Land of No Return

The next morning, the sky was still shrouded in haze.

Dust and harmful gases filled the sky, leaving the sun dim and dull.

Cheng Qi and Foolish Boy arrived at a dilapidated transit hub.

Judging by the white palace buried beneath Bar Street, Cheng Qi's base was in old-era Washington City, 11,000 kilometers from Huaxia's Kyoto.

The man before them, with his red, bulbous nose, was named Crow. He owned a battered, cobbled-together [Ground Effect Aircraft].

This kind of aircraft fell somewhere between a plane and a hovercraft. Air compressed by its engines flowed downward through its wings, allowing it to fly five to eight meters above land or water at considerable speed.

The machine served much the same purpose as a long-distance bus.

It skirted the ban on entering the skies, but met scavengers' need to travel long distances.

Anyone could ride it after paying the fare.

Several other scavengers were aboard. When they heard Cheng Qi was heading for Kyoto, their voices grew quieter.

Two scavengers stood up and silently placed two edible energy bars and a bottle of filtered water in front of Cheng Qi.

Leaving food and water was the last gesture of sympathy they could offer.

It was an age of tragedy. Many people with nowhere left to turn chose to gamble with their lives.

"Passengers, hold tight and sit steady!"

"No need to fasten your seat belts, because this flight doesn't have any!"

Crow, the pilot, shoved the control stick forward. "Takeoff!"

Boom!

Fierce currents of air surged along both sides of the Ground Effect Aircraft, stirring up clouds of dust. The craft slowly lifted off, then accelerated sharply, setting off without a hitch!

In midair, parts kept falling off the aircraft like a toad scattering its young.

Cheng Qi remained composed, frowning in thought. Am I going to crash and die before I even reach Kyoto?

Suddenly.

Cheng Qi saw a huge object trailing thick black smoke break away from the Ground Effect Aircraft and plummet to the ground.

"Master!"

Crow's Nanny Robot was a scrapped Aviation Repair Robot. It said in a dopey voice, "Engine number two has left us!"

"Stay calm. Nothing we can't handle!"

"Backup! Backup!"

Used to this, Crow waved a hand.

The Aviation Repair Robot deftly hauled up another engine and mounted it on the wing. After a frantic clatter of wrenching and tightening screws, engine number two was finally running again.

Cheng Qi glanced around the cabin. "Looks like we're out of spare engines?"

"No problem! I've been flying this route for seven or eight years. I've scattered engines all over the place!"

"Losing one or two is no big deal. We'll make an emergency landing and find a replacement in minutes. It's all recycling!"

"Y-you can do that?"

"Of course!"

"With me, Crow, at the controls, you're in rock-solid hands!"

Life was a journey, full of stumbles, ups, and downs.

Cheng Qi had never imagined that a mere means of transport could embody those words so perfectly.

After a long journey filled with all manner of heart-stopping scares.

Cheng Qi finally arrived on the outskirts of Kyoto and set foot on land that had once been worth its weight in gold.

Dust drifted behind him.

Crow piloted the aircraft slowly upward. Looking down at Cheng Qi and Foolish Boy on the ground, he said, "Brother, if you make it back, the return trip's free."

"It's a deal."

Cheng Qi waved goodbye to Crow. He could tell the man wore his heart on his sleeve.

Then Cheng Qi's smile faded. He slowly turned around, narrowing his eyes to slits.

Nearly everywhere on Earth looked like this: garbage stretching beyond sight, without even a patch of soil or bare ground visible.

A pale green haze drifted through the surroundings, mingled with a variety of toxic chemical gases.

Now and then, a pair of large, bright red eyes appeared inside the distant trash heaps, watching Cheng Qi from afar with an eerie, chilling stare.

Cheng Qi raised his head slightly. A silver metal faceplate flipped into place on the Ultimate Warrior Powered Armor, and its eyes instantly lit up with futuristic blue beams.

As its name suggested, the Ultimate Warrior naturally had the ability to withstand all kinds of harsh environments.

Cheng Qi still wore the mobile control platform of the KP03 Quantum Intelligent Repair Cluster on his shoulder.

The little "UFO" rested against Cheng Qi's shoulder, with tens of thousands of miniature repair robots clustered atop it. Their mechanical tentacles were retracted, making them look like hibernating insects with their wings folded away.

This was a pleasant surprise Cheng Qi had discovered earlier.

He had never expected to be able to take a little "travel kit" out of that enormous repair cluster hub.

"Foolish Boy, ready?"

"No problem!"

With a thunderous roar, the Jet Turbine Shoes beneath their feet activated. Two figures shot into the sky, adjusted their posture high above, and headed straight for the heart of Kyoto!

Squeak!

Squeak, squeak-!

After Cheng Qi and Foolish Boy took flight, dark shapes suddenly crawled out of the surrounding trash heaps. They moved into the dim sunlight, gradually revealing their true forms.

They were enormous gray-furred rats, each at least a meter long, with bulging muscles all over their bodies. Their sharp teeth had grown far beyond their mouths, piercing the skin of their lower jaws and protruding into the air, dripping foul-smelling fluid.

Their bright red eyes brimmed with feral savagery as they stood upright, staring at the two figures in the distant sky.

Carrion Rats.

That was the name scavengers had given them.

Rats had always been difficult to eradicate. These rats, however, had mutated under the influence of Kyoto's vast quantities of chemical waste and intense radiation.

They had become strong and vicious, with incredibly hard teeth and claws.

Their tenacity had also increased. Even after being cut in half, one could still savagely tear into its prey.

Moreover, certain more intelligent mutants had emerged among the Carrion Rats. They acted as strategists, secretly directing their colonies in attacks that combined overwhelming numbers with clever tactics.

At that moment.

A Carrion Rat faced north and opened its grotesque, terrifying maw. A strange, distorted sound suddenly rose from its throat. It sounded nothing like a rat, but rather the roar of some large carnivore.

In an instant.

Wave after wave of terrifying roars rang out from the north.

It was a warning signal.

And answering it was an enormous colony numbering in the tens of millions.

These mutated rats were fiercely territorial. Once they discovered an intruder, they would even mobilize the entire colony to tear it to pieces.

In truth, the name Carrion Rat no longer quite suited them.

Many scavengers called them "Killer Rats."

That was why people called the Kyoto region the "Land of No Return"!