Chapter 171: Monopolizing the Wonder

When the girl said “Divine Elephant,” Chen Ye immediately thought of the Sky Whale.

What he had seen in the desert left an impression on him he could not shake.

Could this so-called “Divine Elephant” also be a Wonder?

“Tell me everything you know about the Divine Elephant!” Chen Ye’s voice was icy.

The girl hesitated for a moment, then said, “Actually, I only heard about it from other people by chance.”

“Tell me.”

She glanced at Chen Ye, then slowly began to relay what she knew about the Divine Elephant.

“The Divine Elephant is an extremely huge elephant. They say it’s near Fog City, but none of us have actually seen it...”

The girl gradually told him the information she had heard.

According to her, the Divine Elephant had recently been drifting near Great Wu Village.

It was unimaginably vast, unlike any creature of this world. Its four legs were like pillars, easily hundreds of meters tall.

On its back was a village where people lived.

Those living on the Divine Elephant’s back were spared the harassment of Anomalies and had returned to pre-apocalypse lifestyles.

It was a sanctuary everyone yearned for.

The Divine Elephant wandered around and did not stay in one place.

Many were trying to learn news about it. As long as someone could live on the elephant’s back, they could escape the daily danger of Anomalies.

But so far, no one had heard of anyone actually getting up onto the Divine Elephant.

Or perhaps those who went up to live there simply never wished to come down again.

The girl and her group had been asking around for a long time about the Divine Elephant;

even the earlier small group they were part of had clung to the hope of living up there.

Unfortunately, they ran into Chen Ye’s group.

What she said now was more detailed than the information Mo Huairen had given before.

Mo Huairen had said there was a castle on the Divine Elephant’s back with people living inside.

The two accounts were roughly similar, possibly the result of rumor spreading.

Only by actually seeing the Divine Elephant would one know the truth.

If you could avoid Anomaly attacks, living on the Divine Elephant would probably be pretty good.

“Was there a Sequence Superhuman in your little group before?” Chen Ye asked.

Earlier he had heard that the small group with the broken-legged man might have a Superhuman, but the details had not been explained.

At mention of a Superhuman, the girl’s expression tightened.

“It’s not my fault. It was Xiao Long and A Hao who did it. I didn’t do anything.”

“Cut the nonsense. I ask, you answer,” Chen Ye snapped.

The girl looked at Chen Ye in terror. She wanted to lie to him but didn’t know exactly what he already knew, so she reluctantly told the truth about their group’s Superhuman.

“Everything about Xia Bo had nothing to do with me. It was all Xiao Long and A Hao’s doing...”

She began to explain about that Superhuman.

The Superhuman was named Xia Bo, and he was a Mechanic Sequence Superhuman.

According to her, when he first joined the small group he was popular, and he even used his Supernatural Power to make some firearms that could deal with Anomalies.

Chen Ye’s mind stirred when he heard that.

Could those be the guns he’d just seen?

Those guns seemed to have been thrown into Captain Chu’s trunk.

To prevent these survivors from causing trouble, the guns and people had been separated.

He hadn’t expected that a Mechanic Sequence would have crafted modified items here.

This news could not be allowed to reach Chu Che. He needed to find an opportunity to take a look.

He would have to act as if nothing was going on.

Right—Chen Ye intended to monopolize those items for himself.

He only didn’t know whether his conversation had been overheard by Captain Chu.

Xiao Wang couldn’t drive, so Captain Chu was driving personally and probably didn’t have time to mess with his busted radio right now.

Even if the Mechanic Sequence’s creations weren’t true Wonders, anything that could counter Anomalies would be formidable.

Chen Ye tucked that fact away in his mind.

He had to be careful. If that crafty old fox Chu Che found out, he would demand a share—or even take everything himself.

Chen Ye had no hope for Captain Chu’s character or moral line.

The mechanic Superhuman probably hadn’t produced many finished products, at most one or two items.

Chen Ye’s thoughts raced, but he didn’t interrupt the girl.

Because of Xia Bo the Mechanic, those survivors had managed to live in Fog City.

So Xia Bo’s prestige among mechanics was at its peak;

everyone respected him.

But that also bred resentment.

The red- and blue-haired troublemakers whom Chen Ye had burned and cut down had been small-time thugs before the apocalypse. They had tried several times to cause trouble but were blocked by Xia Bo.

So those two hated him.

In the apocalypse, scarcity of supplies was a problem everyone faced.

Xia Bo had demanded meals be reduced from two a day to one a day.

That sparked a lot of dissatisfaction, and with the two thugs stirring things up, the survivors took the opportunity while Xia Bo wasn’t paying attention to rebel.

From what Chen Ye had just seen, he could tell clearly the woman had played an important role in that uprising.

She hadn’t said, and Chen Ye hadn’t asked.

He already guessed the rest.

Mechanic is not a particularly powerful combat Sequence.

Its strength lies in modifying weapons and all things mechanical.

It can grant machines astonishing abilities and make weapons lethal to Anomalies.

That was easy for them.

But without weapons, their combat ability was probably only comparable to Captain Chu’s.

So when many survivors attacked together, even if a Sequence had enhanced body strength, they still wouldn’t be able to handle so many people.

Moreover, the survivors had surely planned ahead.

The Mechanic Superhuman probably didn’t notice and was killed.

What happened after that—Chen Ye did not want to know.

He had seen too much of the apocalypse’s darkness;

he preferred to keep a little light in his heart.

The girl’s following words hid several key details, but they matched what Chen Ye had guessed.

“Your guns...”

Before Chen Ye could finish, the girl understood.

“Those guns were just to scare you. They would never have been used against you. Besides, most of them have no bullets. Two of them were modified by Xia Bo;

we couldn’t use them at all.”

She explained anxiously, hands fluttering like castanets.

Whether Chen Ye believed her or not was for him alone to know.

He continued, “After that Mechanic Sequence Superhuman died, how did you survive in Fog City?”

This was an important question.

Since the apocalypse, this small group was the only survivor team Chen Ye had seen continue to live in the city.

The girl hesitated, then said, “It was the Fog Slaves!”

“Fog Slaves?”

He had never heard that name before.

Fear flitted across the girl’s eyes. “Yes, Fog Slaves. They’re terrifying. Once someone dies, they become a Fog Slave!”

“The Fog Slaves come back and pull us into the mist again, turning us into new Fog Slaves!”

“We were over a hundred before. Now only three of us are left!”

“Actually, even if you hadn’t come, we would have all turned into Fog Slaves soon!”

Chen Ye frowned slightly, a faint red light flashing in his eyes.

At that moment the girl lifted her right hand and brought the knife down, slashing hard across the thumb of her left hand.

“Ah!~~~”

Her scream tore through the street.

She clamped her right hand over her mouth.

The scream was choked off, caught in her throat.

She tried to pry her right hand away, but she had no strength. Blood soaked her hands, staining her and leaving a large red patch on the seat.

Her left and right hands wrestled against each other.

And at that moment, the blood seemed to have provoked something.

The girl felt the seat she was sitting in... suddenly clamp down and imprison her.

Her back, thighs, and butt were all tightly wrapped by the seat.

It felt as if the chair were trying to devour her whole.

She wanted to scream and beg for mercy, but her mouth was pressed shut by her own hand.

No sound could be made.

She could only look at Chen Ye with pleading eyes.

Chen Ye understood: the blood had triggered the Apocalyptic Pickup Truck’s taboo, activating its devouring ability.

It wasn’t that the seat had some special power on its own.

The Apocalyptic Pickup Truck’s second taboo read: “There must be no smell of blood inside the vehicle. No injuries allowed, or there is a risk of being devoured by the vehicle.”

If he didn’t stop it, the girl would be devoured by the vehicle completely.

Chen Ye wouldn’t mind watching the Apocalyptic Pickup Truck devour a living person.

But the girl in front of him still had a use. She couldn’t die yet.

He waved his hand and the Pickup Truck’s devouring ability stopped abruptly, returning to normal.

For others, stopping an already triggered taboo would be nearly impossible or extremely difficult.

But he was Chen Ye, and this Apocalyptic Pickup Truck was the vehicle he had upgraded from his 28-inch Bicycle all the way up.

He could drive this pickup however he wanted, ignore taboos and costs.

He could even completely control the vehicle.

The girl broke free and tried to stand, but there was barely any space inside the cab.

She could only press her hand to her mouth and try to move her body as far from the eerie seat as possible.

At that moment, both the vehicle and the man before her were the most terrifying devils in the world in her eyes.

The two survivors in the truck bed went pale, panic-stricken.

From behind the truck, Captain Chu muttered, “This kid, what’s he acting crazy about again?”