Threat from Above

Senchuan City belongs to a coastal city, with two rivers flowing through it. One river passes by from the southwest, through a small town, while the other is a land river.

They originate from different sources but almost flow into the sea at the same location. Compared to the Longyan River, the land river has much smaller flow and width, which ultimately led to its surroundings evolving into a large city, while the vicinity of the Longyan River became a satellite town of Senchuan City.

After the typhoon passed, leaving destruction in its wake, the storm faded away, leaving behind bright sunshine.

On a temporary water pipe spanning both sides of the land river, a black-shelled beetle with white spots was slowly crawling. On its back was a metal iron man, accompanied by a thick canvas bag. And on top of the beetle's head, a small figure sat, holding onto a small horn protruding from its head.

This small figure was Tom, riding on the wooden beetle, heading towards the Longyao Garden Community across the river.

Because of the typhoon two days ago, there was debris everywhere, including the Old Street, and naturally, there were also many objects on the river surface. There was even a broken tree trunk that had come downstream, slantingly lodged in the riverbed, with its tail resting on this temporary water pipe.

This tree trunk hitting the water pipe must have caused an impact. Looking at the unreliable pipe set up by his colleague, Tom believed that with a few more hits, the pipe might collapse like tofu.

Fortunately, both he and the beetle were light now, and walking on it temporarily posed no threat to the pipe. But if something happened at the two support points on both ends, it would probably collapse easily. He wondered if he should reinforce it later to avoid being stranded if it collapsed.

As he looked at the approaching slender broken wood, Tom took out a piece of biscuit and stuffed it into his mouth. It was already noon, and it was time for lunch. The wooden beetle was conveniently nibbling on something on that piece of wood as its lunch.

Usually, there would be green belts in the community, and where there was grass, there would be ants. Whether they were large mutated ones or regular small ones, they all feared fire. So, this time, the flamethrower was his primary means of attack.

While he was idle now, Tom took out the flamethrower, dismantled it, and placed it on his folded legs to check it again, ensuring there were no malfunctions. Because he might need it when landing on the grass later.

But as he was checking, a black shadow suddenly landed in front of him, a jet-black body with a long pointed beak, startling him.

"What a big bird!" He just realized it, and the big bird pecked at the wooden beetle's body, hitting the chest of the Old Street Zero on its back with a loud clang.

To avoid this attack, Tom quickly stood up. But as he stood up, the flamethrower on his leg slipped from the beetle's back, hitting the trunk and rolling off into the river.

"Damn..." Tom frowned in frustration. This was an attack! He immediately drew the long knife on his back, but the big bird flapped its wings and flew up, grabbing him with its claws and taking him into the air.

The rushing wind sounded in Tom's ears, and the strong wind billowed his clothes. He struggled desperately in the bird's claws, but its grip was too strong, and he couldn't break free no matter how hard he struggled.

The big bird circled around with him, flying away from the water pipe, preparing to ascend on the river surface, seemingly choosing a landing spot. Tom activated the red crystal on his gloves, gripping the knife tightly and stabbing it into the bird's leg.

The knife stabbed into the bird's leg, causing intense pain. With a cry, the big bird loosened its claws, and Tom fell into the water.

The river surged and Tom was tossed around by the waves. He swallowed a few mouthfuls of water and desperately looked around. He saw a tree trunk ahead. He quickly adjusted his posture to lean towards the tree trunk. When he was close enough, he reached out and grabbed the tree trunk with his 4.5 times strength, finally stopping himself.

Relying on his 4.5 times strength, Tom pulled himself onto the tree trunk. At this moment, he was soaked, feeling the biting cold of the water and the chill of the wind, causing goosebumps to rise on his skin. Looking up, he saw a long black shadow. It was the water pipe, and the big bird had brought him upstream, so when he fell into the water, he happened to grab the broken wood he had seen just now resting on the water pipe.

This was luck, and Tom was overjoyed. He quickly climbed up the tree trunk, spending five or six minutes before finally climbing onto the water pipe. Looking at the slowly crawling wooden beetle, he finally breathed a sigh of relief. "This beetle, it's really something. It didn't even notice when the big bird almost pecked it."

Stopping the beetle, he commanded it to speed up its pace and quickly pass through the water pipe. In this open river, it was indeed easy to attract bird attacks.

That bird just now was quite big, entirely black. Tom thought it might be a crow. This was very dangerous, and from now on, he would have to be careful not only in various corners and bushes but also of attacks from above.

With the first lesson learned, Tom crouched halfway on the back of the wood, cautiously scanning the sky while pulling out his pistol, ready for any threat. If it dared to come again, he would make it eat bullets. After all, hitting such a large target once it got close wouldn't be difficult.

In the end, the wood successfully carried him across the river's surface pipe without incident. Once on the ground, Tom directed it to hide in the nearby thickets. After over two months without maintenance, the riverside bushes were overgrown, taller than him. It was a very concealed hiding spot, the perfect resting place.

He specifically went back to check the support frame of the water pipe. As he expected, after two rounds of typhoons and the impact of the broken wood, there were signs of looseness in the base. However, it wouldn't be affected for the time being, so he left it aside for now.

After cutting off some branches and leaves to feed the wood, Tom took a few sips from his water bottle and sat on the ground to rest for about fifteen minutes. Then he realized that the wood was nibbling on the leaves too slowly, so he left it there and went out alone to scout.

It was a riverside path with waist-high fences, grass-brick constructed lawns, and cobblestone paths, creating a sharp contrast with the dilapidated scenery of the Old Street.

Of course, that was in the past. After over two months without maintenance and two typhoons, the environment here was also dirty and messy, not much better than the Old Street.

Tom searched around and encountered two groups of black ants. Armed as he was now, even if he encountered mutated soldier ants, he could still put up a fight, let alone these non-mutated ones. It only took a few moves to deal with them. But this also made him realize that it was not safe to stay here for long and he needed to move quickly.

Returning to the thicket where the wood was waiting, Tom immediately put on the Old Street Zero armor and rode it inward.

Beyond the cobblestone path was a wall, separating the outside from the Longyao Garden Community. However, the wall had many hollow patterns for aesthetics and transparency, which also facilitated the entry and exit of the wood and Tom at this time.

Nowadays, residential communities were equipped with green lawns, but most of the green areas were not large. As Tom entered the community, what greeted his eyes was still tall bushes and various debris, including lightweight garbage bags.

Grasslands were ideal places for breeding mosquitoes and ants, which wouldn't be a problem under normal circumstances. However, after two months without maintenance, the threat here naturally increased. As soon as Tom entered the bushes, two non-mutated mosquitoes flew towards him. But with the protection of the Old Street armor, Tom didn't need to care about them. As for the wood, it wasn't their target either.

Tom didn't want to come to this community where threats could be everywhere. But after repeated assurances from Wang Sanli, he decided to trust him. Wang Sanli had used the telescope Tom made for him to confirm that the lamp posts he saw were all in Longyao Garden. The words "shelter" were written on the outer walls of the buildings in the community, and the last time he saw a lamppost was seven days ago. So Tom hurried over, waiting for the shelter to open tonight to see what was going on inside.

The square where the shelter they hid in last time was renovated thirteen years ago, and the shelter might have been installed at that time. Longyao Garden was delivered for use two years ago. If the shelter was really inside the community, it meant that the mysterious organization that built these shelters must have been involved in the construction of this community.

After all, being able to operate the Redemption Shelter normally when the power grid was down and there was no electricity in the city indicated that the technology level of this shelter was very high. If they hadn't participated in the construction of this community, there would be no way to hide the shelter so discreetly inside.

Tom remembered what Shen Jiayi of Haiwei Group had said: there were shelters like this in many places in the city. If that was the case, then this Darwinist fanatic organization would have complete knowledge of the city's planning and might even manage the construction of the entire city freely.

He dared not think further and just felt that the situation was very complicated. So for now, he focused his attention on the surrounding environment.

It was now 3:31 in the afternoon. According to the rules he learned from the shelter last time, the shelter would open uniformly at 12:00 a.m. on the seventh day after the outbreak of the micro-catastrophe, rising from the ground to provide shelter for nine hours. Each additional Awakener landing would increase the time by four hours.

Once the time was up, the shelter would fold up again and retract underground. The extra time added by the Awakeners' presence would not affect the next opening time.

In other words, the opening time of all shelters was fixed. Today was the 27th, and after tonight until midnight, it would be the twelfth time the Redemption Shelter would open uniformly. What Tom had to do was find a suitable place, wait until midnight, and wait for the shelter to open.

If the shelter was really inside the community, where was the most likely place?

Tom pondered along the way and eventually came up with a bold speculation: the shelter should be located in the flattest open space in Longyao Garden.

The logic behind this was simple: the shelter had to be on top of an open space so that people around could see its location immediately. If it were tucked away in a corner, the shelter's projected light would be difficult for people in various directions to notice, defeating the purpose of helping people find it.

Generally, residential communities have a small plaza for residents to gather, usually located on the central axis directly inside the community gate.

But what if it wasn't inside the community?

Then he would have to follow the direction of the lampposts when the time came to find it. But Tom still leaned towards the idea that it was inside Longyao Garden.

Wearing the Old Street Zero armor and riding on the wood's back, he directed it towards the community. He chose paths through lawns or green belts, as even the lawns were taller than humans after over two months of uncontrolled growth, making walking there relatively concealed.

However, visual concealment wasn't foolproof. After walking for a while, Tom encountered a swarm of black ants rushing towards him. These little creatures were not mutated, but the scent emanating from Tom's tin can body was picked up by the keen worker ants, who chased after him.

Killing these ants wouldn't help, as the pheromones they left behind would guide the following ants to follow. However, Tom didn't mind, as their current methods couldn't harm him anyway.

After killing a few ants, he grabbed one of the survivors, untied his leather gloves, and took out the emerald. He then inputted simulated pheromones into the little creature.

Tom had gained a lot of knowledge about ant structure from the queen ant in the apartment building, including the pheromones that drove ants to act. Although he didn't have organs that secreted pheromones, he learned from the queen how pheromones worked in the sensory organs of recipient ants. What he had to do was to use the emerald to contact the ant and simulate the feedback mechanism caused by pheromones in its body, thereby indirectly giving simple commands to the ants.