Chapter 622: The Flesh-Flower Returns
An Ran understood everything. The flesh flower didn’t need to speak clearly—its whispers were fragmented, murmured in strange tones—but she could understand them all the same.
Ordinary plants were her puppets, extensions of her will. But mutant plants—creatures like this one—were something else entirely. They were independent beings, intelligent and self-aware, yet they still obeyed her commands.
The villa beneath An Ran’s feet was already bursting apart from within. The roots of the flesh flower had split the floors and walls, filling the rooms with writhing, pulsing vines.
She raised her head, trying to see the top of the creature, but the massive arm-like stem bent down toward her. One of its broad, slick leaves folded low at her feet, offering itself like a platform.
An Ran stepped onto it. The surface was warm and pliant—like standing on a human tongue. From there, she could see it all.
The bud was still growing, breaking through the layers of snow above. A gaping hole had already formed in the ice, and high above, Zhan Lian was sprinting across the enormous stem as it rose toward the sky.
An Ran stood silently upon the leaf, looking down at the terrified crowd below.
The flesh flower’s return—the same monstrous bloom that had once terrorized Xiangcheng—left everyone frozen in fear. For a long moment, no one even breathed.
It was Luo Feifan who finally broke the silence, standing before a vine dripping with greenish slime, shouting upward, “An Ran! Now’s the time to evacuate!”
“Ha! Hahahahahahaha!!!” Fatty, who had been crouching with his hands over his head, suddenly burst out laughing. The realization struck him like lightning—his laughter echoed wildly through the ice tunnels.
He was brilliant! He was a genius!
How could he not laugh? Out of all the survivors in this apocalyptic wasteland, he had found her—the one woman who could control even a creature as terrifying as the Xiangcheng flesh flower. His goddess stood unshaken while the world trembled around her. What monster, what army, what god could ever defeat her now?
An Ran didn’t answer his laughter. Standing atop the tongue-like leaf, she simply lifted her hand and pointed toward a tunnel on the far side.
“That one,” she said.
It was the passage Luo Feifan and Zhan Lian had just cleared—a wider route that led directly toward Hedong.
But Hedong was in chaos, overrun by the insane and the powerful. Escaping there might be even more dangerous than staying beneath the ice. At least here, the thick frost overhead still offered some protection from the falling shells.
“Have all the strength-type ability users start digging here,” An Ran ordered coldly. “Make the tunnel deeper—extend it toward Hedong. Maintain order. Anyone who causes trouble will become fertilizer for my flowers.”
As if in response, the flesh flower behind her let out a long, guttural roar. The sound rumbled through the tunnels, shaking the air.
Eighteen hundred people stood crowded together, every single one of them having witnessed An Ran’s power. Not one dared to defy her. Those who once shouted or panicked now lowered their heads in silence.
The crowd began to move—slowly, carefully. There was no pushing, no fighting. People stepped aside for one another, their manners almost unnaturally polite.
It was eerie, this sudden order in a world that had long since lost its humanity.
The tunnels where the snow wolves had prowled were now eerily clean. Every wolf had been devoured—fur, bones, and all. Only a few scattered crystal cores remained, glistening faintly in the dim light. No one dared to touch them.
The twisting flower roots that coiled over them looked like pale octopus tentacles, pulsing with life.
Yun Tao and Luo Feifan quickly organized the strength-type ability users, channeling all their abilities into excavation. The combined force of earth, metal, and flame carved through the frozen walls with astonishing speed.
Before long, the crowd—thousands strong—had dug their way forward, reaching the vast underground space near the Hedong Bridge.
And above them, unseen, the flesh flower continued to grow—stretching, blooming, spreading its roots ever outward.