Chapter 240 — In the Black of Night
Luo Xun and the team had never anticipated that the true objective of the people trailing them would be the non-mutated vegetables they had liquidated. Of course, Luo Xun couldn’t entirely be blamed for this. Early on, after discovering the mutated mushrooms’ capability to absorb airborne viruses, he had been the one to report it to that expert. Although he knew that non-mutated plants still commanded an exceptionally premium value within the base hierarchy, he hadn’t expected that ordinary survivors who lacked connections in the administrative upper tier would still crave non-mutated greenery to such a desperate extent.
Furthermore, he hadn’t anticipated that the market value of normal vegetables inside the base currently would remain as outrageously high as it had in his past life.
The base administration was indeed capable of cultivating non-mutated plants, but the process was far too tedious. Not only did it require a dedicated facility, but the facility itself had to conform to specific structural parameters, and the water utilized for irrigation had to be explicitly generated by water-type superpower users. Furthermore, it required a substantial volume of timber to be placed within the planting rooms, making the daily maintenance an immense hassle. Consequently, even within the base proper, the authorities had merely partitioned a single detached high-rise to specialize in cultivating these crops, while the remaining sectors were packed to absolute capacity with mutated varieties that delivered far greater yields.
Only a select few high-ranking officials within the base hierarchy could consume ordinary vegetables, while even the silhouette of premium mutated vegetation was remarkably rare.
It was profoundly fortunate that Luo Xun and his team hadn’t let their heads run hot and brought out their household’s premium mutated crops for sale; otherwise, the faction targeting their coordinates would have vastly exceeded this single small group.
Altering their trajectory to drive due east, they forged toward a coordinate Luo Xun and the team had visited previously. The five vehicles comprising the trailing convoy shadowed them tightly, remaining safely outside Luo Xun’s visual field along the entire route. Weathering another night along the way, the opposition still displayed absolutely zero movement, appearing exactly as if they had purely happened to share an identical route by coincidence. For the sake of long-term security parameters, Luo Xun explicitly inspected every single cell phone housing a base-registered SIM card, verifying that they were completely powered off or that the chips had been systematically removed before he finally felt at ease.
By midday on the third day, concrete silhouettes gradually crystallized along the horizon, and from a distance, towering high-rises could be seen standing tall across the desolate wild.
This was the exact small township Luo Xun and the team had visited previously—the location where they had harvested little Xinran’s inflatable castle. Luo Xun and the guys recalled that an eagle nest was perched atop those soaring concrete roofs.
Steering the convoy into a sector not far from the township’s entrance, Luo Xun and the team ground their vehicles to a complete halt, first scanning left and right to verify that the immediate perimeter bore zero signs of zombies or mutated land predators before carefully stepping down from the cabs.
Luo Xun and the team weren’t entirely clear regarding what specific method the trailing convoy utilized to track the movements of their trucks, but currently, they didn’t pay the parameter much mind. Little Xinran stepped up alongside Yan Fei, the large and small silhouettes standing by the roadside as they simultaneously raised their hands.
The remaining members took up their weapons, appearing completely indifferent to the blistering sun hanging overhead and the stifling atmosphere.
Luo Xun panned his binoculars to evaluate the perimeter for a brief moment, while over on the alternative flank, Zhang Su unleashed his wind attribute to execute a sweeping scan of the surroundings. Once Luo Xun finished his observation, Zhang Su turned to note: “The immediate area bears zero issues. Those trucks have pulled over to park right at the fork along the thoroughfare we just charted.”
Luo Xun nodded slightly, turning his gaze toward Yan Fei and little Xinran.
From the coordinate where the two were standing, the pavement appeared completely standard, bearing zero visible differences from the regular asphalt. However, Luo Xun and the team could clearly perceive that little Xinran was standing beside a section of asphalt that had been half-pried open. Currently, from within the fractures of that broken asphalt, a continuous stream of subterranean sand was frantically burrowing outward, behaving exactly like a living entity under little Xinran’s precise manipulation as it flew out to blanket the surrounding pavement and thickets.
Flanking her side, Yan Fei was similarly channeling his superpower, causing a hoard of scrap metal attached to their trucks to transform into thread-thin filaments that “burrowed” straight into that structural fracture.
Although the visual effects triggered by their combined superpowers appeared remarkably unassuming on the surface, within barely ten minutes, Yan Fei indicated that the deployment was finalized.
At this moment, Zhang Su finally concluded his radar scan, pointing a finger toward a towering high-rise in a specific direction: “That coordinate shouldn’t bear major issues.”
Prior to departing from this township last time, Luo Xun and the team had deduced that humans were likely living inside the ruins. Forcing their way out on this run, they had no alternative but to lead the tail shadowing them straight to these coordinates. However, looking at the tower Zhang Su had selected, it wasn’t the exact residential compound they suspected held survivors last time, but rather a community flanking the reverse side of the main thoroughfare.
Steering the convoy into that residential compound, the group immediately selected a building that, while set back from the main thoroughfare, delivered a pristine line of sight over the road conditions. Parking the vehicles inside an alternative building positioned further back, they scaled the stairs in a rapid column, ascending to the seventh floor in a single breath before silently waiting inside.
“I evaluate that they won’t make a move during the daylight hours. We’ll monitor the layout for an hour; if they continue to show zero movement after an hour, we’ll head down to deploy alternative traps and wait for the opposition’s Hostile actions tonight.” Luo Xun and the team couldn’t verify whether the opposition possessed the capability to exclusively track their vehicles; if they could detect the physical biological signatures of human beings as well, it would turn into a significantly more troublesome affair.
Furthermore, while Zhang Su’s wind attribute delivered excellent reconnaissance parameters, it lacked counter-reconnaissance functionalities; at the very least, he was unable to deduce whether the ambient currents surrounding the team were being manipulated by an adversary, which was the direct consequence of housing far too few squad members and lacking alternative elemental users of identical classes—there was simply no method to execute comparative experiments.
Coupled with the fact that over half of the superpower users within their own ranks belonged to unconventional sub-classes, it became vastly more difficult to accurately speculate regarding the parameters of alternative elemental users.
True to form, a full hour slipped away, and those survivors still displayed zero movement. There was a high probability that the opposition hadn’t anticipated that Luo Xun and the team would reach their “destination” so rapidly, and that this target coordinate sat so close to the urban core’s entrance.
Catching that the opposition refrained from executing a hostile move, Luo Xun and the team unreservedly launched their own maneuvers. Exploiting the structural cover delivered by the surrounding buildings, they circuited back and forth through the residential compound multiple times. Yan Fei harvested scrap metal from the immediate ruins along the way while systematically deploying the material across the targeted coordinates, continuing the setup until night fell once more, after which Luo Xun and the team retreated back to their temporary shelter to consume dinner and rest.
Exactly as planned, apart from He Qiankun and Wu Xin, every single member put their heads down to sleep. If the opposition intended to execute a stealth ambush, they would bound to select the latter half of the night or the hours flanking midnight. Consequently, right now, with dusk having only just settled around eight in the evening, the opposition would absolutely refrain from making a move.
Weathering a full stretch of sleep, the group woke right as the clock hit two in the morning. Luo Xun rubbed his cheeks, reaching out to nudge Zhang Su a short distance away: “Check their coordinates.”
Zhang Su cracked his eyes half-open to let out a yawn: “Hold on, I just cast the currents out…”
A brief moment ticked by before he cracked his eyelids open a fraction more: “They haven’t executed a movement over on their flank yet.”
Luo Xun let out a slow breath. Honestly, waiting passively like this for an adversary to execute a hostile maneuver was intensely frustrating. If he hadn’t been worried about the opposition harboring some unpredictable trump card that their team couldn’t anticipate—and if he knew precisely how the opposition detected their movements—he would have explicitly deployed lethal traps midway along the highway long ago.
The group sat up to complete their final preparations, intermittently monitoring the exterior conditions along the way. Luo Xun held his binoculars, peering through a narrow slit left open by the window frame to scan the pitch-black exterior. Although the night was intensely dark and he didn’t dare deploy the infrared function of the binoculars, casually monitoring the general perimeter was still perfectly manageable.
Directing his focus toward the pavement first, after a meticulous scan verified that the asphalt bore zero anomalies, he shifted his line of sight toward those concrete towers flanking the reverse side of the thoroughfare.
When they departed from this township last time, they had detected that humans appeared to be nesting on the opposite side, but neither last time nor on this run had they truly caught sight of a single human silhouette.
Currently, his lone hope was that, no matter what, the alternative survivors holed up inside this city would refrain from stepping out to disrupt the layout at this critical junction.
“Movement.” Zhang Su, who had been leaning against the concrete wall appearing as though he had fallen back asleep, suddenly spoke up. He snapped his eyes wide open, his enchanting eyes narrowing into a squint as he let out a highly wicked, beautiful smile. “They didn’t drive their trucks; roughly sixteen or seventeen individuals stepped down from the vehicles and are breaking straight toward our coordinates on foot.”
“Did they leave anyone behind to guard the trucks?” Luo Xun didn’t find the development shocking; a combustion engine was bound to emit an operational din when moving, especially since the current road conditions were so fractured and the dead of night was intensely silent.
“There should be a few left behind; probably one or two individuals anchoring each truck.”
That meant out of the five vehicles, a total of roughly ten individuals had been left behind as a rearguard, meaning the opposition had deployed a total operational strength of roughly thirty individuals on this run. Concluding the analysis, Luo Xun ordered in a low whisper: “Weapons locked and loaded, stay focused on their silhouettes. I evaluate that they won’t approach via the main thoroughfare, but when they break to retreat, that trajectory is highly possible, so keep your sights locked on them when the time comes.”
It was entirely because the streets currently bore zero presence of zombies—and this perimeter remained relatively secure with zero immediate markers of mutated land predators—that those men possessed the courage to step down from their vehicles and execute an infiltration under the cover of night.
At this thought, Luo Xun couldn’t help but raise his head to peer toward the roofs of the concrete towers opposite their position. During the afternoon today, they had caught sight of the eagles stretching their expansive wings atop the apex, but it appeared the raptors hadn’t ventured out to hunt for prey tonight.
“Estimated clearance is roughly five minutes. Their movement velocity is exceptionally rapid; the column is bound to include a fair number of speed-type superpower users.” Zhang Su rose to his feet, gliding over to stand by the window frame. “There are wind-type users as well. The infiltration column has split into two separate factions; the vanguard column consists of roughly six individuals, comprising entirely speed-type and wind attributes, while the remaining dozen or so are trailing slightly behind.”
Luo Xun curled his lips into a smile, a flash of absolute lethality surging across his eyes as he mounted the crossbow he had held into the window frame slot.
The remaining members maintained high vigilance, tightening their grip on their respective weapons along the way.
Before long, true to form! Under the dim, filtered moonlight, a small black silhouette materialized across the pavement. Exactly as Luo Xun had predicted, they explicitly refrained from approaching straight down the main thoroughfare, choosing instead to scale the perimeter wall of the residential compound to execute a direct infiltration.
Watching two silhouettes gracefully leap over the barrier, their forms cloaked in a faint, light-green elemental shimmer, Luo Xun recognized that these two individuals mapped onto the vanguard wind-type superpower users.
The moment the two landed inside the perimeter wall, they rapidly scanned the conditions within the residential compound before dropping a line of rope to haul the trailing four individuals over the wall.
The subsequent four speed-type superpower users scaled down the interior facade, cautiously creeping deeper into the residential tracks to conduct a preliminary reconnaissance scan.
The rearguard column arrived at the coordinates in succession, systematically scaling the wall via the ropes deployed by the twin wind-users.
Zhang Su narrowed his eyes slightly: “Three of their members have anchored themselves strictly outside the perimeter wall.”
Hearing the update, Yan Fei let out a soft chuckle: “I’ll process those three.”
Luo Xun had already raised his crossbow to his eye, his heart completely tranquil without a single trace of an emotional ripple. The moment those initial four scouts penetrated deep into the residential blocks, crouching down to meticulously scan their immediate surroundings, suddenly! A succession of cold, razor-sharp bolts violently tore straight toward their coordinates!
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