Chapter 1034: Predators and Prey in the Devastation Rain

In the first two years of the Great Evolution, Blue Star was wracked by relentless natural disasters. For the sake of survival, the remaining humans banded together, forming all sorts of enclaves both large and small.

These enclaves eventually grew. The larger ones expanded into Base Safe Zones. With military aid, the majority of survivors from smaller enclaves relocated to these zones, though a stubborn few chose to remain behind.

Even after disasters utterly destroyed the enclaves, some still refused to enter the Safe Zones, choosing instead to become wandering drifters with no place to call home.

By the eleventh year after the disasters, those nomads who managed to survive in the Evolved Forest were naturally far more capable than those who sheltered within the Safe Zones.

Still, no matter how tough they were, they remained only human.

Inside the cave, a drifter sat against a stone wall, whittling a hardwood pole. During Devastation Rain, when the air was thick with dangerous Devastation Element and the Evolved Forest teemed with violent life, he took off his protective mask yet showed no signs of going berserk. Clearly, he had some way of defending himself against both the Devastation Element and the evolved creatures.

Could he be shielding himself with a Yi Stone, or perhaps some effective extract from a mutated organism?

That blue skin of his might even help fend off harmful microbes.

Xia Qing only needed one glance at the Hui One Sixth Squad sidearm hanging from his waist and the sharpened hardwood pole in his hand to realize how these drifters operated; they’d used these exact poles, set upward at the bottom of pit traps, to kill every member of Hui One Sixth Squad—then looted their weapons and supplies.

He was sharpening a pole now, probably getting ready for a fight with the wolf pack.

Xia Qing shifted her gaze, choosing instead to observe the two giant lizards sprawled in the stone den.

Noting the collars around the lizards’ necks, and the two thin wires piercing their scaly hide, Xia Qing immediately recognized the device: an Embedded Weak-Current Controller.

By inserting electrified contacts into an animal’s body, humans could train creatures with enough intelligence to follow their commands. It was one of mankind’s more ruthless taming methods.

Chonglian Group had used this controller to weaponize evolved bats, bombing Section One of the North. The Blazing Fire Squad had also used them on water shrews during covert missions in Section Three. With these, they made beasts do their bidding.

This cruel form of beast taming was strictly forbidden by national law.

Xia Qing brushed several evolved red string insects off her protective mask, then pressed the lens of her night vision goggles. Through the night vision, she spied a hefty animal hide sack about a meter long resting not far behind the drifter. The sack writhed from within. Judging by her experience, it was full of small reptiles.

The giant lizards weren’t much for fighting, but they could run fast. Most likely, these drifters used them for transportation.

None of the drifters inside the cave tried to play dead, which meant they were no longer in the Western Wolf Pack’s core territory. And aside from rampaging animals, there was no wildlife braving the Devastation Rain anyway, so he seemed to be at ease here.

Only one person and two giant lizards occupied the cave—so where were the others?

“Boom—”

Soon after the muffled thunder faded, the rain started up again, pattering softly against the valley.

Minutes later, the dirt-yellow Scourge Grass outside Xia Qing’s crevice began to sprout at an astonishing pace. One after another, crickets crawled out of their burrows. Several frogs leapt from her unmoving body, croaking as they dashed into the rain to snap up brawling crickets. A giant wolf spider, nocturnal and hungry, skittered past Xia Qing, darting toward the brightly-colored frogs no smaller than itself.

Xia Qing didn’t need a Devastation Element detector to know it was red-level Devastation Rain outside—the vulnerable creatures of the Evolved Forest had already begun their frenzied slaughter.

Ten minutes on, a short-long-short owl call pierced the rain and hit Xia Qing’s ears. Her sharp hearing instantly picked it out—it was a human mimic.

There was a second drifter barely five meters below her—no kidding!

Thank goodness she’d stayed silent and alert, or she’d have given herself away by now.

Inside the opposite cave, the drifter sharpening his knife stilled at the signal then hastily strapped on his protective mask, grabbed the wriggling sack at his side and climbed onto his giant lizard. He barked a command for the lizard to head downhill, scattering the sack’s contents as he rode.

Only now did Xia Qing get a clear look—the sack was full of fat, finger-length purple-black grubs.

Within minutes of the grubs hitting the ground, the wolf spider, venomous frogs, and the snake trapped under Xia Qing’s leg—all broke into a scrambling rush toward the valley. The drifter’s strange grubs must give off a scent irresistible to animals unhinged by the rain.

It didn’t take long for the baited valley to swarm with small and medium-sized animals, locked in violent struggle and fighting for food. Some mid-sized animals were still acting normal—and not even lost to the madness!

The Devastation Rain had only just begun; with so much bloodshed, more beasts would spiral out of control. This could erupt into a full-on beast tide any moment now.

Why the hell would these drifters want this? Xia Qing frowned.

“Coo, coo—coo, coo—”

A third drifter’s call echoed from a hillside to her left, about 1,800 meters away. Xia Qing couldn’t see him from her position and there was no way to snipe him.

Above, opposite, and now left—there were people on all three flanks, forming a surround. These drifters had scattered bait and were waiting for prey to enter the trap.

Could the wolf pack resist that bait? Where had the two wolf kings gone, and when would they make their move?

Despite all this tension, Xia Qing didn’t shift from her sniper perch. The Alpha was a master of team battles and had put her here for a reason.

The drifter below called out, “Yang Jin and Luo Pei from Azure Dragon Squad are already brawling with Tumor’s crew. We can go all out now.”

Yet another lizard-riding drifter dashed from the opposite cave, joining the bug-tossing team. That made four drifters.

Twenty minutes later, the red-level Devastation Rain finally stopped. Countless beasts of every size howled and tore each other apart throughout the valley.

Following new orders, the drifter baiting the valley hacked his giant lizard in half, sprinkled a bag of pesticide over its corpse and left it there as a trap. The lizards weren’t just for riding—they were bait to lure in even bigger predators.

Almost instantly, a massive raptor with a wingspan of over four meters swooped down, folding its wings as it landed on the lizard’s body. Ignoring the nearby drifter, it dug into the meat with gory abandon.

Three minutes later, an urgent string of coos rang out, growing closer. With the arrival of the fifth drifter came a monster even larger than an evolved wolf—a hulking evolved tiger!

“Rooaaar——”

The tremendous roar shook the forest, making Xia Qing’s heart skip, though none of the crazed valley beasts seemed to notice.

The drifters had actually lured an evolved tiger, and she suddenly realized—the border of wolf and tiger territory ran through this very valley. What were these people truly after?

Just then, the drifter below called, “The wolf pack’s chasing a herd of wild boars right this way. Stay hidden. When we move, don’t damage the tiger’s pelt or that silver-gray giant wolf. Use Section Three’s airborne sedative and catch them alive.”

Their plan was to snatch away the top predators of the Evolved Forest. Was this really how they plundered resources? If they took both the wolf pack and the evolved tiger, what would become of the forest?

Would they just hand it over for the monkey troop to claim?

Watching as the drifter hurried back to the opposite cave, Xia Qing steadied her breath and heartbeat. She flexed her fingers on the trigger, bracing for the coming fight.

When the striped tiger finally appeared atop the mountain on the far side, Xia Qing couldn’t help holding her breath.

“Awoo——”

Just as the tiger prepared to leap down, the wolves howled. The ground quaked as a herd of wild boars, led by a lizard with a collar, thundered into the valley. Hot on their heels came the Western Wolf King and five evolved wolves, giving desperate chase!