ocean-life Chapter 82 Muddy Road
Chapter 82 Muddy Road
The dark green SUV, like a giant beast breaking free from the mud, roared away from the edge of Qingsongling Town. In the rearview mirror, the town, shrouded in mud and the aura of death, shrank rapidly and finally disappeared from view.
Xu Mo gripped the steering wheel firmly with both hands, his eyes scanning the road ahead. The so-called "road" had long since been unrecognizable, and most of the time, he was driving by relying on his sense of direction and his judgment of the terrain.
The flood not only brought silt but also left behind a network of gullies and muddy areas that were a real headache. Fortunately, this off-road vehicle was powerful, with a high chassis and sufficient torque, allowing it to safely traverse those seemingly impassable sections of road time and time again.
The interior was relatively quiet, with only the steady roar of the diesel engine and the noise of the tires driving over different road surfaces.
Inside the car, the smell of the interior had not completely dissipated, mingling with the muddy and faintly putrid odor from the outside that seeped in through the cracks in the windows, creating a unique smell that belonged to the end of the road.
Xu Mo didn't increase the car's speed too much. On the one hand, the road conditions were complex, and he had to be careful. Any scraping of the bottom or getting stuck in the wilderness would cause him trouble. On the other hand, Xu Mo was also observing, watching for any potential threats around him—whether from the environment or from living creatures.
About two hours after leaving the town, Xu Mo encountered his first real obstacle. A small bridge that should have spanned the dried-up riverbed was now broken in the middle, with only a few twisted steel bars connecting the two banks, making it completely impassable. The river had already swelled and receded during the flood, leaving behind a wide riverbed filled with pebbles and silt.
Xu Mo stopped the car and observed it carefully. The riverbed looked fairly solid, although there were quite a few loose stones, but it shouldn't be a big problem for an off-road vehicle. He shifted into low gear and carefully drove the car off the road and into the riverbed.
The tires crunched over the pebbles, making a clattering sound, and the vehicle lurched slightly. Just as Xu Mo drove to the middle of the riverbed, he caught a glimpse of a depression on his right that had once been a reed bed, where the shallow water was murky and stagnant.
Suddenly, the murky water surface burst open.
A dark shadow shot out of the puddle at incredible speed, like a bullet leaving the barrel, and hurtled straight toward Xu Mo behind the driver's side window.
It was a fish about twenty centimeters long with a streamlined body. It was incredibly fast, and its open mouth was filled with tiny, sharp teeth that gleamed coldly in the sunlight.
Faced with this sudden attack, Xu Mo's pupils contracted slightly, but his reaction was as fast as lightning. Just as the fish's head was about to hit the car window, Xu Mo's right hand still firmly gripped the steering wheel, while his left hand shot out of the open window like a venomous snake emerging from its hole, his five fingers like iron pincers, precisely grabbing the point where the flying fish's head and body connected.
The surface was wet, slippery, and cool to the touch, and you could feel the intense writhing of the fish's muscles and the hardness of its scales.
Xu Mo frowned and suddenly exerted force with his five fingers.
"Pfft!"
With a muffled, unsettling thud, Xu Mo forcefully crushed the fish near its neck. Crimson blood and shattered entrails spurted from between his fingers, some staining his fingers and the car window frame. The fish's head, still in a menacing, clawing posture, connected to a severed spine and a few bits of flesh, trembled slightly in his hand.
The SUV had already steadily driven onto the roadbed on the opposite bank of the river. Xu Mo stopped the car, opened the door, and got out.
He opened his hand, looking at the still ferocious fish head covered with fine, sharp teeth, and the small section of broken body connected to it.
The fish head was relatively intact, its lifeless eyes staring blankly at the sky, its mouth still open in the attacking stance, revealing sharp teeth. The remaining body parts were a bloody mess, revealing thick, tightly packed bluish-gray scales. The blood was dark red, no different from what Xu Mo knew about fish, only a deeper shade.
"Even such a small thing..." Xu Mo muttered to himself, his brows furrowing slightly.
Xu Mo never expected that this fish, which was less than a foot long, would undergo such a fierce mutation, even daring to attack moving vehicles and the people inside.
The fish head in my hand still vaguely resembles a common freshwater fish from before the apocalypse, but its thick scales, sharp teeth, and fearless aggression have completely transformed it into a new, hostile species.
"It seems that from now on, we can't let our guard down whenever there's a body of water, even if it's just a small puddle." Xu Mo casually tossed the fish head remains in his hand into the bushes next to him.
Is this fish safe to eat? Xu Mo wasn't sure. Although the blood was a normal red, who knew if toxins or unknown parasites had accumulated in its muscle tissue or internal organs? Without professional testing methods, consuming the flesh and blood of a mutated creature was far too risky.
Back in the car, Xu Mo tore off a piece of paper and wiped the bloodstains from his hands and the car window frame. An even stronger fishy smell filled the air.
Xu Mo got back in the car, restarted it, and drove onto the highway. Although the road surface was obscured by mud, the uneven trees on both sides of the road clearly indicated that he was driving on the road.
However, the floodwaters had probably just receded by then, and no other survivors had gone to Jiangcheng yet, so Xu Mo's car left the first fresh tire tracks on this road.
"These big trees look perfectly normal; it seems they won't mutate."
Observing the poplar trees on both sides of the road, Xu Mo sighed inwardly. If even plants were to mutate and become aggressive towards humans, then the difficulty of human survival in this world would probably increase by another level.
After this little incident, Xu Mo's vigilance was heightened. He not only paid attention to road conditions and potential major threats, but also took a second look at even the most inconspicuous puddle or damp patch of grass by the roadside.
The malice of this world seems to be everywhere, and has even infiltrated these creatures that were once at the bottom of the food chain.
The appearance of these small, mutated fish meant that the collapse of the ecosystem was more complete than he had imagined. Perhaps, as Xu Mo thought, once order is restored in the future, there will be specialized scholars or institutions to reclassify and name these bizarre mutated creatures.
But now, for Xu Mo, they all have only one name – enemies.
The diesel engine emitted a continuous, deep, and steady roar as the dark green SUV, like a tireless steel vessel, struggled forward across the barren and desolate land. The wheels rolled over the hardened mud, kicking up clouds of dust, and occasionally, when it hit a pebble or got stuck in a shallow pothole, the vehicle would sway slightly.