Chapter 563 - 449: A Forced Deal
Chapter 563: Chapter 449: A Forced Deal
It was a look that screamed, ’I’ve done nothing wrong. I’m right. Why are you acting like this?’
Staring at Lex Cross’s face, with its faint smile and infuriating silence, Flora Bloom didn’t know whether to get angry or just attack him. "Get the hell out!"
Her shout happened to reach the ears of Graham Cross and Solomon Sterling, who had just arrived at the main gate of Villa Area No. 3.
The two men glanced at each other, breaking out in a cold sweat for Flora Bloom. Their eyes conveyed a single message: ’We should probably go.’
Just as they turned to leave, a surge of black energy materialized behind them.
Lex Cross turned within the vortex of his devouring power to face them. The falcon-like sharpness in his gaze sent a shiver down their spines.
Before, they had always thought their young master’s features were just firm and strong, the very picture of masculinity. But now, for some reason, under the refracted, dim yellow light that passed for a sun in Morhaven, those strong lines took on a sinister, dangerous edge.
"Young Master. We..."
"What is it?"
"I—we..."
Ever since the volcanic mountain range from the earth’s core had erupted, towering into the clouds and blocking half the sun, daytime in Morhaven and other bases had become exceptionally short. Night fell quickly, and winter temperatures were much lower than before the apocalypse.
Even Morhaven, once hot year-round with mild winters, had begun to experience the biting cold. However, that wasn’t the worst of it. The cold didn’t have much of an effect on those with superpowers.
But for ordinary people, the cold meant they needed more supplies and more food for calories than any superpower user. And yet, within the last month, cosmic radiation had permeated every corner of the Earth. For an ordinary person, contact meant instant death.
The bodies of ordinary people exposed to the cosmic radiation would, in a single second, shrivel into desiccated corpses as if deprived of all oxygen, then rapidly decay.
With the exception of those in Morhaven’s base, ordinary people in other bases couldn’t leave their homes, let alone take a single step outside the base itself.
All the buildings had been rebuilt over the past month by Earth Element and Gold Ability Users. This at least ensured the safety of ordinary people while they remained inside the base.
Food, however, had become the biggest problem. On land saturated with cosmic radiation, nothing could grow except for mutated plants.
The struggle for supplies and food grew increasingly fierce. Mutated Beasts, evolved life-forms, and edible mutated plants became targets for everyone.
Including the major factions that had arrived from the Star Nation.
Azuregard City, situated on the coast, had its own unique defensive fortifications. Although its weapons and ammunition had been depleted over three years of fighting zombies, its superpower users were a different breed. Aside from a portion who had awakened from the general populace, the rest were all former members of the original Naval Base garrison who had gained superpowers.
They were superior to ordinary superpower users in both physical prowess and other skills.
But a month ago, the base had been seized by a group of incomparably powerful outsiders.
The Acker family, from the Star Sector of the cosmos. Their leader was a Planet Level One expert, a single person powerful enough to sweep through everyone in the entire Azuregard City Base.
Under the threat of overwhelming force, everyone was reduced to residents with no rights, forced to guard the base and hunt for food for the Acker family.
Fortunately, Azuregard City had abundant marine resources. Although most of the fish and other sea creatures had mutated, the meat of a Mutated Beast was more nutritious than ordinary meat and even contained energy.
Milton Adler, the former leader of the base, was now just a squad leader, leading a group of his men out to sea on a large yacht to fish.
"Chief! Our haul gets smaller every day. We have to travel farther and farther out. If this keeps up, we’ll run into a powerful, large Sea Beast, and our lives will be at risk!"
"Those people are going too far! Why should we have to hand over two-thirds of the food we catch? What’s left isn’t even enough for the men to get a full meal!"
"Exactly! They’re so powerful, why don’t they go out and hunt for themselves?!"
"How is this paltry catch supposed to feed those people! The bigger ones seem to be getting smarter; they’ve all fled to the deep sea where we can’t catch them!"
"Enough!"
Milton Adler said, his face grim. The schools of horse mackerel that patrolled the sea to hunt for him had already made countless trips back and forth, yet today’s catch still only filled a tenth of the lower storage hold.
If they returned like this, they would all be punished by the Acker family.
"Huh? Chief, how come only a few schools of horse mackerel came back?"
"Heh. The others... they’ve gone where they’re supposed to go."
Milton Adler’s voice was low, as if he were muttering to himself, yet also as if he were speaking to someone in particular.