STB Chapter 144: Escape

“Flame Demon is over there!”

Flames lit up in the dark, bright and dazzling.

The waiting ability holders went straight toward the flames.

“Wait, everyone, watch your back.” Rosemary didn’t believe that Li Fei would actively expose himself.

She generated flames, and only then did she see the things floating in front of her. She threw a flame ball in horror which incinerated a rotten corpse nearby.

With both sides lighted up, everyone finally saw the surrounding scene.

The terrain didn’t change much, but most of the ground was flooded. The A-class ability holders are in higher positions, so they’re only ankle deep. Although the water in the space kept rising, the water mostly flowed downhill, so the first ones to be in danger are Jian Hua and his group.

The table has long been submerged, so they can only use their abilities to make the mushroom grow continuously.

Behind the flames are numerous mushrooms proliferating everywhere while a large mushroom cap blocked the others’ line of sight. Some people responded quickly and hurriedly climbed the mushrooms, not caring if the mycelium tied them up.

Suddenly, this strange space began to shake.

Li Fei’s face is cold, but then he found out that the mycelium “mask” that Jian Hua made for him can barely be used to filter the air.

It’s just that the mask was very disobedient. It would go down Li Fei’s neck, so he hurriedly reached out and firmly pressed it to his face. Jian Hua gave the first mask to him, but the movie actor felt weird using such a “perverted” mushroom even though he knew that he’s not the only one with the mask.

The mycelium extended to all sides and quickly measured the size of the space created by Red Scorpion.

If there are no mushrooms, it would be filled with flames.

Jian Hua endured his nausea while directing the mushrooms to the ground, “covering” everything in the water, and moving those things toward Li Fei’s flames. He didn’t even think about how many there are.

However, this method is not very good as the burnt smell mixed in with the rotten stench. Some ability holders can’t endure, they covered their mouths and started vomiting.

The mycelium is not a real mushroom, so it’s not contaminated by any dirt. Even if Jian Hua knew that the mushrooms had been to the sewers, he’s still okay with it, but the immediate situation in front of him made his eye twitch.

It’s not difficult to destroy this space. The real problem is what’s in the water……

The Cannibal Squid wildly waved its tentacles, trying to reach the deepest part of the mushroom. Unluckily, there’s an ability holder in the way. Because of nausea, he was pale and trembling which slowed his actions for a few seconds. He did not manage to escape, so his bones were broken by the squid’s tentacles.

Rosemary grabbed her pendant, shivering.

——this is hell.

Screams came one after the other, and the shaking of the space became more intense.

Jian Hua really wanted to open a crack in the world and throw in these things along with Red Scorpion一maybe even throw him into the giant spider world that is about to become extinct. However, they’re now inside Red Scorpion’s space. If he wanted to open a crack in the world, he had to get out first. This is a problem without a solution.

“Red Scorpion’s ability is ten times more than an ordinary A-class, even close to S-class.” Jian Hua frowned tightly.

It just had more power, it still can’t break through the innate hierarchy of the fields.

“Red Scorpion might have been nearby when Poseidon died. The water in this space is rising too fast,” Li Fei’s voice sounded a little odd, and in fact, Jian Hua’s also. After all, whoever talked through the mycelium mask would sound muffled.

Johnson is shaking. He knew how to deal with the Cannibal Squid, but if he used a bolt of thunder, more than the Cannibal Squid, all the people touching the water would die……he gritted his teeth, but still lifted his palm.

“Boom!”

The space fragmented, and that pitch-black and oppressive feeling quickly faded.

People screamed and fled, but hit a mushroom wall as a result.

No water flowed out, and the mushroom mercilessly bundled all of them, struggling and screaming.

The moment when the space shattered, Jian Hua also felt there are two high-order ability holders outside and in two completely different directions. One rushed toward here, while the other one dispersed……quickly disappearing from Jian Hua’s power feedback.

He obviously hid in another space.

“It’s over there.” Li Fei said coldly. His magic eyes can see a space barrier that is entirely different from the surroundings.

Red Scorpion’s reaction is fast, immediately shrinking to a rock wall once he noticed something went wrong. Li Fei’s magic eyes can see the nature of an object, but it has no X-ray function. Red Scorpion hid in his space and turned a few corners to escape, and Li Fei also couldn’t catch him.

The flames formed a dragon that whizzed in that direction, but before it can catch up to Red Scorpion, there was a loud noise on top of the cave.

Debris tumbled down, and the second bolt of thunder cut off Red Scorpion’s escape route.

Red Scorpion was shocked. This intensity is obviously S-class.

——Johnson is also here?

Red Scorpion is angry. If he knew that the Abandoned World wouldn’t last for ten years, he wouldn’t need to give face to East Coast’s Godfather, Wolf Morenza. If he wanted the Holy Gate organization to continue developing while enjoying life, he must obey the rules of East Coast’s underground. He can offend the FBI, but if he offended both black and white side, his days would be over!

Johnson is a stupid and naive kid in Red Scorpion’s eyes even if he’s the Hero in the future.

Red Scorpion was written to have died in an accident, but the “original work’s” protagonist Johnson Brown is a complete loser in his eyes. He finally got married to Rosemary, but he lost his ability, lost his status, and also offended the top executives of the US Abilities Bureau as well as powerful political figures. Johnson would die in an “accident” sooner or later.

“Your guardian didn’t tell you to stay away from Black Abyss?” Red Scorpion hid in a fork in the road while angrily shouting, “Devourer and Flame Demon destroyed your destiny. Do you think you can leave this underground city alive? Johnson Brown!”

Hearing the name of the “protagonist”, all A-class ability holders are shocked.

Rosemary suddenly looked back, wanting to find his supposed husband-to-be. To her disappointment, many piles of mushrooms covered everything, so even their silhouettes aren’t clear.

Old Cheng, who had just arrived, caught the rotten smell. He hurriedly covered his nose and mouth, shocked to see the more than one-meter high dark water behind the mushroom walls in front of him.

There are flames everywhere, and the Cannibal Squid’s tentacles collided with several walls in succession.

Various ability holders battled in a war zone, and some people indiscriminately attacked the mushrooms, just trying to escape.

The wind blades left half-moon marks on the rock walls where the passage collapsed. Red Scorpion took advantage of when Jian Hua and the others can’t move for a while to continue to escape to the surface.

Since there’s only Red Scorpion in that direction……

Old Cheng saw mycelium, flames, and wind chasing, so he immediately used his ability,

Infrasound waves can be directed to attack.

Red Scorpion’s transparent space immediately turned black and began to distort.

In fact, the first infrasound waves can’t hurt Red Scorpion, but the second infrasound waves are very powerful, even capable of damaging buildings. Old Cheng is only at A-class, not S-class, so he can’t make a building collapse. At most, there’d be a few cracks in a building.

However, the terrain around this area had been changed by the earth ability holders, so the road can’t be considered a road anymore. Dealing with the three S-class, in addition to the Cannibal Squid, led to many attacks flying all over the place.

The energy surge in this area reached a critical level.

And the sudden appearance of resonant sound waves broke this balance.

All kinds of energy, because of the mismatch of different attributes, conflicted with each other and overflowed. Except for the flames and mycelium, each ability isn’t willing to coexist. The bolt of thunder missed, and the growth of mycelium became skewed.

Red Scorpion’s hiding space is also removed.

The energy seemed to have become a substantial flow of water, and the crowd was trapped within a swamp. It took a lot of effort just to raise a hand, and even the Cannibal Squid’s movements have slowed down.

Li Fei’s expression considerably changed. He tried to recover his abilities, but those flames are like the mushrooms, not looking back once they’d run out. Even manipulating it is hard since the feedback is faintly discernable, it’s as if they’re 100 meters apart.

Red Scorpion’s angry voice let out curses, sounding sporadically in everyone’s ears.

Everyone felt the energy around this area rejecting each other.

Old Cheng found himself inadvertently causing a major disaster, but unlike other ability’s attacks, sounds can’t be taken back……water system ability holders can pull the spilled water back into the basin, but words, once spoken, can’t be taken back, nor can it be swallowed again.

Jian Hua, who recognized Old Cheng, is somewhat at a loss. Everything is out of everyone’s hands.

When energy is repelled to a certain extent, there’s bound to be a big explosion leading to unpredictable consequences. This kind of thing never happened before, and it’s not mentioned in the original “plot” either.

The ability acquired by humans is energy from the Abandoned World. The fact that their power is more powerful in the Abandoned World compared to reality is the best evidence. There’s no difference in the energy itself, it was just converted by humans to different systems.

The explosion is the consequence of rejection. After these energies exploded, it’ll turn into one kind of energy, it’s original form.

How can such an explosion be small?

——All the people present are probably going to be crushed together with the underground city, and this area would be buried forever.

Li Fei never imagined that his death would be the same as that of Dr. Mad.

This bitter feeling of helplessness flashed, but he didn’t have time to feel sad. A chain reaction of rejection occurred, and this produced more and more energy. Seeing everything coming to an end……

A crack suddenly appeared in midair, just in front of Red Scorpion.

The spider world is ready to send out another A-class ability holder, so the crack appeared very quickly. The result is a tremendous amount of energy compression, and all living beings paused.

This is a chance to escape!

Red Scorpion wanted to laugh out loud. He didn’t hesitate to drill in. The A-class that was about to come out was unluckily engulfed in Red Scorpion’s space, their life and death unknown.

The crack didn’t close, and because of the pull of energy here, it grew bigger.

The scene inside gradually emerged, showing black painted rock caves.

You can see a limited amount of things in the crack since there’s no light inside, but Li Fei’s magic eyes are unaffected. He immediately recognized this as the rock cave he had been with Jian Hua.

The bubbles in the pond kept bulging as the heat, and the thick sulphuric smell drifted out.

“Run!”

Li Fei silently left his position while Jian Hua struggled to make the mycelium entangle Old Cheng. It’s a valuable time brought by the stalemate between the crack and huge energy, so he desperately called out to the mushrooms in the distance——

In the wasteland, the pile of mushrooms on the ground suddenly became active.

After three seconds, the ground vibrated.

The volcano in the giant spider world erupted. Magma rushed out of the crack, engulfing the black water and Cannibal Squids.

The explosion followed, and the thick rock formation, from top to bottom, lifted.

Flames resisted the magma while a huge tornado rolled out all the survivors while acting as a second barrier. The mushroom completed the relay in the blink of an eye, and the people tied up by mycelium was tucked into the void.

The explosion brought the area to complete collapse.

The smoke cleared after half a day, and the ordinary ability holders felt jittery at the view. They found that the channel was filled with gravel, so they immediately pushed the stone gates, and even the nearby residential areas are abandoned due to being too “decrepit”. Anyway, the underground city is huge so they can go elsewhere to survive.