Transmigrating into a Wasteland Cannon Fodder Slag A [GL Yuri] - Chapter 19

Fang Qiang tossed a line at Hei Ye, then turned toward them. “Try it and you’ll die. You sure you want to?”

So arrogant. No doubt he’d awakened his ability right when the apocalypse broke out, killed countless zombies, and set himself up as the mall’s tyrant. He was probably on par with Chen Hao.

Awakened out of nowhere, suddenly crowned mall boss, tasting the perks of power. Had it all gone to his head already?

Yan An had no desire to speak. Awakening gave you strength, sure, but did these people not know how to use their brains?

Picking fights and making threats every other sentence, wasn’t that a bit brainless?

Did they really think just because they’d awakened, no one else could?

That “I alone reign supreme” act always ended the same way: getting slapped down hard. Wasn’t that just asking to die?

Take Gu Xia, for instance. 

She had C-rank: Time Manipulation. Ten seconds of frozen time which is enough to kill anyone.

The trouble was, her mental energy had only just barely recovered. Right now, she could only use D-rank: Air Grip. The C-rank ability was out of reach for now.

Unless Hei Ye chose to cooperate, raising earth walls against the venom while Gu Xia used an air burst to finish Fang Qiang.

Venom corroded matter, but air was gas. It couldn’t be corroded.

Realizing this, Yan An understood Hei Ye’s attitude: she wanted to team up against Fang Qiang.

Or maybe she was considering a longer-term alliance, an escape from Pingzhou together.

“You think your C-rank venom’s that impressive?” Yan An asked coldly.

She was still holding Gu Xia’s hand. She needed to get her blue bar back up to C-rank as soon as possible.

Within ten frozen seconds, she was confident she could take down both Fang Qiang and Hei Ye if she had to. Then neither would be a threat.

But restoring the bar took time. Healing didn’t mean instant recovery.

Whether Hei Ye cooperated or not, what mattered now was buying time, enough for them to regain the power to fight.

Ridiculous, really. She hadn’t awakened a single offensive ability herself. Hopefully that random loot system would finally hand her some luck.

Her words put Fang Qiang on guard. He knew from the injuries to his men that they were ability-users.

And if she could call out his C-rank: Corrosion directly… was it Hei Ye who had told her?

His suspicious eyes cut toward Hei Ye. “You told them?”

The net hadn’t crashed yet. Word about awakenings had spread fast online, and the Federation had wasted no time ranking abilities. As if they’d known all along humans would awaken.

Hearing her name his C-rank so directly, of course Fang Qiang suspected Hei Ye.

Which was exactly what Yan An wanted. Dragging Hei Ye fully onto their side.

Even if Hei Ye chose to sit back and watch, she and Gu Xia would still win.

But if Fang Qiang struck before Gu Xia’s blue bar recovered, that would be bad.

Hei Ye’s eyes lingered on Yan An for a long moment. She didn’t deny Fang Qiang’s accusation.

Instead, she turned back to him, her tone heavy.

 “Fang Qiang. Right now, you can’t touch me. I can’t touch you. But these two? They’ve awakened too especially her.”

Her finger pointed to Gu Xia. “She cut her way through zombies from outside the mall to here. At least C-rank. If we two join forces, you won’t survive.”

“So what? I’ve got this!” Fang Qiang yanked a handgun from his waistband.

Even ordinary people shrank back at the sight of it.

The Dongzhou Federation was strict on firearms. That gun wasn’t from federal troops. Their loadouts were much heavier than just a pistol.

City order was usually handled by the Security Bureau, as people called them. Rank-and-file there carried nothing more than a pistol and a stun baton.

Yan An recognized the model from her predecessor’s memory. In this world, military training wasn’t just marching drills. It ended with a battle royale.

Like in Pingzhou: after freshman year training, every student was dropped on Pingzhou Island for a live-fire assessment. The island held scattered weapons, ammo, and supplies. Sometimes cargo drops too.

The safe zone shrank over time, until only three remained.

Those three could directly enter the Federation Army’s core units, commissioned officers on the spot, with the option to return to university afterward. Not bad by any measure.

Her predecessor, the fool, had been eliminated almost instantly. The first pistol she ever picked up was the same model Fang Qiang now held.

The Federation’s most basic handgun, but hardly weak. With small-caliber rounds, almost no recoil, twenty per clip, fast and lethal.

Venom plus firearm, that was Fang Qiang’s trump card.

Against cold steel, even ability-users could die.

Even Gu Xia’s B-rank: Time Manipulation wasn’t absolute. Freezing time for ten seconds only worked within a limited area. A missile in flight? Useless.

Bullets, though? Ten seconds was enough to sidestep them, even if one was already at your forehead.

And beyond that, Yan An had figured out another way. Space didn’t have to mean storage alone. Couldn’t she pocket bullets themselves, remove them midair?

She’d just need to burn blue bar to do it.

And with Fang Qiang now brandishing a gun, cooperation seemed the smarter path.

But first, she had to intimidate him.

“So. You’ve decided to fight?” Yan An’s tone was ice. If she were Fang Qiang, she’d never choose hostility. Not when only cooperation offered a way out of this zombie siege.

Fang Qiang snapped the slide back, chambering a round. “You looking down on me?”

“Respect lives only at sword’s edge. Don’t want to fight? Then stop threatening us.”

He’d been the one to provoke, to order them to seize Gu Xia, to whip out a gun without a word of reason. And now he expected courtesy?

Yan An’s grip tightened on her axe. She was handy with throwing knives too.

Fang Qiang’s face flushed, then paled. Unable to back down, he raised the gun at Yan An and pulled the trigger.

Yan An squeezed Gu Xia’s hand, signaling her not to act, then lifted her own.

The bullet vanished midair but only to reappear less than a meter from Fang Qiang’s arm.

By the time anyone realized, it was already buried in his flesh.

Yan An’s face had gone pale, sweat beading her brow.

Her ability was Space. People always assumed space meant storage or teleportation.

Teleportation was beyond her, but she could experiment. After killing Chen Hao and looting his crystal, she hadn’t leveled up but she had felt something shift.

A subtle sense. The ability to store without touching, by locking onto an object with her mind alone.

So she had pulled the bullet into space, shifted its exit point, and released it by Fang Qiang.

She couldn’t place it precisely. That was why the bullet only hit his arm.

The bullet hadn’t slowed. It had simply passed through the snacks floating in her space, then shot back out, lodging itself in Fang Qiang’s arm.

Fang Qiang clutched his arm with a cry of pain. “What kind of ability is that?!”

Even Gu Xia stared at her in shock. She hadn’t known Yan An had such a trick up her sleeve.

Yan An smiled at her. “An eye for an eye. You send me a bullet, I’ll send it right back. In Master Jin’s novels, this move is called ‘Shifting Stars and Turning Heaven.’”

Nobody here knew who this “Master Jin” was, but they could guess the gist of her power.

It was basically: if someone punched her, she didn’t need to lift a finger. The punch would bounce back straight onto the attacker.

A terrifying ability. Hei Ye couldn’t help thinking. Thank goodness she hadn’t made enemies of them.

But Yan An leaned close to Gu Xia’s ear and whispered, “I made that all up. I’m completely drained. You’re up next.”

Space Transfer had consumed too much of her mental energy. Without her C-rank Healing, she would’ve collapsed on the spot.

Gu Xia: Was this really the time for nonsense?

The next second, Yan An slung an arm around her shoulders. Her legs felt weak, and… well, why sit in a chair when you had someone sturdy to lean on?

“Protect me, Sister Guzi!”

“Sister Guzi, you’re the best!”

She pressed close against Gu Xia, voice low enough for only the two of them to hear. Not only that. She gave a deliberate little squeeze. Let’s just say she put effort into it. Next time, maybe skip it.

Gu Xia was so speechless she forgot to pull her hand away.