At the time, she was certain this person was the handsome man she’d had a brief encounter with at the campground.
This time, it was very likely him again.
"Should we try to gather information from witnesses?" someone asked. "Whether it was one person or two, it would be good to get in touch with them."
"Forget it. Let’s not bother him. Someone who doesn’t know the situation might think we’re trying to cause trouble for him," Lin Wanqing vetoed the suggestion.
At that moment, the evening twilight had already crept silently over the city walls.
The massive insect carcass in the crater was finally being hauled onto a heavy-duty flatbed truck, ready to be transported to the mission hall for sacrifice.
The wind suddenly turned cold. The temperature always plummeted at sunset, and the abrupt, extreme cold front that had descended the previous night was still a chilling memory.
"Hurry up! It’s getting dark!"
The sharp shouts of the Law Enforcement Team rang out, simultaneously driving away the people still coveting a piece of the giant creature’s valuable flesh.
...
"It’s getting cold."
Inside a supermarket on the base’s commercial street, Yu Ziyuan wrapped her coat tighter around herself. Beside her, a Flower Demon followed her command, pulling down a box of feminine hygiene products from a high shelf.
"The temperature’s dropped again. It’s not going to be another extreme-cold night, is it?"
Her gaze shifted to Yan Ruoruo, only to see her friend casually grab several boxes of condoms from the counter.
Yu Ziyuan froze for a moment. Seeing that the man in question wasn’t around, her irrepressible gossipy nature took over. She stepped forward and teased, "What are these for?"
Yan Ruoruo was silent for a second before saying calmly, "They can be used for waterproof sealing and protection when we go into the caves tomorrow."
"You’re still as quick-witted as ever."
Yu Ziyuan wasn’t buying it. Her smile deepened, but then she suddenly paused.
Huh...
’Ruoruo can actually quibble and lie now.’
Ever since she had become emotionally detached, she had always been brutally honest, disdaining lies.
A thought struck Yu Ziyuan. She suddenly reached out, grasped Yan Ruoruo’s arms, and gently pulled her closer until their faces were nearly touching.
"Really? Just for waterproofing? Couldn’t you also use them as ties, for temporary water storage, or even as a buoy?"
She rattled off several other excuses for her in one breath.
But Yan Ruoruo’s eyes remained clear and cold, her lips set in a straight line. Not even an eyelash trembled. There was no trace of guilt or evasion in her expression.
"Alright, my mistake."
Yu Ziyuan didn’t dare press her best friend any further. At least knowing she was showing a slight sign of improvement was a good thing.
"It’s fine."
Yan Ruoruo took the supplies from the counter. As she pushed the door open, the piercingly cold wind outside whipped at the hem of her clothes. The temperature had indeed dropped quite suddenly.
On the side of the street, Su Chen slowly parked a sightseeing cart. The back was loaded with two and a half cases of mineral water, three cases of tissues, and two solar panels he had dismantled from a residential house.
After using his precise Telekinesis to move the items, he quickly returned to camp with the two women and their haul of supplies.
"Someone’s coming over the mountains."
On the way back, Su Chen’s gaze drifted to the distance. On the ridgeline of Cyan Dragon Ridge, shrouded in twilight, a dozen or so figures were making their way down the mountain.
’Our scavenging run was just in time.’
With the deadly parasitic frenzy having subsided for now, the pressure of survival had eased considerably.
Perhaps drawn by the thought of supplies scattered all over the campground, a group of armed personnel, who had almost certainly completed their class advancements, was crossing the mountains before nightfall.
’They might not have such a comfortable night.’
Su Chen already had a premonition. His ultra-high affinity allowed him to inexplicably sense that his Ice Element power seemed to be growing a little stronger.
...
「6:49 PM.」
The last ray of twilight sank below the horizon, and night officially fell.
The lights in the camp were already on.
Everyone had just finished a hearty dinner. The freshly roasted venison was fragrant and charred, delicious when mixed with the soft, aromatic Red Millet rice. It was especially good drizzled with a slightly tart sauce made from wild berries, which cut the gaminess and enhanced the flavor, elevating the meal to a whole new level.
"Looks like it’s going to be another extreme-cold night."
Even though night had just fallen, the mercury in the camp’s hanging thermometer had already plummeted to 6°C.
As another streak of faint blue, frosty starlight streaked across the distant sky, a chill ran through many people’s hearts.
There was no doubt about it now.
The annihilating, bitter cold wave from last night was about to repeat itself.
Su Chen looked at the frost beginning to drift past the window and mused aloud, "Is this some kind of systematic, total annihilation?"
He more or less saw last night’s abnormal climate as the Element Epoch’s world-system forcefully responding to and eradicating the Divine Power of fleshly creation, relentlessly pushing it to the brink of annihilation.
The Bloodthirsty Fungus was out of the picture now. So... what did this mean?
"It does seem a bit like an overreacting immune system that doesn’t care whether the body can handle it," Yan Ziqian chimed in from the side, clearly comparing the Bloodthirsty Fungus to an invading virus.
"It really doesn’t care if we live or die," Pang Peng said, speechless.
But on second thought, that really was the case.
The more people died, the more it served as a way to weed out the weak, accelerate the circulation of Rune Essence, and give rise to even stronger individuals.
This world itself was just one giant Gu Breeding Ground.
"Perhaps it’s related to the civilization’s heritage," Yan Ruoruo said, offering a moment of clarity.
Su Chen nodded slightly. But the truly unsettling question was where *it* had obtained such terrifying power of fleshly creation—the power to twist genes, fuse different species, and even create human-beast chimeras.
If one were to trace it back to its source, it was most likely linked to the six major hives that were first discovered.
During dinner, the official radio station had also publicly disclosed information about Oran City.
The private radio stations that had leaked the information early hadn’t embellished the facts; the details about the Rune Core buildings were a perfect match.
As for additional information, it was revealed that the core area has a Rune Crystal Pyramid Tower. By delivering a certain quota of minerals, wood, and Rune Essence, one could unlock various levels of defensive structures like towers and walls.

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