Chapter 36: Chapter 316: Kneel Down First, I Want to Borrow Something

Just as Baldy was internally struggling, weighing the pros and cons, the surrounded Li Xingye was the one who moved first!

No one saw when his vines appeared. By the time they realized it, they were horrified to discover that the entire ground was already covered in a dense layer of grayish-brown leaves.

Li Xingye’s expression was indifferent. With a slight curl of his finger, a figure was violently dragged out of thin air!

Although the figure was still invisible, its entire body was outlined by the entwining vines, making the invisibility meaningless.

Baldy’s expression changed, his gaze toward Li Xingye now filled with vigilance.

Forced to reveal himself, Ding Yao roared in disbelief as if he had seen a ghost, "Impossible! With my current superpower level, how could you possibly have detected me!"

Unfortunately, Li Xingye had no intention of enlightening him, merely curling his lips into a mocking smile. "You were the one in the vault last time, weren’t you? You’ve got some nerve. Did you really think being invisible makes you invincible?"

The ever-tightening vines finally made Ding Yao feel the terror of impending death. He could no longer care about anything else and shrieked, "Don’t kill me! I can predict the future! Don’t you want to know how I knew your situation, and why I told Wildfire Base to take advantage of the crisis?! I’ll tell you everything! It’s because... Argh—"

The vine that pierced through Ding Yao’s chest was clean and decisive, completely unaffected by his words.

Ding Yao stared blankly at the flower blooming from his chest, unwilling to close his eyes, even more unwilling to accept this reality.

’I held the future in my hands! I was supposed to be the chosen one!’

’The one who was supposed to die was clearly Li Xingye, so why...’

He would never figure out the answer to that question.

Li Xingye, however, was staring at Ding Yao’s chest, somewhat lost in thought.

Ever since he’d gained his superpower, his Lixiao Flower Vine had always had gray-black vines and leaves; only the flowers it produced were a brilliant red.

But today, he actually saw that next to that flower, a single leaf had turned halfway green!

Although the leaf was small, Li Xingye’s eyes locked onto it immediately, his heart stirring with excitement.

While Li Xingye was slightly stunned, Baldy shot a meaningful look at the surrounding superpower users.

In an instant, a torrent of superpowers surged toward Li Xingye from all directions!

Baldy’s superpower was atavism. He transformed directly into a nearly five-meter-tall gorilla and brought down a fist comparable to a hydraulic press, smashing it heavily toward Li Xingye!

At the same time, doubled Gravity, magnetic field interference, ice spikes, fireballs... all at once, the target of every superpower was the seemingly dazed Li Xingye.

All of Li Xingye’s escape routes were completely cut off. The fist was about to land squarely on him.

A flicker of smug delight crossed Baldy’s mind. ’He’s not so tough after all.’

In his view, the reason Li Xingye was distracted was that he still held some brotherly affection for Ding Yao. So, after killing Ding Yao with his own hands, he was naturally feeling a bit melancholic.

A bloodthirsty smile spread across Baldy’s face. ’This is perfect. Li Xingye is too young, after all, easily trapped by these meaningless emotions. So what if his superpower is strong? Once I have him in my grasp, there are plenty of ways to make him spill where he got those supplies.’

Just as everyone thought Li Xingye was about to be captured without a fight, they suddenly felt a slight, itchy pain on their ankles.

It was like an ant bite—not intense.

But in the next second, they were horrified to discover that the moment their superpowers touched Li Xingye, they all dissipated completely!

"No, no—"

It took Baldy only three short seconds to go from being certain of victory to kneeling and begging for mercy.

"Brother Li! I was wrong, Brother Li!"

In the time it took to say just those few words, Baldy’s five-meter frame had shrunk drastically. He could almost feel his superpower and his life force steadily draining from his body.

This unprecedented sense of crisis made him beg Li Xingye for mercy almost before he could even think.

As for the others whose superpowers were weaker than his, by the time they reacted, they realized in despair that they couldn’t use even a shred of their powers.

Li Xingye hadn’t made any major movements the entire time. Thin vines extending from the ground wrapped gently around his fingertips as if playing with him.

But in the eyes of Baldy and his men, Li Xingye, who even had a slight smile on his lips, was as terrifying as the grim reaper!

In all their years in the apocalypse, they had faced many life-or-death crises, but never one like today, where the gap in strength was so vast they couldn’t muster the slightest resistance, leaving them with only despair.

Baldy now only regretted underestimating Li Xingye, which had led to the complete annihilation of Frenzy Base’s elite forces.

But it was too late for all that. He just wanted to save his own skin.

Watching Baldy kneel before him, Li Xingye neatly arranged the other corpses before saying unhurriedly, "I was actually here looking for someone. I heard someone at your base developed a device powered by Zombie Crystal Cores... I’d like to ’borrow’ this person for a bit."

A bitter taste filled Baldy’s mouth. ’Borrow someone? If you wanted to borrow someone, why didn’t you say so earlier?! Did you have to beat me to my knees before saying anything?!’

He seemed to have forgotten that he was the one who had coveted the supplies and wanted to make a move from the very beginning.

Baldy swallowed hard. "Brother Li, what’s this about borrowing? Just take her. The thing is, she’s a bit stubborn. She... she’d rather starve to death than eat the food the base provides..."

"That’s because what you provide isn’t food at all. I am a human, not an animal. I can’t bring myself to engage in cannibalism." A weak voice came from the base’s main gate.

Baldy wanted to argue, but one look at Li Xingye and he gave up. He just said dejectedly, "The person’s here now. You can let us go, right? After all, when you get down to it, there’s no deep-seated hatred between us..."

SQUELCH—

Staring at the flower blooming from his chest, Baldy could no longer say the rest of his words.

Li Xingye met his hateful gaze and calmly explained, "From the moment you listened to Ding Yao and instigated the people from Wildfire to attack our base, this was a fight to the death."

With Ding Yao’s usually cautious nature, even if he really had learned something from his so-called prophecies of the future, he wouldn’t have taken the risk himself. He would have certainly needed Baldy’s approval.

And Li Xingye didn’t even have to guess their scheme.

Let Wildfire act as the vanguard. Once they confirmed he had died outside and wasn’t coming back, the final destination for the ordinary people in his base would likely have been Frenzy.

Having survived in the apocalypse for so many years, Li Xingye had killed many people and had never considered himself a good person.

But good or bad, at the very least, he had to be human.

Hearing Li Xingye’s words, Baldy used his last breath to roar furiously, "You think acting all high and mighty will end the apocalypse?! Who wants to resort to cannibalism? When the food completely runs out, everyone will become just like us!

"Who do you think you are to be better than us? If you were really so noble, you would’ve shared your supplies with everyone long ago!

"Yeah, you’re strong. But aren’t you just looking out for yourself, making sure you’re fed? Who knows where your food even comes from!"