Chapter 481: Mutated Ape
Without hesitation, he decided to detour and avoid them — and thus didn’t witness the battle’s end: the long-armed mutant ape killing the black bear and claiming its crystal core.
The ape shoved the fist-sized crystal core, still dripping with flesh, into its mouth. But just as it did, something else caught its attention — something even more enticing. Its gaze turned in the direction Liu Rui had fled.
Moments later, gripping a tree branch in one hand, it silently swung after him.
Despite its massive size, the ape was incredibly agile. Just as Liu Rui was about to climb a tree to reorient himself, he sensed a hostile water current hurtling toward him.
At first, he thought it might be a teammate and was momentarily relieved — but as he dodged and looked back, he saw a wounded, mutated ape staring at him.
They were close enough that Liu Rui could clearly see the ape’s scar-covered body. With its fur torn off, every mark on its skin was a testament to countless brutal battles.
Liu Rui’s heart skipped a beat.
The ape lunged at him with abnormal speed. Its grotesquely long arms reached out, and with dense forest behind him, there was nowhere to escape.
Reacting quickly, Liu Rui fired three fireballs — each the size of a ping pong ball — from his body. One targeted the ape’s outstretched hand, another went for its legs, and the third shot toward the vine it was swinging from.
Though the ape was highly intelligent, defending against three attacks at once still left it vulnerable. It sensed the threat to its hand first. As the fireball hissed and scorched its thick fur, it registered the pain too late. The fireball had already begun to burn into its flesh.
The ape snarled, baring bloody fangs, and tried to shake it off — but only forced the fireball deeper. Then the second fireball struck the vine-holding hand, making it release its grip. It plummeted from the air with a massive crash, the impact shaking the ground beneath Liu Rui.
The earth felt as if it had softened.
Enraged, the ape used water energy to forcibly expel the burning fireballs from its body.
When the concentrated fireballs hit flesh, they could instantly melt the skin. Combined with water, they turned into boiling liquid — and Liu Rui watched in horror as the ape’s wounded flesh turned pale and lifeless, looking like it had been cooked.
His gut twisted.
He couldn’t tell what level the mutant ape was, but its ruthless reaction and terrifying strength filled him with unease.
He hesitated. Should he run, or fight?
Running might mean losing Xu Sa’s direction — or worse, even if he was still on track, he might lead the beast straight to Xu Sa’s location. Then the two of them would have to face it together…
While he was still debating, the ape beat its chest and let out a deafening roar toward the sky. Baring its teeth, it charged at Liu Rui. At the same time, the moisture in the air condensed into a dome-like water barrier, trapping him inside.
Liu Rui immediately summoned a fire dragon to swirl around his body. Steam hissed and billowed as water droplets burst and scattered, and wherever they landed on his clothes, a blister would form instantly.
This was the first time Liu Rui had ever felt burned since awakening his fire ability. Ignoring the new waves of pain, he suddenly unleashed a massive fire dragon, charging straight toward the mutated ape.
The ape, having just suffered from the fire earlier, dodged instinctively. Disordered water arrows blocked part of the attack, and a water shield formed mid-air stopped most of the fire dragon — but hidden within the flames were fireballs of varying sizes that pierced the shield and shot toward the ape.
The mutated ape retreated at once, but Liu Rui, knowing full well this was no easy opponent, had already set the underbrush ablaze in a circle around them. Enhanced by his ability, the flames burned quickly despite the damp and shadowy forest, and in an instant, the ape’s long fur caught fire.
Its entire coat curled up in flames. The ape surrounded itself in a layer of water to protect its body and launched a brute-force assault toward Liu Rui, swinging a massive arm at his head.
Knowing he couldn’t win in a direct fight, Liu Rui turned and fled, dodging between trees that were being knocked down or even uprooted entirely by the ape’s rampage.
As he ran, he continued to launch fireballs backward. Enraged, the ape became more reckless. Alongside its thundering steps came floating droplets of water in the air — first the size of pinheads, then growing to full drops.
Liu Rui had seen his teammate Ning Yuan, one of the strongest water-type ability users, use this very move. When thousands of water droplets spun at high speed and struck a zombie, it would be instantly turned into a sieve.
Having already spent the whole night fighting, Liu Rui was running low on both stamina and energy. After multiple clashes with the mutated ape, his power was nearly drained. Even when he sensed the looming danger and tried to summon a protective shield, only a faint amount of power responded. He started to doubt he could get out alive.
Then, as the ape uprooted yet another tree, the ground beneath them began to tremble. Liu Rui looked down in confusion — a huge crack was forming in the earth in the direction he and the ape had come from. Soil and vegetation tumbled into the gap. Reacting quickly, he grabbed a hanging vine and anchored himself.
The mutated ape, however, fell straight through as it landed — its flailing arms tried to catch onto something, but everything it grabbed crumbled with it.
The sudden cave-in disrupted its ability. Liu Rui barely had time to catch his breath when he felt his backpack being yanked with tremendous force, dragging him down into the abyss…
*
The pull behind him was intense. Even though Liu Rui was clinging tightly to the thick vine, he was still being dragged downward — vine and all. His fire ability was useless here. He looked up toward the sky through the dense canopy, but not a sliver of light made it through the mist.
Below, the sound of the mutated ape hitting the ground echoed up. One of its hands was still gripping Liu Rui’s backpack, dragging him down. It was only about ten or so meters — not far for a mutant ape, but for a human, a fall from that height could be fatal.
He wondered:
Would he die from the fall?
Could a healer reach him in time?
Would he… ever see Xu Sa again?
Tears slid from the corner of his eyes. It seemed he wouldn’t get the chance to face the apocalypse with him.
Liu Rui struggled, but his strength was fading. As the gap between him and the surface widened, just before he gave in and closed his eyes in surrender, a finely sculpted face appeared before him.
Liu Rui’s eyes flew open wide in disbelief as he murmured, “Sa-ge…”
“Drop the bag!” Xu Sa shouted. He was hanging upside down from a tree by a rope and fired a thick bolt of lightning straight at the ape’s arm that was gripping Liu Rui.
After absorbing lightning all night, Xu Sa’s power had largely recovered.
He had been hanging in a tree for a long time and had naturally noticed flashes of fire in the distance. If he was unsure at first, once the fire kept approaching his location, he became certain it was a teammate.
Of the group that had gone out together, only three people had fire abilities. But the style and coordination with lightning told him it could only be Liu Rui.
In this environment — so ill-suited for traversal — any trained soldier would’ve stopped and waited for help. Only someone like Liu Rui, lacking survival experience, would charge headfirst toward him without hesitation.
Xu Sa placed a hand over his pounding heart, thumping as if it would leap from his chest. His blood surged hot in his veins despite having been soaked by rain all night.
A few years ago, he would never have imagined that a shy stutterer could make his heart race like this.
But it was precisely this person — reckless and relentless — who showed him he had been chosen without hesitation, no matter the cost.
Xu Sa couldn’t help but smile.
Faced with the choice between staying put or risking everything to meet him halfway, Liu Rui had chosen the latter — even with half a mountain between them.
The thunder had faded, but balls of electricity still flickered among the treetops, guiding the way.
Xu Sa descended and cleared the area, littered with animals killed by lightning. He picked out a few small, half-roasted ones, endured their blandness to fill his belly, then saved some for when Liu Rui arrived so they could eat together. Afterward, he climbed back up the tree and resumed emitting lightning intermittently.
A few hours later, when he saw the fire-based powers flickering far less frequently, he knew Liu Rui was nearly out of energy.
He had landed in a large tree, and with the storm helping him, the lightning had driven away all the nearby threats. He hadn’t even had a chance to realize how dangerous this place really was.
Seeing that Liu Rui — even as an S-rank ability user — had only covered half the distance in several hours, Xu Sa immediately decided to go get him.
By the time the mutated ape and black bear were fighting, Xu Sa had already covered most of the distance. Though he also encountered numerous mutated beasts, his lightning ability was highly effective against them. With electricity constantly surrounding him, he didn’t have to fight desperately — his knife didn’t even taste blood, only collecting goo from insects and vines along the way.
Realizing that Liu Rui was heading in that direction, Xu Sa picked up his pace while continuously absorbing the crystal nuclei Lu Xiao had given him before departure.
Though using them early meant it might be difficult for the two of them to replenish their powers later — making survival in this environment even harder — Xu Sa felt incredibly fortunate to have arrived in time.
Animals have an innate fear of lightning. Once mutated and more intelligent, they would rarely confront it directly. The moment lightning got close, the mutated ape instinctively withdrew. But Xu Sa still directed bolts of lightning at it.
The lightning, reaching into the underground, lit up a small section of the cavern below, revealing to Xu Sa an underground river, a cave full of stalactites, and sharp stone spikes rising like spears from the cave floor.
