Bloodline Awakening, Rain

[Ding, host detected consuming Rune Meat Porridge. Constitution +0.5]

[Host's current constitution: 21]

As the cold, mechanical voice faded.

Fan Shang felt a surge of warmth coursing through his body.

It quickly spread through him from head to toe.

"I feel a little stronger again."

Fan Shang muttered, then glanced at the now-empty black pot.

He hesitated no longer.

After clenching his hand to test his strength, he rose to his feet.

He headed toward his car.

The sky had darkened, and storm clouds kept gathering.

It was going to rain.

Fan Shang had no intention of getting soaked to the skin.

He pulled open the door and was about to get in.

But Little Black was faster.

With a leap, the black cat darted straight into the car.

Shaking the few raindrops from its fur, the cat immediately began grooming itself.

Clearly, the drizzle had made Little Black very uncomfortable.

That was perfectly normal for most cats, though.

Once inside the car, Little Black was clearly doing much better.

After licking its fur a few times, however, it fixed its bright eyes on Fan Shang.

It seemed to be urging him, saying, Why aren't you getting in yet?

At the sight, Fan Shang's eyelid twitched.

"Well, Little Black, you just jumped right in before I even got into the car."

"You've forgotten who's boss!"

As he spoke, Fan Shang got into the car too.

Then.

The clouds overhead seemed to reach a tipping point.

Rain instantly came pouring down.

Huge raindrops pounded against the roof with loud bangs.

The rain seemed to flip an off switch, finally allowing the survivors a brief respite from the exhaustion of the past few days.

Hunted, surviving by a stroke of luck, fleeing.

Hunted, surviving by a stroke of luck, fleeing.

For the past week, the survivors who had made it out of Orange City had been trapped in that cycle.

Those lucky enough to survive kept running; those less fortunate might simply die in some forgotten corner.

That was the lot of survivors in this Weird World.

And this was the first rain Fan Shang had seen all week.

For some reason.

The white noise coming from outside the car soothed some of the agitation in Fan Shang's heart.

The time he had nearly been drained to death by a weird entity was still vivid in his mind.

The frenzy he had felt while killing the Compound-Eyed Sunflower still echoed within him.

Fan Shang had thought he was on the verge of going insane.

But the rain finally eased some of the tension in his mind.

With that thought.

Fan Shang looked at Little Black, the black cat that had stayed with him ever since he entered the Weird World.

Its fur was jet-black, its eyes two different colors.

Fan Shang still clearly remembered his recent conversation with Liu Tie.

Someone of the Beast Tamer Sequence had tamed a centipede, which had actually transformed into a Six-Winged Centipede almost the size of a car after its bloodline awakened.

Honestly, Fan Shang would have been lying if he said he wasn't envious.

But it also made him realize that Little Black was nowhere near its limit.

So if Fan Shang had any way to rapidly increase his strength.

Little Black was one of them.

Helping Little Black awaken its bloodline and gain new bloodline abilities was even more cost-effective than improving his own constitution.

With that in mind, Fan Shang hesitated no longer.

"Little Black, I'm going to help awaken your bloodline. What do you say?"

"Meow?"

"If you don't say anything, I'll take that as a yes."

With that, Fan Shang reached out without hesitation and grabbed Little Black's head.

He immediately began refining it.

[Ding, would the host like to spend 4,000 survival points to enhance the bloodline of the black cat before you? After enhancement, this creature may become a transcendent creature.]

[Current survival points: 5,100]

Yes.

Fan Shang answered silently.

Then, under his gaze, a dark flash of light appeared on his palm.

The command seal drawn on his palm began emitting a deep blue glow, resonating with the seal on Little Black's forehead.

Wisps of deep blue flame slowly rose from Little Black's body.

After that.

Its mismatched eyes began to close.

The cat immediately fell into a deep sleep.

[Time remaining until bloodline enhancement is complete: 24:00]

Once everything was done, Fan Shang placed Little Black on the back seat.

Then, watching the curtain of rain falling endlessly outside, he slowly closed his eyes.

[Time remaining until bloodline enhancement is complete: 20:00]

Another four hours passed.

When Fan Shang opened his eyes again, the rain outside the window sounded quieter.

It was now four in the afternoon.

Fan Shang hadn't woken because he had rested enough, but because a burst of noise had roused him.

"Bzz... bzzz... Fan Shang, Shang, can you hear me?"

A call came over the channel. It was Liu Tie's voice.

While eating, Fan Shang had learned something.

They actually had vehicle radios-the kind that allowed communication as long as the vehicles were tuned to a particular channel.

Fan Shang would have been lying if he said he hadn't been shocked when he first heard about it.

After all, equipment like that wasn't easy to get hold of.

But after thinking it over, he let it go. As long as they could use it, that was enough.

At least the radio worked better than a walkie-talkie.

"Shang... Shang, can... can you hear me?"

The voice on the other end continued breaking up.

"I can hear you. What's going on?"

Fan Shang asked, puzzled.

The safe period on the "road" wasn't over yet.

Why was Liu Tie contacting him now?

His confusion didn't last long, though.

He soon got his answer.

And that was...

"Great, we're connected!"

Immediately afterward, Liu Tie's slightly grave voice came over the channel.

"Shang, this is urgent, so I'll keep it short."

"Basically, we all got it wrong. This isn't ordinary rain. We might have been caught up in something,

the rain's getting heavier now. We have to leave immediately, or before long, our entire convoy could be submerged!"

"It isn't ordinary rain?"

Puzzled, Fan Shang looked out the window, only to find that enormous pools of water had formed across the flat ground beside the road at some point.

Not only that, but the rain outside hadn't stopped for even a moment.

And it was falling just as fiercely as when it had first started.

No!

The rain should have sounded quieter!

What the hell was going on?!

Just as Fan Shang realized this, the rain that had sounded so faint beside his ears suddenly changed.

It instantly became thunderously loud, as though a full surround-sound system were blaring around him.

"Captain Liu, what the hell is happening?!"

"No time to explain. Let's drive out of here first!"

With that.

Liu Tie's SUV was the first to pull away.

Then a large loudspeaker emerged from its window, its volume turned all the way up.

"Stop sleeping! Everyone still alive, wake up and follow me!"

"Stop sleeping! Everyone still alive, wake up and follow me!"

"Stop sleeping! Everyone still alive, wake up and follow me!"

"..."

At the sound of the loudspeaker.

Movement began stirring inside the convoy's many vehicles.

The survivors had been jolted awake.

Then, as they looked outside, cries of alarm rang out.

Seeing the SUV driving away, the survivors immediately forgot everything else and floored their accelerators, chasing after it like mad.

Anyone still worrying about wasting a little fuel at a time like this would have deserved to die.