Chapter 173

It's impossible for the squad to spend so much time investigating, and if they discovered the enemy and engaged in combat, it would inevitably attract the attention of others. The only possibility is that the squad encountered an extremely powerful enemy—powerful enough that none of them had the strength to retaliate.

A single gunshot or two would be immediately drowned out by distant gunfire, like bullet casings buried in the grass, unnoticed by anyone.

But the color of blood doesn't lie.

The dark green whip lashed out suddenly, its astonishing speed and force slicing through large swathes of grass like a sharp knife, tearing apart the cascading rain curtain.

Because of the dust, Efnir sensed the attack coming sooner, and with a light backflip, she dodged the whip's strike and leaped backward.

In mid-air, she turned her gaze toward the direction from which the whip had come, but saw only tall grass and "dust."

It seems they've gone into hiding.

Gunshots rang out in the rain; the soldier who had accompanied them had fired.

36. Vines

A total of seven long whips attacked Efnir and the soldier simultaneously.

Efnir keenly noticed that the number of whips attacking her and the soldiers was different; only two whips were aimed at her, while the rest were aimed at the soldiers waiting behind her.

In conventional warfare, the key to victory lies in eliminating the most threatening enemy first.

Clearly, the other side perceived the soldiers as a greater threat—whatever the reasons for this judgment are, it no longer matters.

The other party did not seem to recognize their agent's identity.

The soldier was a well-trained warrior. The instant the whip suddenly appeared and Efnir leaped to dodge, he immediately raised his gun and pulled the trigger in the direction the whip had come from.

Gunfire disrupted the atmosphere.

But clearly, his bullet missed its target, and the whip continued to fly rapidly toward him.

We must protect people first.

Efnir withdrew her gaze, a silver light flashing in her hand, and a spear appeared.

Get out of the way!

Efnir gave a soft shout, and the next second, she crouched down and landed in front of the soldier. She snorted coldly, her back muscles contracted and pushed forward, her wrists flipped, sticking to the spear like a magnet, and then she swept it horizontally with tremendous force.

With a single strike, the air vibrated violently, and the wind pressure lifted the hood, causing the silver hair to flutter like stars in the sky.

The spear blade traced a crescent moon shape, precisely slicing horizontally through the middle of the three long whips.

The silver light was unstoppable, its sharp tip tearing and shredding the long whips. At the same time, Efnir's spear tip spun and thrust horizontally, then flicked back, tightly binding the remaining two long whips.

The sudden burst of impact caused the soldier to stagger. Still shaken, he stared at the back of the silver-haired girl before him, gritted his teeth, raised his gun again, and aimed into the depths of the broken grass.

"Get out of here!"

Efnir sternly stopped the soldiers from continuing their attack, her gaze fixed coldly on the end where the whip had disappeared.

"Tell Anilas what's going on here, and leave this guy to me."

If the enemy is Apostle, a soldier with a gun is of no use in the fight here—the enemy is hidden in the shadows, and the soldier can't even aim his gun at them; instead, Efnir has to be distracted by protecting him.

The soldier clearly understood this as well. Without hesitation, he immediately withdrew his weapon, took out his signal flare, and quickly retreated, moving out of the whip's attack range.

The footsteps behind him quickly receded into the distance, and a signal flare rose into the air behind him. At the same time, as if enraged, three more long whips lashed out at Efnir from all directions. Simultaneously, the whips wrapped around Efnir's spear tightened, and the three whips wrapped around it, locking the spear firmly in place.

Efnir's gaze shifted to the dark green whip on the spear, and she pursed her lips.

Strangely, these so-called whips are actually a kind of vine.

The vines are dark green with a rough surface and covered with countless sharp, knife-like thorns. If they were to strike a person directly, they would certainly cause cuts and lacerations.

Beneath the stems and leaves, there are faint, dark red, extremely thin channels, like cut flesh. The eerie, skin-like color is so unusual that it is hard to associate it with the lush green plants before one's eyes; instead, it looks like some kind of poisoned leather rope.

Efnir had never seen such a vine before.

Could this be some kind of weapon?

--Agents absolutely do not use plants as weapons.

Similarly, there were no Apostle.

Before she could think further, a force came from the spear shaft—this force posed no threat to Efnir, but if it were used to bind an ordinary person, they would be immediately gripped tightly as if constricted by a giant python.

The long whip was trying to drag Efnir along, while two vines lashed out from the front.

Efnir narrowed her eyes slightly—at this moment, as long as she removed the weapon and re-condensed it, the layers of restrictions the vines placed on the spear would immediately become useless. Generally speaking, there is a brief window between the retraction and materialization of Order Weapon, but Efnir can do it with almost no gap.

But she didn't do that; instead, she chose another option.

Efnir resisted the force from the spear, silver light flashing beneath her feet. At the same time, she twisted her wrist sharply, shifting her body to the side to avoid the vines that were swung at her.

--The "Stairway" is not a physical object, but rather a kind of vector-like representation that can ignore spatial limitations and provide the agent with powerful jumping force by using the soles of the feet and legs as fulcrums, just like stepping on Stairway built in mid-air.

Efnir stared intently at the other end of the vine, tightened her arm muscles, and suddenly pulled back—with a ripping sound, a figure was dragged out from the depths of the grass by Efnir. Efnir gripped her spear, and as she rose and leaped up, she turned the spear around again, pulling the figure along, then tightened the vine and slammed it down with force, as if pulling a jump rope.

With a loud crash, the rain curtain was swept away, and a large amount of grass clippings and mud almost completely swallowed the figure.

The vines wrapped around Efnir's spear lost their strength in that instant, Efnir tightened her grip on the spear once more, pulling the figure that had collapsed to the ground out of the crater.

The spear vanished, and when it reappeared, the vines that had been wrapped around it had fallen. Efnir pierced through the figure with a single blow, pinning him to the haystack.

Efnir landed, landing firmly on the spear, and simultaneously drew a pistol from her waist, aiming at the figure.

"Surrender, or die."

The figure did not answer, but suddenly sprang up from the haystack and charged towards Efnir.

Only then did Efnir finally see the man's face clearly.

--That was a "person made of plants".

Or, to put it another way, a person whose entire body is covered in some kind of plant.

--It appeared to be a woman, whose skin showed Trace of Mutation gray matter, and the rest of her body was extensively rotting. However, something like a parasitic vine was emerging from her eyes, ears, mouth, nose, and rotting flesh, wrapping around her body.

Her eyes had long been occupied by that strange plant, so she must have been blind, yet she lunged straight at Efnir. A thick vine rose from behind her, attacking Efnir from the front.

Efnir frowned deeply, swung her spear, severing the vines in one swift motion, then stepped back and thrust her spear into the woman's abdomen, holding her down and maintaining a distance of more than 1.5 meters between them.

"..."

The woman murmured something hoarsely, but Efnir couldn't hear her clearly because her throat seemed to be rotting.

Now that the vines were no longer there to help, the woman could only flail her arms and claws at Efnir.

It was clearly futile.

Efnir held her spear level, squinted slightly, pursed her lips, and took a step closer to examine the woman who was being overtaken by plants.

The woman's clothes were tattered and mostly soaked in mud, but their original appearance could still be discerned—the coat was a white professional uniform, often worn by doctors and researchers.

An unusual, putrid stench permeated the air.

This smell is different from the smell of rotting corpses underground at Boundary Stele.

37. Bloodroot

Who are you? Can you speak?

"..."

The woman didn't answer, but murmured softly.

What are you talking about?

"..."

Efnir asked three questions in a row, but received no response, as if talking to a stone. The woman continued to speak in a hoarse voice, her words indistinct.

Moreover... Efnir noticed a subtle change—the floating "dust" was receding, and the woman's voice was growing softer and softer, as if it might disappear at any moment, and she had even lost the strength to move.

Efnir raised an eyebrow suspiciously and withdrew her spear.

The woman slumped down like a wet lump of mud, collapsing to the ground, trembling every now and then.

At the same time, Efnir also noticed something strange about her back—her clothes were torn, and old bloodstains could be vaguely seen on them.

Efnir frowned slightly, raised his spear, and while keeping watch for the woman's attack, used the spear to turn the woman who had fallen to the ground over.

Suddenly, a bizarre scene unfolded before Efnir's eyes.

--The woman's back had a shockingly large gash, through which one could even vaguely see her ribs, muscles, and organs beneath her rotting flesh. Like the wound from being pierced by a spear, this wound was neither bleeding nor completely Gray Matterization.

The wound did not appear to have been caused by a sharp weapon, nor were there Trace of hammering or puncture. The woman also did not have a similar wound on her chest.

But the rotting, decaying flesh seemed to be telling Efnir that the wound had appeared from the inside out.

What sent chills down one's spine was that a huge, segmented object, resembling a plant root, was coiled inside the opening in her body, writhing as her flesh hesitated. The swaying branch had long since been severed, and was dripping with dark red sap.

Efnir was certain; the strange tree root had been attacking Efnir all along.

Not the woman herself.

This plant-like parasite, resembling some kind of living parasitic vine, is chilling to behold.

"What... is this thing...?"

The chill in the air rose from the soles of my feet like an overturned sea, rushing rapidly up my spine.

Efnir had never seen anything like it before; it didn't belong to Erosion Entity, Apostle, or Angel, nor to any of the animals or plants that already existed in this world.

Clutching the spear tightly in her hands, Efnir felt her palms sweating.

Her brows furrowed even more.

"Hey! Can you hear me?!"

Efnir tried to call out to the woman again, but this time the woman's voice was so faint that Efnir could barely hear it.

She frowned, staring at the strange tree roots, and pondered for a moment.

Without a doubt, this woman was neither an agent nor Apostle; she seemed to have become fodder for those eerie vines and was clearly dead.

Or rather, someone in that state "should" be dead.

Yet she also seems to exist somewhere between humanity and Dregs.

Regardless, she remains mobile and may even launch an attack on Efnir.

Based on her movement patterns and the large areas of gray on her skin, Efnir is more inclined to believe it's "Dregs".

But Efnir had never seen such Dregs before.

Moreover, the Dregs was even more frenzied than her, and moved more nimbly and powerfully. If you disregard those strange vines, this woman was at best just an ordinary person with some strength.

After a moment of contemplation, Efnir took a deep breath, lifted one foot to pin the woman's body down, and simultaneously raised his spear, attempting to pry open the thick tree root behind her.

The moment the spear tip touched the tree root, the root suddenly retracted inward. With lightning speed, Efnir thrust the spear into the root that was about to shrink into the woman's chest, attempting to lift the root. But at that moment, the woman suddenly let out a shrill scream and began to struggle violently.

But no matter what, she couldn't escape Efnir's control.

The woman's hoarse screams grew increasingly shrill, and then, Efnir finally heard the woman repeat the same phrase over and over again—"Kill me."

"What's wrong with you!?"

"Kill me... kill me!"

"Hello!"

"Kill me... kill..."

Like a snapped rubber band, after a few sharp, rapid screams, the woman's voice quickly faded again, and under Efnir's gaze, she lay motionless on the ground.

At the same time, the tree roots growing behind her also fell silent.

Efnir watched this scene, her eyes wavering.