Sakura Prayer, Antu.
Those sheltering in several high-rise refuge points had, after more than twenty days, grown accustomed to this way of life.
Although always staying up there without being able to go down was somewhat inconvenient and uncomfortable, as long as safety was guaranteed, they could endure it.
For that they were very grateful to the Serpent Hair Society for its help.
If the Serpent Hair Society hadn’t organized the defenses, most of them would likely have died from the attacks of the mutated plant swarms.
Right now there were only a few days left before this Rule ended. If they could just survive these final days, they would have lived through one more Rule.
It wasn’t any great achievement, but it was precisely this mindset of “don’t worry about the future, just try to survive this current Rule” that made many people grit their teeth and keep going.
“Suroma really went too far this time!”
“They’ll be held accountable by the whole world, I don’t even know what’ll happen.”
“Do you think Bruce will really step down? But everyone used to say he was the most powerful king Suroma had had in centuries of existence.”
Although life in the high-rise refuges was inconvenient, people could still use the online network via satellite relays connected to neighboring Beixing.
Of course they hadn’t missed the major international events of the last two days, and some Sakura Prayer people had different opinions about the parties involved in those events.
“That Guan Tong went to another country to kill people again. He’s powerful, but he’s a little terrifying.”
“Yeah. It seems our Divine Child was also targeted by him... If the Divine Child hadn’t died, maybe Sakura Prayer wouldn’t have fallen into this mess.”
“I think so too. Even if Divine Child Tianren made a lot of serpent slaves back then, isn’t that his ability? Having that power isn’t his fault. If anyone’s to blame, it should be the Fire Thief...”
“...You better keep your voices down discussing this. If the opposition hears you, they’ll definitely come after you.”
Even now, some Sakura Prayer people were still blaming the nation’s decline on Shadow.
They, and even more broadly the Beixing faction, were extremely disliked. People believed they interfered in Sakura Prayer’s internal politics and ultimately caused the country to be left half-dead.
Their thinking was that even if our ruler, the Divine Child, did many bad things, that was an internal Sakura Prayer matter. It should be resolved by Sakura Prayer people, not by an outsider like Guan Tong meddling in it.
When Serpent Hair Society members came to inspect, those discussing this topic immediately shut their mouths.
“Sister.”
At that moment a young boy, not very old, mustered his courage and stepped in front of the Serpent Hair Society member.
“I want to join the Serpent Hair Society too, can I? My Mind Power isn’t very high, but I’ll work hard to improve it!”
“Oh?” The Serpent Hair Society member looked at the boy. “Maybe. But recruitment is handled personally by the President. Ordinary members like us don’t have that authority, you know.”
“Then can you pass my request to the President?”
“Of course I can. Afterwards I—”
Boom!!!
Before she could finish, a tremendous noise suddenly erupted.
A reddish-brown branch, fully one point four meters in diameter, had sliced through the wall of the small building and tunneled back out, leaving a hole!
People, shaken by the violent tremor and barely keeping their balance, were dazed when the branch swept horizontally and immediately knocked forty or fifty people on that floor flying, crushing them to the ground.
“Ah!!!”
Screams and shrieks burst forth. The crowd hadn’t expected this; panic-stricken, they scrambled to flee.
Some ran upward, some downward, but quickly everyone discovered that no matter which way they ran, thick reddish-brown branches had stabbed through every floor to slaughter!
What on earth was going on? Where did such powerful mutated plants come from?
People were bewildered. Some Ascendants roared and tried to attack and eliminate the branches, but found their strikes against the branches had almost no effect.
Even the Serpent Hair Society members organized to defend and maintain order, after trying to fight the branches for ten-odd seconds, were swept by them; one was struck in the torso and killed instantly by the tremendous force.
In an instant the entire building became a sealed slaughterhouse. Those inside had nowhere to escape, nowhere to hide. Under the onslaught of dozens of thick reddish-brown branches breaking everything to pieces, everyone died.
Even more bizarrely, after killing the people sheltering there, many thin transparent buds sprouted from the thick branches. They wound themselves around the corpses, and quickly turned bright red.
These tender shoots were like capillary vessels, channeling human blood into the thick branches, which then transported it somewhere deep within.
At that moment, Uenoshi, who was guarding the edge of Antu, heard the commotion and turned to look, her eyes full of disbelief.
In the distance within her sight, a refuge high-rise farther from the rainforest edge had been pierced all over by dozens of thick branches, left tattered and broken.
Without needing to look closer, Uenoshi already knew the people inside were almost certainly dead.
But she couldn’t understand why, where this level of mutated plant had come from. If it came from the rainforest, why hadn’t it attacked from the direction of the rainforest where she was, but instead circled around to the far side of the city away from the rainforest?
“President!” A Serpent Hair Society member responsible for clearing ground plants in that direction contacted her. The voice in her earpiece trembled, soaked with shock and terror.
“We saw it. A gigantic red, reddish-brown tree... it’s moving... moving! It destroyed several refuge buildings at once, people inside were all killed... Please, President, send immediate support! We’re absolutely no match for it, we can’t—”
The reporter’s voice even had a hint of crying at the end. The mutated plant they saw was so terrifying that they’d lost the courage to fight, placing all hope on the President.
Uenoshi’s heart jolted.
It turned out the destruction wasn’t limited to a single refuge building. In places she could not see, several other buildings had been destroyed.
Each refuge high-rise housed at least a few thousand people. If several buildings were destroyed, that meant in this short time the mutated plant had already killed tens of thousands of Sakura Prayer people.
“I’ll head over right away!” Uenoshi replied through gritted teeth. “Everyone move away from there, don’t fight that mutated plant!”
If a mutated plant could so easily kill tens of thousands, it was not something ordinary Ascendants could handle, not even top-tier Ascendants.
Only the world’s absolute best Ascendants could deal with it.
As Uenoshi sped toward the target, she checked her Mind Power.
She only had fifteen percent Mind Power left, not nearly enough. To confront such a fearsome target in this state would be courting death.
She knew that if she acted recklessly and failed, the whole of Antu could fall, and the death toll would be far more than tens of thousands.
Uenoshi had to ask for help.
She glanced at the Mental Stability Anchor totem in her palm and was about to use the Mind Network to contact Guan Tong, to ask him to come to the rescue.
She felt that in such a situation only he could handle this level of crisis.
Just as she was about to initiate the psychic call, she suddenly heard sonic whistling.
Looking up, several high-speed fighter jets streaked across the sky, followed by a barrage of missile explosions.
Boom boom boom boom boom!
Explosions and fire came from the indicated direction. Uenoshi recognized them as Beixing fighter jets and was surprised: “Is this Beixing official support?”
She didn’t think this was related to Guan Tong. If it were him he would come alone; he wouldn’t have the authority to call in Beixing fighters.
Moreover, if this were Guan Tong’s arrangement, he would have contacted her in advance and given her a heads-up. From what she knew of Guan Tong as President, he wasn’t the type to enjoy springing “surprises.”
At that moment several armed helicopters arrived. One hovered above Uenoshi, the cabin door opened, and a long rope ladder for climbing dropped down.
There was no doubt it was meant for her to catch and climb aboard.
While Uenoshi was puzzled, a figure in military uniform, wearing sunglasses, short hair fluttering, appeared at the cabin doorway.
Uenoshi recognized her at a glance: it was the Beixing official known as Silver Fox.