Plants

At that moment, when Yu Jing's unfocused eyes reflexively looked back at the butcher behind him, the other man made an incomprehensible move, using the crude needle and thread he carried to stitch up Yu Jing's back wound.

"Why..." Yu Jing could not understand the reason, but if his will had not been strong enough, he would probably have passed out long ago.

His gaze grew increasingly unfocused. Before he lost consciousness, Yu Jing used all his strength to cough out the blood in his mouth and shout, "Jiang... Tian! Don't come out!"

That shout, which had taken all his strength, caused the stitched wound on his back to split open again. An unbelievable wave of pain immediately plunged Yu Jing into darkness, and he lost consciousness.

While the testing at the institute was underway.

In a desert region more than two hundred kilometers outside the A-Class City, numerous armed helicopters circled overhead. Directly below them lay a massive crater resembling a meteor impact site, spanning over ten thousand meters.

Forty-eight hours had passed since the incident. Armed forces and scientists dispatched from District 19, District 18, and District 17 had gathered in the desert, establishing camps and related facilities within a ten-kilometer radius to collect information.

The currently confirmed information was that the impact object was indeed some kind of meteorite. However, life-sign detectors had discovered intense biological activity at the impact site, and a large number of caves remained at the very bottom of the crater.

A total of thirteen small squads had been sent deep into the various caves at the bottom of the crater, attempting to find traces of some "visitor from beyond the stars." After all, there was an intense reaction of life in this desert, which was commonly used for nuclear testing. At the very least, ordinary humans could not survive here... with the exception of certain superhumans, of course.

One team, consisting of ten armed personnel and three scientists, had already ventured into one of the caves for five hours. They had reached an unexplored region more than a thousand meters underground, and the life fluctuations detected by the instruments in their hands were growing stronger and stronger.

"What is that?!"

A middle-aged agent in his fifties at the head of the group spotted something green stuck to the wall under the beam of his flashlight. Its surface was even wriggling.

"A plant?"

As the flashlight shone upon the surface of the unknown green plant, the plant, originally only the size of a fist, visibly grew to nearly the size of a human face within seconds.

"It absorbs light energy to accelerate reproduction?"

Driven by his research instincts, the agent took out a scalpel and a test tube, preparing to cut off a portion of the green plant for study.

But as the scalpel's blade was about to touch the plant's surface, perhaps triggering a stress response after it sensed danger, the green plant swiftly detached itself from the wall and leaped onto the agent's face.

"Agent!"

In that situation, the armed personnel could not fire their weapons at all. They could only watch as the green plant clung to the agent's face and swiftly entered his body through his mouth.

The agent's body visibly seemed to have all its fat and protein extracted. In a short time, he became a desiccated corpse, after which countless green vines sprouted from his navel and spread in every direction.

"What the hell is this thing?!"

The soldiers who watched the agent die horribly raised their guns at the plant in fear and pulled the triggers. Once the first bullet struck the plant, the vegetation, which had initially shown no aggression, once again charged madly at the soldier who had fired, including the remaining two researchers in its attack.

The vines entered through their mouths, drained every nutrient from their bodies, then split and multiplied from their navels.

After absorbing the nutrients from thirteen humans, the green plant grew to nearly a hundred meters in length. Driven by phototropism, it swiftly spread toward the surface.

In just half an hour, the army of ten thousand stationed on the surface had been completely overrun. The armed helicopters in the sky, as well as the tanks and missiles on the ground, were all destroyed. Footage of the incident was immediately transmitted back to the Chana Empire Central Bureau.

Satellite observations showed that nearly one-third of the desert was now covered by this green plant, and it was still spreading beyond the desert. If it reached urban areas inhabited by humans, the consequences would be unimaginable.

The conference table was filled with national-level figures.

"The information sent back indicates that this plant can absorb nearly every form of energy. Nuclear weapons would likely only become its nourishment... Should we dispatch special personnel? Classify this incident as an SSS-level mission. It would be more appropriate to let those superhumans handle it."

"Given the speed at which this plant absorbs light energy, it will reach the closest inhabited human area in ten minutes at most. Even if we classify it as an SSS-level mission, there may not be enough time for superhumans to resolve it. I believe we can use an antimatter missile. This form of negative-energy attack happens to counter this life-form's growth."

"Antimatter is still in the research stage for military applications. It has not even undergone detonation testing yet, has it? If this technology goes wrong, all energy on Earth could be lost. I do not agree with using antimatter weapons."

At that moment, the man seated at the head of the conference table, dressed in a suit, spoke. "Taking both opinions into account, we will first use an antimatter missile for destruction. After detonation, classify this incident as an SSS-level mission and have superhumans deal with the side effects of the explosion and clear out the remaining plant matter that has not died. If possible, we may even obtain a core sample of this special plant."

After the man finished speaking, all the leaders present fell silent for a moment before swiftly reaching a conclusion. After all, there was not even a second to waste.

Thirty seconds later, a bomber dropped a miniature missile no larger than a grenade into the center of the green plant mass that covered nearly half the desert. The instant the precision missile made contact with the ground—

"Boom!" A tremendous shockwave capable of stirring the earth's crust spread from the blast point. The antimatter within was completely released and began crazily absorbing all surrounding energy.

The green plant began to wither across a vast area from its center. Yet this stimulation caused the outermost sections of the plant to accelerate their growth, driven by the simple survival instinct of a life-form. At such a growth rate, some small portions of the plant's branches quickly entered human-inhabited areas.

"What a peculiar life-form."

But because preparations had been made in advance, dozens of extraordinary humans were already waiting at the border between the desert and the human villages. With a wave of their hands, vast sections of the approaching plant matter died.

The antimatter missile destroyed the massive core at the center of the plant, while the edges were cleared by superhumans who also collected as many samples as possible. Yet even under those circumstances, a small portion of the core continued spreading underground, attempting to escape.

And when one small portion of the plant fled through a hundred meters of rock toward the A-Class City in District 19, it unexpectedly touched the wall of a special structure installed underground.

Driven by instinct, the plant sensed life activity within the building and sought to enter it, absorb its vital energy, and multiply and spread...