Xie Mingxuan had originally left Quan Xiaoyu because he was hungry and wanted to hunt. He just never expected that the “prey” would actually be Chu Tian!
Xie Mingxuan would never attack humans on his own.
But after seeing the half-mutated body of Chu Tian, Quan Xiaoyu understood why Xie Mingxuan had attacked him.
It was probably the pheromones produced after Chu Tian’s mutation that made Xie Mingxuan think he was some kind of beast.
After all, Xie Mingxuan was already a zombie. He didn’t identify species through his eyes the way humans did.
At this moment, his “prey” had been snatched away by Quan Xiaoyu, and he was probably still hungry.
“I’ll let you out to hunt. Don’t go too far. I’ll wait here for you to come back.”
Quan Xiaoyu swam to the shore and gave Xie Mingxuan a thorough lecture.
For some reason, Xie Mingxuan had absolutely no reaction to what other people said, yet he was somehow able to understand everything Quan Xiaoyu said.
After giving him his instructions, Quan Xiaoyu finally released Xie Mingxuan from the space and let him go hunting for food again.
Once the conversation got started, the two of them finally stopped being silent.
When Quan Xiaoyu swam back to Chu Tian’s side, Chu Tian slowly began telling him about everything he had experienced over the past three months.
Three months ago, on the day J City was destroyed.
Before everyone was swallowed up, Chu Tian had been carried into the sky by the black giant bird a step earlier.
It was precisely because he had been carried into the sky that, when he saw the three of them were almost about to be swallowed by the flock of birds, he panicked and unleashed every bit of strength he had for one final attack.
After that, he completely lost consciousness.
When he woke up, his entire body hurt so badly that he couldn’t move.
He had probably fallen from a great height and broken some bones.
Chu Tian opened his eyes and observed his surroundings.
It was an unfamiliar mountain forest.
The area was covered by countless enormous green plants. He could hear the sound of gently flowing water, but wherever he looked, there was only an endless sea of green. He couldn’t see where the water came from.
Chu Tian struggled to turn his neck and finally realized that he was lying on a section of tree trunk.
Because the plants had mutated after the apocalypse, they had also become enormous and incredibly strong. Their branches and leaves were so dense that they formed a huge net.
He guessed that this was probably the reason he hadn’t fallen to his death.
He had probably broken some bones.
Chu Tian reached out and pressed against his aching chest. His left ribs were giving him waves of intense pain, and his left leg wasn’t much better.
His head felt foggy and empty, as though something had been scooped out of it.
Chu Tian understood that it was probably caused by that final attack.
At that moment, he had actually sensed that his ability had leveled up again.
But at the same time, he had exhausted every bit of energy in his body.
When it rains, it pours.
That old saying that had been passed down since ancient times had never felt more accurate.
Chu Tian hadn’t even figured out how to get himself standing so that he could deal with his injuries when the leaves beneath him suddenly began shaking violently.
They seemed to have come alive and began contracting.
And so, through a gap, Chu Tian fell downward once again.
It turned out that this wasn’t solid ground at all.
He had been lying on a tree branch.
If he fell from here again, Chu Tian thought, this time it wouldn’t be as simple as broken ribs.
But the expected sensation of something breaking elsewhere in his body never came.
Instead, Chu Tian felt himself crash into a soft, squishy mass of mud.
Before he could even say thank goodness, a black shadow suddenly pounced onto him.
Chu Tian immediately sensed the danger.
He didn’t have time to worry about his injuries and rolled away on the spot, narrowly avoiding the black shadow’s first attack.
However, the black shadow reacted extremely quickly.
With a twist of its body, it immediately bit down on Chu Tian’s left leg.
The intense pain nearly made Chu Tian black out.
His ability had been completely drained, and his injured body left him with almost no ability to resist.
Very quickly, he felt himself being flung into the air.
That was right.
The creature had bitten onto his leg and was swinging him around as though he were food it was tearing apart.
During those few moments, Chu Tian finally got a clear look at the thing attacking him.
It looked somewhat like a lizard and walked on four claws, but its entire body was covered in thick armor.
Its pointed mouth was completely disproportionate to the rest of its body.
At this point, Chu Tian also understood the fundamental reason he had been attacked.
What he had fallen onto wasn’t mud at all.
It was a nest full of eggs!
They were probably eggs laid by this creature, and Chu Tian had crushed them all into egg slurry when he fell on them.
However, this creature didn’t seem to be carnivorous.
After flinging Chu Tian around several times, it probably felt that it wasn’t getting anywhere, so it threw Chu Tian down and bit at his left hand instead.
Unable to fight back and with nowhere to dodge, Chu Tian was soon covered in wounds.
At that moment, what saved his life was actually a giant python.
The python had apparently taken advantage of the lizard-like monster being distracted and had crawled into the egg slurry that Chu Tian had crushed, happily sucking it up.
When the monster discovered this, it became furious.
It dropped the half-dead Chu Tian and pounced toward the python.
It seemed not to have vocal cords. Even in its fury, all it could produce was a harsh huffing and puffing sound from its throat.
Seeing that the monster had finally released him and left, Chu Tian, who had been enduring it for so long, finally seized the opportunity.
Ignoring his injuries, he crawled and rolled away from the battlefield as quickly as he could and hid in a concealed place.
In truth, he knew he wouldn’t be able to hide for long.
Once the battle over there ended, that monster would eventually come looking for him again.
Regardless of whether the monster or the python won, neither outcome would benefit him.
Chu Tian hid in a naturally formed depression in the earth beside a tree and licked his cracked lips.
His relatively uninjured right hand suddenly touched two bulges inside his clothes.
He remembered.
They were the fruits he had taken from Xiaoyu’s spatial dimension for research.
There had simply been one incident after another, leaving him no time to study them, so he had kept them on his person all this time.
He struggled to take the fruits out from inside his clothes.
After all the tossing and struggling, the fruits had cracked, but fortunately they hadn’t been smashed.
Once the outer shell split open, red flesh was revealed inside, soft like watermelon.
Juice from the cracks was now flowing down Chu Tian’s wrist.
Chu Tian brought his hand toward his mouth and licked some of it.
Sweet!
Without the slightest hesitation, he put the fruit into his mouth.
Truly, without the slightest hesitation!
What difference was there between his current situation and certain death?
Why worry about anything else?
Fill his stomach first!
At this point, Chu Tian didn’t want to think about anything.
He couldn’t think about anything.
Because he soon developed a high fever.
Perhaps it was because his wounds had become infected.
Perhaps it was because of the beast’s bites.
A scorching sensation like blazing fire quickly spread throughout his entire body.
It wasn’t as though he was unconscious during the process.
Chu Tian almost wished he had been.
This burning sensation wasn’t merely hot.
It was as though ten thousand ants were gnawing at every inch of flesh on his entire body.
Bit by bit.
Slowly chewing and tearing.
It was even more agonizing than being slowly sliced apart.
Chu Tian clenched his teeth and endured it by sheer force.
The suffering continued for a very, very long time.
So long that Chu Tian was in such agony that he wished he could simply lose consciousness and die immediately.
Gradually, the pain turned into numbness.
Once the pain reached a certain level, Chu Tian could no longer feel it.
At that instant, he felt as though his mental strength had undergone a sublimation.
His consciousness entered a seven-colored space.
The place was vast and completely empty, yet somehow it gave Chu Tian a sense of warmth and safety.
Finally, he fell into a deep sleep there.
In the forest, Chu Tian lay half-reclined in the depression in the earth, completely motionless, as though he had lost his life.
But his body was undergoing visible changes.
The wounds all over his body gradually began healing.
They healed at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Finally, his skin began to bulge.
One solid scale after another emerged from beneath it, eventually covering his entire body.
Then the monster returned after successfully driving away the python.
It had not forgotten the enemy who had killed its offspring and began searching back and forth around the place where Chu Tian had disappeared.
Soon, it spotted the figure in the depression.
The monster leaped and pounced toward Chu Tian once again.
But when it reached him, it suddenly froze.
It carefully sniffed Chu Tian’s body, looking extremely puzzled.
It wandered around the area once more.
In the end, it finally left.
The eggs it had intended to use to build another nest were gone, and its enemy had disappeared as well.
There was nothing left for it here.
When Chu Tian opened his eyes again, the situation was completely different from the first time.
He felt full of energy from head to toe, overflowing with strength.
The places that had previously hurt from his injuries no longer gave him the slightest pain.
However, when he looked clearly at his own body, he could only let out a sigh.
He knew.
He had mutated.
Sure enough, surviving by a hair’s breadth didn’t come without a price.
He touched his entire body, which was covered in dense scales.
At this moment, he probably looked even more like a monster than that lizard-like creature.
It was impossible for Chu Tian to feel absolutely nothing about such a non-human appearance.
It really did make him uncomfortable for a while.
But fortunately, he had survived.
Right?
He comforted himself with that thought.
Of course, there were benefits to this as well.
At the very least, the python that was coiled up in the tree stared at Chu Tian for a long while before turning around and leaving.
That was probably the python that had stolen the egg slurry that day, Chu Tian thought.
Looks like it has absolutely no interest in someone covered in armor like me.