Black Rain

"Hiss~"

Dim light, exposed rubble, and peeling, dried cement lay scattered in silence all around.

A beetle climbed across the surface, its six sturdy legs alternating as it moved forward, searching for something to fill its stomach.

It had not eaten for nearly a week.

In this wasteland, finding something edible was harder than ascending to the heavens.

One moment of carelessness, and it would become food for another.

Yet, this beetle was nearly half a meter long, with a pitch-black, glossy carapace, jointed limbs sharp enough to leave deep indentations in concrete, and mandibles capable of slicing through steel rebar with ease.

Everything about it proved that even in this dark corner of the ruins, it was a predator of no small stature.

The Giant Armor Beetle used its mouthparts to pry up a fragile slab of cement, attempting to find any substance inside that could be swallowed and digested—even if it were just a tuft of hair.

However, after searching for a long time, let alone hair, it couldn't even find a trace of another creature's excrement.

Just as it was about to leave in disappointment, its two emerald eyes suddenly lit up, and it let out a chirping sound more excited than if it had found a mate!

It had caught the scent of long-awaited food.

In the throes of extreme hunger, even a mate was nothing more than food.

Although the inexplicably appearing scent of blood was faint and strangely suspicious, it deeply stimulated the beetle's brain, which was no larger than a thumb.

Mutation had evolved its body, but it had not evolved its intelligence, so it lunged toward the source of the scent without a moment's hesitation.

This flickering "aroma" acted like a red thread, leading it all the way to a nearby bungalow.

The room was the same as the rest, dark enough to hide one's own hand, with collapsed wardrobes and wooden furniture long since gnawed away by other insects, leaving only a rusted iron frame mixed into the pile of debris.

The source of the food scent was located on a blood-stained rag inside the iron frame.

The Giant Armor Beetle did not hesitate in the slightest; the delicious meal within reach made it forget all potential danger, and it threw itself forward recklessly.

In this day and age, being a well-fed ghost was far happier than becoming someone else's food.

And without exception, this Giant Armor Beetle now belonged to the unhappy category.

The moment it squeezed into the iron frame—which was just large enough to accommodate its body—!

Creak~

A black rope tied to the corner of the iron frame was suddenly pulled by an external force, instantly causing the entire structure to collapse inward, tightly binding the half-meter-long Giant Armor Beetle within!

Hiss!!

Startled, the beetle immediately let out a hiss like a leaking gas pipe, which sounded piercingly sharp in the silent room!

At the same time, a figure that had been hiding in the dark corner moved!

His lean yet agile body moved like a light breeze, skimming rapidly across the rubble.

Just before the Giant Armor Beetle could snap the decaying iron frame, he lunged and mounted its iron-hard carapace!

This only made the beetle struggle more violently.

The figure did not waste a single movement; he took the metal crowbar he had been gripping in his right hand and smashed it down hard against the beetle's armored head!

Bang!

The first strike grazed the beetle's rounded, hard head-plate, throwing off a faint spark; the fleeting light illuminated the boy's dark, resolute, and gaunt face.

Shing!

The second strike: the curved end of the crowbar wedged into a gap between the beetle's head and its body.

Crack!

The third strike: the boy used his own body weight, using the curve of the crowbar as a fulcrum, and pressed down with all his might!

The Giant Armor Beetle's hard head-plate was finally pried open, revealing the internal muscle tissue that was still radiating heat!

Before it could let out a shrill cry to attract other high-level mutated creatures, the boy quickly pulled out the crowbar and used the sharp end to stab fiercely into the spot where he imagined the beetle's brain to be!

Squelch!

Instantly! A spray of green, foul-smelling liquid splattered onto his face, causing the Giant Armor Beetle to stop struggling entirely, leaving only its six sharp legs twitching slightly from nerve reflexes.

After killing the Giant Armor Beetle, the boy did not relax; he pulled out a piece of plastic film he had prepared beforehand and tightly wrapped the beetle's mangled head to prevent the scent from spreading.

Finally, he picked up the carcass of the beetle, which weighed several dozen jin, and quickly left the bungalow.

About a minute after he left.

From the ceiling, under the floorboards, outside the door, and from every corner of the room, a dense, rustling sound suddenly emerged, enough to make one's scalp crawl.

Thousands of fist-sized Venom-Pincer Ants, attracted by the lingering stench in the room, instantly occupied the entire abandoned bungalow, covering it in a sea of frantically writhing black.

Inside a three-story building that was so crooked it looked like it could collapse at any moment, the boy placed the carcass of the Giant Armor Beetle he had been carrying on the ground.

The sprint while carrying the beetle had left him gasping for air, though he deliberately kept his breathing quiet.

He pulled a sharp bone knife from his waist and skillfully poked a hole in the plastic film wrapping the beetle's head.

He then lowered his head, pressing his cracked lips against the hole to greedily suck at the Giant Armor Beetle's foul-smelling, dark green brain matter.

It was not until his shriveled abdomen slightly distended that he ceased this beastly behavior, once again sealing the hole with a thin membrane.

It had probably been a week since his last meal.

Xia Leng sat on the ground, wiping away the viscous fluid lingering at the corner of his mouth, and let out a faint sigh of relief.

This hunt should be enough to sustain his combat power at around -5.

He could not stand the nauseating blood of these insects either, and he longed to roast some delicious insect meat over a fire.

But starting a fire at night without the protection of a sturdy barrier was no different from seeking his own death.

In this absurd apocalypse, beasts no longer feared fire, insects no longer dreaded the cold, and plants no longer required photosynthesis.

Lighting a flickering campfire in the pitch-black night was equivalent to announcing to every high-level predator that a fool was waiting to be collected.

And Xia Leng's remaining stamina was not enough to sustain him until the next dawn.

Simply put, eating raw meat and drinking blood was the most straightforward way to recover his strength; besides, it was not his first time doing so.

While waiting for his stamina to gradually recover, he surveyed the surroundings of the third-floor room he occupied.

The shattered remains of a refrigerator, an overturned and rotting sofa, a precarious crystal chandelier dangling from the ceiling, and a dust-covered photo frame lying beside him all proved that five years and three months ago, this had been a happy, prosperous family of three.

Five years and three months ago, everyone was still immersed in a life of happiness, free from want and indulging in endless entertainment.

At that time, Xia Leng was only seventeen, a student who had just been admitted to university; he was merely introverted and not good with words, so by the end of the semester, he had basically made no friends.

However, he did not care; that was just his nature.

Yet, on one particular day, the sky was shrouded by dark clouds without any warning, and then a strange Black Rain began to pour down, covering the entire world.

Furthermore, on that day, the school was holding an anniversary celebration in the campus square; except for Xia Leng and a very few others who had taken sick leave to sleep in their dorms, tens of thousands of teachers and students were drenched by this sudden Black Rain.

Xia Leng did not remember how long he had slept at the time, only that when he woke up, all sorts of hair-raising roars were echoing from outside the window...