Chapter 220: Mutation (Part XVIII)
While Xiao Ji was listening to Lin Xu’s stories about the team, Mu Fan suddenly raised his flamethrower and opened fire on a shop wall ahead.
At the same time, Bai Yinnian sprinted forward, slamming his flamethrower against a telephone pole. As the weapon erupted in flames, a struggling mass that had previously looked like part of the pole suddenly appeared.
The clearing operation had begun.
All the 【Divine Wings】 members dispersed to find their own targets. Only Lin Xu remained by Xiao Ji’s side.
Xiao Ji looked up at him. “Go do your work. Don’t worry about me.”
Lin Xu refused. “I can’t do that.”
Xiao Ji waved him off. “No need. I have a bodyguard. He’s a bit introverted; if you stay too close, he’ll be too shy to act.”
Lin Xu looked down at Xiao Cui, who wasn’t even as tall as the back of the wheelchair, and pursed his lips. “I think I’d better stay with you.”
Just as he finished speaking, the concrete beneath Lin Xu’s feet cracked without warning.
Lin Xu instinctively stepped over the fissure. In the next second, the crack yawned open, and countless sharp thorns erupted from the depths. Like a tide of brambles, they surged toward Lin Xu.
Because they were so close, Lin Xu couldn’t use his flamethrower without the residual heat reaching Xiao Ji. In a moment of crisis, he gripped the thorns with his bare hands, snapping them through sheer force.
Black slime splattered everywhere as more thorns extended from all directions.
Bai Yinnian sensed something and looked back, catching Mu Fan’s eye from a distance.
“High-level Pollutant!” Mu Fan’s pupils constricted as he sprinted toward the mass of thorns.
Bai Yinnian’s heart skipped a beat. He hadn’t expected to encounter a High-level Pollutant right at the entrance of Route 81. He didn’t care about anything else; two golden wings instantly tore through the upper half of his combat uniform. In the blink of an eye, Bai Yinnian reached the brambles.
By now, the thorns had completely enveloped Xiao Ji. The dense, interlocking spikes blocked Bai Yinnian’s vision, making it impossible to see the man’s condition.
Mu Fan was still preoccupied with competing with Bai Yinnian to see who could kill the creature first. But Bai Yinnian’s mind was focused solely on Xiao Ji. His massive wings, sharp as steel blades, hacked at the thorns while wreathed in flames.
However, the thorns seemed to be rooted in place. Even as they suffered under the fire, they remained motionless, keeping Xiao Ji tightly locked within.
Bai Yinnian used his wings to tear at the thorns like a madman. He didn’t dare increase the intensity of the flames, fearing Xiao Ji wouldn’t be able to withstand the heat.
In reality, Xiao Ji wasn’t refusing to fight back, nor was he intentionally making Bai Yinnian worry.
In fact, he was no longer inside that cage of thorns.
After the thorns had blocked everyone’s vision, the section of concrete Xiao Ji was on had sunk completely into darkness. The thorns had been nothing more than a diversion.
As for the person capable of manipulating a High-level Pollutant to pull off such a stunt… Xiao Ji didn’t have to guess. He had been targeted by his own kind once again.
Within his field of vision, Xiao Ji saw himself descending.
But something felt wrong. He closed his eyes and gripped Xiao Cui’s wrist, only to realize that he was actually rising.
A moment later, the feeling of weightlessness ended.
Xiao Ji opened his eyes to find himself on the rooftop of the tallest building on Route 81. Standing before him were a man and a woman.
The woman, her pupils glowing with a sickly green light, retracted the vines that had been wrapped around Xiao Ji’s wheelchair and Xiao Cui.
The man, wearing a trench coat, stood at the edge of the roof. On the surface, he looked like a normal person. He looked at Xiao Ji, an excited expression on his face as he offered a smile that seemed friendly but felt hollow.
“Hello, Xiao Ji. Do you still remember me?”
Xiao Ji looked at the man’s ordinary face. It didn’t match the file 037 had sent him of his mission target, Qi Xu.
However, it wasn’t hard to guess that these two were Qi Xu’s subordinates. They were products of natural evolution under 【Heaven’s Punishment】.
In the original world line, they were the original host’s teammates—two of the idiots who dreamed of ruling the world during the apocalypse.
Xiao Ji didn’t speak. 037 realized he had no impression of the man and prompted him:
[You’ve never met the woman. The man is one of Qi Xu’s subordinates named Qian Zheng. He was the kid who grew up with you in the orphanage. He used to bully you quite a bit because he had all his limbs, and eventually, he was the one who was adopted.]
Xiao Ji thanked the system: [Thank you.]
Then, with a wooden face, he spoke to Qian Zheng. “What kind of thing are you?”
The smile remained on Qian Zheng’s face. “It seems I didn’t leave a deep enough impression on you back then, little cripple.”
Xiao Ji remained silent.
Qian Zheng continued, “I never expected you to become one of the candidates for the Lord of the New World. Honestly, I wasn’t personally willing to accept a cripple, but the higher-ups are interested in you. I’ve been sent to welcome you home.”
Xiao Ji raised an eyebrow. “Lord of the New World? Did you get those delusions from a botched prenatal injection, or was the trauma of being abandoned by your adoptive father so great that you’re hallucinating?”
The moment the words left his mouth, Qian Zheng appeared before Xiao Ji. A withered, ice-cold hand clamped around Xiao Ji’s throat.
Simultaneously, a chubby little hand gripped Qian Zheng’s wrist.
Before Qian Zheng could react, a wave of agonizing pain exploded through his arm. His entire limb vanished in a bang, turning into a mist of blood.
Blood splattered across Xiao Ji’s face.
Xiao Ji tilted his head, ignoring Qian Zheng’s screams, and addressed the culprit, Xiao Cui.
“Don’t do that. It’s messy. I don’t like it.”
Xiao Cui retracted his hand, looking at Xiao Ji with an innocent expression.
Xiao Ji patted his head, intending to offer a few words of comfort, when countless vines surged toward him.
Xiao Ji only said two words: “Watch this.”
In an instant, he vanished from the wheelchair.
When he reappeared, he was right in front of the woman whose mouth had unhinged into a cavernous maw, spewing vines.
Xiao Ji’s hands clamped onto the upper and lower jaws of the woman. With a violent tear, he ripped the woman’s head in half along the line of her lips. He tossed the upper half of her head off the rooftop.
Then, his right arm—marked with dark red patterns—plunged into the woman’s remaining torso.
In a heartbeat, the woman was encased in a rapidly spreading layer of ice. The moment Xiao Ji withdrew his arm, the ice shattered into countless motes of dust, scattering away with the wind.
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