At a camp on the outskirts of some city in Beixing, everyone was resting when suddenly a man covered in blood and dirt ran in.
Camp Boss Xuan Ge saw him and stood up: "Stone, what happened? Why are you the only one back? Where's Tao?"
Stone and Tao were two exceptionally powerful Ascendants in the camp, whose daily duties included hunting for food and defending the camp.
Today it was their turn to go hunting. They were supposed to return around dusk, but Stone had run back in the afternoon, and he was alone.
"Boss Xuan, Tao he..." Stone said with a grimace, the terror still not faded from his eyes. "He was in the park, dragged away by vines in the park!"
"What?!"
Everyone was shocked and stood up in disbelief.
Tao was the camp's second-strongest Ascendant, second only to Boss Xuan Ge himself. How could he be dragged away by some plants?
Boss Xuan pressed him: "What exactly happened? Tao's saber cuts through steel like tofu—how could he not chop through a few vines?!"
"Tao, he... he never even got to use his items... We came across some kind of flower. Tao leaned in to smell its fragrance and passed out on the spot. Then those vines surged in... I tried to save him, but I couldn't do anything. I had no choice but to run back myself..."
After hearing this, Boss Xuan's face shifted through several expressions. He stomped hard on the ground: "Tao is our brother. We can't just abandon him. Everyone, follow me to the forest park to rescue him!"
"Yeah!"
"We have to save Tao!"
Everyone responded in unison. But Zhao Ming couldn't help objecting: "Boss Xuan, everyone, we can't go. I've been watching the news these past few days. Plants are mutating at an alarming rate. The park is far too dangerous right now!"
Boss Xuan shot him a glare and said without room for argument: "I said Tao is our brother. He was in danger because he was hunting to get food for all of us. Everyone has to go."
Just then, the woman everyone called "Sister Lin" walked up to Boss Xuan, pulled his arm, and tried to dissuade him in a low voice.
"Boss Xuan, I think Zhao Ming has a point this time. It's been so long since Tao was dragged off by those vines and Stone ran back. Tao might already be..."
"Shut your mouth!"
Boss Xuan shoved Sister Lin away. With a wave of his hand, a flamethrower appeared in his palm, its thick black barrel aimed at the sky.
This was his exclusive item, and also his confidence for daring to remain in the wild under this rule. He believed this flamethrower could specifically counter plants, which was why he wasn't afraid of this rule.
"Anyone who tells me to abandon my brother can get the hell out right now! Everyone follow me to save Tao!"
With that, Boss Xuan took the lead and set out, with everyone else following.
Seeing this, Zhao Ming gritted his teeth and stepped forward to join them. After a few steps, Sister Lin grabbed him.
"Zhao Ming, Officer Zhao, you also think this is wrong, don't you? Boss Xuan has gone crazy, wanting to die for some so-called brother... You're a smart man. Let's go to the city and find a shelter together!"
Zhao Ming pushed her away with disgust: "Even if it means dying, I'm going with them. If Boss Xuan weren't so loyal, he wouldn't have saved me back then. If you want to go to a shelter, go by yourself."
"You!"
Sister Lin never expected that the camp's usually most timid kid would dare to look down on her. Stung by his gaze, she flew into a rage and cursed: "Go die, then! All of you go die!"
With that, she decisively turned around, heading in the opposite direction from the group, running toward the city.
Sister Lin glanced back at her retreating figure, then quickened her pace to catch up with Zhao Ming and the others, heading toward the forest park.
After a day's rest, the "Children of Argan" tribe, led by their chief Jie, left the increasingly overgrown abandoned town and entered the Birahan Desert.
At the outer edge of the desert, hundreds of large and small tents had already been pitched, all occupied by refugees from various places.
Some of these people seemed to be acting in an organized manner, while others were just individuals or small groups banding together.
There was a certain distance between each tent, indicating that most people held an attitude of non-interference, keeping their guard up against one another.
However, when the Children of Argan tribe appeared, it drew many gazes. Many people even wore strange expressions.
"Why are they all looking at us like that?"
"Who knows..."
"Maybe it has to do with the clothes we're wearing."
The tribe members were all from the grasslands and wore animal hides. Placed alongside others in industrially made clothing, they indeed seemed out of place.
As they passed a few tents clustered together, someone whistled and mocked: "Ooh, where did this bunch of savages come from?"
The surrounding area erupted in laughter.
Some tribe members glared angrily, but Chief Jie stopped them.
"Don't pay them any mind."
"That's right," said another elder of the tribe. "We have indeed become 'savages' cut off from modern industrial society. There's no point in getting angry."
That was easier said than done, though. The younger ones were certainly still annoyed. But under their chief's restraint, they didn't talk back and continued deeper into the desert.
The man with the crew cut who had whistled and mocked them let his gaze fall on the tribe. When he spotted the supplies they were carrying, his eyes deepened.
He stood up, brushed the sand off himself, and walked into a large tent. Inside, several burly men were fiddling with their guns.
"In this sandy place, if you don't maintain them for a day, they jam. Such a hassle."
"Tell me about it."
The crew-cut man said: "A group just passed by outside, all wearing animal hides. They look like they've been living in the wild. I noticed they're carrying a lot of supplies."
The big men all looked up at him. One asked: "How many people?"
"At least thirty or so."
"How many Ascendants?"
"Not many," the crew-cut man said. "I only saw a few carrying heavy loads. The rest were carrying normal weight. Probably only a few Ascendants."
Regardless of a person's build—fat, thin, tall, or short—Ascendants were universally much stronger than ordinary people, so their carrying capacity was naturally greater. The crew-cut man just had to look at how much each person was carrying to guess who was an Ascendant and who wasn't.
"Oh? Not bad."
The big men all nodded in agreement.
One of them, holding a large-caliber handgun, made an aiming gesture and said slowly: "The towns and cities around this desert are already finished. Can't scavenge any supplies. If we have to survive here for a month, what we brought won't be enough."
"Boss, I reckon a lot of people have their eyes on them. We'd better make our move fast, before someone else beats us to it."
"Yeah. Tell the brothers to get ready. Have someone follow them first to see where they settle down. Tomorrow night, we'll slip over and kill them all for their goods."
"Got it!"
...
In Antu City, what was once a high-rise office building had now become a shelter for thousands of Sakura Prayer people.
They had entered here on the orders of the Serpent Hair Society.
The Sakura Prayer people mostly had mixed feelings toward this newly formed organization—both love and hate.
What they loved was that this organization was indeed very principled. Transactions mediated by this organization were reliably guaranteed.
Previously, a well-equipped gang of several dozen people had dared to defy the Serpent Hair Society, openly violating its mediation requirements by looting Ascension Coins and items from their trading partners, and even making provocative remarks about what the Serpent Hair Society could do about it.
Within a single day, that very night, every member of that gang had appeared on the streets—not as corpses, but not as humans either. They had been turned into half-human, half-snake monsters.
After that, no one in the entire city dared to challenge the Serpent Hair Society's authority. All transactions mediated by the society proceeded smoothly.
But what people hated about the Serpent Hair Society was that this upstart organization was too domineering. It did not allow any other middlemen or intermediary organizations to exist, effectively creating a monopoly.
Whenever any industry forms a monopoly, customers lose their bargaining power. The same went for Ascendant intermediary transactions.
Many Sakura Prayer Ascendants certainly didn't want a monopoly, but no one dared to stop the Serpent Hair Society. They could only complain while using its intermediation services, which took a not-insignificant cut.
However, after the new rule was announced, when the Serpent Hair Society stepped in to organize shelter for the Sakura Prayer people—whose government was doing nothing—everyone felt that this hefty intermediary fee had become well worth it.
But the high-rise wasn't absolutely safe. Plants had already broken through the windows on the lower floors and would certainly climb higher. This had driven people to gather on the upper floors.
Now, the twentieth floor and below were completely empty. Everyone was concentrated on the twentieth floor and above, occasionally standing by the windows to look down.
Watching the increasingly spreading greenery and the climbing vines, everyone felt deeply uneasy, wondering how much longer the upper floors of this building could remain safe.
"Hey, there's someone down there!"
On the twenty-first floor, someone spotted a figure below. Hearing this, everyone crowded around the windows to look down.
From a high vantage point, they could see a person in a black tight-fitting suit approaching the main entrance of the building. From the body's curves, they could tell it was a woman.
When that person looked up, everyone saw the metal mask covering her face, and some immediately recognized her.
"It's the Serpent Hair Society president!"
Those Ascendants who had conducted a few intermediary transactions through the society knew a bit more about the organization. They knew the president was a woman and that she always wore a full-face metal mask.
Some had seen the president's eyes. Based on those very unsettling vertical pupils, they guessed that the face under her mask must not look normal either. Of course, that was all speculation—no one dared to ask.
Now, the Serpent Hair Society president had appeared downstairs, and no one yet knew why.
But the next moment, she sprang into action. Her target was clearly the vines that had spread into the lower floors.
She didn't use any weapons. With her bare hands, she grabbed some long vines clinging to the wall and, with a firm yank and a pull, snapped them apart.
That terrifying strength made everyone who witnessed it feel a chill. Especially those who had attacked vines before knew how tough those mutated plants were!
Whether the vines had detected a human entering their attack range or were instinctively retaliating after being attacked, they all writhed and converged from all directions around the courtyard, with sharp thorns emerging from their tips, stabbing toward the woman.