79: The smell of burning and the dark shadows that blotted out the sky

In an instant, the blue electric arcs slithered up the steel cables—each as thick as a baby's arm—like a spirit snake flicking its tongue, accompanied by the piercing shriek of death.

With a thunderous boom, the first pickup truck's hood was flipped wide open by the violent high-voltage pulse, and the entire vehicle instantly transformed into a massive luminous body.

The thugs who had been brandishing chainsaws and howling in the truck bed didn't even have time to scream before they were carbonized by the blinding blue light, turning into chunks of black, smoking charcoal that shattered across the ground as the vehicle jolted violently.

The air was immediately filled with a nauseating smell of charring—the scent of protein being instantaneously vaporized by high-voltage electricity.

Su Chen gripped the steering wheel, feeling the slight tremor of the bus's frame caused by the surging current.

He glanced at the side mirror, the corners of his mouth curling into a cold, sharp arc.

At this moment, Chen Wei, due to the previous shoving and the vehicle's jolting, had half her body flung out of the maintenance hatch of the power compartment. Her ankle was tightly entangled by a spare cable, leaving her suspended beneath the bus, twitching violently.

Residual electricity dancing on the ground surged in through the soles of her feet and leaked out from her back, which was pressed against the road. Accompanied by a piercing sizzling sound, the skin on her back had already become largely charred under the dual destruction of the gravel road's friction and the electric shocks.

Ironically, the trace of Sacred Spring Qi remaining in her body became an accomplice to her torture at this moment, stubbornly protecting her heart and keeping her conscious amidst such inhuman agony, forcing her to watch helplessly as her own flesh left a dark red trail on the highway.

This was what it meant to be unable to die even if one wished for it.

Su Chen withdrew his gaze; the life or death of such trash was no longer worthy of occupying his mental capacity.

Behind them, the leader of the biker gang, that bald brawny man, finally showed a look of terror.

He watched his subordinates turn into charcoal and frantically brandished the large machete in his hand, attempting to hack through the chain that was still spewing electric sparks.

Thinking of running? Too late.

Su Chen snorted coldly and jerked the steering wheel, instantly shifting the center of gravity of the bus, which weighed dozens of tons.

The tires screeched against the highway, and the entire vehicle utilized its momentum to execute a textbook-perfect fishtail.

The chain at the rear, which had not yet broken, acted like a massive steel whip, lashing down on the last motorcycle trying to turn and flinging it directly toward an overturned tanker on the roadside.

Flames soared into the sky.

The shockwave from the violent explosion instantly tore through the darkness within a hundred-meter radius.

In that second of intense light, Su Chen saw an extremely eerie scene through the panoramic rearview mirror.

On the distant, pitch-black horizon, a mass of clouds deeper and thicker than the night itself had actually risen.

That mass of "clouds" was diving toward the flames at a speed that defied common sense.

What was that thing?

Su Chen's brow furrowed slightly. The extraordinary vision granted by the Sacred Yang Divine Body allowed him to capture the dense, fluttering silhouettes within the cloud.

It was the sound of wings—a high-frequency noise that sounded like countless steel saws rubbing against bone. It penetrated the bulletproof windows and bored into everyone's ears.

Su Chen, something's wrong!

Joey's voice came from the upper observation port, carrying a rare hint of trembling.

She was clutching infrared binoculars, her voice becoming shrill due to extreme physiological revulsion.

Those are locusts!

They're all as big as fists!

They're eating the fragments of the corpses that were blown away!

Su Chen switched to the external camera view.

On the screen, countless strange insects with serrated mouthparts and compound eyes glowing with a faint green light were feeding frantically.

At the center of that black swarm, a skeletal man was suspended in mid-air.

Beneath him was not any kind of aircraft, but an Insect Throne formed by countless locusts layered and interlocked with one another.

There wasn't a trace of color on the man's pale face, and his eyes were as cold as a venomous snake in winter.

He seemed to possess some kind of sound-amplification ability, or perhaps he utilized the vibrations of the swarm to transmit sound; a raspy voice exploded in the minds of everyone in the bus.

How fragrant... I can smell thirty high-quality females in the air.

The man named Mo Fei spread his arms, and the swarm behind him surged violently in response.

You, the man driving up front, listen.

Stop the vehicle and hand over two-thirds of the women to serve as incubators for my babies.

I might consider giving you a chance to be fertilizer in the insect pile, so you can live a little longer.

Su Chen didn't even lift an eyelid; the response he gave was the roar of the thrusters opening at full power.

You've got some nerve, treating my place like a buffet?

Su Chen slammed on the accelerator. The bus, like an enraged behemoth, spat two tongues of searing flame from its exhaust pipes, leaving a blurred trail on the highway.

Just then, his peripheral vision caught something on the side of the road.

In the gap between two scrapped cars, a small hand covered in mud and dried blood was waving desperately.

Beneath the wreckage huddled a little girl who looked to be less than ten years old.

Her face was filled with terror, and her pupils, reflected by the firelight, were written with the instinct for survival.

Su Chen's mind raced. Save her? In the apocalypse, such an act was practically synonymous with suicide.

But in the next second, he keenly discovered that the air around the little girl seemed to have a faint sense of distortion. When the diving locusts came within three meters of her, they would inexplicably lose their way.

A seedling with a special talent.

Su Chen's gaze sharpened; he never did a losing deal.

A second before the first wave of the swarm was about to hit the front of the bus, Su Chen slammed the hydraulic door lever while executing an extreme drift, precisely aligning the side door with the little girl's position.

Hurry!

The moment the pneumatic door opened, a gust of foul-smelling wind carrying dust swirled inside.

The girl named Xiao Ya, as if grabbing onto a final lifeline, burst forth with incredible power and lunged through the door.

Close the door!

Su Chen growled.

The moment the bulletproof glass door slammed shut, thousands of Brain-eating Locusts slammed violently against the glass.

They didn't even slow down, acting like green fleshy cannonballs as they burst into large splatters of thick, foul-smelling green slime, blurring the driver's field of vision.

Su Chen was about to turn on the wipers to clear away the disgusting mess when he noticed that the little girl who had just entered seemed to have seen something extremely terrifying. Instead of feeling relieved at being saved, she slumped on the floor, her face as pale as death.

She tremblingly pointed a thin finger, not at the dead locusts outside the window, but toward the darkness further away, her voice shrill enough to almost tear.

Don't... don't look at them... they're looking for the door... they're coming in!