Regarding the matter of awakening lightning abilities after transformation

"...Thank you." Picking up the scattered weapons from the ground, the girl leaned wearily against the corner of the wall.

"I just feel sorry for this body..." If the body that shelters her dies, she will also vanish into nothingness, and there is no way to avoid that.

"Hoo..." Gu Cheng collapsed to the ground, her body aching all over, the aftereffects of the strong electric current stimulating her muscles reappearing. Her calves twitched uncontrollably.

"Mmm... Ah..." She bit her lip, but a groan still escaped her throat.

"Don't do it again... um..." Gu Cheng's speed and strength were not on the same level as the giant rat, so she could only speed up the battle by overdrawing her physical strength to avoid the fatigue period.

"What will you do if something else comes along now?" Gu Chengyan asked her.

"Then... I guess I'm just unlucky," Gu Cheng replied.

"You will die, but I won't." Ignoring Gu Chengyan's cold words, the girl hugged her right leg and gently massaged it.

"Speaking of which, doesn't it hurt?" Since their senses were connected, Gu Cheng's physical changes should also be reflected to Gu Chengyan, so she asked him curiously.

Gu Chengyan: "...It doesn't hurt." Whether that's true or not, only he knows.

Only the girl's faint breathing and the dripping sound of water remained in the sewer.

After a while, Gu Cheng managed to get up, leaning against the wall.

"Won't you rest a little longer?"

"I should rest until I get out of here." Once I'm out, I can at least use my lightning abilities to fight back. In the sewers, I can only win by hand-to-hand combat, which isn't wise for me in my current state.

Gu Cheng tucked the cleaned military knife back into her waistband and unbuttoned her mud-stained coat.

"There's... a ladder here?" There was a ladder standing only twenty meters away, yet Gu Cheng hadn't noticed it at all.

"There shouldn't have been any just now..."

The crack is almost complete... at least this place is getting closer and closer to the Lanjiang River.

P.S. I'm curious whether you prefer the stickers or the main storyline...

Section 71, Chapter Seventy: The Assembly

Su Wanxi leaned against the wall, slowly tidying her clothes. At her feet lay a dead bird, its head split in several pieces, its blood staining the asphalt ground bright red.

Falcons excel in aerial combat, but their ground fighting ability is far inferior to that of other birds of prey. As long as they can dodge the initial attack during a dive, their threat level is much lower than before.

Su Wanxi's gravitational field firmly locked it to the ground; the falcon, having lost its ability to spread its wings, was nothing more than a lamb to the slaughter.

"Ten minutes..." It took her almost ten minutes to deal with it. The 9mm bullet couldn't penetrate the falcon's steel wings, so Su Wanxi had to aim at the falcon's eyes at close range and shoot, which wasted a lot of time.

He took a signal flare out of his bag and pointed the gun upwards.

Pull the trigger, and a beam of light streaks across the sky, trailing green smoke.

The area is safe; all team members move towards this location—this is a pre-arranged signal.

A moment later, two streaks of blue smoke appeared in the southwest direction.

Signal received, on my way.

"They're very close..." Su Wanxi muttered to herself as she put down her gun. The two plumes of smoke were almost overlapping, indicating they were acting together.

There was another lone one...didn't they see the smoke? She could only try to think the best of it.

......

Qin Kexin hugged the weapon case, her lips slightly pouting, her cheeks flushed and pale.

She followed closely behind Zhou Li, her white stockings torn in several places, her delicate skin slightly red.

"I told you to wait for me where I was, what are you doing out here..." Qin Kexin was in a high-rise building, and she contacted Zhou Li immediately. The two were about six or seven floors apart.

Zhou Li originally wanted Qin Kexin to wait for him in a safe place, but he didn't expect her to disobey his instructions and walk towards him on her own.

About half a minute later, gunshots were heard from upstairs. Qin Kexin shouted for help in the communication channel, and Zhou Li quickly sped up.

The young woman encountered more than a dozen terriers in the hallway. After killing a few, she hid in the nearest room to reload.

After Zhou Li had dealt with all the monsters around him, he saw the pitiful Qin Kexin behind the door.

"Waaah, I was wrong, I'm so sorry..." She bit her lip, her shoulders trembling slightly, as if she was about to cry.

“...Be careful next time.” Zhou Li could only look at Qin Kexin with disappointment. He had reminded her so many times, but she was still so careless.

Leaving the building, the surrounding area is a wasteland, with weeds growing rampant in the cracks of the cement road.

Nearby, there were several streetlights, covered with patches of spider webs.

"Ali, that one!" Qin Kexin scratched the man's palm and pointed to the distant sky.

“Green…that’s Captain Su’s signal…” Zhou Li also took out two signal flares from his backpack, loading one himself and handing the other to Qin Kexin.

The two fired their guns simultaneously, then moved towards Su Wanxi's position by following the shadows along the wall.

......

Gu Cheng pushed open the heavy manhole cover, poked her head out of the ground, and pushed herself out of the tunnel with both hands.

Sunshine, tall buildings, and familiar brick roads—Hu Hansan has finally emerged!

Suppressing the upward curve of her lips, Gu Cheng took off her gas mask and took a deep breath.

"It's so good to be alive..."

Sitting on the warm roadside, she wiped the mud off her body in front of the glass.

Suddenly, a dark shadow appeared in the glass, and Gu Cheng subconsciously turned her head and raised her revolver.

Su Wanxi, also holding a pistol, looked at the other person with a puzzled expression.

"How...did you come out from down there?" Su Wanxi put down her pistol and slowly stepped forward.

"Well... that's a long story."

Gu Cheng breathed a sigh of relief, shook her head, and grasped the other person's fair and delicate hand.

"Aren't Uncle Zhou and Qin Kexin nearby?"

"Yes, they should all be heading here together." Since Gu Cheng was the one who got separated from the group, the only ones who could have fired the signal flare were Qin Kexin and the others.

With Zhou Li by her side, Su Wanxi was finally able to put her worries aside.

"On her head..." She took out a clean white handkerchief and carefully wiped Gu Cheng's right temple. The warmth of her fingertips seeped through the fabric onto her skin, making the girl feel a little itchy.

"Are you injured?" Gu Cheng noticed a small reddish-brown mark on Su Wanxi's wrist, which looked like blood that had clotted.

"It wasn't me, it was the person next to me." Su Wanxi loosened her handkerchief and slightly turned to the side, revealing the monster's corpse behind her.

"This is... an eagle?" With its head mangled and bloody, Gu Cheng could only make a judgment based on its broken beak and claws.

"Pretty much. I wouldn't be able to tell even if it mutated like this." Su Wanxi nodded. The feathers on its tail feathers looked like inlaid steel plates, which could even be ejected from its body. In reality, no bird would forage in this way.

Gu Cheng turned her head to look to the side, where the floor tiles were cracked and several feathers were scattered in the pit, clearly indicating that a fierce battle had taken place.

"Now can you tell me why you were in... the sewer?" Su Wanxi folded the handkerchief and put it back in her bag, looking at Gu Cheng with great interest.

After a moment of silence, Gu Cheng began to recount her experiences in the sewers.

I opened my eyes, and all I could see was darkness...

"Dirty water, mud... and a bunch of huge rats." The girl leaned against the steps, opening the reel and loading bullets one by one.

"A mouse?" Su Wanxi grabbed Gu Cheng's collar and carefully buttoned up his clothes.

"Hmm, it's different from the ordinary ones, it's the really big kind." Gu Cheng gestured with her hands, not knowing if Su Wanxi could understand.

"You solved them all?"

"Hmm." Gu Cheng nodded and put down the pistol.

She activated her spiritual vision again, and the surrounding black mist condensed into a mass.

Gu Cheng: "Shall we wait here?"

Su Wanxi: "Yes, let's rest a little longer until everyone arrives."

There is a huge difference in strength between weak neutral rifts and weak rifts. Even A-level Awakeners dare not take it lightly. Qin Kexin's "mental communication" has a good buff effect on team combat, so Su Wanxi still plans to wait for everyone to be in place before leaving.

Not long after, a voice full of vitality came from my mind.

"Sister Xi, Orange, can you hear me?"

"I can hear you."

"Ah."

It was Qin Kexin's communication channel; the other party was no more than 100 meters away from them.

Soon, Zhou Li appeared in front of Gu Cheng carrying a Tang sword. The sword was soaked in blood, but the man's clothes were not torn at all.

Qin Kexin jumped out from behind him, her grass-green knitted sweater was tattered, and a few glimpses of fair skin could be vaguely seen.

"Are you alright?"

"No one is injured." With the public channel connected, communication within the team became much easier.

"Then... let's go." Su Wanxi took the lead, while Zhou Li stayed at the back of the group, and the group headed into the depths of the black fog.

Section 72 of Chapter 71: Arthropods

Acting alone is far less efficient and safer than teamwork; the speed of progress is much faster when four people work together.

They didn't need to worry about what was behind them; as long as they focused intently on one direction, Qin Kexin's "mental communication" gave everyone several extra pairs of eyes.

"Sister Xi, there are three, no, four hyenas at two o'clock." The location is based on the direction the team is moving in, and two o'clock is roughly to the right front of the team.

"Bang..." The familiar gunshot was from a Beretta 92F equipped with a silencer.

"Target cleared, proceed." Su Wanxi's calm reply echoed in his mind.

Gu Cheng gripped the revolver tightly, keeping a close eye on any movement around him.