Chapter 401: Chapter 401

This battle ended astonishingly fast.

Everyone stood there agape. At the center of the battlefield, a gigantic mass of vines shot up into the air in an instant, blocking the killing strikes aimed at the crowd, while countless branches, with unimaginable speed, surged toward the advanced zombies that led the attack.

In a single instant, in the time it takes to blink, except for the leader who had fled at high speed and used a group of third-stage zombies as a human shield to escape, every fourth-stage zombie present, without exception, was killed with a single blow.

Faced with such an enormous reversal, everyone froze where they stood.

Time itself seemed to be paused in that moment.

Only Lu Ting, ignoring the wounds on his body, rapidly turned his gaze in one direction.

Perhaps sensing something wrong, the leading zombie, who had also glanced quickly toward a spot in the crowd amid the mass of charging zombies and heavy cover, then, dragging its badly wounded body, without the slightest hesitation retreated at top speed.

As the leader left, the vast horde of zombies in the base also receded like a tide.

Apart from the bodies strewn and toppled on the ground and the buildings heavily damaged by the fighting, it was as if the recent battle left almost no trace.

“Great, we survived, we made it!”

Mixed with countless sobs, at least in this moment, every exhausted face held the joy of having survived a catastrophe.

But Leader Zhou and his group, after their initial shock, quickly remembered something:

“That just now, Brother Lu…”

Leader Zhou was about to turn and ask Lu Ting, only to see the man sprinting desperately in a direction. Following his line of sight, not far away in a corner, a girl of about ten years old was slowly collapsing to the ground.

Wait—an advanced wood-type ability.

As if realizing something, Leader Zhou’s pupils constricted sharply. No… it can’t be!

Half an hour later, in the infirmary, everyone present could not help but wear heavy expressions as they looked at the little girl lying on the bed, pale and currently unconscious.

Shen Qing sat beside her with swollen, red eyes, dazedly clutching her daughter’s cold little hand.

“It’s all my fault. If I had taken Ning Ning away sooner, if I had watched her better.”

If she hadn’t kept worrying about Lu Ting, constantly muttering about his safety, if she hadn’t lingered because her parents refused to leave—would Ning Ning have gone out to take the risk?

No matter what they say about the base’s survival, that could never be the responsibility of a ten-year-old child.

Seeing her granddaughter unconscious and her daughter like that, Old Madam Shen’s eyes stung. She didn’t even know what comforting words to offer.

For the first time she felt regret.

All her life she had spoiled them, always thinking she could always cover for her child without teaching her properly.

Even if Ning Ning wasn’t fond of studying, she should have known some sense of priority and caution; in a crisis she shouldn’t have made emotional decisions.

Lu Ting sat silently nearby as well, watching his daughter fall and not knowing if she was alive or dead. The blame for his own incompetence pressed heavily on him.

After many attempts, they still couldn’t wake the girl. The usually straight-backed Lu Ting slumped deeply in that moment.

Even when he tried to comfort his wife, Shen Qing pushed him away.

Because of the powerful energy envelope wrapped around the girl, the doctors and experts in the base were also at a loss. On the one hand they marveled that such a small child was already a fifth-stage ability user—an astonishing talent—on the other hand they hesitated and looked to the parents.

“Uh, Mr. Lu… we may need some blood samples.”

After all, given how the surrounding energy showed no sign of receding, nobody except the parents could approach; other examinations were impossible. The doctor sighed at that realization.

“If it’s Miss Lu alone, we can’t get near her!”

After a long silence, Lu Ting said hoarsely:

Days passed one by one; in the blink of an eye, half a month had gone by. The people in the base had already started clearing the battlefield, and the collapsed houses were being rebuilt.

Everything seemed to be recovering.

Only An Ning on the hospital bed remained peacefully asleep, still unmoving.

The powerful green energy wrapped around her like a shield, tightly enveloping the girl.

The peaceful life the Lu family once had seemed to vanish overnight. Except for the Shen elders who frequently sighed, Lu Ting and Shen Qing ate mechanically, rested, and stared blankly at their daughter—apart from occasional breaks, they barely left her bedside.

Especially Lu Ting, for certain reasons he did not dare leave even a step.

During this period, Shen Huai’s family and countless others from the base came to see her. Every day new little toys were placed at the infirmary door.

Out of gratitude or pity, gifts lined up daily outside the medical room.

Unfortunately, the person on the bed still showed no signs of waking.

Until one day, a middle-aged man in a white coat with a clearly serious expression appeared in the ward.

“Sorry, Mr. Lu. The test results are in. Aside from some obviously vast and chaotic energy in the blood, we didn’t find any other abnormalities.”

“But after analysis and combining what happened on the battlefield that day, this energy is clearly over ten times stronger than that of a fourth-stage ability user. We therefore have reason to speculate that Miss Lu forcibly broke through in a moment of extreme stress, and her body could not handle the overwhelming energy.”

“May I ask, what was Miss Lu’s previous—”

“Fourth-stage,” Lu Ting said in a low voice.

So it matched—what a genius!

Glancing at the exhausted pair, the doctor sighed again in pity.

“As for when she’ll wake, we’re not certain. Further study is needed. The only thing we can say for sure is that because her internal energy is so overpowering, Miss Lu is not in life-threatening condition at present…”

After the doctor left, the room fell silent again. Lu Ting and Shen Qing sat on either side of their daughter’s bed without speaking a single word.

Just like they had so many times these past days.

Later, Leader Zhou also brought people to pay a visit, and he too lamented over the girl on the bed.

A fifth-stage ability user at that age—never seen before, a true talent among geniuses! Many in the base sighed inwardly.

But afterward, there were some unusual murmurs behind closed doors.

“A ten-year-old fifth-stage ability user? My god, this is absurd!”

“And Lu Team Leader—he’s the only current fourth-stage user. Is there something about this family…?”

As if guessing the implication, a companion quickly scolded:

“What nonsense. If not for Miss Lu, not just us—this whole base would have been finished!”

“Exactly. The poor girl is still unconscious! Say that now, don’t you have any decency?”

Hearing the scolding, the man blushed but, unwilling to back down, snorted.

“Come on, I’m just saying. And besides, I refuse to believe none of you thought about it. That’s fifth-stage—if we knew the secret to advancement, would we still be suffering under them, too frightened to step outside?”

“This is for the future of all of us!”

“Besides, if there wasn’t anything special, she would have broken through to fourth-stage long ago. Why hide it?”

As he spoke, dark ambition flashed in his eyes, and more accusations followed—ungratefulness, wolfish hearts, and more.

Whether anyone truly took those words to heart was unclear.

Regardless, a few days later, news spread through the tightly guarded medical base that An Ning’s blood samples had been stolen.

Upon hearing the news, Leader Zhou was furious, but no matter how the investigation proceeded, there were no leads.

“Brother Lu, I’m truly sorry…”

In the medical room Leader Zhou wiped his face painfully, ashamed; even his usually imposing frame stooped further.

People—what can you do?

Holding back his agitated wife, Lu Ting said nothing and only nodded faintly, his gaze never leaving the girl on the bed.

From that moment on, the couple, along with the Shen elders, never left the bedside. The two of them focused more intently on their cultivation.

Then, one day, while Shen Qing habitually wiped her daughter’s hand with reddened eyes, she noticed the little hand on the bed move slightly.

Seeing their daughter finally open her eyes, the couple could not contain their joy. But the next second, the little girl looked at them with a strange expression.

“Excuse me… who are you?”

“Why are you holding me?”

The words fell, and the couple’s joyous expressions suddenly froze, their chests tightening.