Disasters First, Then People

After crossing Golden Sands Bridge, they had officially entered Supreme Ridge territory.

There was no need to enter any particular scenic area; everywhere was a view.

The car played lively music as it crossed the Hengduan Mountains, winding through alpine meadows with an incredibly broad view, giving them the sensation of walking in the sky.

They passed through towering mountains, drove across plateau river valleys, and crossed Dongda Mountain Pass at an elevation of five thousand meters.

Finally, amid endless zigzagging mountain roads, the elevation gradually dropped, and another vast grassland appeared.

The grassland was like an enormous, fluffy green carpet stretching all the way to the horizon, filling every corner their eyes could see.

Majestic snow-capped mountains, winding streams, scattered villages, and leisurely cattle and sheep formed a picture of breathtaking beauty.

"Worth it. Totally worth it..."

Wu Zhong was utterly immersed in the scenery. Not until night fell did Luo Yi park the car in a herdsman's pasture.

"I can't go on. Crossing Dongda Mountain Pass nearly exhausted me to death. The terrain ahead is even more varied, so let's rest for the night." Luo Yi looked listless as he yawned.

Seeing him like this, no one was in a hurry to continue traveling.

Xia Heng found the herdsman and paid him a fee, receiving permission to camp wherever they wished on the boundless grassland. They set up their tents.

The car had been stocked with plenty of food. Meat, eggs, dairy products, and large quantities of fruit had all been purchased in the county towns they had passed through earlier.

"I feel like my appetite is huge. I just can't get full..."

Wu Zhong was starving, and the more he ate, the hungrier he became. His stomach was like a furnace; once it began churning violently, even more than ten jin of meat would not satisfy him.

Xia Heng and Yang Chunsha also had sizable appetites, but neither was as outrageous as he was.

"It's fine. Eat as much as you want."

"With physical abilities twenty times greater than normal, your appetite is also twenty times that of an ordinary person."

"You can go days without eating, but when you do eat, you need to eat enough to get full."

Luo Yi lay on the grass smoking, gazing up at the stars.

The night sky here was pristine, the stars so densely packed that it surpassed imagination. With the naked eye, they could see the brilliant Milky Way stretching across the heavens.

"Mm-hmm!" Wu Zhong ate a full thirty jin of beef by himself, along with various other foods, before finally feeling better.

"That feels good... Master Luo, why aren't you eating?"

The other three had eaten and drunk their fill, yet Luo Yi had not taken a single bite. He had not drunk any alcohol either, merely smoked one cigarette after another, his eyes heavy with fatigue.

Luo Yi shook his head slightly and yawned. "I'm not hungry. Don't feel like eating. I've been driving too long. I just want to lie down."

"Oh..." Wu Zhong said nothing more.

With their physical abilities, going hungry for a few days was no big deal.

Yang Chunsha included, none of them had eaten a proper meal in the last two days. They had been in the car the whole time, only snacking here and there.

"Then get some rest early."

Seeing how especially sleepy and exhausted Luo Yi was, Wu Zhong did not disturb him. He walked to the other side, where Xia Heng was playing on his phone, then took out the seeds from his pocket and asked about them.

"Brother Xia, take a look at these seeds. Are they useful?"

Xia Heng looked up. "What seeds?"

Wu Zhong was surprised. "You don't recognize them? These were left behind after a Vegetable Man died."

Xia Heng raised a brow. "Oh, Vegetable Man seeds look exactly like ordinary Chinese cabbage flower-stalk seeds."

"One of these costs only 0.2 Bitcoin on the platform, and a Vegetable Man drops two when it dies. In theory, you can keep planting more and more."

"Of course, if you just plant them normally, you'll only grow ordinary vegetables."

Wu Zhong understood what he meant. "Then what conditions are needed to grow a Vegetable Man?"

Xia Heng gave him a sidelong glance and said quietly, "You need to plant them using a living person's body."

Wu Zhong shuddered. "A living person's body? Then... what happens after planting it?"

The wind on the grassland stirred Xia Heng's hair. His tone was cool. "The seed will take root inside the body and continue developing."

"The first day is fine. Starting on the second day, when it sprouts, the person will feel extremely uncomfortable and desperately crave sunlight and large amounts of water. They can't be too cold, nor can they be too hot."

"Up to that point, they can still be saved. But starting from the third day, their body will become covered in vegetable stalks. Those stalks are indestructible. Though they can be destroyed through vegetable interactions, their growth runs through every blood vessel inside and outside the body, linking every piece of organ and flesh. They can no longer be removed."

"After that, how long they can live depends on how tenacious their vitality is. Ordinary people usually die within half a day."

"Someone with your physique and healing ability could hold on until the seventh day, but you would still suffer terribly. And no matter what, you will definitely die on the seventh day!"

"The vitality of every cell will be forcibly drained away. A Vegetable Man will emerge from the dried-out shell, treating the planter as its mother. As for its physical abilities, those depend on the person used as the host."

Wu Zhong's scalp crawled. The Vegetable Men in the refrigerated truck had all been grown from living people.

When he imagined a living person being drained dry step by step in despair, ultimately becoming waste material for a Vegetable Man and dying in torment and hopelessness, he could no longer look at the thing in his hand the same way.

Then he remembered something else and hurriedly found a small bottle. He put the two seeds inside and screwed the cap on tightly.

"I actually carried these around with me for so many days..."

"If I got hurt in a fight and they accidentally fell into my flesh and blood, wouldn't I be finished?"

As he spoke, Wu Zhong put the bottle into a small cloth pouch as well. That way, even if the bottle broke, the seeds would remain inside the bag.

Xia Heng watched him calmly and said, "You don't need to be that afraid. During the first two days after they enter the body, it'll be fine as long as you remove them."

Wu Zhong said solemnly, "Any one person from that Liongrass Mercenary Group can bring out several Vegetable Men."

"And the Vegetable Men seemed to have the same strength as ordinary people, so they should have been grown from ordinary people..."

Xia Heng said softly, "Then you've misunderstood the Liongrass Mercenary Group. They may not be good people, but they wouldn't casually target ordinary people. They wouldn't dare!"

"This is a rule jointly upheld by the five major countries and several powerful organizations."

"Remember this: once you enter the Calamity Realm circle, we are essentially no longer protected by the law. Life and death are in fate's hands, and everything depends on your own ability."

"If you kill someone from the Calamity Realm, the people who come after you may be their relatives, brothers, or some other backing."

"But if you kill an ordinary person, that's different."

"You would be provoking the five major countries, along with ancient organizations that safeguard the way, such as the Blue-White Society and the Sisterhood. You would be facing a powerful 'Orderkeeper collective.'"

Wu Zhong relaxed. "An Orderkeeper collective... I see."

Thinking about it, he realized that there had to be order in this world.

The Calamity Realm was so powerful, with so many formidable people. If there were not a powerful order keeping them in check, how could ordinary society possibly remain as peaceful as it was now?

How else could the first twenty-odd years of his life have been so tranquil? He probably would have been killed by someone long ago.

If you killed another Calamity Realm person, they might have powerful backing.

But if you killed an ordinary person, their backing was actually even greater!

"Then what about these Vegetable Men? Their physical abilities are the same as ordinary people's," Wu Zhong asked.

Xia Heng rolled his eyes. "Who told you every Calamity Realm person must have powerful physical abilities?"

"There are plenty of mercenaries in this world who are physically frail and no different from ordinary people. Take Yang Chunsha—before she became part of the Madblood Clan, she wasn't even as sturdy as you."

Wu Zhong scratched his head. That was true.

At that moment, Yang Chunsha came over and asked, "Then what's with Calamity Realm people wiping out countries?"

"I saw a lot of horrifying cases on the forum."

Xia Heng grinned. "No... you only read the horrifying cases and not how horribly they died?"

"If you buy a copy of the World Murder Case Collection, it's full of horrifying cases too. Does that mean everyone is like that?"

"The things posted on the forum are meant to warn rookies like you. So you only saw how brutal those people were, but not how they ended up dead?"

"Other than a very small number of people, most idiots who proclaimed themselves invincible and acted without restraint have grass three zhang high over their graves by now."

"In the entire Calamity Realm, who dares call themselves invincible? Who dares claim they have never been defeated?"

"Even those few universally acknowledged as the strongest stay on guard day and night, acting with extreme caution, afraid someone will plot them to death. They probably can't get a good night's sleep."

Wu Zhong and Yang Chunsha nodded. The tallest tree in the forest catches the most wind.

The greater one's fame, the more careful one had to be. The higher one stood, the more cautious one had to become. Being out in the open made one far too easy to target. The true big shots of the Calamity Realm were probably all hidden away.

At that thought, Wu Zhong's face turned green. "Wait... the ghosts and gods have been constantly drawing aggro onto me."

"How's my reputation now? Are people still talking about me? Has the heat died down at all?"

Xia Heng chuckled. "Died down? Your reputation is skyrocketing now."

"Liongrass has declared that they'll kill you to avenge themselves... They've also put out a kill order on you, with a reward of eighty million, paid in Bitcoin."

Wu Zhong's eyes went wide and uneven as he pointed at himself. "Huh? Eighty million? A bounty on me?"

Xia Heng continued, "There's more. The Ruan Family has also posted a one hundred million reward."

"So your total bounty is now one hundred and eighty million!"

He rolled his eyes speechlessly. His bounty had already broken one hundred million?

Yang Chunsha counted on her fingers. "Bronze is one million, Silver is ten million, Gold is several hundred million... Killing you is a Gold-level mission now."

Luo Yi even chimed in, "Too low."

Xia Heng deeply agreed. "It really is too low. With two Gold mercenaries, you and me, protecting him, they're offering only this little?"

Luo Yi looked dazed. "They don't know I'm here, so it's you, Old Xia, who isn't intimidating enough."

"Uh..." Xia Heng blinked. That did seem to be the case. These people looked down on him.

He had indeed completed many difficult missions, but he had never had any particularly famous achievements.

Whenever he encountered a powerful enemy, he usually ran. This gave people the impression that he was the sort of mercenary who was not good at direct, intense combat.

Come to think of it, his most impressive feat had actually been fighting Lu Guangqi not long ago and getting away unscathed. Unfortunately, the ghosts and gods had spread rumors and transferred that reputation to Wu Zhong...

"Actually... it's not that little..."

"This is a revenge kill order for Little Wu. It doesn't require him to be captured alive, and everything obtained from killing him belongs to the executor."

"So the one hundred and eighty million should be the bounty for me protecting him..."

Xia Heng tried to save face, but he did have a point.

Killing Wu Zhong came with its own rewards. Otherwise, why would mercenaries come looking for him?

So the one hundred and eighty million was practically just a bonus. Whoever completed the mission would already earn a great deal.

"The Ruan Family? I've never even met anyone from them, and they put a hundred million bounty on me?" Wu Zhong laughed angrily.

Xia Heng shrugged. "Let me count. So far, one member of the Ruan Family has fallen, and three from Tijuana have fallen. Of course, they were all Bronze or Silver."

"And the Matsutake Squad was wiped out. One Gold and three Silvers. Other than Gourd, they were all combat specialists. That whole account has been put on your head."

Wu Zhong clicked his tongue. "No, I... I only... huh?"

He had indeed dealt with the Matsutake Squad. He had ignored Matsutake's illusion, killed Arborvitae and Feipeng, and the remaining two being captured was also inseparable from him.

"But Matsutake was captured by 985. I only killed Arborvitae and Feipeng, and those two were just Silver."

Xia Heng shook his head. "985 hasn't released any information."

"From the outside world's perspective, the Matsutake Squad was the first group to find you, and then they all vanished."

"Gourd escaped to Matsutake's side at the time. Matsutake had just reported the deaths of the two to Liongrass when he was hit by a psychic attack, then suppressed by a Laughing Grenade and an Air Shield... He couldn't send out any more information."

"Oh, and just yesterday, Day Patrol God used a mountain collapse to kill several scattered mercenaries as well."

Wu Zhong sighed. "Great, another debt on my tab..."

Then he muttered, "985 should know the ghosts and gods are deliberately framing me, right?"

Xia Heng said, "Other than the few of us, 985 understands your abilities best."

"They should know you cannot control the ghosts and gods. And judging from the way the rumors are being spread, they also know the ghosts and gods are deliberately trying to harm you by killing with a borrowed knife."

"Considering that your trait and the Mount Lu ghosts and gods were born on the same day, along with what you left behind, anyone could guess that you are an accompanying existence of the vortex, opposed to and mutually destructive with it."

"That's why 985 is the group least willing to kill you. They only want to capture you alive and resolve the Mount Lu Incident."

Wu Zhong took a deep breath. "Is there any chance we can cooperate?"

Xia Heng said, "Every official force has a strong desire for control. The prerequisite for any cooperation is being able to speak as equals."

Wu Zhong said excitedly, "If I say I want to shut down the vortex, they'll definitely agree."

Xia Heng tilted his head. "And then? Are you willing to be imprisoned forever? You aren't expecting me alone to rescue you, are you?"

"..." Wu Zhong fell silent.

Xia Heng crossed his arms. "You need to understand what a containment force is. It's a force specifically created to contain anomalous objects like us."

"You are first an anomaly, and only then a person."

"You escaped once already because they hadn't figured out your abilities. But they cannot possibly let you escape a second time, or it would be called a containment failure."

"At the very least, you need a powerful faction backing you. You can't be an 'unaffiliated anomaly.' Only then can both sides sit down and properly discuss how to resolve the vortex, and only then can you walk away unharmed after it is resolved."

Wu Zhong pondered. "I see. Then what level of mercenary group would I need to join before I would be qualified to sit down and talk calmly with them?"

Xia Heng was stunned, then laughed. "A mercenary group? Hahaha... Fine, I didn't explain it clearly enough."

"Little Wu, don't look at the Liongrass Mercenary Group and the Enlightened families you've offended and think you've offended half the world. In truth, all mercenary groups and Enlightened families are not even ranked in the Calamity Realm."

"Up until now, everyone who has come after you has been small fry. It's all been the personal actions of small groups."

Wu Zhong was dumbfounded. "Huh? All mercenary groups and families aren't even ranked?"

"Then what is?"

Xia Heng explained, and Wu Zhong quickly understood.

The various powers in the Calamity Realm could be divided into three categories.

The first category was official institutions, mainly referring to the containment forces of the five major countries.

The second category was containment organizations. The Free Mercenaries' Club, Multiverse Academy, Blue-White Society, Sisterhood, Illuminati, Gödel Psychiatric Hospital, and certain churches all belonged to this category.

Those two types of organizations were the true powers of the Calamity Realm.

The third category was unworthy of being called containment organizations. They were small factions and little circles. The various Enlightened families, mercenary groups, and fringe groups belonged in this category, often serving as affiliates of other organizations.

Without question, although the Liongrass Mercenary Group had quite a reputation, it could not compare to any true anomalous containment organization.

"There is a fundamental difference between them. As the name suggests, containment organizations have the core goal of containing anomalies. They all have their own doctrines and rigorous organizational structures."

"As for mercenary groups and Enlightened families, compared to them, they're just making a living. Their core goals are survival, fame, and profit."

"To put it bluntly, they are 'objects to be contained.'"