Chapter 105: Destination: Bliss! p1
“Shit!”
“Thump—”
With a curse, the naked Voodoo Cult Awakened rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding being trampled.
But the force of the impact still sent her tumbling, the white spores kicked up by the massive foot coating her face.
Lin Jiayao didn’t stop her attack.
As the woman rolled, she brought her left foreleg down on the Blood Mantis.
“Buzz—”
But the mantis was too fast.
Its crystalline wings buzzed as it flew, easily avoiding the slow-moving leg and heading towards the center of Lin Jiayao’s underbelly, the circular mass supported by her four legs.
The Blood Mantis’s speed was a stark contrast to Lin Jiayao’s sluggish movements.
This body had no eyelids; she could only watch as the mantis flew towards one of her eyes.
“Slash—”
“Splat—”
The mantis’s blade sliced through a glowing green eye, and the oozing sap, solidifying mid-air, formed several dangling vines.
Just as it was about to attack the other eye, a long, creaking sound, like an old wooden door opening, echoed from Lin Jiayao’s twisted, branch-like limbs.
The sound made the Blood Mantis hesitate.
And then, Lin Jiayao’s limbs buckled, twisting in different directions, the massive, disc-like structure at their center, her “head,” falling rapidly.
“Buzz—”
The Blood Mantis, realizing the danger, tried to escape, its wings buzzing frantically, but the massive disc was already upon it.
Lin Jiayao’s vision, her body now falling rapidly towards the ground, like a drop tower ride.
“Boom—”
The Blood Mantis, pinned beneath her, was crushed against the ground as Lin Jiayao’s massive body landed, the impact shaking the ground, scattering spores and dust.
The agile mantis, directly beneath her, was pulverized, only a few fragments remaining.
“What the… fuck…?”
The Voodoo Cult leader, who had rolled twenty meters away, stared at the massive, disc-shaped creature formed by intertwined branches and vines, her heart pounding.
She was starting to regret her plan to burn this building-tree.
She had a feeling that both the green, flying zombie bird and this giant “disc” were guardians of this forest.
The building-trees shared nutrients through their interconnected roots and vines and the fungal colonies growing on them, even animating corpses to defend themselves…
It was a vast, interconnected organism, its sheer scale daunting.
Yes, she suspected the building-trees weren’t independent entities… they were all part of a single, massive organism.
And judging by the reanimated corpse, both the zombie bird and this “wooden disc” were controlled by someone.
A preposterous thought struck her.
Could it be… that this entire area was controlled by a single individual?
No… that’s impossible…
She was shocked by her own thought, but the evidence pointed in that direction.
Controlling such a vast urban jungle… that was beyond the capabilities of even a B-rank Awakened…
Could it be…
A legendary…
A-rank?!
The thought took root in her mind.
She imagined herself, her own abilities, and realized that controlling an entire city’s worth of interconnected flora would require… A-rank power.
Shit… I can’t win!
“Creak—”
“Crack, crack, crack…”
The fallen wooden disc’s massive, broken limbs were slowly straightening, lifting it.
Two forelegs had already lifted the disc slightly, the ring of glowing green eyes beneath it staring at the naked B-rank Awakened.
“Shit… shit… shit!!!”
A familiar terror, not the exciting thrill of battle, but the cold dread of facing an unstoppable force, washed over her.
It crushed her fighting spirit. She finally understood why the Boss had warned her to avoid Yun Province, even when flying.
Curiosity killed the cat.
She looked at the downed “plane” not far away.
The pilot, his face covered in blood, had just emerged from the insect’s neck, confused by the dust and white particles in the air.
Obscured by the dust cloud, he hadn’t seen the massive, disc-shaped monster rising behind him, its ring of eyes gleaming in the mist.
“Don’t just stand there, idiot! Run!”
“Shhh—”
The woman ripped a bone fragment from her necklace and stabbed it into her left arm, blood splattering across the bone.
A two-meter-tall, upright lizard, its size relatively small due to the limited amount of blood used, quickly materialized. She jumped onto its back and, like a knight on a charging steed, rode towards the downed aircraft.
The running lizard kicked up a cloud of white spores, like exaggerated cartoon speed lines.
The pilot, alerted, finally turned and saw the monstrous figure rising behind him. His eyes widened.
He scrambled back inside the giant insect and closed the bone plates.
“Buzz—”
Black and White’s massive wings began to vibrate, the wind scattering the spores.
“Motherfucker…” The woman cursed, seeing the pilot trying to escape. Just as the insect was about to take off, the lizard leaped, carrying her onto the insect’s back.
Gripping the bone plates, she climbed inside Black and White’s abdomen, towards an unconscious, mangled figure near the back.
The figure’s arms were wrapped around a case of blood crystal stones. She needed those.
Holding the blood crystals, she felt a wave of relief, the incessant buzzing of the insect’s wings no longer as annoying.
Looking down through the gaps in the bone plates, she could see the giant wooden disc tilting upwards, its eyes fixed on her.
Like a crab straining to reach something above it.
Thankfully, Black and White was fast, quickly ascending beyond the “crab’s” reach.
“Damn it… that was close…”
Seeing that the creature’s branches couldn’t reach them, she relaxed slightly, her pounding heart slowing.
Next time, I’ll definitely listen to the Boss… no more questioning her orders…
“Crack, crack—”
Suddenly, Black and White lurched violently. The woman grabbed the nearest support, the case of blood crystals slipping from her grasp, most of them scattering through the gaps in the bone plates.
“What’s happening?!”
She shouted towards the “cockpit,” but there was no response.
And the deafening buzzing of wings had stopped.
“Fucking hell…” She cursed again, her only way to express her fear.
Climbing out through a gap in the plates, she saw the horrifying scene.
Black and White had indeed taken flight, ascending rapidly to about thirty meters.
But then its wings had become entangled in the vines connecting the surrounding buildings, like a giant net.
It had been able to break through the vines during its descent, using gravity, but now, panicked and entangled, it couldn’t even move.
And Lin Jiayao, having taken the Blood Crystal Combat Stimulant earlier, watched the trapped insect from below, a cold smile on her face.
Good… you almost got away…
She hadn’t expected the B-rank Awakened to try and escape. After all, she knew that her own strength, even in this massive form, was barely equivalent to a peak C-rank.
It was mainly her size that made her seem so powerful.
Had the Awakened been injured?
This… was an opportunity she wouldn’t miss.
And she now had a better understanding of the building-trees.
She had initially thought she’d logged into a part of the tree itself, hence the energy transfer.
But she had been wrong.
She had logged into one of the countless semi-animate corpses attached to the tree, kept alive by a trickle of nutrients.
There were many such zombies, barely alive, and in times of danger, the tree would pump them full of nutrients.
These revitalized zombies, naturally, wouldn’t attack the tree, but would instead target humans – they weren’t capable of complex emotions like revenge.
And after killing their targets, drawn by the tree’s sap, they would return to feed, only to be drained again, a continuous cycle.
So, she was just one of the tree’s countless tools, its guardians.
But during the fire, as one of the few mobile zombies on the otherwise barren tree, she had been chosen, infused with a massive amount of the tree’s sap, her body merging with the tree, transforming into this giant, disc-like creature.
If the threat had persisted, the tree would have likely created more of these massive “guardians” to defend itself.
After all, regardless of how much energy it expended on these guardians, the energy would eventually return to the tree.
Like the other zombies, it hadn’t considered the possibility of a unique zombie like her… leaving.
Just like the mindless zombies at her initial spawn point hadn’t questioned why a creature with a similar aura was crushing their heads.
So, she’d been turned into a guardian, infused with a massive amount of energy, enough to fill half her warehouse with blood crystals, if only it were transferable.
She wondered if this sap could be converted into blood crystals.
If so, she would log into Yun Province every day, burn down trees, and harvest their guardians.
Lin Jiayao stood up, her massive form towering over the building-trees.
But she was still too short to reach the trapped insect, and she couldn’t see what was happening up there.
She leaned back against the building-tree, her two hind legs planted firmly on the ground, her forelegs raised high, like a spider preparing to strike.
This position allowed her to reach the insect above.
She slowly closed her massive forelegs around the trapped insect.
The insect, sensing its fate, struggled frantically, its abdomen pulsing, a blood crystal seemingly falling from it.
But Lin Jiayao didn’t bother trying to catch it.
“Crack—”
She squeezed, and the ten-meter-long insect snapped in half.
With a shriek, its body disintegrated mid-air, the human inside falling.
“Roar—”
A massive, five-meter wingspan Blood Crystal Bird materialized, catching the falling woman in its claws, its wings barely supporting their combined weight as it glided towards the ground.
But its massive, sharp wings weren’t designed for carrying passengers; they were meant for firing feather projectiles.
It struggled to stay aloft, slowly descending.
And as they fell, a shadow passed over them.
Both the giant bird and the woman looked up, despair filling the Awakened’s heart, as a massive, toothed wheel descended upon them.
“Boom—”
“Crack, crack, crack—”
Lin Jiayao’s massive head crushed the bird and the B-rank Awakened against the ground, her maw rotating like a giant meat grinder, grinding flesh, bone, moss, and fungus into a pulpy mass.
After a while, the grinding stopped, and Lin Jiayao, raising her massive body, looked down at the ground.
A brownish-green puddle of gore, a mixture of earth, concrete, moss, fungus, vines, and blood.
Not even a recognizable corpse remained.
A B-rank Awakened, so easily defeated.
Unheard of.
But not impossible. A human, severely injured in a fall, facing a seemingly invincible opponent with an endless supply of energy from the building-tree…
If anyone was to blame, it was the Awakened’s own arrogance.
Venturing into unfamiliar territory, without even bothering to bring a backup energy source, emerging from her flying transport, naked and vulnerable…
Without a readily available energy source…
Unless it was a physically enhanced B-rank capable of escaping quickly, there was no way to defeat her, not when she had access to practically unlimited energy from the building-tree.
Home-field advantage.
After the battle, Lin Jiayao began to search for blood crystals.
She had no hands, but she had the safehouse. Anything she touched could be stored inside.
Soon, all four slots were filled.
To make space, she even consumed one of the Blood Crystal Combat Stimulants.
But she couldn’t carry any more.
She had no hands.
After a moment of thought, Lin Jiayao, experienced in controlling various non-humanoid forms, devised a solution.
Using her four limbs, she scraped the blood crystal-rich earth into a pile.
Then, she stood on top of the pile, tilted her body, lowered her massive head, and swallowed the entire pile whole.
“Boom—”
Dust and debris flew everywhere. After consuming the pile, she stood up and looked towards the extraction point.
「Extraction Time: 00:33:21」
【Extraction Point: 18km】
Although the fight had been short, she’d lost valuable time.
And the extraction point was almost twenty kilometers away!
Could she make it?
She felt a surge of anxiety, her mouth filled with blood crystals.
She hadn’t felt this anxious even when facing the B-rank Awakened. Back then, even if the zombie died, her main body would still be safe.
But these blood crystals, if she couldn’t extract with them, they would be lost.
As she straightened up, she noticed something else.
The building-tree, where she’d emerged from, now had a massive hole in it, shaped like her former body.
And from the broken vines within the hole flowed a thick, emerald green sap.
An almost uncontrollable urge to move towards that sap, to consume it, washed over her.
Even with her mouth full of blood crystals, she wanted to… merge with the tree and drink its sap.
Thankfully, Lv.2 Vigor allowed her to resist the urge.
And the pull from the building-tree confirmed her earlier suspicion.
Her current form was a reusable guardian created by the building-tree zombie.
These mindless guardians, after consuming any threats, would return to the tree, their blood crystals and bodies reabsorbed, becoming a part of it again.
If she had gone back and merged with the tree, she wouldn’t be able to extract.
But Lin Jiayao wasn’t a mindless zombie.
Ignoring the gently swaying vines, reaching out like a mother offering sustenance to her child, she turned and ran towards the extraction point.
Sorry, gotta run.
Fueled by the Blood Crystal Combat Stimulant, her speed had increased significantly.
Each step created a tremor, the ground shaking beneath her massive feet.
The building-tree, its vines waving forlornly, didn’t pursue. It simply absorbed the remaining blood, bone fragments, and scattered blood crystals from the ground with its roots.
Like a devoted husband, working diligently to support his family, even after his wife had run off with someone else.
Of course, it had no such complex emotions.
As long as its guardian remained within the city, it considered it to still be under its control.
Just relocated to another building – many of the damaged building-trees had been “repaired” this way, their missing parts grafted onto others.
Lin Jiayao felt like a child who’d stuffed her mouth with candy, running away from her parents.
But strangely, the surrounding building-trees didn’t try to stop her, their vines even parting to make way for her.
Did they still think she was one of their “guardians”?
Not wanting to question their motives, Lin Jiayao just wanted to reach the extraction point and leave.
She hadn’t counted the blood crystals in her mouth, but there were at least twenty.
And the B-rank Awakened’s… remains… mixed with the tree’s sap, hadn’t yielded any blood crystals, which disappointed her slightly.
But she didn’t have time to investigate now; she would have to study the blood-soaked lump later.
She had a feeling that a B-rank Awakened’s remains, even just a puddle of gore, would be useful.
And she didn’t find the taste… unpleasant.
Because in this body, she felt no pain, her senses dulled.
And taste… what taste? She had none.
Without taste, without even the feeling of something in her mouth, there was no nausea or disgust.
And fueled by the Combat Stimulant, she ran even faster. She hadn’t thought she could cover 18 kilometers in half an hour, but her massive legs, each stride covering an incredible distance, made it possible. She was even faster than a Sprinter.
That was the advantage of size.
She reached the extraction point ten minutes early.
Seeing it, she paused.
It was on the edge of a district in Kun City, near the city limits.
But it was still within the range of the building-trees and their vines, and the extraction point… was a thirty-meter-tall office building.
There was a ten-meter-wide hole in the middle of the building.
As if sensing her approach, the vines within the hole extended towards her, dripping sap.
This… is the extraction point?
If I merge with this, will I be able to emerge in this same form later?
Lin Jiayao was hesitant; she didn’t want to lose this powerful body.
In this environment, it was her strongest zombie.
But away from the building-trees, without their sap, she probably wouldn’t be a match for A4.
She didn’t know if Mask could replace its massive head. If so, then Mask wouldn’t be a match for it either.
And Goldie… Goldie’s base form was too weak. Without controlling a powerful zombie, she would be easily crushed by this building-tree guardian.
After circling the building, confirming the hole was indeed the extraction point, she looked at the blood crystals in her mouth and then lowered her body, entering the hole.
She couldn’t risk losing them.
Her massive body didn’t fit completely inside, making the building-tree look like it had a large, protruding growth.
But the vines were already intertwining with her body.
[Extracting: 7.9]
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