Chapter 71.1: Cub
Drip.
A cold drop hit Dou Lu’s forehead. She touched it and found it was a drop of water that had fallen from a branch above.
“The snow’s melting?” she whispered in disbelief.
Lin Mengzhi, panting as he caught up, threw off his jacket and draped it over his head. “The goal Xue Shen set for us was for you shatter fifty energy cores with your bare hands in one go. You still have the mind to stand here spacing out?”
“I’m saying—it looks like the snow is melting.”
“Really?”
Dou Lu removed her gloves and pressed her hand against the hard bark of a tree. After a moment, she pulled her hand back. Lin Mengzhi waited for her assessment.
“I feel…” Dou Lu tilted her head, uncertain. “The magnetic field seems to be changing a bit faster than it did the last couple of days.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Then forget it.”
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
Dou Lu put her gloves back on and took a deep breath. “Short term, it’s good. Long term… not so much.”
Lin Mengzhi truly didn’t understand; he didn’t even know where to start thinking about it.
Dou Lu sighed, patted his shoulder, and the two continued deeper into the mountains. As they walked, she said, “I don’t really understand it either. I can only sense the strength and direction of the magnetic field’s changes. Before, whether it was the internal magnetic field, the external one, or the magnetic poles, there wasn’t the slightest movement—no changes at all. But two days ago, I started to feel them shifting.”
Lin Mengzhi asked, “What will happen?”
“Energy, electricity, satellites—things like that will all be affected,” Dou Lu said, lifting her head to look at the piercing sunlight through the gaps in the branches. “For example, migratory birds fly from north to south before a temperature drop along fixed routes. But if the magnetic field becomes abnormal, the routes they remember might lead them elsewhere.”
“Oh, that’s not so bad then. Nothing too major,” Lin Mengzhi said with a big sigh of relief.
Dou Lu looked at him with a complicated expression.
“What are you looking at me for?”
“Are you kidding me—‘nothing major’ my foot?!” Dou Lu cursed. “The magnetic field is changing with zero pattern. Look at what the Earth has become. And besides, it might not even be the magnetic field causing all this. If it’s life-forms from outside the atmosphere… then we should just wait to die.”
Lin Mengzhi shouted, “There are life-forms outside the atmosphere? Aliens?!”
“Wu Heng is really such a good person,” Dou Lu suddenly said, completely out of nowhere.
They walked for a while before Lin Mengzhi let out a long “Ahhhh—” and said, “You’re calling me stupid!”
Dou Lu wanted to say that she just thought Wu Heng was very patient and very tolerant—completely different from the cold gloom he usually presented—because if it were her, she would definitely roll up the idiot Lin Mengzhi and use him as fertilizer.
However, before she could voice any of that, a low animal growl came from not far ahead. After wandering through the mountains for so long, they had become able to roughly judge the size of an approaching creature just by its sounds.
Lin Mengzhi looked forward, alert. “Not a bird. Not a squirrel.”
“No sh*t. How could a bird breathe that heavily?” Dou Lu crouched down. “Feels like the thing weighs… upwards of five hundred kilos…”
Lin Mengzhi’s eyes sparkled. “Carnivorous. Mammal. Black fur. Round ears. Pointed snout. Looks like a dog. Very tall. Very, very tall. Half a building tall.”
“How do you know all that? You’ve gotten stronger!” Dou Lu said, thrilled, pressed close to the ground.
Lin Mengzhi stood frozen where he was, staring straight into the eyes of a massive black bear whose upper body had already emerged from behind the rocks. His voice trembled. “Because I can see it.”
“…”
Dou Lu, instead, became even more excited. She rubbed her hands together. “Finally, something real!”
But when she poked her head out and saw the huge black bear rearing up in the distance, her excitement froze solid on her face.
“Why is it THAT big?!”
The black bear had already stopped moving. Its two thick hind legs supported its body, towering over ten meters high. Its fur, like steel needles, covered its entire body. Its massive paws, hanging at its sides, looked strong enough to crush a small car with a single slap. It stared at the humans not far away with the eyes of a predator.
“Hiss—don’t bears hibernate?”
“This one must’ve woken up hungry!”
“The problem is—why is there a bear here? That’s not scientific!”
“At this point, one more unscientific thing won’t make a difference.”
“It’s not a bear—it’s a whole mountain.”
The moment Dou Lu finished speaking, the bear let out a thunderous roar. Its front limbs dropped as it charged through the trees toward them. In an instant, the ground shook like an earthquake.
The ground beneath their feet trembled; the closer the bear came, the heavier the fear in their chests grew.
They both stepped back at the same time. Lin Mengzhi froze, panicking, then suddenly lay down on the ground. “I heard playing dead works!”
“You trust hearsay at a time like this?!” Dou Lu kicked Lin Mengzhi back onto his feet. “Fight, damn it!”
With that, she gripped her half-meter-long sharp machete and charged straight at the bear.
A weapon carries the user’s ability. She wasn’t even as tall as one of the bear’s legs. She swung the blade down. Clang! Several chips immediately appeared along the edge. Her wrist throbbed with pain from the impact. When she looked up, the massive shadow of the bear’s paw was already looming overhead.
A wave of scorching flames swept in. The fire surged up the bear’s chest, splitting into a stream of low-temperature flame that wrapped around Dou Lu’s waist and hurled her to a safe spot.
Seeing its prey escape, the bear let out a long roar and charged faster toward Lin Mengzhi.
The towering beast was no weak creature. Lin Mengzhi’s legs trembled uncontrollably, but he forced himself to raise a wall of fire. It erupted in front of him just as the bear lunged, instantly wrapping around its massive body.
The bear tore at the fire net with its claws and fangs, its blood-red eyes filled with hunger and hatred as it glared at the human behind the flames.
Abilities consumed energy nonstop. Sparks scattered like falling embers, and the snow around them sizzled and melted into water.
A sharp ripping sound rang out as the bear pulled outward with both paws, tearing the fire net into two halves.
But just as it was about to rip the net completely open, Dou Lu brought her five fingers together, and the net instantly repaired itself. Lin Mengzhi intensified his flames, scorching the bear even harder.
Only when the air grew thick with the smell of burning scorched hair did the mutated bear’s fur finally ignite.
Maintaining the fire net, Dou Lu panted heavily. “Such good fur—burning it is such a waste!”
She couldn’t bear to watch all that good meat and fur turn into charcoal. Her machete, which had fallen to the ground not far away, flew back into her hand. After using her ability to repair the blade, she charged again.
She leaped several meters off the ground, swinging with nearly all the energy left in her body. The blade’s arc separated from its edge and shot upward, slicing across the bear’s thick neck right at its center.
She didn’t know if it worked—she crashed to the ground, her head spinning and vision swimming.
The bear’s roars and its tearing at the fire net gradually weakened. Soon it was only making a low, rumbling sound as it panted heavily.
Dou Lu stared for a long moment before realizing the sound wasn’t coming from the bear’s mouth—it was coming from its neck.
Before she could figure it out, the bear’s neck suddenly split open. Splatter— a fountain of hot blood burst out, drenching Dou Lu from head to toe where she lay on the ground.
Lin Mengzhi didn’t even have time to pull her away.
Only after the bear toppled backward with a heavy crash did the dazed Dou Lu manage to sit up. Blood flowed from her in messy streams. She lifted her hands, seeing not a single clean spot left on her body. Her eyes rolled back, and she fainted.
After making sure the bear had stopped breathing, Lin Mengzhi tied one end of a rope to the bear’s massive leg and the other end around his own waist. Then he used fire cords to lift the blood-soaked Dou Lu, shook her in midair to fling off the excess blood, and hoisted her onto his back.
Carrying a person and dragging a bear, Lin Mengzhi took one step forward—veins bulged across his face and neck—but the foot he raised simply refused to land. In the end, both of them collapsed together onto the ground.
This mutated bear was fucking heavy!
Lin Mengzhi got up again and repeated the same steps as before. This time, he managed to take a step and firmly set his foot on the ground. Large beads of sweat rolled down his neck. The blood covering Dou Lu also streamed down his limbs. The dead bear dragged hard on his waist with its massive weight. With every step, he could hear his bones creaking.
After this ordeal, his core strength was definitely going to be the strongest in the entire team.
—
After dinner, Wu Heng had already sent X out twice, but both times it returned with no news of Lin Mengzhi or Xie Chongyi.
Wu Heng was just about to go search with Xue Shen when they suddenly heard a distant scraping noise—something massive being dragged across the ground with great difficulty.
They followed the sound and first saw an enormous black shape sliding across the snow. Only afterward did they notice the two human lumps dragging it, each step taking them half a lifetime.
Xue Qi, seated in his wheelchair and pushed to the door by Shen She, opened his mouth wide. “Did they drag a whole mountain back?”
“That doesn’t look like a mountain. It’s a bear,” Ying Liuquan said.
Shen She sighed. “Poor things. That bear should weigh around three tons.”
Wu Heng was already striding toward them.
Xue Shen lifted his notebook, flipped to Lin Mengzhi’s page, and wrote: Physical ability: Max.
The moment Lin Mengzhi saw Wu Heng, it was like spotting a life-saving rope. He let out a wail and collapsed into the snow with Dou Lu still strapped to his back.
The vines reached them first. With a few rustling sounds, they brushed past Lin Mengzhi and immediately burrowed into the bear, hollowing out its insides in no time and drastically reducing its weight.
Wu Heng bent down to lift Lin Mengzhi up, his hand coming away covered in dried, caked blood. “Are you injured?”
Lin Mengzhi shook his head and hitched Dou Lu up on his back. “The bear sprayed her.”
“…”
“Take her back first and let Doctor Chen check on her,” Wu Heng said, then walked toward the bear behind Lin Mengzhi. Poppy had already begun cutting it apart on its own, while X had landed quietly at some point. After scanning the surroundings, it tore off a huge chunk of meat and swallowed it.
After Lin Mengzhi’s figure disappeared into the distance, Wu Heng stood beside the giant bear. He examined the enormous creature—its life signs were long gone, yet even in death it was still intimidating to stand next to.
Wu Heng had never seen a bear before, nor had he ever been to a zoo. He was just about to reach out and touch its ear when a vine suddenly lifted something high into the air—something bloody and unrecognizable, with a soft pink-white strip of flesh still attached to it.
?
X immediately leapt up, ready to bite it.
Wu Heng lashed it aside with a vine whip. The vine he controlled lifted the bloody lump—pulled straight out from inside the bear’s abdomen—to its master’s eye level.
The thing was wrapped in a slick, snow-white membrane, wet and sticky, still giving off heat.
Suddenly, something inside the membrane moved—it was struggling.
Wu Heng lowered it to the ground and cut open the tough outer layer. What appeared before him was a baby bear… though “baby” only in comparison to the massive mother. In truth, its size was comparable to a normal adult bear.
Its eyes hadn’t opened yet. Its tiny, unconscious whimpers were extremely faint. Its fur was soaked and gave off a pungent, bloody smell.
Only then did Wu Heng realize the big one was a mother bear.
Once he understood, he reached out toward the cub—he intended to eat it.
But the moment his hand touched it, the cub’s limp limbs suddenly wrapped tightly around his palm.
It sniffed him, then its soft little tongue began licking his hand while it let out pitiful whines.
The beautiful yet cold-faced youth frowned. He casually tore off two chunks of meat from the bear beside him, stuffed them into his mouth, chewed, swallowed, then looked over at the large bird that was already hiccupping from being overly full.
A new pet?? Maybe?