Chapter 2

Chapter 2

An Zhe had been traveling for a long time.

Many days and nights passed, yet the distance he covered on the map was only as wide as the tip of a human little finger, while the Northern Base was still an entire finger's length away. He lacked human transportation, unsure of how much longer it would take to reach his destination.

Eventually, the damp and gloomy atmosphere faded from his senses, and the soil beneath his feet grew increasingly hard.

As evening fell, the sun sank like a deep red eye, absorbed by the distant, continuous black mountains. Daylight waned, and twilight and aurora emerged together. An Zhe struggled to decipher the words and symbols on the map.

The dried-up riverbed he had just crossed marked the boundary of "The Abyss." Beyond this border lay a place called "Plain No. 2." Rated three stars in danger level and two stars in pollution grade, Plain No. 2 was home to large arachnid creatures and rodents. Unlike The Abyss, it no longer teemed with mushrooms but was predominantly covered by ordinary low shrubs.

Indeed, the undulating terrain, ubiquitous ravines, and towering tree shadows that were hallmarks of The Abyss were all absent here. The landscape was open and unobstructed, a flat expanse of dusk stretching to the horizon.

However, An Zhe felt uneasy.

The dry air of Plain No. 2 seemed inhospitable to mushrooms. He could find no soil to draw nutrients from, leaving him no choice but to recover his strength through human means, such as sleep.

So, he walked for a while longer until he stumbled upon a slightly depressed area dotted with pale yellow grass. Kneeling down, he curled up with his knees drawn to his chest, seeking a comfortable position.

The majority of a mushroom's existence is spent in slumber, but this was the first time it had drifted off in a human-like posture.

A mushroom's sleep entails stillness and the passage of time, yet human sleep seemed distinct. Soon after closing its eyes, an endless darkness engulfed it like a rising tide, making its body feel weightless, or as if it were slowly losing touch with its own form.

At some indeterminate moment, a distant howl of wind echoed in its ear — the wind from the open fields it once cherished the most.

But those winds now held no significance, for they had lost their spores — scattered when they tumbled through the fields they adored. Human voices intertwined within the gusts, fragments of sounds it couldn't quite recall, mere snippets of broken sentences in the human tongue —

"Very... strange, very..."

"...How so?"

"Take... a sample... here."

In the next instant, an inexplicable pain radiated throughout its being. Light yet profound, an emptiness formed within its consciousness, a void that could never, ever be filled. It realized then that it had lost something invaluable.

— Fear gripped it in an instant, and from that moment on, it began to dread the sound of the wind, retreating into the safety of caves.

With a thumping heart, a sudden surge of fear struck — reminiscent of the loss of its spores.

An Zhe abruptly opened his eyes, immediately realizing he was dreaming – only humans could dream. In the next moment, his breathing ceased entirely.

He identified the source of his fear – a black creature stood before him.

Two blood-red compound eyes glowed eerily. An Zhe's body tensed as he looked down, seeing enormous—about the length of an adult human—triplets of slender, razor-sharp scythes that shimmered with a cold moonlight-like luster.

Upon recognizing what it was, his body trembled. A distant sensation, a shudder passed down from his earliest ancestor millions of years ago – mushrooms could perish under the relentless chewing of termites.

The beasts in "The Abyss" might not spare a glance for a mushroom, but the arthropods of the Second Plain might consider them a rare delicacy.

Upon this thought, An Zhe instinctively rolled to the side!

A dull thud echoed, and the ground shook as the arthropod's sharp forelimbs pierced into the soil where he had just been lying.

Swiftly grabbing his backpack, An Zhe scrambled up and bolted towards the nearby bushes, the sound of its numerous footsteps ringing in his ears. When the noise subsided slightly, he turned to look back. Under the aurora, he finally saw the creature in its entirety – a colossal black monster resembling an ant magnified thousands of times.

Fortunately, the creature seemed to have a cumbersome body, and humans outran it. If he could just reach the bushes ahead—

He stumbled and fell.

In that fleeting instant, he was already enveloped by the monster's looming shadow. A shrill wind accompanied the creature's forelimb as it swung towards his arm.

An Zhe's sleeve suddenly hung loose, the fabric drooping emptily; it had missed its target.

This seemed to catch the monster off guard, causing it to pause.

Simultaneously, mycelium began to spread and regenerate within An Zhe's sleeve, reforming into a complete human arm.

He rolled on the ground to evade the monster's next strike, just barely dodging. Then, using his arm for support, he lunged into the low shrubbery, where two sturdy bushes shielded his body.

However, this was not enough to escape the monster's sight. An Zhe panted rapidly. At this moment, his body began to transform. His arms, fingers, and every limb started to blur, something stirring beneath the surface, shifting towards the mycelium as it prepared for a more agile escape.

Just then—

"Bang!"

A streak of white light sliced through the air like a shooting star, slamming heavily into the joint connecting the monster's head and abdomen.

Following the dull thud, the white light exploded silently, intertwined with flickers of red flames.

An Zhe crouched among the shrubs, watching helplessly as the enormous creature split in two and crashed to the ground with a thunderous boom.

The rustling of leaves shook from the impact, sprinkling over An Zhe. The monster's head landed less than half a meter away from him, its blood-red compound eyes still fixed in his direction.

In the "Abyss," An Zhe had witnessed creatures that could move independently even after being severed into three parts. Recalling this, he attempted to rise and distance himself from the remains. Suddenly, he heard voices nearby.

"A single uranium bomb left. Once we collect the remains, we return to base," a deep-voiced man said.

"The exoskeletons won't come cheap. Didn't expect this last haul," replied another man, his voice sharper.

After a brief exchange, they fell silent, and footsteps approached. The sound of thick-soled leather boots treading on sand mixed with the whisper of grit.

—Humans.

It had been a long time since An Zhe had encountered humans after An Ze's death. He cautiously raised his head from the bushes.

The shrubs rustled, and the first speaker hissed a warning, "Alert!"

In the next instant, three dark muzzles were aimed directly at him.

An Zhe gazed at them.

Inevitably, memories of the chaotic night when the spore was lost flashed through his mind. However, An Ze's presence reminded him of the kindness and camaraderie that humans were capable of. Contemplating his current situation, he spoke, "Hello... all of you."

Under the aurora's illumination, their figures became clear. There were three men in dark gray clothes, all males. Wide brown leather belts cinched at their waists held ammunition pouches. The man standing in the middle was tall, while the other two were slightly shorter.

This was the same person who had first spoken, mentioning the "last uranium bullet." His voice was deep and steady, "Human?"

An Zhe hesitated for a moment, recalling the weapon that had bisected the monster. He replied, "Yes."

"What's your name? ID number? Where's your team?"

"My name is An Zhe, 3261170514. We've been separated."

The man frowned, looking down at him. His eyebrows were thick and dark, his eyes distinct with black and white, his nose bridge high, and his lips thick. This combination of features didn't evoke the same sense of danger that the beasts in the abyss did. An Zhe pressed his lips together and met his gaze.

Three seconds later, the other man standing beside him—a short, dark-skinned man—racked the slide of his gun with a click, a clear threat. He stared at An Zhe, speaking in a low, rapid voice, "Strip."

An Zhe stood up from the bushes, unbuttoning the first button of his gray shirt, then the second, revealing the skin around his collar. His skin was a smooth cream color, reminiscent of his mycelium.

In the next moment, he heard a whistle from a third man. This man had fair, almost reddish skin, yellow hair, and numerous wrinkles on his face, a sign of human aging. His eyes were a grayish-blue, slanted upward, and fixated on An Zhe.

An Zhe lowered his head, unbuttoned the remaining buttons, and took off his shirt.

The man with the gray-blue eyes approached him, whistled again, and began to appraise him from head to toe.

The man's gaze was incredibly sticky, like the saliva of a beast from the depths of an abyss. After sizing up An Zhe, he circled around to his side.

In the next instant, the man grabbed An Zhe's wrist, ran a finger over the skin of his wrist, and rubbed his thumb over his wrist bone. With a slightly sharp voice, he asked, "What's this?"

An Zhe looked down at the back of his hand and wrist, which had some irregular, reddish marks. These were scratches from the bushes he had brushed against while dodging the monster's attack. He turned his head and gestured with his eyes to the bushes behind him. "Leaves."

There was a brief silence. After a moment, the man clicked his tongue and said, "Are you going to take the rest off yourself, or do I need to do it for you?"

An Zhe didn't move.

He had a rough idea of what was happening, as there were similar scenes in An Ze's memories.

Genetic contamination could occur between monsters and between humans and monsters. The initial way to determine if a stranger was contaminated was to check for any wounds on their body.

Yet the person behind him made him uneasy, a sensation akin to when serpents slithered past his stem and cap when he was still a mushroom.

He lifted his gaze to the man in the center. He had encountered many fierce beasts in the Abyss and could roughly gauge their level of danger. Now, his intuition told him that this man was the least aggressive among the three.

"Hosen," the man said after a brief stare-down, his voice deep. "Don't lose it in the wilderness."

Hosen scoffed, his gaze becoming even more audacious as he sized up An Zhe.

After three seconds, the man spoke to An Zhe, "Follow me to the back."

Compliantly, An Zhe trailed the man around the monster's skull. Apart from scratches from shrubs and leaves, there were no other wounds on him.

The man asked, "How long have you been separated from your teammates?"

An Zhe pondered before replying, "A day."

"You're quite resilient."

"It doesn't seem like there are many monsters here."

"Yet, there are plenty of insects." This person's speech was always concise but conveyed reliability.

An Zhe buttoned his clothes and looked at him, asking softly, "Are you heading back to the Northern Base?"

The man replied, "Mm."

"Then..." An Zhe said, "Can you take me with you? I have my own food and water."

"I'm not the one to decide," the man said.

As he finished speaking, the man stepped forward and looked at the other two. "He's uninjured. Should we bring him along?"

Hosen smiled, crossed his arms, and looked at An Zhe. He whistled for the third time before saying, "Why not? One more won't make a difference."

Then, he turned to the remaining man. "What do you think, Blackie?"

An Zhe also looked over and met the dark-skinned man's gloomy gaze.