I Forged the Myth of the Ancient Overlords-Chapter 47 - 0. Fish_1

Chapter 47: 047. Fish_1

Chapter 47: 047. Fish_1

This was the true apex of the food chain in this meadow.

In Lu Ban’s increasingly blurred consciousness, such a thought surfaced.

He saw that the school of fish didn’t charge directly at the bus, but circled it like hunters poised to strike, ready to attack the moment Lu Ban made the slightest mistake.

The gibberish that escaped from Lu Ban’s mouth seemed to be key, as even these immense creatures struggled to resist the invasion of the gibberish, although they appeared to have a slightly higher tolerance, unaffected unless they came very close.

It was unclear who could last longer.

In the agony of his brain being burned to a cinder, Lu Ban witnessed a rare scene.

In that vast, uninhabited meadow where grass over three meters tall swayed, the eerie green light was like the ocean, reflecting the pitch-black, profound sky.

From the silence of the grass, countless shadows emerged and converged on the bus as if they appeared from nowhere.

Those were fish.

Fish of slightly different shapes soared through the sky, just like their common, ordinary waterbound brethren weaving through underwater plants.

Lu Ban didn’t count their number.

He just stared ahead.

In the rearview mirror, Mary, whose throat had been torn apart, was motionless, and wild grass was slowly growing on her body, assimilating her flesh to nurture itself.

Stone’s eyes were bloodshot as he covered his ears with both hands, curling up on the floor, blood flowing from his nostrils, glasses, and mouth.

The two Ratmen inside the bus reached their limit as something within them swelled.

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Boom—

Their bodies burst apart, limbs flying and staining the entire compartment yellow.

Seeing this, Lu Ban grasped a flicker of inspiration.

He closed his mouth.

The maddening gibberish abruptly vanished, leaving only the noise of the engine’s rotation and the tires’ friction in the meadow.

In this brief moment of tranquility, Lu Ban called out.

“Throw these bodies out!”

He was shouting to Stone.

Almost simultaneously, Lu Ban wedged the crowbar against the accelerator, brilliantly fixing it so that it pressed against the pedal and ensuring the bus maintained its top speed as it tore forward.

He hurried to the back, picked up a Ratman’s shattered head, and threw it out the window.

As the grotesque head flew out the window, instead of dropping in a parabola, it floated in mid-air as if the ground had lost its pull and was quickly left behind by the speeding bus.

In the unseen night sky, the head instantly drew the attention of the fish. All at once, the meadow boiled with activity as over ten fish abandoned their pursuit of the bus to feast on the delicious Ratman brain.

Lu Ban continued to toss the remains of the two Ratmen out the window, inciting a frenzy amongst the school as they chased and tore at the fragments in mid-air.

Finally, he turned to the now breathless Mary.

The body of the middle-aged woman had been overtaken by wild grass, making her look like a maiden adorned with flowers.

Lu Ban silently apologized in his mind as he lifted Mary’s body and flung it out the door of the bus.

The last few fish following the bus also gave up the chase, circling around Mary’s body, taking turns pecking at it, and quickly dismembering it.

In Stone’s eyes, the fear was mixed with awe as he looked at Lu Ban.

“Stay away from me.”

Lu Ban said, and lifting his hand, he twined his fingers around the tender sprouts emerging from his eyes and yanked hard.

The vine-like sprout immediately convulsed as if struggling like a wireworm, causing an increase in the pressure in Lu Ban’s eye and turning his right one blood red.

But Lu Ban showed no mercy, winding it round and round his hand and fully pulling the new sprout out.

The new sprout, with its young leaves, twisted in Lu Ban’s hand before he threw it out of the bus.

Returning to the driver’s seat, Lu Ban picked up the crowbar, sat down, took the wheel with his left hand, and with his right, pulled at the flesh where the Ratman had bitten his left arm, extracting the plant material in a similar fashion and tossing it out the window.

At the same time, the gibberish in Lu Ban’s mouth, originating from distant stars, once again resounded.

“——”

The plants lying in wait on his body shook and trembled, no longer growing. Lu Ban did not know if it was an illusion, but even around the bus and the roadside grass glowing with fluorescence seemed to dim.

Stone sat in the last row, covering his ears, trying hard to endure Lu Ban’s mutterings.

Lu Ban noticed that up ahead, not far away, the glow had already disappeared.

For the first time, he genuinely longed for darkness.

A moment later, the bus left the grassy area.

Or rather, Lu Ban observed the grassland shrinking.

It moved like a living creature, shifting towards the area on the bus’s left.

“So that’s how it is… just like rat swarms move in regular patterns, the grassland moves on its own.”

“An extraordinarily active grassland, soil, air, and those fish… they form a peculiar ecosystem.”

“Ratmen… make use of this ecosystem?”

Lu Ban, his mutterings halted, took advantage of his brain still being active to ponder.

“It seems that the Ratmen themselves aren’t affected by the grassland, similar to the fish. Could it be that there is some sort of symbiosis between them?”

“The Ratmen are tasked with attacking passing vehicles, while the grassland digests them. Eventually, they become nutrition for the fish. Might the grassland’s needed nutrients come from those fish flying in the sky?”

In the wilderness of the Abandoned Capital, these ecologies seem to function independently.

Lu Ban could very well understand why Mary, a biologist, and Hunter, a bounty hunter, knew so little and had no prior warning about the grassland.

Because those travelers who had witnessed this bizarre ‘creature’ might not have lived to tell the tale.

“You’re very lucky.”

Thinking this, Lu Ban said to Stone, who was curled up in the co-driver’s seat.

“You’ve witnessed a unique ecological structure on the ruins.”

“Lucky?”

Stone found Lu Ban’s claim difficult to believe.

Remnants of Lu Ban’s mutterings lingered in his mind, always echoing in his ears. Some knowledge, unbeknown to Stone, was attempting to transform the structure of his brain.

This turned Stone’s face ashen as if he were carsick and longed to vomit, but his stomach was already empty.

“… I read in a book before that Ratmen were originally human.”

To try and ease his pain, Stone recalled content he had once read.

“They once had a city, back when the Abandoned Capital was not yet abandoned.”

“That city was even more splendid, bustling, and lively than the Abandoned Capital, a true City of Hope.”

“They relied on mines in the center of the city to unearth rare ores, and with those ores as fuel, they built massive machinery.”

As he spoke, Stone’s tone calmed down, and the pain seemed to recede. He could feel his outpourings and recollections harmoniously aligning with the continuous mutterings in his head. It was an indescribably delightful feeling, a desire to express all his thoughts in one breath washed over him.

“But as they dug down, dug further down, they finally unearthed something terrifying.”

“In just one night, the entire city collapsed into ruins.”

“People thought that the city had been struck by a disaster, with no survivors, but in reality, they all survived.”

“They lived on and were dominated by that terrible thing, turning into creatures unable to see the sunlight.”

“They became Ratmen.”

Hearing this, Lu Ban slightly turned his head.

He saw the young man whose face was smeared with blood. He had yearned for the Abandoned Capital and braved life and death adventures, and now his face bore a cold and sinister smile.

*

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