I created the myth of the Great Old Ones.

Lu Ban glanced back again.

Stone and Mary were at a loss, and it seemed that the "insects" were starting to appear on their bodies as well. The most severely affected "hound" had started to convulse.

The bumps on his face seemed to have finally found a way out; the "hound's" eyes became cloudy, and a certain green color spread in the depths of his eyes.

*Pfft*

With a soft sound, a new sprout emerged from the "hound's" eye.

Immediately afterwards, a little blood seeped from his nostrils, and another tender sprout emerged.

From his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears, more new buds finally found an outlet, and the protrusions under his disordered skin crawled toward these places, eventually bursting out of his body.

*Pfft*

Hearing the sound, Lu Ban turned around and saw that "Hound" had lost all his agility. He lifted his shirt to reveal several wild grasses growing out of his abdomen, as if it were the perfect soil.

"Throw him down."

Lu Ban called out, heading towards Stone and Mary.

Their symptoms weren't too serious yet. After hearing Lu Ban's words, they exchanged a glance before finally steeling themselves and opening the bus door.

Suddenly, the wild grass outside seemed to come alive, swaying and growing wildly. The vegetation in front of the bus had even grown taller than the roof.

The two men threw the "hunting dog's" carcass, which had become a bonsai-like object, out of the car. In an instant, the carcass was swallowed up by the swaying weeds and disappeared from sight.

Lu Ban felt the restless plants in his body seem to calm down for a moment.

“These plants are not just the parts we can see... the air here is also part of them.”

Lu Ban roughly guessed why they had become like this, and why "Hound" had fallen to such a state simply because it was injured.

The air in this meadow is already filled with seeds. As long as you breathe in the air, those seeds can enter your body and grow wildly and demonically. For the injured, these seeds will merge with the blood even faster, and thus grow into monsters that can take lives even faster.

Lu Ban even speculated that the land was a mimicry of plants, and the entire area existed solely for hunting.

On this meadow, plants are the true rulers.

"It's almost there."

Lu Ban saw the road beyond the high beams, said something, and his heart, which had been hanging in suspense, finally settled down.

Just then, a white hand with sharp claws reached out from the shattered windshield.

Chapter 046 The Feast

That hand showed no fear of the glass's sharp edges, and the next moment, Lu Ban felt his vision suddenly narrow.

Because from the left side, through the gap next to the driver's seat, another hand climbed up.

That thing appeared before Lu Ban's eyes for the first time in its entirety, with all its details clearly visible.

Its skin was hard and had irregular grooves. Below its rat-like head was an open mouth, but the mouth didn't look like a rat at all. Inside the three-lobed mouth were densely packed sharp teeth, like some kind of reptile.

Within that wide-open mouth, several dark red tongues swayed like tentacles, trying to take the food inside.

The ratman immediately noticed Lu Ban, who was driving.

Two rat-men, one on the left and one on the right, crawled into the car in a bizarre, creeping posture, their wriggling tongues and mouthparts sweeping towards Lu Ban's arm.

Without hesitation, Lu Ban gripped the steering wheel with his left hand, grabbed a crowbar with his right, and smashed it down on the ratman on the right.

The crowbar struck the rat-man's head with precision and accuracy, embedding itself deeply. A dark yellow liquid splattered from the wound, instantly killing the wriggling tongue and the fine, broken teeth. The rat-man's small, vertical pupils became unfocused, and it remained motionless.

But in that brief moment, the ratman on the left grabbed Lu Ban's left arm.

That dark red, slippery, slender tongue tightly bound Lu Ban's arm, its tiny teeth leaving imprints on his upper arm.

*Pfft*

Before he even felt any pain, Lu Ban saw that the green color was spreading from the wound on his left hand.

Several new shoots sprouted from between the ratman's teeth and his own wounds, trembling rapidly like earthworms that had been stimulated. Lu Ban felt something rising in his throat. He coughed as he retracted the crowbar, and bright green sap splashed onto the steering wheel.

"don't want……"

A mournful cry came from behind. Through the cracked rearview mirror, Lu Ban could see that several ratmen had also climbed into the bus and were attacking Stone and Mary.

boom--

Mary shot the first ratman in the head, and dark yellow juice and flesh exploded out. But another ratman immediately pounced on her, pushed Mary down, opened its three-lobed mouth, and its dark tongue strangled the middle-aged biologist's neck. Then, sharp teeth followed.

"Waaah!"

Mary let out a low whimper as her throat was ripped open by sharp teeth, blood gushing out, while green grass sprouted from the gruesome flesh.

Just as the rat-man raised its head slightly, preparing to take another bite and tear Mary's throat completely, a gunshot rang out.

boom--

Stone picked up Mary's gun without anyone noticing. His hands were trembling, and he lost his balance after just one shot, falling to the ground.

The ratman who attacked Mary had half its head exploded, and its turbid brain matter flowed onto Mary's body, mixing with the filthy blood from her wounds to create a strangely beautiful and eerie scene.

Mary struggled to breathe, but her throat was torn, and blood from her major artery blocked her trachea. She was like a drowning person, desperately trying to breathe but unable to get any oxygen, and was about to suffocate.

Beside him, a pale yellow liquid flowed from beneath Stone. He trembled all over, unable to move, and could only watch helplessly as the two ratmen moved toward him and Mary. Their horrifying mouthparts emitted a foul stench, announcing their death sentence and end.

Lu Ban plunged his crowbar through the rat-man's body that was biting his left hand. The pain seemed to slow the rat-man's movements for a moment, and the same pain also brought Lu Ban back to his senses.

Inside his head, some kind of wriggling life was waiting to break through the soil and embrace new life. The itching sensation turned into excruciating pain, tormenting Lu Ban's reason.

In this desperate situation, Lu Ban opened his mouth.

"■■■■■——"

A voice, ancient and grand yet indifferent, burst forth from Lu Ban's mouth.

In that instant, something more absolute occupied Lu Ban's mind. What surpassed the itching and pain was the fear and awe that came from human instinct.

Lu Ban could feel a blazing fire burning everything between the crevices of his cerebral cortex. If there were a thermometer at that moment, he might witness his body temperature exceeding forty degrees Celsius.

This is a verbal attack.

This is his/her last words.

The murmurs Lu Ban had previously recorded at the Jiangcheng Grand Theater, uttered by the ancients and by great beings, are now echoing in the bus carriage of the desolate wasteland.

In just a moment, the rat-man that attacked Lu Ban's left hand widened its small eyes to a large, round size, and its dark yellow vertical pupils began to waver as it let out a roar.

The howls that Lu Ban had heard before sounded like a pack of wolves, yet also like the cries of humans.

The other ratmen inside the bus also roared. Those ratmen clinging to the bus body and roof, accompanied by their shrill and unpleasant howls, lost their strength and were thrown off by the speeding bus.

Lu Ban had no time to pay attention to any of this; he muttered incoherently as he drove forward.

He knew very well that this grassland possessed a certain power that allowed plants to grow unchecked, and only by leaving the grassland's radiation range could he alleviate his own vegetation.

As Lu Ban repeated his ramblings, the tender green shoots seemed to stop growing. At this moment, the wildly growing plants in Lu Ban's ears, eyes, nose, and mouth trembled slightly as if swept by an electric current, as if afraid and dared not show their heads, and actually curled up back.

The rat-man beside him had completely black, murky eyes. Its body surface bulged as if invaded by some creature, like bubbles between its skin and muscles trying to find a way to burst.

"■■■■■——"

Amidst its insane ramblings, the rat-man released Lu Ban's hand and fell out of the car.

Lu Ban glanced at the rat-man, but the next moment, a dark shadow covered the gray-white rat-man.

It's fish.

In his delirium-induced fever, Lu Ban could hardly identify what kind of fish it was, or whether it was a fish from Earth. At least when he saw the scaly body, huge eyes, gills, fins, and mouth full of hard teeth, the first thing that came to mind was the word "fish."

The enormous, almost bus-length, dark figure roamed through the lush green grass, snatching a fallen ratman into its mouth in one bite, and then began to "rise."

Lu Ban looked up following the fish's silhouette and saw that one of the fish had thrown the ratman's broken body into the sky. The corpse floated up as if it had lost the restraint of gravity, and then more fish gathered around.

These fish swam nimbly out of the deadly grass, unaffected by the plants. They shared the ratman's corpse in mid-air. Lu Ban noticed that even the dark yellow blood did not fall to the ground, but dispersed like smoke.

He saw that after the fish had quickly finished eating the rat-men, they seemed to have smelled the scent of blood.

They swayed their bodies and swarmed toward the bus.

047th Octopus

This is the true top of the food chain in this meadow.

Such a thought surfaced in Lu Ban's gradually fading consciousness.

He saw that the group of fish did not directly crash into the bus, but instead circled around it like hunters waiting for an opportunity to strike. If Lu Ban made the slightest mistake, they would launch an attack.

The babbling in Lu Ban's mouth seemed to be the key. Even these enormous creatures could hardly resist the invasion of the babbling, but they were obviously more tolerant. As long as they didn't get within arm's reach, they were not greatly affected.

I don't know who will give up first.

As Lu Ban endured the agony of his brain being burned away, he witnessed a scene rarely seen in his life.

In that vast, desolate grassland where no one had survived, grasses over three meters tall swayed, their eerie green light reflecting off the dark, deep sky like the ocean.

From the silent grass, countless dark figures emerged as if from nowhere, gathering towards the bus.

Those are all fish.

Fish of slightly different shapes soar through the sky, just like their ordinary, unremarkable counterparts that live in the water, weaving through the water plants.

Lu Ban did not count their number.

He only looked straight ahead.

In the rearview mirror, Mary, whose throat had been ripped apart, was no longer moving. Wild grass was slowly growing on her body, assimilating her flesh and blood into a nurturing environment.

Stone's eyes were bloodshot, he covered his ears with both hands, curled up on the ground, and blood was flowing from his nostrils, glasses, and mouth.

The two rat-men inside the car felt something surging within them, finally reaching its limit.

bang——

Two bodies exploded, limbs flying everywhere, staining the entire carriage yellow.

Seeing this scene, Lu Ban grasped a bit of inspiration.

He shut his mouth.

The maniacal babbling suddenly vanished, and the entire patch of grass was filled only with the noise of the engine turning and the tires rubbing.