie had been talking to the cubs, Spider Plant and Gardenia had originally still felt unconvinced.
They were the first batch of mutated plants too. They could also be the main force!
Because of Boss Pothos’ tyrannical pressure, they had not argued much, but deep down, they had remained unconvinced.
Now, they were finally convinced. They truly could not do what Pothos did: restrain the earth-type ability user while also dragging away the wind-type ability user.
The fire-type reacted very quickly. He reached back and grabbed the wind-type’s collar, pulling him outward with force.
The healer and the water-type ability user also came over to help.
But without the obstruction of smoke, dust, and fire, Sang Wenhao’s bullets shot toward the two of them one after another.
The water-type ability user had a premonition ability and avoided danger in advance at the critical moment. But the healer was purely a support-type, and was shot directly through the head, collapsing to the ground.
The fire-type ability user’s heart tightened. He wanted to burn through the Pothos wrapped around the wind-type companion’s leg.
But the healer was already dead. If he burned Pothos now, he would definitely burn the wind-type’s leg along with it.
“Burn it!” the wind-type shouted.
He was about to die. What did one leg matter?
The fire-type gritted his teeth. First, he released fire to create smoke and dust to block the line of sight, then he burned the wind-type’s leg.
In order to save himself, the wind-type tried his best to guide the flames deeper into the vines.
At that moment, he especially hated himself. Why had he not practised wind blades first? Why had he listened to the boss and focused on creating violent gusts, that kind of wide-range attack? Now that the boss was not beside him, he was no different from fish on a chopping board!
By now, he had already forgotten how many lives his team had taken, how many supplies they had destroyed, and how many benefits they had gained through countless acts of murder and arson using this large-scale destructive ability.
Hearing the commotion, the boss felt irritated, but he had no choice but to come back and save them.
If the ordinary strength and speed ability users in the team died, replacements could quickly be found. But these so-called “core members” were not so easy to replace!
He had not expected that when there clearly was not much danger, even leaving them in the rear could still result in trouble!
It was bad enough that the wind-type and fire-type had gotten into trouble themselves, but they had even failed to protect the healer! If he got injured in the future, there would be no one left to treat him!
The boss was burning with rage. In a few steps, he came forward to pull the man back.
Yet at that exact instant, the fire-type loosened his grip.
After two of Pothos’s leaves were burned away, it swiftly extended a third leaf and, with lightning speed, dragged the person into the underground hole and disappeared.
The boss was shocked and furious. No longer caring about anything else, he punched toward the place where Pothos had vanished.
But Pothos was too fast. It dragged the wind-type, who was practically being buried alive, deeper underground.
The wind-type’s ability, which had already been more than half depleted earlier, circulated frantically. He wanted to blow Pothos away or overturn the layer of soil above his head.
However, the little wind he barely managed to stir up not only failed to blow away the soil pressing in from all directions, but instead made it even harder for him to breathe.
He was dragged along like a lump of rotten meat, clods of earth scraping across his head and face as they rapidly retreated past him.
Finally, his nose and mouth were filled entirely with soil. His oxygen deprivation had also reached its limit, and his whole face twisted hideously as he suffocated to death.
In front of Building Seven, the gang’s boss and the earth-type ability user blasted and overturned the ground in every possible way.
But the tunnels had been created by the plants. They extended in all directions, with holes everywhere. They had no idea where the plants had taken the wind-type ability user.
The earth-type was especially angry. He slapped the fire-type ability user on the head. “Why did you let go!”
The slap landed. The fire-type ability user, who had been standing blankly in place since just now, tilted his head. It drooped strangely to one side, as if he had no cervical spine at all.
Soon, pulled by the weight of his head, his entire body also lost balance and fell sideways, collapsing to the ground.
His body was like a sandbag wrapped in human skin. Unexpectedly, it “rippled” slightly. A few dandelion fluff seeds drifted out from his ears and nose. Because his mouth had opened slightly, some of the fluffy matter inside also leaked out.
His eyes were wide open, as if he were still frozen in the moment when he had been trying to pull the wind-type ability user out.
But clearly, he was already dead.
After a moment of silence, the metal-type ability user, slightly hoarse, slowly said, “Weren’t those dandelions burned?”
Fu Erdie smiled.
As if responding to her words, she deliberately let go of the Pothos she had been holding, grabbed a handful of dandelion “heads,” and scattered those ordinary dandelion fluffs downward.
The dandelion seeds drifted in the air, floating for a long time before leisurely landing on the group’s heads, as if saying: How could there only be that little bit of dandelion?
And even the dandelions behind them that they thought had already died had now revived and begun producing new seeds~
Fu Erdie did not know how much she looked like a villain as she smiled down at the ability users from the window above. She only felt exhilarated.
So it turned out that she and her cubs were no longer the fragile existences they had once been, helpless and at the mercy of others.
The number one gang in University Town? So what?
She had her cubs, who could tank, fight, and feel no pain. She had herself, like half a healer plus a backup battery. She had the little old lady, who, although elderly, had always been doing whatever logistics work she could. And she had Student Sang, who, even when he did not agree, would still respect and follow her choice.
For the first time in a true sense, she realised that she had become stronger.
But now was not yet the time to celebrate.
More than half of this twenty-two-person team had died. Six ability users remained: the strength-type boss who could overcome all tricks with brute force, the metal-type ability user who focused heavily on attack rather than agility, the stone-type ability user who could petrify himself, the plant-type ability user who had not yet revealed their ability, the earth-type ability user who used earth shields, and the water-type ability user who had already hidden away.
“Let me guess what you’re thinking,” Fu Erdie said softly. “Are you deciding that I’m too hard a bone to gnaw and you should stop in time, or do you think the sunk cost is already too high, so no matter what, you must take this place?”
Through the binoculars, looking at the boss’s fierce, fleshy face full of hostility, Fu Erdie gave a definite answer: “Most likely, you’re still going to come up. Perfect. I don’t want to let you leave either. Cubs, are you ready to eat?”
Every plant had left leaves or roots in Unit 16-10, where Fu Erdie was currently located. Hearing this, they all cheered and waved excitedly. The dandelion even squeezed out a large clump of fluff very appropriately, as if celebrating with streamers and ribbons.
Fu Erdie smiled. She placed her hand on Pothos and Succulent’s roots. Her smile faded, and her expression turned cold.
“Then come.”
Just as Fu Erdie had guessed, the boss did not want to give up this place.
In the past, the wind-type and fire-type had always led the charge. After they had beaten the enemy into disarray, the others would then step in and harvest the results.
In truth, from the boss’s perspective, the wind-type and fire-type were both half-baked. They could only deal with ordinary zombies and people who were not very powerful. In the end, the real damage still depended on him.
Now that those half-baked ones were all dead, he was heartbroken that so much of his power had evaporated in an instant, but he still felt that he was the true main force in battle. He believed he could take this place down and seize the resources inside.
Even if he could not seize them, he would do his best to destroy this place, just as he had done countless times before. If he could not have it, he would burn it all down.
The reason they had become the number one ability-user team in University Town was precisely because of this mad style of doing things.
Other forces and teams would avoid them if they could, which led to them becoming an existence that could run rampant throughout University Town.
“Block your ears and noses. Wear your face cloths properly.” The boss skilfully tore a strip of cloth from the fire-type ability user’s corpse and tied it over his face like a mask. Then he casually tore a few more strips and stuffed them into his ears.
“Walk together. If you encounter plants, break free quickly. If you can’t break them, call metal over to cut them. Understood?”
“Understood!”
Aside from the water-type ability user, whose whereabouts were unknown, the remaining five ability users continued moving forward. Under their tight defence, Pothos tried several times to find an opportunity, but each attempt was swiftly cut off by the metal-type woman.
However, when they reached a spot five metres from the entrance of Building Seven, they entered the cucumber and tomato vine zone. The instant the whole group stepped inside, their feet were entangled by vines twisting in all kinds of complicated directions.
The ability users had never imagined that, besides the dandelions, Pothos, Spider Plant, and that one unnamed plant they had already seen—Gardenia: Excuse you?—there were actually vines too!
How many kinds of plants could the other side control?!
Ideally, no matter how many plants there were, the metal-type could cut them all open with metal, just as she had handled Pothos earlier.
But at some unknown point, the air had become filled with a strong gardenia fragrance. The metal-type felt a slight sense of weakness. In just that short moment, her feet were entangled, and her hand was also grabbed again by Pothos.
A long, reed-like plant stabbed out from the ground, shooting straight toward her throat. Bullets also took the opportunity to fire rapidly toward them.
The boss was the first to forcibly snap the vines apart. He told the others to crouch down and dodge the bullets, while he himself stepped forward and tore apart the Pothos wrapped around the earth-type’s hand.
The moment he grabbed it, he clearly felt that Pothos was different from the plants they had dealt with earlier. It was stronger and tougher. Even the boss had to use eighty percent of his strength to tear the entire leaf apart.
The group dodged the first wave of bullets in a chaotic scramble. The earth-type finally had a chance to use an earth shield. The shield rose from behind them in a half-arched shape, covering everyone inside and leaving only the front facing Building Seven’s entrance open.
At that point, Fu Erdie could no longer see them.
“We’re going downstairs.”
Sang Wenhao nodded. Holding her hand, he jumped down from the back of the building and landed on the ground floor, directly opposite the boss and the others.
She could not see the other side, and the other side could not see her either.
Fu Erdie would not show herself. She simply found a position where she could see the situation outside the entrance and placed a Bluetooth monitor there, while she hid in a corner and observed the battle at any time.
At that moment, the boss had already torn apart all the Pothos on the ability users’ bodies, while the vines around their feet had all been cut cleanly by the metal-type. They were rushing toward the entrance.
Fu Erdie was very clear that if this boss could destroy buildings, as Sang Wenhao had said, then Building Seven definitely could not withstand that kind of destruction!
If he determined that he could not occupy the building, and if he happened to be indoors, there was a strong chance he would punch a load-bearing wall, run out in the second before the building collapsed, and leave her with a ruined Building Seven.
She could not let him come in!
“Succulent, out of everyone, prioritise the boss. Don’t let him enter Building Seven.”
“Sang Wenhao, go hold the boss back. Don’t fight him head-on. Just kite him. Every time he tries to help his teammates or attack the building or Succulent, attack him and lure him outward. Hold on. I’ll deal with the others first.”
Sang Wenhao gave an “mm,” placed the gun beside Fu Erdie, and went out bare-handed.
Fu Erdie looked at the surveillance screen on her phone. Almost all of these people had very strong defences. The cucumbers and tomatoes could entangle them, but they could not cause damage. Even Millet, the hardest and most offensive among them, could only barely create scratches. It looked frightening, but there was no effective damage.
The other plants also worked hard to twist the ability users’ ankles or reach for their necks. But without exception, either they were blocked by the boss, the stone-type, and the earth-type’s extremely strong defences and could not twist anything at all, or they were cut off in one slash by the highly offensive metal-type.
Fu Erdie repeated the old trick and had Pothos pull people into the underground tunnels. But this time, all of the opponents were on guard. One person held onto another, and no one was dragged away.
Fu Erdie used her ability on Pothos, constantly replenishing its energy, consuming her own condition to maintain Pothos’s state during the repeated push-and-pull.
But just the two of them, she and Pothos, could not pull that many people.
Sang Wenhao arrived and started fighting the boss.
The metal-type on the other side followed to chase him.
As for the remaining ability users, Fu Erdie and Pothos still could not pull them away.
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