Chapter 318: Chapter 306: Morhaven Overrun by Vegetation
Once Flora Bloom’s spiritual power detected that the nine cannibal flowers were entangled by the Rose vines, she led Cynthia Grant and the others out of the laboratory.
The laboratory was built underground, beneath the botanical garden section of the Arboretum. Two paths led out from the tunnel. One went directly to an open space less than three thousand meters from the Arboretum’s main gate, while the other led to the cages where they had just been—the ones holding humans, beasts, and zombies.
"Wait a second. I’m going to collect some interest." With that, Flora Bloom ran toward the area with the cages.
The humans, tortured beyond recognition, were now covered in rot. Several who had still been breathing moments ago had now drawn their last breath. But that wasn’t the point. The point was that not long after they died, their pallid faces began to turn a bruised purple. The whites of their eyes bulged, their eyelids flipped inside out, and the corners of their mouths either split to their ears or the flesh of their lips sloughed off entirely.
The faint stench of rot mixed with the heavy smell of blood in the air was almost unbearable for Flora Bloom.
The people who had been captured all had superpowers. And after someone with a superpower dies, as long as their brain isn’t destroyed, they can still be infected by the zombie virus. Furthermore, the zombies they turn into are never ordinary; at the very least, they become Level 3 zombies.
It was almost laughable. She had thought Lex Cross had dealt with all the zombies Level 3 and above in Morhaven before he left. But she never imagined that right now, she would be personally witnessing the superpowered humans in these cages slowly mutating into zombies one by one after death.
’What a waste of these people with superpowers...’
Her powerful spiritual power swept across all the cages. After confirming there wasn’t a single living human left, Flora Bloom walked toward the dying animals locked inside their enclosures.
Without a word, Flora Bloom reached out. With a single touch, she stored them away. She rapidly collected all the still-breathing animals, cages and all, into her dimensional space. She didn’t bother to check what species they were beneath their blood-soaked fur; if it was alive, she took it.
Flora Bloom returned to the tunnel entrance to regroup with the other four. She led them into a patch of tall grass she had gathered near the exit—grass that already towered over them. Without pausing, they quickly began to retreat toward the Arboretum’s main gate.
She had a premonition—something in the Arboretum had awakened. More than that, her heart was now pounding in her chest, an uneasy and erratic beat.
With a wave of her hand, Flora Bloom summoned the Juggernaut before them. They had just climbed onto its back, not even having a chance to get steady, when the beast charged out of the Arboretum.
"Juggernaut, run! Straight back to the base!"
Upon receiving the command, the Juggernaut flicked its massive tail and bolted toward the base. It was so fast that the rushing air whipped against their faces, making them sting.
「Less than ten minutes after the Juggernaut carried the five of them from the Arboretum.」
BOOM!
The entire 90-hectare Arboretum collapsed.
The entire area seemed to split open, collapsing a hundred meters downward into a bottomless chasm. It was like a massive, circular sinkhole—an endless abyss.
The appearance of the sinkhole at the Arboretum sent tremors throughout all of Morhaven. Panic began to spread through the safe zone, and the entire city began to undergo an unprecedented transformation.
It was as if the city were answering the call of an ancient horn, or as if demons were tearing magic from another world to overthrow modern civilization.
Two more volcanoes materialized out of thin air at the Eye of Earth’s Fire on the Bund. One rose in the east where the sun struggled to break the horizon, and the other appeared beside the original volcano. With this, the connection between Morhaven’s coastline and the mainland was completely severed.
A brilliant green light suddenly erupted from the sinkhole in the Arboretum, completely purifying the filthy, apocalyptic air above it. The light then began to seep out from the chasm, spreading in all directions with the sinkhole as its epicenter.
In addition, countless green vines and leafy plants burst from the sinkhole like a shower of celestial blossoms, spreading out in every direction across Morhaven.
There were so many that they buckled and shattered the original roads around the sinkhole’s rim.
At that moment, countless unidentifiable plants erupted from the ground everywhere—from the suburbs of Morhaven to the residential complexes and public buildings of the city center, and even along its three coastlines. A brown vine completely engulfed a bus stop on a main street.
Once the brown vine had completely enveloped it, the bus stop sign rapidly corroded and rusted away, leaving behind only a thin, brittle husk standing on the street corner. The brown vines dangled from it, creating an image of ancient decay.
Similar scenes were unfolding all over Morhaven. It wasn’t just bus stops; abandoned cars on the roads and storefronts along the streets were simultaneously being overrun by unknown plants.
Engulfed by these plants, the vehicles, just like the bus stop, rapidly decayed and became incredibly fragile. The rusted, fragmented metal looked as if it would shatter at the slightest touch.
Most terrifying of all, these plants emerged from the ground and endlessly consumed Morhaven’s public spaces. Vast swathes of vegetation transformed entire residential complexes into apocalyptic forests. More and more areas were being taken over, with vines burrowing through and weaving around the buildings, turning them into botanical displays where only the faint outlines of the original structures remained visible.
A perfectly modern city was gone in the blink of an eye. Modernity vanished as an ancient aura gradually revived, seizing two-thirds of Morhaven’s land with unstoppable, destructive force.
Two-thirds of Morhaven had now become a veritable paradise for plants. Something seemed to be quietly reawakening.
The only place left untouched was the area Sherman Lynch had previously planned out—the region they had already fully developed.
Underground, the root systems of spiritual plants crisscrossed to form a dense, protective network, preventing the strange new vegetation from invading.
The Juggernaut had just returned the five of them to the safe zone, but the tremors throughout Morhaven had not yet subsided.
Morhaven was surrounded by the sea on three sides, and the tsunami triggered by the earthquake flooded into the heart of the city. As the seawater collided with the green Spiritual Energy, it evaporated into a thick mist. The hazy white vapor mingled with the glowing green Spiritual Energy, casting a mysterious and dangerous pall over the entire city.
The evaporating seawater filled the air with a salty brine. At first, the people with superpowers who were out hunting zombies didn’t think much of it. They hadn’t returned to the base after the earthquake, intending to hunt more zombies and dig out more Crystal Cores to trade for food and water.
But after a while, they suddenly found their breathing becoming sluggish. The water vapor and green Spiritual Energy they inhaled filled their lungs, causing a sudden sense of suffocation among those who had yet to return.
Around the entire perimeter of the safe zone, vast patches of lush, green grass suddenly shot up from the ground, enclosing the whole area Flora Bloom had designated.
Green vines simultaneously rose from within the tall grass. They twined together in pairs, wove into clusters of three, or simply tangled into irregular masses. They quickly formed an interlocking canopy that covered the sky above the entire safe zone.
When the white mist from outside tried to seep into the safe zone, it was blocked by the canopy of grass and vines.
Not only that, but a deep, blue-green aura emanated from the grass and the canopy. It seemed to filter the white mist and green Spiritual Energy that were desperately trying to invade, assimilating them and channeling a fresher, slightly sweet air into the safe zone.
