The Chef Rules the Last Days
Chapter 377 - 376: Dark River

Chapter 377: Chapter 376: Dark River

She screamed until her voice was hoarse, her hands and head covered in clumps of dirt, and until her superpower was exhausted and a large pit had been smashed into the ground before her, there was still no sign of the two of them.

Jiang Yulian, seeing this scene, hugged her child and immediately rolled her eyes back, fainting away. It was fortunate that Jianxiong caught her in time to prevent Jiang Zhuoyang from falling to the ground.

"There will be a way, they definitely won’t have any accidents," Li Qian’s voice was exceptionally calm, his hands gripping her shoulders tightly to stop her from impulsively throwing herself into the mud.

Ling Ye’s complexion was terrifyingly pale; he knew that all this was caused by him, by something inside his body. His small frame squatted on the ground, his heart filled with unease and sorrow.

After searching the entire night, the helicopters’ attention was drawn by the activity in the swamp atop the mountain.

"Target search complete, Su Mo not found, only the experimental subject and several superpower users."

"Bring them all back."

"Roger that"

After hovering in the air for a while, several helicopters started to close in on them.

Sensing something was wrong, Li Qian looked up, his eyes narrowed, and he grabbed Zhao Changsheng and ran towards the forest, "Go! Run fast!"

Jianxiong had not yet managed to pull his thoughts back from his grief when he noticed the helicopters overhead. He quickly picked up Jiang Yulian and passed the child to Ling Ye, who scooped him up and rushed into the forest.

"Intercept them."

"Roger that."

The helicopter, armed with a machine gun, shifted its direction and fired dozens of bullets, creating a tremendous disturbance.

Amid the mountains, Yang Yichu, upon noticing the disturbance, had a brief encounter with the fleeing Li Qian and others.

Not seeing the person it wanted, it roared angrily, and zombies surged over like a tide.

The people in the air realized the situation was bad, and two new types of explosives were launched by the arriving fighters. The explosions destroyed a large piece of the forest and the zombies, but in the center of the fray, Jianxiong and the others were trapped by flying dirt and stray bullets.

"Deploy the new anesthetic, take them away."

"Roger that."

In the midst of the flying gunfire, Zhao Changsheng’s whip lashed out ceaselessly; a precision bullet filled with green liquid headed straight for the back of her neck.

Li Qian’s spiritual power wound around it at breakneck speed, his body acting faster than his mind to shove her to one side.

The bullet stopped in front of his chest under his control. Li Qian had just breathed a sigh of relief and turned to smile at her, indicating he was okay, when in the next second, the new anesthetic encasing the bullet shell ejected from the tip and shot straight into his heart.

Zhao Changsheng’s complexion instantly changed, then she cried out in panic, "Damn it, Li Qian!"

His gentle smiling face froze instantly, and his body fell straight down.

"Damn it!"

Zhao Changsheng rushed to help, but she too was struck by a bullet in the lower leg and fell beside him. She watched as blood flowers ceaselessly sprouted from the man’s chest, her glasses turned to a spiderweb blurring her vision of his eyes, an acidic sensation suddenly in her nose, and a wave of pain seemed to throb in her chest.

In the moment she fainted, she made a desperate move to shift over him and collapsed on his body in a protective stance.

On Jianxiong’s side, carrying one adult and two children, the skin on his back almost turned into a hornet’s nest due to the rapid depletion of his superpower.

Unable to withstand such heavy firepower, Yang Yichu began to retreat step by step, its venomous gaze fixed dead on the helicopters above.

In the end, the people on the ground, alive or dead, were successfully transported onto the helicopters and taken to the unknown Western Laboratory.

Of everything that happened, Su Mo had no idea. She and Lu Chen were wrapped by the roots and brought deep underground, where aside from the protective shields still emitting a faint orange glow, there was not a single color.

The space the two of them had to survive was only as large as the positions of their protective shields, and once those shattered, they would surely be engulfed together.

"Where are we now?" Su Mo asked softly.

"Eaten."

She hacked at the darkness in front of her with a knife, splattering mud, and when she cut into something that seemed like wall plaster that would pulse and shrink back upon being hit, but realizing it couldn’t penetrate the protective shields to touch them, it retracted again. Surprised, she said, "Are we inside the belly of this willow tree?"

"Yes," Lu Chen turned around and looked back, observing that the surroundings were all the same, his brow slightly furrowed as he said, "It seems like a passage."

"This... I never saw it eat anyone when I was up there. Why did it roll us down here?" Su Mo hacked with the knife again, but after seeing no effect, she reluctantly put it away.

"It consumes Crystal Stones; all human bodies remain intact, except for the heads."

"The Crystal Stones formed in our brains?" Su Mo was startled, this speculation was indeed bold.

"Probably."

Su Mo sighed, "I also don’t know how Zhao Changsheng and the others are doing. Seeing the two of us being swallowed must have driven them crazy."

Lu Chen took her hand and tenderly caressed the back of it, "With Li Qian there, he’s very smart."

Su Mo nodded, glanced at the green billboard over the man’s head, and pulled on his hand, "Eat some more pumpkin, it’s almost time."

"Hmm."

After drinking some Jasmine Tea, Lu Chen, having recovered his superpower, concentrated spiritual energy in his hands, and threw several Ice Blades filled with energy into the encasing cluster of roots outside.

There was no response, but he wasn’t panicked; he looked at the ice surface starting to consolidate from where the Ice Blades were inserted, with cold air seeping out little by little, freezing the ground in a circle around them.

At that moment, the mud was no longer flowing, and the two were no longer sinking.

Lu Chen: "We’ve reached the bottom."

Su Mo looked down and saw only darkness. "It’s still pitch black down here."

Lu Chen didn’t attack the surroundings but instead invertedly formed a layer of Cold Ice spikes under his feet.

He exerted all his spiritual power to output his superpower, and the group of inverted spikes, emitting wisps of Cold Ice, slowly penetrated the dark soil, a task that seemed extremely difficult.

The plant roots outside like a cocoon were pierced by one spike of Cold Ice, then the second, and the third, until the entire wooden cocoon was broken open.

A dim light shone through the cracks, and upon seeing that beam of light penetrating in, Su Mo excitedly climbed onto the man’s neck and kissed him, "Impressive!"

Receiving her admiring gaze, Lu Chen gave a slight smile. With the protective shields, the two of them slid out of the passage and fell onto the uneven stone surface.

The first thing that entered Su Mo’s ears was the sound of gurgling water. She turned her head to look—it was a polluted underground Dark River.

Above was a very high cavern, with stalactites hanging down, and droplets of water occasionally fell from above, in a dark and damp environment.

Su Mo withdrew her gaze and turned to look at the place they had just slid out from—a passage wrapped in roots. Looking along one side, there was a network of roots occupying a large part of the brown cavern, looking grand and terrifying.

In the middle stood a towering willow tree that topped the entire cavern, its branches drooping, and its size made enormous by the long-term nourishment of black rain and Crystal Stones.

For the moment, the noise of the two sliding out did not provoke any attack from the other side.

Lu Chen walked to the edge of the Dark River, where the water rushed by fiercely, and a gentle breeze came through the rocks closely following the current. After surveying for a while, he returned to Su Mo’s side, "We have to swim out."