Chapter 248: Second Priest, Are You Strong?
Lake Island.
The sacrifice unfolded like fire under the storm, accompanied by the roaring of waves and thunder.
A’duo stayed by the High Priestess’s side, watching her with worry.
Recently, due to overuse of her prophecy ability, her body had become very weak; at the age of fifty, she now looked like an old woman.
The High Priestess calmly gazed at the water surface.
But with A’duo’s eyesight, she could only see ink-like giant waves surging; nothing else besides that.
“High Priestess, how about we go back and sit down?”
“I need to wait here for the Savior; he will surely appear, treading the flood dragon, hunting the giant whale, cloaked in thousands of flowing lights, like the Thunder God…”
Listening to the High Priestess’s increasingly outrageous words, A’duo couldn’t help but turn her head away.
Suddenly, she noticed something extra on the water surface.
The originally empty sea surface immediately rose with “water mist”—not real fog, but white currents stirred up by the heavy rain.
A dark blue-black back split through the turbid waves, like a submerged mountain range suddenly emerging.
A giant whale, enormously huge to the point of shaking one’s mind, suddenly leaped out of the water surface, emitting a whale cry.
The intense sound wave swept across the water surface, making A’duo’s scalp tingle.
It really came?!
A second whale cry came, not as deep but exceptionally penetrating, carrying irritable killing intent.
Before A’duo could react, she saw two lightning bolts like chains shooting out from the thick fog, stabbing fiercely into the giant whale’s body.
The giant whale let out a painful wail and desperately rushed toward Lake Island.
“He came!”
The High Priestess suddenly shouted sharply.
A’duo’s pupils shrank to pinprick size; the existence hunting the giant whale finally revealed its form.
It was really a flood dragon!
With a sharp horn on its head, its body showed a cold, hard metal color, releasing thousands of electric currents that illuminated several black characters on its body.
—Armored Train.
Wait…
No!
A’duo rubbed her eyes, confirming she wasn’t seeing wrong; those were the four words “Armored Train.”
“That’s not a flood dragon!”
A’duo quickly said.
Seeing the High Priestess frown, A’duo hurriedly said, “There are words on it, Chinese characters!”
The High Priestess pinched her arm and calmly said, “Dong Huang’s dragon having Chinese characters is very normal, isn’t it?”
Seeing the giant whale getting closer and closer to the shore, A’duo had no time to explain and forcibly picked up the High Priestess, rushing toward the center of the island.
The giant whale, feeling its increasingly severe wounds, desperately manipulated its last strength, using the water flow to propel its body toward Lake Island.
Hoping to shake off the terrifying pursuer behind it this way.
“Boom—”
Jagged rocks were scraped away layer by layer by the wave blades; debris mixed into the whirlpool stirred up by the whale’s tail, turning the entire water area into gray-yellow mud.
A muffled thunder-like surging sound came from the lake bottom, followed by an even more terrifying uplift; the water surface around the entire island suddenly dented, as if sucked by an invisible giant mouth.
After three seconds of silence, billions of tons of lake water counterattacked, swallowing the edges of Lake Island between the fangs of white waves.
The thousands-of-tons body continued to charge forward under inertia.
The folds on its abdomen plowed open the rocks, boiling gravel like an oil pan wherever it passed.
The giant whale rolled sideways onto the shore of Lake Island, like a capsized giant ship, plowing up the ground.
Residual seawater gurgled out from its gill slits, converging into a winding stream beneath it, attempting to carry it away one last time.
But the lightning whip behind it did not break; instead, it grew thicker as it charged ashore.
A demonstrative whistle sound rang out.
The equally massive Armored Train extended its front onto the shore, with a tiny black shadow standing on top of the train.
Thousands of lightning lights bloomed around it, finally converging into two thick lightning whips.
Like arms extending out, they tightly gripped the giant whale on the shore.
This scene fell into the eyes of A’duo and the High Priestess on the shore.
Both were shocked speechless.
But their shocks were different.
A’duo hadn’t expected there to be such a powerful person in the world, actually able to hunt giant whales.
And in the High Priestess’s eyes, wasn’t this the most direct manifestation of a miracle?
Before A’duo could react, dragging her heavy, wet black robe, she ran over, stumbling through the muddy ground toward the direction where the giant whale was stranded.
……
“Dead?”
Su Huan, standing on the front of the train, slowed the release of current and asked with slight surprise.
“According to observations from personnel on the train, the giant whale isn’t dead yet; it probably wants to escape us through this method. We just need to guard it for a while.”
Shu Wei jumped onto the roof, braving the light rain to quickly run behind Su Huan, and replied.
“Do you think it might be waiting for me to get close, then give me a hard hit?”
Su Huan pinched his chin.
Shu Wei thought for a moment and said, “That’s possible too…”
Before she finished speaking, she saw Su Huan jump down from the front of the train and walk toward the giant whale on the shore.
She felt like she had said something useless.
Shu Wei took a deep breath, jumped down from the train expressionlessly, and followed.
Her task was to be on call whenever needed, whether sleeping or on call; wherever Su Huan went, she had to follow.
Su Huan walked while commanding everyone in the train through Shu Wei.
But there wasn’t much to command; from the audio, Su Huan could only hear a cacophony of excited howling.
Escaping from the terrifying vortex, everyone was very excited.
Especially the attendants who had been on the train not long; this narrow escape further strengthened their confidence in the Armored Train.
“How long will the train maintenance take?”
Su Huan asked casually.
The Factory Director on the other end of the tablet pondered and said, “The damage has reached eighty percent; the train has multiple water ingress points, but Xiao Ba used ability to block them. The materials don’t match in those parts, so they all need to be dismantled and carefully repaired later. Most critically, the onboard supporting equipment and sensor installations—each carriage has at least hundreds of sensors, and some important carriages even have thousands. These will take a lot of time…”
“Bullshit.”
Su Huan cursed.
His originally decent mood turned gloomy.
Haven’t hunted much in the wilderness, yet spending every day repairing the damn train.
“You guys repair it first.” After Su Huan finished speaking, he looked up, scanning the desolate island left by the receding tide, with a small hill standing in the center. “This is that New Eden, right?”
Shu Wei nodded and said, “We have arrived at the center of Jingchao Lake; this is Guanchao Island, a very famous tourist spot in Ningxi. Currently, it seems smaller than before the apocalypse, probably due to the high tide. The New Eden members captured by Captain He came from here.”
Shu Wei listed the important information.
Hearing her reminder, Su Huan also recalled those dozen or so unlucky ones.
When he returned, only four were left.
The story wasn’t complicated; they were survivors who fled to Guanchao Island due to the apocalyptic flood.
The island gathered all sorts of people from all walks of life; later, several gangs emerged, and finally, a divine woman gradually turned it into the current New Eden, incorporating everyone.
It started off fairly normal, mainly for construction and survival.
Later, under the Second Priest’s leadership, New Eden gradually changed flavor, holding a sacrifice every certain period.
The so-called sacrifice was a battle royale.
At first, they made excuses, having everyone vote to elect sacrifice participants; later, it became the priests selecting them.
The dead became offerings to please the gods.
Those dozen or so ran out to escape New Eden.
Then, foolishly tried to rob the Armored Train that was constructing cultivation pods.
What happened to those four now, Su Huan didn’t know.
Not that he couldn’t know, just too many things, too lazy to ask.
Su Huan jumped over a water-filled deep pit, patted the giant whale’s rough skin, and clicked his tongue.
“Ran pretty fast; want to run again?”
“Woo—”
The giant whale seemed to understand Su Huan’s words, emitting a short wail, then suddenly flipped over and slapped down toward Su Huan.
“Ant shaking a tree.”
A blue flash in Su Huan’s eyes, electric light bursting.
Shu Wei frowned and turned to look to the other side, where two women were walking toward them one after the other.
……
Half an hour later, Su Huan, covered in blood plasma, sat on a stone, with a small-mountain-high giant whale at his feet.
White Deer and Giraffe held a purified water sprinkler head connected from the train, rinsing the Train Conductor’s body.
Yu Yue gathered Su Huan’s washed long hair behind him and tied it with rope.
Shu Wei looked at the two women in front of her, her expression slightly odd.
“You mean you prophesied he would come?”
The High Priestess had a serious expression as she recited her prophecy, “Treading the flood dragon, hunting the giant whale, cloaked in thousands of flowing lights, like the Thunder God…”
“Pretty vivid description.”
Su Huan stood up and carefully sized up the two.
No impression.
Very normal.
Since leaving the acid rain area, he hardly recognized anyone; those he knew from his previous life were either by his side or who-knows-where dead.
That A’duo was clearly a beast transformation type Defender, an ordinary path where ability strength depended entirely on the beast transformation gene type.
What surprised him was that this A’duo had actually reached Tier 1.
She alone could crush the entire Iron Mountain Shelter.
That so-called High Priestess was probably an Evolver like a Collector, similar to Goat, but the logic behind it was a bit more “mystical” than Goat.
To figure it out, she’d need to be thrown into Director Xu’s laboratory.
In his previous life, he had encountered such babbling scavengers.
Unrestrained use of ability quickly turned them into seventysomething old folks.
Becoming one of the few to die of old age in the wasteland.
Because the reason couldn’t be found, this ability gradually became a taboo in the wasteland.
Now he could somewhat guess; the restriction for these “seers” using ability might lie in “basic attributes.” Certain specific attributes being insufficient meant each use compensated with vitality, leading to premature aging.
Su Huan said with interest, “And then? What do you plan to do now that you’ve found me?”
The High Priestess showed a sacred smile, “Only you can lead us out of this world-ending catastrophe.”
White Deer muttered to Giraffe beside her, “Her eyesight seems pretty good.”
Giraffe’s mouth twitched, “Her eyeballs are cloudy halfway, almost blind, and you believe her?”
“I believe in the Train Conductor.”
Su Huan frowned, stood in front of the High Priestess, and waved his hand left and right.
The latter still kept smiling, “I’m not blind yet. Though you might not believe what I say, time will prove everything.”
“Prove what, that I’ll become your savior?”
Su Huan said indifferently.
The High Priestess’s voice suddenly became serious, “I can nominate you as the new High Priestess, but you have many things to do before that.”
A’duo’s expression changed slightly upon hearing this.
“But the sacrifice has already begun; we don’t have that much time…”
As she spoke, A’duo’s gaze also fell on the Armored Train floating by Guanchao Island.
She wasn’t a savage; she naturally knew what such a large vehicle represented.
Powerful personal strength and force backing.
Perhaps the High Priestess’s premonition wasn’t wrong; this person had the ability to resolve their current crisis, just with some deviation from the prophecy.
She did want to defeat the Second Priest, but not to replace one master with another on her head.
She wanted to control the entire New Eden in her own hands!
“The sacrifice has begun?”
Su Huan seemed to think of something interesting and whispered an instruction to Yu Yue.
The latter turned and ran toward the train.
“Alright, tell me about your situation while walking—how many people on the island, their strength, talk as we go.”
Su Huan walked forward like the host.
Shu Wei and the two bodyguards dropped the hose and quickly followed.
The High Priestess was stunned for a moment, then followed.
“Child, I know you’re very powerful, but you need to face many difficult trials; these trials are all…”
The damn “god stick” way of speaking made Su Huan’s hands itch.
His main goal was to salvage the data center, repair along the way; there were many things waiting for him on the train, no time to play religious house with them.
He bared his teeth, “Get to the point.”
Seeing signs of him losing temper, A’duo quickly spoke for the High Priestess.
“If you want to become High Priestess, you must face the Second Priest and them; I suspect the Third Priest has already secretly sided with the Second Priest.”
Su Huan’s emotions eased slightly, “How many people does the Second Priest have?”
“More than three hundred.”
“Such a big island, only more than three hundred people?”
“Only those blessed by divine grace count as people.”
A’duo said.
Su Huan suddenly understood.
Combining the previous information, he instantly figured out New Eden’s ins and outs.
The so-called sacrifice was “raising gu,” cultivating Evolvers through mutual slaughter.
Under the pressure of death, or during the process killing mutated beasts or zombies, there was a chance to become an Evolver; after all, the conditions weren’t complex—just more exposure to high concentrations of general energy.
Although New Eden didn’t understand the underlying reasons for evolution and chose crude methods, it achieved the goal.
Three hundred Evolvers wasn’t a small number.
In his previous life, many small settlements couldn’t gather that many.
Even though the method to become an Evolver wasn’t difficult.
But such key information was always held by a few.
“Here’s the problem: how many people do you have?”
“About thirty-something.” A’duo gritted her teeth, “But not all are trustworthy; they might have already sided with the Second Priest ahead of time, so your current situation is very difficult.”
Situation very difficult?
Giraffe and White Deer behind were struggling hard not to laugh.
Su Huan glanced at her.
These two women seemed to assume by default he’d become their New Eden’s bullshit priest.
“The Second Priest, very strong?”
(Tomorrow, 100 red envelopes in the group)
