047. Fish

This was the true apex of the food chain in this grassland.

A thought like this surfaced in Lu Ban's gradually blurring consciousness.

He saw that the school of fish did not charge directly at the bus. Instead, they circled around it like hunters lying in wait. The slightest mistake on Lu Ban's part would be enough to trigger their attack.

The muttering from Lu Ban's mouth seemed to be the key. Even these enormous creatures found it difficult to resist the intrusion of the muttering, but their tolerance was clearly somewhat higher. As long as they did not approach within arm's reach, they were barely affected.

Who would be the first to reach their limit?

Amid the torment of his brain being burned away, Lu Ban witnessed a sight rarely seen in his life.

Across the vast grassland where no one had survived, grass taller than three meters swayed. The Eerie Green Light was like an ocean, illuminating the pitch-black, profound sky.

Within the silent grass, countless dark shadows swam out, as if appearing from thin air, gathering toward the bus.

They were all fish.

Their shapes differed slightly, and they soared through the sky just as ordinary fish swam through aquatic plants in the water.

Lu Ban did not bother counting them.

He only stared straight ahead.

In the rearview mirror, Mary lay utterly still, her throat torn apart. Wild grass was slowly growing over her body, turning her flesh into a fertile bed for its own growth.

Stone's eyes were bloodshot. He covered his ears with both hands and curled up on the ground. Blood had already begun to flow from his nostrils, eyes, and mouth.

The something inside the two ratmen in the bus throbbed until it finally reached its limit.

Bang—

The two bodies exploded, their limbs flying everywhere and staining the entire bus yellow.

Seeing this, Lu Ban seized upon a sliver of inspiration.

He closed his mouth.

The maddening muttering vanished abruptly, leaving the entire grassland filled with nothing but the noise of the engine turning and the tires scraping against the ground.

During this brief moment of peace, Lu Ban shouted.

"Throw these corpses out!"

He was shouting at Stone.

Almost simultaneously, Lu Ban jammed the crowbar against the accelerator. The crowbar, seemingly fused with his own body, pressed neatly against the pedal and held it in place, keeping the bus racing forward at maximum speed.

He hurried to the back, picked up the ratman's shattered head, and threw it out the window.

When the ugly head flew out, it did not fall in a parabola. Instead, it floated in midair, as though the ground had lost its pull, and was quickly left behind by the speeding bus.

In the unseen night sky, the head instantly drew the fish's attention. For a moment, the grassland seethed as more than ten fish abandoned their pursuit of the bus and turned to gnaw on the delicious ratman's head.

Lu Ban continued throwing the two ratmen's bodily remains out the window, drawing the school of fish into a mad chase as they tore at one another in midair.

At last, he saw Mary, whose breathing had stopped.

The middle-aged woman's body was covered in wild grass, making her look like a girl adorned with flowers.

Lu Ban silently apologized, lifted Mary's corpse, and flung it out through the bus door.

The few fish still following the bus abandoned the chase as well. They circled around Mary's corpse, pecking at it bite by bite until they dismantled it in an instant.

Stone looked at Lu Ban with terror and awe in his eyes.

"Stay away from me."

Lu Ban said this as he raised his hand. His fingers wrapped around the tender shoots emerging from beneath his eye, and he yanked hard.

The ivy-like shoots immediately writhed and convulsed, struggling like horsehair worms. Lu Ban's eye pressure rose, and his right eye turned scarlet.

But Lu Ban showed no mercy. He wound the shoots around his hand again and again, pulling the new growth out completely.

The new shoots, still bearing tender leaves, twisted in Lu Ban's hand. He threw them out of the bus.

Returning to the driver's seat, Lu Ban picked up the crowbar and sat down. He gripped the steering wheel with his left hand, then tugged at his left upper arm with his right. The vegetation protruding from the wound bitten into him by the ratman was pulled out in the same manner and thrown out the window.

At the same time, the muttering originating from distant stars began to echo from Lu Ban's mouth once more.

"■■■■■—"

The vegetation lying in wait on his body began to tremble and sway. It stopped growing, and perhaps it was only his imagination, but even the fluorescent glow of the grass beside the road around the bus began to dim.

Stone sat in the last row, covering his ears and struggling to endure Lu Ban's muttering.

Lu Ban saw that the fluorescent glow ahead, not far away, had disappeared.

For the first time, he yearned so desperately to see darkness.

A moment later, the bus drove out of the grassland.

Or rather, Lu Ban saw that the grassland was shrinking.

It moved like a living creature, shifting toward the area to the left of the bus.

"I see. Just like the Rat Tide moves periodically, this grassland can move on its own."

"The unusually active grassland, soil, air, and those fish form some kind of special ecosystem."

"The ratmen... used this ecosystem?"

With the muttering stopped, Lu Ban pondered while his brain had yet to cool down.

"These ratmen themselves seem unaffected by the grassland, just like the fish. Could it be that the two have formed some kind of symbiotic relationship?"

"The ratmen are responsible for attacking passing vehicles. The grassland digests them, and they ultimately become nutrients for the fish. And perhaps the nutrients needed by this grassland come from those fish flying through the sky?"

The wilderness outside the Ruined City seemed to form a self-contained ecosystem.

Lu Ban could understand why Hound, the bounty hunter, and Mary, the biologist, had known so little about this grassland and had offered no warning.

That was because, most likely, not a single traveler who had witnessed the journey of this strange "organism" had survived.

"You're lucky."

Thinking of this, Lu Ban spoke to Stone, who was curled up in the passenger seat.

"You witnessed a unique ecological structure in this ruin."

"Lucky?"

Stone found Lu Ban's statement impossible to believe.

Lu Ban's muttering still lingered in his mind. He constantly felt as though a voice were echoing beside his ear, with some kind of knowledge Stone could not understand attempting to alter the structure of his brain.

This left Stone's face ashen. He felt as though he were carsick and wanted to vomit, but there was already nothing left in his stomach.

"...I once read in a book that ratmen were originally humans."

Trying to alleviate the pain, Stone recalled what he had once read.

"They once possessed a city, back when the Ruined City was not yet the Ruined City."

"That city was even more glorious, prosperous, and lively than the Ruined City. It was a true city of hope."

"They relied on the mine at the center of the city to excavate rare ores. Using those ores as fuel, they built enormous machines."

As he spoke, Stone's tone gradually became calm. The pain seemed to recede. He could feel that his words and memories were reaching some kind of harmonious accord with the ceaseless muttering in his head. He even felt indescribably wonderful, wanting to pour out everything in his mind all at once.

"But they dug downward, and downward, and eventually unearthed something terrifying."

"Overnight, the entire city collapsed and became a ruin."

"Everyone thought the city had suffered a disaster and that no one had survived, but in reality, they all survived."

"They survived, and were ruled by that terrifying thing, becoming creatures that could never see sunlight."

"They became ratmen."

At this, Lu Ban turned his head slightly.

He saw the young man, his face covered in blood and having endured a life-or-death adventure in his longing for the Ruined City, now wearing a cold and eerie smile.

*

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