Garden of Eden || Apocalypse Paradise #2 [Complete]

173: The Secret Behind the Flesh Apple

'Nutrients? In the apple?'

Although Lin Sanjiu had a faint premonition long ago, she felt a cold chill.

"Do the nutrients... refer to us humans?" She stuttered, feeling that the answer to her question was stupidly obvious.

Unexpectedly, the snake-faced person corrected her.

After it spat out the word 'no' from the tip of its tongue, it only continued after a slight pause, as if it needed to choose its words, "Trees bear fruit. There are nutrients in fruits. The nutrients in the fruit I ate were bad, poor... But, I understand your language."

'Did I interpret those words correctly?'

Lin Sanjiu was almost stunned.

"Some fruits are good, like—" Conversing for the first time with other creatures that weren't snake-faced people, the snake-faced person seemed to have some interest in continuing the conversation. When it spoke to this point, it used its tongue to pronounce a complex syllable, appearing to be someone's name: "... ate one, she can glow. Some are no good, the one I ate, made me understand words."

"Every fruit has different nutrients, the one the leader ate, is the best."

Even though what the snake-faced person said wasn't quite clear, Lin Sanjiu immediately understood everything.

Those apple trees, in a certain kind of sense, were a type of reprocessing machine. The tree mixed the blood and flesh of posthumans and converted them into the apples growing from the tree. Each apple probably packed a few abilities. When the snake-faced people ate those apples, they would obtain the corresponding abilities.

Naturally, from the snake-faced people's perspective, nutrients did not refer to humans but rather the abilities they possessed.

In that case, it was easy for Lin Sanjiu to understand why the apple could talk. The apple trees had to keep the posthumans alive so that the apples could retain their abilities. However, whether they survived in their usual human form or as a large apple structure made of a mix of blood and flesh, it wasn't for those humans to decide.

Coincidentally, the apple that the little snake-faced person secretly consumed possessed a sort of language communication ability.

When she thought about B. Rabbit and her other missing companions, Lin Sanjiu felt anxious again. She wished she could search every tree branch at this very moment, but she couldn't even move now.

"You... said that you came from the tree." The snake-face person talked again. Lin Sanjiu's body shook due to the vibration of its voice, "Could it be, the nutrients in the fruits actually came from things similar to you?

"That's right!" Lin Sanjiu was slightly astonished that it never thought about the source of the nutrients. Following which, hoping for a bit of luck, she added, "I just want to find a few of my friends. Once I find them, we will leave immediately. We won't disturb you guys from eating your apples... okay?"

When she was drifting along in the rhizomes, she wanted to rescue a few more people. But now, she had already given up that impractical fantasy.

Lin Sanjiu would be satisfied if she could just save B. Rabbit and the rest of her companions. Unfortunately, the snake-faced person crooked its head and stared at her but didn't say a word.

The atmosphere, as quiet as dead, hung heavily in the darkness.

Lin Sanjiu grew more and more nervous. She stealthily hid her hands behind her back.

After a long time, the snake-faced person finally spoke.

"Being able to escape... trees, very strong." It spoke in the same slow manner, but its body started swaying, "If I eat you, I will become powerful. Become leader!"

"You motherfucker!" Lin Sanjiu couldn't help spitting out B. Rabbit's favorite vulgar word. At the same time, the pupil in front of her rose up, and a long shadow shot out from the snake-faced person's mouth, coming toward her.

Lin Sanjiu finally had a slight taste of what it was like colliding with the Golden Gate Bridge.

With a sudden loud boom, the tongue pierced deep into the tree bark. Debris flew everywhere, and the ground under Lin Sanjiu quaked. Fortunately, Lin Sanjiu was already prepared. Using all of her limbs simultaneously, she rolled quite a distance away, dodging the attack unglamorously.

"You think I can't do anything just because you are larger?" She spat fiercely. She saw its tongue aiming for another attack, but she couldn't think of any ideas. She had no choice but to jump to another slightly lower tree branch.

Just as her legs left the first branch, the spot where she was before was instantly smashed to smithereens. The sap from the tree, so familiar to her, sprayed everywhere before it rained down on her body.

'Dodging like this isn't the best strategy. If I had my [Bubbles Blowing Girl] with me...'

With that thought, Lin Sanjiu stopped and quickly checked her card inventory.

When they were scavenging for items in the Garden of Eden Laboratories, she practically took everything she saw, only turning all of them into cards after that. Hence, she even forgot some of these items. As she swept her eyes across the cards in her hands, she had a sudden idea.

The attacks behind her had stopped. The ground continued shaking as the snake-faced person circled the tree and continued looking for her.

Only the ground was emitting endless quakes, seeming to be from the snake-faced person's movement around the tree as it was searching up and down for her whereabouts.

Lin Sanjiu hid behind the fork of a branch. She was in the snake-faced person's blind spot. On top of that, she had stored her [Ability Polishing Agent] to avoid being the obvious target in the darkness. The pitch-black darkness affected the snake-faced person, making it more difficult for it to find Lin Sanjiu.

"Where is it? How annoying, I want to crush you..."

The long tongue hissed as it swept to and fro above the tree bark. Just when it was feeling impatient, it saw a silver light on one of the branches, but it quickly vanished. That split second was sufficient for the snake-faced person. It shot its long tongue toward the light.

However, the series of events that unfolded was beyond the snake-faced person's expectations. Its tongue pierced through a mist. It felt a sharp, burning pain it had never experienced. The pain spread rapidly through its tongue. The snake-faced person let out a fearsome hiss and pulled its tongue back into its mouth involuntarily. Right after that, it could no longer make any sound.

It collapsed to the ground, clutching its own neck tightly. It struggled soundlessly while it writhed and rolled on the ground. The ground shook, and a few apples fell. After some time, the vibrations, similar to small earthquakes, gradually stopped.

The black outline of the snake-faced person, which now lay on the ground, was like a mountain range. It stopped moving.

A small silver light lit up from a fork of a branch. The light could only cover a small area before dissipating into the darkness. Lin Sanjiu looked nervously at the shadow of the creature, which lay out like a short mountain range. After she waited for a long time, she finally let out a sigh of relief.

Lin Sanjiu looked down at the storage device for her [Microorganism Cloud] and revealed a bitter smile.

As expected, the simple trap she set was useful. The snake-faced person stuck its tongue into the purple mist of [Microorganism Cloud]. The mist quickly adhered to its tongue and was quickly absorbed by its body. From the looks of it, she probably couldn't use the storage device to recover the mist.

Once the snake-faced person stopped shrieking and struggling, the silence returned. Lin Sanjiu could hear her racing heart. 'I don't have much time.'  Lin Sanjiu thought. She had to find B. Rabbit and the others before resting, then quickly escape before the other snake-faced people discovered the corpse.