[Reading guide: this is another installment in a series, but you can read it without reading the earlier stories.]
[This story follows an A from an ABO world [a little lunatic] who travels, body and all, into a new world with only two sexes: male and female.]
[The top is a flying snow leopard [a giant kitty], and the bottom is the transmigrated A [an A who considers himself a top]. Don't get them mixed up.]
[All sorts of strange creatures appear in this story. Sweethearts, from this moment on, follow our little lunatic into a fantastical adventure!]
Dawn approached, and light and darkness began to wrestle and tear at each other, making the shadows of the trees deep in the forest loom all the more ominously.
Before long, the damp chill of the late-spring wind swiftly joined the fray, stirring the new leaves on the high branches into a rustling chorus.
And beneath that cover of sound came another furtive rustling.
It was a thick vine tinged an ominous blood red.
At that moment, it was extending at an uncanny speed, heading straight for an abandoned, moss-covered van ahead.
But one second before it could reach through the broken window, a strong, slender arm shot out from inside.
Then came a leisurely, profanity-laced greeting. "You little fucker. Finally caught you."
Mu Yi lowered his eyes to the thing clenched in his hand, raised an eyebrow slightly, and said in disdain, "That's it?"
He had wondered what it was. It had ambushed him several times, quick and cautious enough that he had needed to pretend to sleep for ages to lure it over.
And it turned out to be nothing but a lousy vine.
After he caught it, the vine began struggling violently, pulling backward with all its might.
Naturally, Mu Yi wasn't about to let it escape. His arm muscles tightened instantly as he roughly hauled it into a bunch, baring his teeth in a grin. "Did I say you could leave?"
If he couldn't sleep, why should the culprit have an easy time of it?
Mu Yi rolled his neck twice, kicked open the battered door, and got out, following the stem and leaves in his hand with long strides.
Got to rip it out by the roots.
But when he reached the blood vine's roots, he realized he wouldn't have a chance to pull it up at all.
The instant he set foot there, countless vines shot out from every direction and ambushed him.
With a few sharp whooshes, the vines trussed him up, then whisked him upside down onto a high branch.
Mu Yi's entire world abruptly flipped over, swaying gently along with the vines.
Pretty novel.
He shifted his body to swing farther, complaining as he swayed, "All these accomplices? That's not playing fair."
Smack! The blood vine he had caught earlier lashed his arm hard twice.
Mu Yi flinched slightly at the pain, but the grin stayed on his face. "Well, well. This one's got a temper."
The next moment, though, he couldn't quite keep smiling.
With a sudden wet splitting sound, the tip of that bad-tempered blood vine opened into several sections, like a blood-red flower blooming.
If you ignored the tightly packed rows of sharp teeth on it...
As that gaping mouth drew closer and closer to his face, Mu Yi immediately dropped his smile and hurried to stop it. "Wait! I'd advise you not to come near me."
Of course, his warning had no effect. The blood vine continued its unhurried approach, bringing waves of a rotting-corpse stench with it.
The smell made Mu Yi's handsome features scrunch together.
Fuck. Can't take this anymore...
With a sharp crackle, fierce arcs of electricity suddenly erupted from Mu Yi's body, glaringly bright in the dim forest.
An instant later, the dense electrical arcs transformed into crackling, pure-white flames.
The flames surged fiercely, setting everything around him alight so quickly that all the blood vines were engulfed and devoured before they could react.
As for the one right in front of Mu Yi's eyes, it took the full blast point-blank. Its split mouth burned to ash on the spot, and the bare stalk swiftly followed, turning into black cinders that fell in reluctant defeat.
Of course, Mu Yi fell with them, since the blood vines binding him could no longer spare him any attention.
Fortunately, he had prepared in advance. He hooked onto a reasonably sturdy branch beside him with precision, nimbly climbed into the crown, then slid smoothly down the trunk.
Once on the ground, he looked up to admire his handiwork, then gave an innocent shrug. "I told you not to come near me."
When all the vines had burned away, the electric flames, which tracked their targets automatically, went out as well. All that remained were a few wisps of smoke lingering in the air and the faintly metallic sweetness of an Alpha's blood pheromones.
With that, the predicament was neatly resolved, yet Mu Yi looked rather listless. He stretched as he walked back, muttering regretfully.
"Didn't quite hit the spot."
After climbing back into the van, Mu Yi crossed his long legs on the steering wheel and sprawled backward in the battered seat.
As he closed his eyes and tried to summon sleep, he ran briefly through everything that had happened recently.
Since avenging his great grievance, he had lost the drive to keep himself alive by seeking out new things. The whole world had become dull and monotonous along with it.
So, early the morning before last, he had leaped without hesitation from the very same high-rise where his mother had died years ago.
But after falling for ages, he landed not on hard pavement, but in icy river water.
Before he could figure out what was happening, seven or eight strange fish, each two or three meters long, chased him through the river and tried to take bites out of him. He unleashed a blast of high-voltage electricity and treated himself to an all-fish feast.
After that, he followed the river's course, gradually making his way into this forest.
The forest was rich in resources. With a little effort, he could always find things to eat and use.
It was just... only after coming in did he discover that things pulled from the soil, and even things picked from trees, were liable to sprout legs and run away. Who knew what the hell they were?
Stranger still, though this was clearly a remote mountain forest, traces of a city lay scattered everywhere.
He had already seen plenty of abandoned vehicles like the one he was currently curled up in along the way. Some of the vegetation even concealed old, rusted rebar and metal objects.
It wasn't hard to imagine that if all the vegetation in this forest were burned away, vast stretches of urban ruins would be exposed.
"Hmph." Eyes closed, Mu Yi curled his lips and delivered his verdict. "What a hellhole."
Pretty damn exciting.
Having given his memories a cursory review, Mu Yi adjusted his curled-up position and planned to nap for a while.
But just as he settled into a comfortable spot, a series of thin, high-pitched grunts suddenly sounded in the distance.
Mu Yi immediately opened his eyes. After his gaze darted around a few times, he decisively kicked the door open again, got out, and dashed toward the sound.
How could sleeping be more important than discovering something new?
Two minutes later, Mu Yi pushed aside a clump of weeds taller than he was, then blinked in surprise.
By then, the sky had begun to pale with hazy dawn light, and visibility was quite good.
So he saw it very clearly: a running... glowing mushroom?
A multicolored version, at that.
The glowing mushroom was about the size of a basketball. A small set of humanlike facial features grew in the center of its stalk, with two bizarrely long legs on either side.
It was sprinting along, grunting as it ran, and soon swept past Mu Yi, stirring up a little whirlwind.
Mu Yi's eyes lit up, and he immediately took off after it!
He was a fast runner, and with the advantage of his long legs, he soon caught up to the glowing mushroom ahead.
"Hey, can you understand human speech?" Mu Yi tried talking to the glowing mushroom as he ran.
But the mushroom ignored him, flung multicolored spore powder all over him, and kept grunting as it raced headlong onward, as if fleeing some terrifying natural predator.
"Achoo...!"
The powder made Mu Yi sneeze several times, leaving his head spinning. He shook his head, picked up speed, and caught up again.
After running for a while, the glowing mushroom suddenly looked back. When it discovered he was still behind it, its grunting instantly turned into a high-decibel shriek.
"Screee!"
"Fuck..." Its tremendous voice rattled the machinery in Mu Yi's skull and left him dizzy again.
But before he could press a hand to his forehead, he suddenly noticed what looked like a cliff up ahead, while the glowing mushroom was still running blindly with its head turned back.
Mu Yi hurriedly sped up. Once he was close enough to the glowing mushroom, he bent as far as he could, reached out, and scooped it up.
In the end, man and mushroom barely managed to stop at the cliff's edge. Only a few pebbles were mercilessly kicked over by Mu Yi's abruptly halted steps.
"Screee!"
"Scree, screee!"
The glowing mushroom showed no sign of settling down after its narrow escape. It began struggling madly, its two thin little legs kicking every which way.
Mu Yi grabbed both its thin legs in one hand, held it upside down over the cliff, and gave it a shake, threatening, "Shut up."
Yet his threat had no effect. The glowing mushroom continued struggling fiercely, its screams growing louder and louder.
"Tch. You're seriously noisy." Mu Yi slapped a hand over its mouth, forcibly muting it.
After examining it from both sides like that for a while, he smiled. He was just about to say it looked a little abstract when a clamor of human voices reached him, growing clearer and clearer.
"Hey! The tracking marker says the Hallucinogenic Mushroom is nearby!"
"Fuck, that flashy little mushroom. We're catching it this time!"
"Quick, quick, quick! Everyone take the Hallucinogen Antidote!"
A moment later, a slightly deep voice spoke. "You all love shouting out your positions, huh? How about I get each of you a loudspeaker?"
Then that voice abruptly turned serious. "Looks like something's happening up ahead. Prepare for combat!"
[Note: the little lunatic's electric flames are controllable. They burn whatever he points them at and won't ignite anything other than the target.]
Before you continue