Chapter 377: Rat Horde
That skysc.r.a.per alone could accommodate thousands of people living and working there at the same time. If it collapsed, the consequences would be unimaginable.
Besides, the financial district near the river had loads of skysc.r.a.pers. If one collapsed, it might end up crashing into other buildings and create a chain reaction. No one could calculate just how many innocents would end up dead.
Fortunately, before the creature completely ate up the foundation of the building, it was discovered by an observant superhuman.
Since he strengthened the foundation in time and sent the people away, the attack did not result in any deaths.
But since a lot of time was wasted on saving lives, the attacker was able to escape through the complicated underground maze.
The city was not that lucky during the attack three days later.
At that time, it was the peak hour when everyone went to work or got off work.
Subway No.5 was Dragon City’s busiest area underground. An underground train that had nearly one thousand pa.s.sengers in it was traveling forward swiftly.
Suddenly, the tunnel ahead of it collapsed. The train was caught off guard and crashed into the collapsed ground. The head of the train was completely destroyed while the carriages all left the tracks. Many of the pa.s.sengers were squashed or thrown out of the windows because of inertia. Their bones were crushed against the collapsed tunnel, and they ended up as a b.l.o.o.d.y mess.
But that was not the most terrifying thing.
Just as the survivors were howling in pain while lying in their blood, a giant appeared behind the crippled train. It opened its mouth wide and bit open a carriage. It then started eating the pa.s.sengers like a lunatic, and before the superhumans arrived, it crawled into a mysterious underground cave, where it disappeared behind countless dark forks in the tunnels.
This attack led to more than one hundred dead citizens and dozens of them missing.
But the “disappearance” basically meant that they were in the belly of the creature.
Based on the monitors in the subway and the panicked looks on the citizens’ faces, which were recorded by the CCTVs, their attacker was Gao Ye, the person who had disappeared for half a year.
After lurking around in the dark for half a year, he had grown even larger than before. His body was covered in spikes, and his mouth was filled with rows of teeth, all of which were as tough as steel.
Based on the speed with which he tore apart the carriage, his bite strength was comparable to a grinder, and it was far greater than a large tunnel boring machine that was the same size as he was.
A biologist also discovered a unique acid in the cave he crawled out of. It could instantly damage st.u.r.dy rocks and they would end up very brittle.
There was also an adhesive liquid secreted from its excretion pore. It was highly-efficient and could stick the earth he loosened while digging around, which would turn it into a substance as st.u.r.dy as reinforced concrete.
It was hard to imagine how Gao Ye had managed to gain this unbelievable ability in the wild through natural evolution.
The experts in the abnormal beast research department highly suspected that he was further modified by the abnormal beasts during the past half a year.
Meng Chao also felt that in this state, Gao Ye was becoming increasingly more like the Supernatural Ent.i.ty from his previous life.
Of course, due to his interference, Gao Ye had yet to reach the perfect state of the Nine Great Supernatural Ent.i.ties.
If he were the Supernatural Ent.i.ty from Meng Chao’s previous life, he would have been able to eat seven or eight train carriages.
Also, his attack of the skysc.r.a.per foundations would not have been so careless. Instead, he would have made a few buildings collapse and caused a tragedy at the level of an earthquake.
In truth, Meng Chao could remember vaguely that the Supernatural Ent.i.ty whose origin was Gao Ye was known as Earthquake.
Meng Chao could still stop him now. It was not too late yet.
Ye Xiaoxing’s Group 9 had always been in charge of Gao Ye’s case.
The elites of Group 9 formed a few hunting teams and chased after Gao Ye day and night. They also tried to stop Gao Ye’s next attack.
Meng Chao might not have been an official member of the abnormal beast research department, but he was the last person to have seen Gao Ye. Besides, he wanted to solve the Mystery of Supernatural Ent.i.ties as well, so whenever he was free, he would join the hunting team to chase clues related to Gao Ye.
They had now been chasing him for ten days.
Even though they did not manage to catch Gao Ye, they had successfully prevented him from causing more damage.
There were a few times when they caught his tail in downtown areas and facilities related to the people’s livelihood. But he always managed to break free with his powerful tunneling abilities.
However, as time pa.s.sed, the hunting team figured his movement patterns and managed to discover that he was exhausted based on how diluted his acid and adhesive liquid was. He was on the verge of collapse, and they were almost at the end of this fight of willpower and wits.
It was the eleventh day.
They were now at a large abandoned tunnel in the south of the city.
Dragon City was a 3D city that could accommodate millions of people.
Before they transmigrated, the underground was filled with air-raid shelters, basic shelters, and tunnels that were connected to all sorts of secret facilities.
After half a century’s worth of nonstop construction, destruction, abandonment, reconstruction, destruction again, and abandonment, there were now tunnels underground that were as closely packed together as in a hornet’s nest. Even the people in charge of the city construction department and engineers could not tell just how many tunnels were abandoned under Dragon City and how many abandoned shelters could be found there.
Gao Ye might have great tunneling abilities, but digging tunnels required a lot of stamina, and he also had to secrete acid and adhesive liquid far beyond what he was capable of. If he did not eat food nor was replenished by crystals for a long period of time, he would not be able to last for long.
If possible, Gao Ye would try his best to use the abandoned tunnels under Dragon City to play hide and seek with the hunters.
This was especially so after the ten days of high-intensity chase.
Since he had to drag around his huge body, he left clues whenever he pa.s.sed by abandoned tunnels.
Meng Chao woke up from his ten-minute deep meditation. The fatigue he felt from chasing after Gao Ye for eight hours was gone. He opened his eyes slowly and noticed that Lu Siya still had her b.u.t.t in the air while her ear was pressed against the wall of the underground tunnel. She was listening to the sounds coming from deep underground.
The hunts during the first few days were flashy, but the effects were not good. Ye Xiaoxing then split the hunting team into the chasers and attackers.
The chasers were formed by two investigators who were familiar with monster habits and the underground. They also had experience from being harvesters and mine explorers, so they were in charge of monitoring Gao Ye’s movements underground.
The attackers waited for orders at the highest spot at the center of the city, which was located on the surface. Once they received signals from the chasers, they would act quick and hurry to the location where Gao Ye might possibly be.
This system allowed all the members in Group 9 to avoid being exhausted from the chase and ending up ruining their own bodies before they caught Gao Ye’s tail.
Meng Chao was still partnered with Lu Siya.
One of them was a skilled harvester, and the other a mine explorer and Spirit Senser. Over the past ten days, their teamwork had gotten better, and they had brushed shoulders with Gao Ye a few times.
On that day, Meng Chao managed to find fine scratches from when Gao Ye’s spikes scratched the walls of the tunnel. Then, he chased after the faint scent of blood and discovered some tissue components from a few normal sandworms. By the looks of it, Gao Ye had stopped here to eat.
So, Lu Siya used her talents as a Spirit Sensor and focused to listen for the faintest tremors within several kilometer area.
Meng Chao brought out two high-calorie nutritional fluid bottles from his backpack and drank one. He originally did not want to bother Lu Siya, but when he saw the great puzzlement on her face, he tossed the other bottle to her and asked, “What’s wrong? Did you hear something?”
Lu Siya did not even look while casually catching the high-calorie nutritional fluid Meng Chao tossed to her. She mumbled, “It’s strange. There’s something very unusual. It doesn’t seem like the Ultimate Sandworm, but like something small. And there’s a large quant.i.ty of them...”
A faint rotten scent came from the depths of the abandoned tunnel.
Meng Chao sensed danger, and his hair rose.
Right now, even without the Spirit Sensor’s ears, he could hear screeches from the dark. He also heard the sounds of claws scratching at the walls.
“Be prepared to fight!”
Meng Chao grabbed Lu Siya and brought out a flare from the Sam Brown Belt around his thigh. He snapped it viciously and tossed it deep into the abandoned tunnel.
The flare let out hissing sounds, and the b.l.o.o.d.y red light illuminated the depths of the tunnel so much that it looked like it was daytime in there.
The light shone on thousands of furry rats with bloodshot eyes that were coming at them in a tide.
Even though they knew long ago that the abandoned tunnel would definitely be packed full of rats, the scene in front of them still made chills run down Meng Chao and Lu Siya’s spines.
The flares they used had bone powder from various monsters. When they burned, they released a pungent scent. Normally, they had an amazing effect of chasing away pests.
But the large rats with sharp spikes growing all over their bodies only widened their bloodshot eyes and rushed at them like a tidal wave.
“What’s going on?”
Meng Chao frowned a little, but he was not that concerned about the rat horde.
He held his breath and grabbed a few fire bombs to toss them over. They immediately formed a fire wall in front of them.
Countless rats died in the sea of fire, while an even larger number caught on fire. They started scrambling all over the place like fire arrows. Before they could even get half a meter within Meng Chao’s range, he tore them to shreds with a swing of his chain sabers. They were like a tornado.
Lu Siya levitated in the air and used her vitality magnetic field to resonate with the nuclear spheres of the stones to summon thin spikes that pinned the rats to the ground.
After leaving behind more than one hundred carca.s.ses, the rat horde realized just how terrifying Meng Chao and Lu Siya were. They no longer dared to bother these two demons and split up like a wave running into a skerry. Then, they started running out of the tunnel.
Meng Chao exchanged a glance with Lu Siya.
Both of them had a bad feeling.
Rat-type monsters were usually not very strong, but since there were a lot of them, they had high reproduction, and could also spread all sorts of diseases, they were often used by abnormal beasts as vanguards to disturb the order of the human defense line.
Was it a coincidence that a rat horde like this had appeared in the place where Gao Ye had pa.s.sed by?
Meng Chao used a chain saber to sweep up a rat that had not managed to flee in time.
In just a short ten seconds, he dissected it into a specimen that looked like a piece of art.
There was an unusual shade of light blue on the rat’s spine. Its brain had edema, and there were also scattered blue spots all over it.
“It looks like it’s infected by some virus.” Meng Chao dissected another rat whose limbs had been pinned by Lu Siya. It showed similar symptoms. He thought about it and said, “Big Sis Ya, do you remember that we also ran into a rat horde infected by a virus, which turned it violent, when we were looking for the out-of-control sandworms at Trash Site 4?
“That time, the rats were infected with mutated rabies. But this time, the virus they’re infected with appears to be even worse than mutated rabies...”