Sewer Creatures

As evening drew near and the sun was about to set, Xiang Yang excitedly opened the iron door and entered the safehouse.

Once Lu Ren saw who it was, he released the sword hilt and continued exercising.

Seeing that Lu Ren remained silent, Xiang Yang could no longer hold back and eagerly said, "Do you know what I saw when I went out?"

"What?" Lu Ren looked entirely unconcerned.

"Humans! Living humans! Humans who haven't been transformed into Contaminated Creatures by the energy!"

She said in delighted surprise, "I never thought there would still be traces of surviving humans in Haizhou City."

Lu Ren calmly said, "Doesn't it strike you as strange that, after three years of exploration without finding any trace of surviving humans, people suddenly appeared in just the past day or two?"

Xiang Yang was startled. "You mean those people might have mutated from Contaminated Creatures?"

"Not necessarily. I'm just reminding you that if you intend to approach those people, stay sufficiently vigilant."

Xiang Yang asked in confusion, "Why should we be wary? There are so few of us left. Humanity is practically extinct already—do we still need to scheme against each other?"

Lu Ren said, "Never underestimate the human heart. Sometimes, people can be even more terrifying than Contaminated Creatures."

Lu Ren gave Xiang Yang a meaningful look.

Xiang Yang did not understand. "I don't get it."

"You'll understand only after you've experienced it. The process might leave you with some unpleasant memories."

Seeing Xiang Yang still looking unconcerned, Lu Ren said nothing more. He had already said what needed to be said. Whether she could take it to heart was none of his business.

Lu Ren's goal was clear.

Don't get curious, don't cause trouble, stay put for seven days, then return to the real world.

Lu Ren understood Xiang Yang's state of mind as well. As a young girl who had not seen another human being in three years, her indescribable excitement was only natural.

After the two rested for a while, Xiang Yang finally calmed down from her excitement. She took out a high-powered flashlight from her backpack and said, "Let's not talk about that for now. Come on, let's go to my base!"

"Into the night?"

"Don't worry, the sewers are safe! The Black Mist can't reach my place, and I have plenty of supplies there. It's much safer than here."

That was great!

Lu Ren nodded slightly. "Just lead the way."

The matter of the Black Mist meant he had no choice but to cooperate with Xiang Yang. This girl, who had survived here for so long, could definitely find a better living environment than he could.

After making sure they had not left anything behind, Lu Ren and Xiang Yang left the safehouse and headed deeper into the sewers.

Along the way, aside from the faint sound of their footsteps, there was only the beam of Xiang Yang's flashlight swaying back and forth.

There were walkways on both sides of the sewer, with a dried-up drainage channel running through the middle. Since no wastewater had flowed through it for years, only solidified black clumps remained, stuck to the walls.

There was no unpleasant smell in the air, which finally eased Lu Ren's tightly furrowed brow.

"You look nervous?"

"Ha... hahaha, do I? I'm just staying properly alert while we travel!"

Lu Ren glanced at Xiang Yang, whose small face was written all over with tension, then slowly placed his hand on the sword hilt so he could react instantly to any sudden situation.

It would be nice if he had a gun.

At least against the Contaminated Creatures he had encountered, a firearm would have made things much, much easier.

Lu Ren believed that if he had the chance to train, he might even develop a skill similar to Firearms Mastery.

Come to think of it, he had spent all these years making instant noodles. Why hadn't that formed some kind of life skill on the panel...

After traveling about five kilometers and making several turns, Lu Ren suddenly stopped.

Xiang Yang looked at him in confusion. "What is it?"

Lu Ren narrowed his eyes. Under the light of Xiang Yang's flashlight, the pitch-black passage ahead revealed only a vague outline.

"There's something moving."

"Something moving?!"

Xiang Yang froze for a moment, then switched the flashlight to its brightest setting and shone it ahead.

Other than some miscellaneous objects whose purpose she could not make out, there was nothing else.

Xiang Yang listened carefully for a while, then said in confusion, "There's nothing. Are you just more nervous than I am?"

Lu Ren said, "You said that the special energy pouring out from another dimension contaminated ninety percent of all living things on the planet, right?"

"Yeah."

"Then what about rats? Were rats contaminated too?"

Before Xiang Yang could answer, Lu Ren's pupils contracted sharply. Huge rats suddenly poured out from the drainage pipes leading in every direction ahead. They were far larger than cats, and some were even as large as medium-sized dogs.

The instant they poured out from every pipe, they surged toward the two of them like waves of black. Their pairs of red-glowing eyes under the flashlight sent chills down the spine.

"Squeak, squeak, squeak..."

The dense chorus of rat cries was enough to make one's head throb.

Xiang Yang stared in shock. "How is this possible? Rats clearly can't be contaminated by the Black Mist... Someone tested it before."

"Run!"

Without the slightest hesitation, Lu Ren grabbed Xiang Yang, who stood a meter away looking as if she had been scared senseless, and turned to run.

If they were even a few seconds slower, those crimson-eyed rats, which looked starved half to death, might gnaw them clean to the bone.

Lu Ren had no doubt that their gleaming incisors could easily chew through flesh.

Xiang Yang snapped out of it as well. She quickened her pace, her face full of panic. "Oh my God, I've been sleeping beside these disgusting things for nearly three years."

As they fled madly, Lu Ren looked at the maze of passageways ahead. He took a deep breath before slowly saying, "We can't outrun these rats. We need to get to the surface immediately."

"I-I got it! Follow my directions."

Xiang Yang replied after forcing herself to calm down, then took off in front.

"Left."

"Right!"

"..."

After more than a dozen consecutive turns, Lu Ren glanced back from the corner of his eye. The rats behind them were less than ten meters away. One slight mistake, and they would be buried beneath a sea of rats.

Seeing Xiang Yang breathing heavily and beginning to run out of stamina, Lu Ren said, "Do you want to watch helplessly as those rats gnaw your body clean, maybe not even leaving your bones behind?"

Xiang Yang shuddered. A sudden burst of strength rose within her, and she instantly ran at full speed, nearly flinging off her shoes as she shouted, "There's a ladder about twenty meters ahead! Open the manhole cover and climb out!"

Within a few breaths, Lu Ren sprinted beneath the ladder. Without slowing down at all, he grabbed the rungs with one hand and seized Xiang Yang's arm with the other, tossing her upward.

"Knock the cover open!"

It had to be said that the enhancement of physical attributes through digitization was incredibly powerful. If it said you could lift over a hundred pounds at full strength, it absolutely would not be false advertising.

The ladder leading to the surface was a full five meters high.

Xiang Yang did not even have time to speak. She could only grab the ladder, exert force with one hand, brace herself with her feet against the rungs, lower her head, and slam her shoulder upward to violently flip open the forty-kilogram manhole cover.