The whole nation is trying to survive on the cable car; I'm choosing one of three options at ea

This thing is about to advance to yellow.

Level 10, purple, in progress. No wonder he got so much experience.

You see, the highest quality monsters he'd encountered before were only blue, while this one was already purple, and might even advance to yellow. Its terrifying nature had been demonstrated before.

Su Mu even suspected that if the opponent hadn't been in an advanced state and hadn't used most of its energy for conversion, he wouldn't have been able to succeed so easily. At the very least, he remained skeptical about the opponent's weakness of not being able to escape... The core of an advanced monster is likely fixed and cannot be moved.

However, Su Mu quickly stopped thinking about it. After all, he had killed that thing.

But then he suddenly remembered the plant he had encountered on campus before.

That thing might not be as strong as this one, but it's definitely not weak either, and it might even be of high quality. You know, the experience this plant gave him was enough to raise his level by a whole rank. If he killed that plant, even if he didn't raise his level by a whole rank, he would at least gain a lot of experience, and he would also get some very good treasures.

Most importantly, he has found a way to deal with this plant-like monster... stand at a distance, use a sniper rifle to find its weak points, and then concentrate firepower to attack.

Why don't you give it a try?

After the thought popped into his head, Su Mu turned around without hesitation and started moving in the opposite direction... towards Ash University...

......

In the distance, inside the five-story building where the Salvation Guild was stationed, the atmosphere was as tense as a fully drawn bowstring.

Wang Chen stood by the window, his hands bracing against the windowsill, his knuckles white.

The crimson vines outside the window were lashing out at everything around them... not the previous tentative, restrained attacks, but a true, unrestrained rage.

The vines danced wildly in the air like countless giant snakes, lashing the ground, buildings, and ruins. The rubble and dust covered the sky, blocking out even the sunlight.

"What the hell is going on?" Wang Chen's voice was very low, but everyone could hear the unease in it.

No one could answer him. Zhang Qiang stood behind him, his glasses reflecting the frenzied scenes outside the window, his lips pressed tightly together.

Li Shichu huddled in a corner, shield still held in front of him, his face deathly pale. The others were in even worse shape; some squatted on the ground clutching their heads, some trembled against the wall, and some kept making the sign of the cross.

They were hiding deep inside the building, at the edge of the vine-infested area, just outside the critical point of the vines' previous attack range. But now the vines had gone berserk, their attack range expanding at least twice as large as before, and several vines had already lashed out at the exterior walls of their building.

The whole building was shaking, dust was falling from the ceiling, and the walls were creaking under the weight.

"Retreat to the basement!" Wang Chen finally gave the order.

A group of people rushed towards the stairwell like startled rabbits, stumbling and staggering into the basement. The basement was quieter than the upper floors, and the tremors weren't as intense, but the muffled thuds overhead were still clearly audible, like someone above was relentlessly pounding the floor with a sledgehammer.

Time ticked by. Twenty minutes, forty minutes, an hour. The vines showed no signs of abating; in fact, they grew even more ferocious. Wang Chen paced back and forth in the basement, his brow furrowed in a deep frown.

"What's wrong with these vines?" He stopped and looked at Zhang Qiang.

Zhang Qiang pushed up his glasses, his voice deep: "Either you've been angered by something, or... you're afraid of something."

"Scared?" Wang Chen sneered. "This thing can be scared?"

"Of course a level 10 monster would be afraid." Zhang Qiang didn't laugh. "Whatever could make it afraid would either be of a higher level, or... be its natural enemy."

Wang Chen's expression turned even uglier.

Just then, the shaking suddenly stopped. It didn't gradually weaken; it abruptly ceased, as if someone had pressed pause. The basement was so quiet you could hear everyone breathing.

Wang Chen waited for one minute, two minutes, five minutes. There was no movement.

"You," he said, pointing to a young man crouching in a corner, "go up and take a look."

The man's face turned pale instantly. "Captain Wang, I..."

"Go when I tell you to." Wang Chen's tone left no room for argument.

The young man gritted his teeth, got up from the ground, his legs trembling, and slowly climbed up the stairs, supporting himself against the wall. His footsteps echoed in the stairwell, each one like a blow to everyone's heart.

A few minutes later, a gasp came from the stairwell. It wasn't a scream, but a gasp... the kind of sound one makes when they've seen something unbelievable.

"What's wrong?!" Wang Chen shouted towards the stairwell.

The young man's voice drifted down from above, trembling noticeably: "Captain Wang... the vines... all the vines are dead..."

Wang Chen froze for half a second, then rushed up the stairs in three strides. He burst out of the first-floor door and stood frozen in the open space in front of the building.

Blood-red vines carpeted the ground. They weren't cut down, nor were they charred; they were withered. Grayish-brown branches lay haphazardly like dead snakes, some shriveled and cracked, crumbling into powder at the slightest breeze. A putrid stench permeated the air, like the smell of fallen leaves rotting in the rain after being piled up for too long.

The entire square, the entire street, the entire area that had been covered in vines for hours... all withered.

"This..." Zhang Qiang walked to Wang Chen's side, his eyes wide behind his glasses. "How is this possible?"

The others also climbed out of the basement one after another, stood on the open ground, and watched the scene before them in complete silence.

After a long silence, a voice drifted out from the crowd, timidly: "This vine... it suddenly went berserk before, and then it died... Could someone have killed it?"

"Who can kill something like that?" another person retorted. "It's a level ten monster; we wouldn't even dare to get close."

"Then how did it die?"

No one can answer.

Wang Chen squatted down, picked up a withered vine branch, and examined it in his hand. The branch had completely lost its moisture, was as light as paper, and broke easily. The fibers at the break had an unnatural black color, as if something had burned it from the inside.

"Send people to investigate." Wang Chen stood up, brushed the dust off his hands, and said, "Inspect the entire area and see what's going on."

The group cautiously dispersed and entered the thicket of withered vines. They kicked aside the dry branches, rummaged through the rubble, and carefully avoided venturing too far. A few minutes later, a man ran back from the center of the square, carrying something in his hand.

"Captain Wang! I found this!"