Chapter 158: Level 2 Monster

Chapter 158: Tier‑Two Monster

At this moment Chen Jian was still unaware that the Mechanical Cult within Jinling City had already begun to mobilize, yet from the movements in Huadu he could roughly guess that the Mechanical Cult and the Holy Blood Hall would respond in kind.

The situation grew ever more chaotic, but on the other hand, the deeper the turmoil, the more advantageous it became for his squad.

Whatever the motive, if those two forces could unleash their canine‑minded schemes, his own opportunistic efficiency would be immeasurably higher.

How does the saying go?

The rougher the storm, the pricier the fish.

So Chen Jian spared no further thought for tracking Jinling City’s developments; he set his mind solely on marching straight toward the Jinling Ruins.

After sixteen hours of travel and two rests, the eight‑person team finally arrived at the outskirts of the Jinling Ruins.

By plan, they would take their final respite there, then penetrate the ruins for a close‑range reconnaissance, gathering intelligence on that Tier‑Two monster.

It was deep night; Chen Jian dug up the smokeless stove, lit a pot, and tossed the provisions he had collected through countless trades into a bubbling cauldron of chaotic stew.

The fire warmed his chest, while the wind chilled his back.

He swallowed a mouthful of hot broth and let out a satisfied sigh.

Watching his actions, Ji Xing hesitated, words caught in her throat.

She wanted to speak but dared not; she wanted to laugh but could not.

Observing her demeanor, Chen Jian asked curiously:

“What’s wrong? Something amiss?”

Ji Xing waved her hand, coughed once, and said:

“Nothing. It’s just that your definition of food caught me off guard.”

“What do you mean? Do you find this unpalatable?”

“Can this thing even be called tasty??”

Ji Xing was speechless and said:

“The ingredients themselves are fine—jerky, rice, flour, vegetables, even seasonings.”

“But can you tell me how you thought to simmer all those things together in one pot?”

“Your technology is advanced in every field, your knowledge beyond anything I could imagine, yet is your handling of food so crude?”

“Resources are limited.”

Chen Jian answered awkwardly, while beside him Shen Yue cut him down without mercy, saying:

“Fine, fine, just call it vegetables.”

“Back in our mess hall we could fry sugar with a busted entrenching tool; you’re simply lazy.”

“Remember the training trek when the 195th Special Forces teamed with us? They even knew how to boil bird eggs; you tried to swindle me into swallowing ‘sterile’ eggs raw—did you forget that?”

The moment those words left his mouth, Chen Jian dug in his heels.

“Bird eggs are sterile by nature, you medical student, didn’t you know?”

“…You say whatever, I’ll take it.”

Shen Yue, too bored to engage Chen Jian, turned his attention to the viscous mass in his bowl.

Chen Jian rolled his eyes; nearby He Shuo, amused, spoke up:

“Our current mission isn’t that urgent; let me handle the cooking from now on.”

“Eating porridge all day long, you’ve had enough of it.”

“…Indeed.”

Zeng Yi and Xie Liu nodded in agreement, while Li Shi kept his head down, silently devouring his meal.

Seeing no other food, Ji Xing forced herself to gulp down two bowls of porridge; after she was sated, she spoke again:

“Your team is truly… unusual.”

“Unusual how?”

Chen Jian asked.

“…I can’t quite put it into words.”

“Yet sometimes I feel you have no clear goal.”

“In this wasteland, people struggle for survival, for dominion, or to spread their doctrines.”

“I may not be like them, but”

“You make it impossible to read you.”

“Your desires are modest.”

“You shun pleasure, even treating a night‑out in the wild as commonplace.”

“Look, although your comrades complain about the ‘food’ you concoct, they eat it without a hint of revulsion.”

“That’s because you’ve never tasted a softened bun soaked in a slop bucket.”

Lei Jie drained the last sip of noodle broth and teased:

“…Have you ever tried it?”

Chen Jian asked in astonishment:

“What era of soldier are you? How could such a thing happen to you? In our days we’d long since banned the abuse of new recruits.”

“…I was forced by a drill instructor to eat it during school military training.”

“…Reasonable.”

Chen Jian gave Lei Jie a thumbs‑up; Lei Jie waved his hand helplessly, indicating the past need not be revisited.

Yet recalling Ji Xing’s earlier remarks, he suddenly added:

“It’s not that our desires are too low, nor that we lack any yearning for pleasure.”

“It’s simply that once you’ve crossed an ocean, the waters never satisfy you again.”

“From thrift to luxury is easy; from luxury back to thrift is hard.”

“If you truly endured what we have endured, you’d likely find yourself in the same state as us.”

“Having beheld too many marvels, we now look down on what’s called ‘good’ here.”

“Unless one day we can fully restore the glory of that bygone era, the so‑called indulgence here is but fleeting clouds.”

“We cannot stop, for a massive carrot dangles before us.”

“…Understood.”

Ji Xing nodded thoughtfully, then asked:

“So you truly hail from before the Great Cataclysm?”

“You… have traversed time?”

"It doesn't matter how you interpret it."

Chen Jian wasn't inclined to hide much, after all, it wasn't a particularly big secret.

He replied offhandedly:

"You could think of it this way— we once witnessed the era before the Great Cataclysm, and after a single awakening, we found ourselves in the present."

".What luck."

Ji Xing let out a long sigh, speaking with emotion.

"What do you call that luck?"

Chen Jian was baffled, while Ji Xing waved his hand and explained:

"I'm not saying that your arrival here is fortunate; I mean that having seen that extraordinarily prosperous era was a kind of luck."

"So, what was the world like back then, and what were its people like?"

The moment those words left his mouth, Xie Liu and the others turned to look.

Although they had all watched the promotional video Lei Jie had shown them, for them that sort of thing remained too abstract.

They merely "saw" it, yet could not comprehend.

Noticing their gazes, Chen Jian set down his utensils.

Then, with solemn seriousness, he began:

"For those who lived in that era, it was not the finest of times."

"But without doubt, it was an era that lived up to history."

Chen Jian spoke gently, unfolding the tale.

He did not speak of the lightning‑fast high‑speed rails, nor of the colossal airliners soaring above, nor of the feats of moving mountains and filling seas, nor of the terrifying, almost mad war machines.

He merely described to a handful of the Sanctified a day of extraordinary ordinariness he had lived through. That simple day, to the Sanctified, seemed like a fairy tale told by elders.

The more basal the technology, the harder it was for those here to imagine.

And after he finished, the yearning in the eyes of Ji Xing and the others became utterly uncontainable.

".We—can humanity ever return to that era?"

"Why not?"

Chen Jian answered without hesitation:

"It is undoubtedly humanity's darkest hour, but rest assured, we will endure it."

"Alright."

"The break is over; it's time to get down to business."

"At six o'clock tomorrow morning we will launch the first close‑range reconnaissance; everyone, be ready."

"This reconnaissance is of paramount importance!"

At six in the crisp morning, as the first ray of sunlight pierced the mist, Chen Jian's eight‑person squad set off on schedule.

At that moment they were still nearly fifty kilometres from the core of the Jinling Ruins, a less than ideal launch point for a close‑range probe.

But they had no other choice.

According to Ji Xing, the zone extending thirty kilometres outward from the Jinling Ruins' center was hazardous; even without colliding head‑on with the Level‑Two beast, one could fall prey to all manner of "odd incidents."

Thus they had to reserve ample safety margin, so that any sign of trouble could be met with a swift withdrawal.

As for "tracking the monster's movements," that required a step‑by‑step advance, delineating sufficient safe zones before any further deliberation.

Heading north along the G205 Expressway, Chen Jian and his companions kept a relatively slow pace.

The drone had already taken to the sky; in the first ten kilometres they could still spot faint traces of human activity, but beyond the forty‑kilometre radius of the core, the land fell away like a sheer cliff, utterly devoid of footprints.

".The surrounding human settlements are odd—why are all the houses built on trees?"

"Even when not perched on trees, the dwellings are raised on stilts."

"Stilt houses? Is that some custom?"

Lei Jie looked mildly puzzled, while Chen Jian shook his head and said:

"It's not a custom."

"Have you forgotten? This is a beast that spews toxic gas."

"Based on prior intel, its emitted gas can spread up to a ten‑kilometre radius, and within that zone the concentration is lethal."

"That means that even thirty to fifty kilometres out, the gas remains harmful."

"The nearby villagers must have discovered a property of the gas and raised their homes to evade it."

"That indicates the gas is lighter than air and likely settles onto the ground."

"Understood."

Lei Jie nodded, scanning the road as he continued:

"That explains the odd surface nearby—those thick, moss‑like growths are likely the by‑product of the gas settling."

"Should we bring our air respirators? If we get poisoned, the rest of the operation is doomed."

"Not for now."

Chen Jian shook his head and said:

"The environmental monitoring system hasn't raised an alarm; theoretically, the risk is minimal."

"Our respirators can only last fifteen minutes; we must reserve them for the crucial moment."

"Got it."

Lei Jie said no more, and the squad pressed onward.

As they ventured deeper, the surroundings grew increasingly uncanny.

Biological activity signals in the forest grew ever sparser, until even the birds' songs vanished.

The ground's deposits thickened, forcing them to further slow the cat cart so that splattered debris wouldn't coat them.

"We've entered the monster's activity zone."

He continued:

"The fungal carpet thickens, and if we go on, it should exceed ten centimetres in depth."

"We must slow down; once this stuff adheres to you—"

"Damn!"

The words hung in the air, and ahead Shen Yue suddenly unleashed a string of curses.

He brushed the splattered residue from his fingers, then raised his hand and, brow furrowed, said:

"This thing is corrosive!"

Chen Jian followed the sound with his eyes, and saw that Shen Yue's finger was already blistered red by the corrosive liquid.

"It feels like some kind of acid, it hurts terribly!"

"How could that be?"

Chen Jian ordered the vehicle to stop, then said:

"If it were acid, the ground here and the steel framework of the overpass would already have been corroded away."

"The environmental monitoring system gave no alarm; the air's pH is normal."

"But my hand truly aches!"

Shen Yue furrowed his brow, lifted his hand to examine closely, then bent down and drew his dagger, scraping a thin layer from the fungal carpet on the ground.

After a careful inspection, his expression grew ever more grave.

"This thing... might not be acidic after all."

As he spoke, he opened the supply pack in the vehicle, took out a small piece of jerky, crushed it into powder, and tossed it onto the fungal mat clinging to his blade's tip.

A faint foam rose slowly; he exhaled a long breath and said:

"This is not acid."

"Damn it, it's some kind of protease!"

"Protease??"

Chen Jian asked in astonishment:

"Like the protease in pineapple?"

"To be precise, it's the protease found on a carnivorous plant."

Shen Yue flicked off the fungal mat from his blade, then turned to Ji Xing and said:

"Now you see how unreliable the Mechanical Cult's intel is, don't you? They actually claimed this fungal carpet is harmless!"

"Damn, of course they think it's harmless—they're all wearing shoes!"

"By the time they realize it's dangerous, humanity will likely be wiped out!"

"Indeed, that's the case."

Ji Xing had to admit he had overestimated the reliability of the Mechanical Cult's intelligence; this single piece alone could cast doubt on all their reports.

Yet the good news was that they now possessed a fresh lead.

"Masses of fungi form an active layer—the so‑called fungal carpet—every ten or so meters a swelling node appears, likely a bio‑electrical pulse hub to coordinate nutrient transport."

"This thing itself must be the monster, then? No wonder traces of surrounding life are dwindling; perhaps this colossal carnivorous bloom has devoured them all."

Chen Jian's gaze grew solemn, and beside him Ji Xing spoke:

"The monster of Jinling City is certainly not this; the Mechanical Cult wouldn't err on something so trivial."

"It truly is a gigantic beast, and we haven't even reached its core territory yet."

"Then we press on."

Chen Jian decisively ordered:

"Heighten vigilance, reduce speed."

"If any anomaly appears, be ready to withdraw at a moment's notice."

"Otherwise, should we become trapped in the fungal carpet, we won't be able to leave."

"Understood!"

"Copy that."

The group responded in unison, and as the two cat‑cars rounded the junction of highways G205 and G4211, a strange tableau unfolded before them.

It was a forest.

A forest composed entirely of fungi!

(End of Chapter)