Doomsday Awakening GL - Chapter 23

Due to the mutated ant colony beneath the rift, An Yimu decisively abandoned the thought of going down again.

The two left the area without delay, heading left. An Yimu was hoping to meet her friends, and her worry was neither fake nor pretended.

But the path ahead presented a problem.

A few hundred kilometers to the left of the rift, someone had constructed a makeshift bridge.

It was evident that someone had chosen the narrowest part of the rift to build it. An Yimu was conflicted: did Nuan Qianyu and Ling Qiuyu cross here, or did they continue to detour further ahead?

Although called a makeshift bridge, it was essentially just two chains, without any safety measures. An Yimu contemplated. The rift stretched endlessly ahead as far as the eye could see. The quickest way now was to cross this bridge.

Even at its narrowest point, the rift was seventy to eighty meters wide.

“Lan Chang, you can cross it, right?” An Yimu had some confidence in her own skills, but she was worried about Lan Chang. Although Lan Chang seemed exceptionally skilled, she still turned back to ask.

Lan Chang looked at the two chains, squatted down, and poked them with her hand. “Yes, I can. Do we want to cross here?”

An Yimu smiled, “Yes, this is the quickest way. We can reach Chongming City soon after crossing, but the car can’t cross, so we’ll have to walk.” The opposite side of the rift was a stretch of ruins and debris.

“Yes, sir,” Lan Chang said, giving a playful military salute.

With that, Lan Chang leaped towards the chains, lightly touching them like a dragonfly skimming the water before jumping across.

“…”

Only after Lan Chang had reached the opposite side did An Yimu touch her chest, unable to believe what she had just witnessed. She muttered, “It must be a lie…”

An Yimu wiped the sweat dripping from her forehead, slung on her backpack, and climbed onto the chains. Her body hung in the air, and she advanced by repeatedly swapping hands on the chains. With her current physical strength, which was four times that of an ordinary person, crossing this seventy-odd meters was not a problem. Of course, she couldn’t match Lan Chang’s level.

Lan Chang seemed to be shrouded in more and more secrets, but what was baffling was that Lan Chang herself didn’t seem to find her abnormality strange and acted as if it were routine.

How could a normal person climb up from several hundred meters below? How could a normal person cross these chains as if walking on flat ground?

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—

The chains suddenly started shaking violently. An Yimu’s heart rate spiked. She had already crossed over thirty meters. If she fell from here, there was absolutely no chance of survival.

She quickened her pace.

Just tens of meters from the opposite side of the rift, a crisp sound rang out, and the chain behind her suddenly snapped.

An Yimu tightened her grip on the chain. She was already familiar with the feeling of her body plummeting…

Thud.

An Yimu crashed into the rift wall. A coppery taste filled her throat, and her chest was throbbing from the impact. She was lucky that the chain didn’t break on Lan Chang’s side.

The chain swung back and forth in the air. An Yimu’s face grew paler with each swing.

Lan Chang tried her best to hold the chain to prevent the swinging from becoming too extreme. An Yimu gritted her teeth and slowly climbed, gripping the chain with both hands. If this side also broke, she would be finished, so she had to climb faster.

Lan Chang watched the climbing figure on the chain with worry.

Finally, An Yimu managed to climb up, lying completely exhausted on the ground.

An Yimu grumbled internally. She must be a jinx. The chain broke as soon as she got on it. The thought of it still sent shivers down her spine. Fortunately, she didn’t have a fear of heights, but being suspended in mid-air felt truly terrible.

Lan Chang half-squatted beside An Yimu, asking with concern, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Great calamity escaped, great fortune is sure to follow!” An Yimu joked intentionally, seeing Lan Chang’s worry.

After resting for a while, An Yimu decided to continue their journey. They couldn’t find any transportation here, so they had to walk. Walking would take at least two days, but with potential unexpected encounters along the way, like zombies, it would take at least a week to reach Chongming City, not to mention the need for rest. An Yimu hadn’t closed her eyes for two days.

Dragging her somewhat heavy steps, An Yimu explained the current situation to Lan Chang while squinting and observing the surroundings. Her intuition over the past few days told her that an unusually quiet place always signaled something amiss.

“Lan Chang, about half a month ago, the world here changed. Many zombies and mutated animals appeared. We humans can also awaken, gaining strength by accumulating enough kills to level up. Only the person who kills the zombie gets the milky white energy body from its brain. I am currently a third-stage Awakener, possessing four times the physical strength, hearing, and speed of an ordinary person. The higher the zombie’s level, the higher the energy content in its brain. It’s the same for mutated animals; I also gained energy when I killed those mutated ants earlier. Let’s start with this for now; I’ll tell you more later if I think of anything.” An Yimu felt she should first clearly explain the current situation to Lan Chang.

Lan Chang pondered for a moment and said, “Milky white energy body?”

An Yimu nodded, “Only those who have awakened can see it.” She had awakened after killing 10 zombies, and she owed a lot to that birthmark, which saved her half the effort.

“There’s a flaw in your statement. Nothing mutates suddenly unless the elements of the earth have changed, causing some people to mutate, or an external factor has caused changes in human genes. According to your statement, humans should have been Awakeners from the start, otherwise, they couldn’t achieve ‘survival of the fittest.’ Therefore, you should now be a fourth-stage Awakener to possess four times the ability of an ordinary person. The initial state of humans should be first-stage Awakeners, otherwise, how could they deal with zombies? Zombie evolution is much faster than human evolution. What you call the milky white energy body should be the life force of the Earth.”

“…” An Yimu was speechless. These titles weren’t invented by her; they were just used for convenience. But could her leveling-up really be too fast? Although she had the birthmark cheating for her, allowing her to gain double the energy each time, it was indeed very fast. There were no professionals to study and name these things; they just came up with a nomenclature based on the characteristics. If that were the case, had she already reached the fourth stage of awakening?

Lan Chang was looking down at her feet, expressionless, thinking about something. This was the first time Lan Chang had spoken so much.

Lan Chang said softly, “This is a cruel elimination game.”

Despite this, An Yimu continued to use the term “third-stage Awakener.”

An Yimu hadn’t slept for two days and was extremely tired, so she planned to find a place to rest.

On the outskirts of Chongming City was an area of farmland where the government had invested in building a new type of agricultural production base, erecting a row of new houses.

When the two arrived, they noticed smoke rising from a larger farmhouse yard; someone must be there.

An Yimu was happy; this meant they could finally get a proper rest, and safety was relatively better in a crowd.

Upon entering, there was indeed a group of men and women. Some were leaning against the wall smoking, some were sitting on the ground, and some were sleeping. In the center were the remnants of burnt charcoal, still emitting blue smoke.

When the two walked in, everyone’s eyes fell on them.

A young man stood up and walked towards them, asking, “Are you Awakeners?”

An Yimu pondered the man’s meaning. If they were Awakeners, they might be allowed to join the team, but if they were ordinary people, the outcome would be hard to say.

“Yes.”

The man’s eyes lit up, and a smile appeared on his face, “What level of Awakener are you?”

People who were too strong were always pushed to the front as cannon fodder, and those who were too weak were disregarded. Half a month had passed since the apocalypse. Most people should have broken through the first stage, and there shouldn’t be few people breaking through the second stage, but it was unknown how many third-stage Awakeners there were.

“I am a second-stage Awakener,” An Yimu said after a few seconds of consideration.

The man smiled, “I’m also a second-stage Awakener. Welcome to our team.” He extended his hand to An Yimu. Lan Chang hadn’t spoken, so he assumed Lan Chang was an ordinary person.

An Yimu disliked physical contact with people, especially strangers, so she just nodded in acknowledgment. She was confused by the man’s attitude. It seemed most people now knew about gaining strength by killing zombies, but a second-stage Awakener, even if rare, shouldn’t be treated with this level of eagerness.

The man didn’t seem to mind, smiling congenially. He reached up and adjusted his glasses, saying, “Unity brings out the greatest strength. Let me tell you about the situation here. By the way, my name is Xu Zhili.”

An Yimu’s heart tightened. Were these people not gathering here to rest?

The man continued, “We are all people who want to return to Chongming City. You didn’t know the situation just now, but after this field, there are a large number of zombies guarding the area. Our current number of people can’t break through, so we’re waiting here until we have more people before attempting to cross.”

A woman sitting nearby suddenly spoke in a sarcastic tone, “I say, Xu Zhili, why don’t you tell the young ladies about your glorious combat record.”

The woman was dressed messily and looked very arrogant, seeming to disdain Xu Zhili.

Xu Zhili awkwardly said, “Actually, we once tried to break through that zombie horde, but only she and I came back alive. Her name is Qin Yumo.” He pointed at the woman sitting on the ground.

Qin Yumo snorted coldly and turned her face away.

An Yimu understood. This man was definitely hiding something; at the very least, there must be high-level zombies in that horde that they couldn’t handle.

“It’s okay. We’ll cross together when more people arrive,” An Yimu smiled.

Xu Zhili’s expression improved a little. They had gone with over 40 people, but all had perished, with only the two of them escaping. This time, he must make sure they were fully prepared. He was afraid these two young women would leave due to the danger. Seeing the two find a corner to sit down, he glared angrily at Qin Yumo.

Many people’s eyes were fixed on Lan Chang, as her golden hair was very eye-catching.

Lan Chang didn’t seem to mind the attention, looking at An Yimu with bright eyes, holding some expectation.