The speed at which the human-drone aircraft swarm was approaching was too fast; relying solely on two legs, it was absolutely impossible to outrun them. Pei Ran quickly spotted a building across the street and dashed towards it.
The others, snapping out of their daze, hurriedly followed.
Nearly a thousand human-drone aircraft were almost right in front of them.
A single flying device wasn’t particularly noisy, but the sheer number of them here was overwhelming, creating a cacophony like a stirred-up hornet’s nest.
The door on the ground floor of the building across the street was wide open and appeared intact. Pei Ran rushed inside, grabbed the transparent door panel, and waited for the others to enter.
She asked W in her mind: “Is this door the same extra-sturdy kind as the one at the main branch of Wolin Pharmacy?”
It was a tea-colored transparent door, and it looked very similar.
W replied: “Yes, it’s that kind.”
Both the human and the sphere felt a bit dazed.
The main branch of Wolin Pharmacy, the narrow and dim alley beside the side door, and Pei Ran’s earth-shattering tear—all of that had actually happened just a few days ago.
In just a few short days, the entire world had turned upside down, completely transformed. Writing had disappeared from the world, and people had turned into thin layers of skin, flying in the sky with blank expressions.
The ground floor of this building, including an entire row of exterior walls and the door, was made of this transparent material that resembled glass. Pei Ran knew well that this material was incredibly sturdy; even her mechanical hand would have to exert a great deal of effort to break it.
The fastest runners had already followed Pei Ran across the street and into the building.
Ai Xia supported Engineer Jiang’s arm, the middle-aged couple carried the little girl, Tang Dao and his classmate helped the blind Jin Hejun, and even the elderly couple stumbled in together.
The human-drone swarm, like programmed drones, quickly changed formation in the air, shaping into a sharp chisel-like formation as they dove toward the street.
Bringing up the rear were a young couple with shark clips on their mouths.
They were young and strong, so they should have been able to run fast, but when they looked up and saw the swarm of aircraft diving down like mad, they were terrified and hesitated for a moment before crossing the street.
Just a second or two of hesitation, and the swarm was even closer. The human slices flapped like wings in the airflow, making a fluttering sound. Both of them were too scared to risk running across the street to this side.
In reality, a quick estimate would have shown that there was still enough time before the swarm reached them.
Pei Ran couldn’t speak, so she could only stand at the door and frantically wave at the two of them, urging them to come over.
But they didn’t. Instead, they turned and ducked into a nearby building.
Pei Ran stopped worrying about them and quickly closed the ground floor door.
As soon as she shut the door, she began searching for a way to lock it, asking in her mind: “W, how do you lock this kind of door?”
W immediately replied: “This model of door seems to be controlled from the building’s control room. With the power out now, even if you find the control room, it might not be possible to lock it.”
The human-drone aircraft swarm had already arrived, and Pei Ran directly pressed herself against the door.
Seeing this, the others also rushed over to use their bodies to brace the door. The door wasn’t large, and there were many people, so the entrance was immediately crowded with a dense mass of bodies.
The transparent exterior wall rattled with a series of chaotic noises.
One after another, the human-drone aircraft, like giant bats, slammed madly into the “glass.”
Gigantic, flattened human faces pressed against the transparent door, just a few centimeters away from the people bracing it.
The people, their faces pale, pushed against the door with all their might. Some couldn’t bear to look at the faces and simply closed their eyes.
Ai Xia didn’t join in bracing the door. Instead, she went inside to search around and soon returned, tugging at Tang Dao and a few others, signaling for them to come and help.
They moved the service counter from the building’s lobby over.
The service counter, made of some unknown material, was large and heavy. A few people couldn’t move it on their own, so others who couldn’t help brace the door stepped in to assist. Everyone worked together, dragging the heavy counter across the floor with a creaking sound, exerting tremendous effort to finally get it to the door.
Once it was in place, Tang Dao was the first to climb onto the countertop and sit down, using his own weight as an additional barrier.
Sheng Mingxi also climbed up, and others followed suit, scrambling to sit on the counter. It quickly became crowded with people, like a group of monkeys claiming their territory.
The impact force of the human-drone aircraft wasn’t strong—only the flying devices had any real power. The flattened human slices were light and soft, and with the weight of the service counter and the crowd pressing against it, the door remained unmoved despite the relentless barrage of collisions.
After a while, the human-drone aircraft realized their efforts were futile and gave up on attacking here, flying back into the sky.
Everyone let out a sigh of relief.
Among the crowd, the young man in the purple jacket—the one whose label had caught fire on the Yehai No. 7 and was extinguished by the elderly couple with a cup of water—suddenly turned his head.
He stared intently at the parrot on Inaya’s shoulder.
Nuomituan had indeed sung earlier, but the human-drone swarm hadn’t actually been drawn by its song.
Others also began to turn their gazes toward Inaya, as if blaming her for the trouble. Inaya, looking guilty, clasped her hands together and bowed apologetically to everyone.
Sheng Mingxi took out a roll of tape worth over eight hundred bowls of beef noodles from her bag, tore off a piece, and handed it to Inaya. Inaya quickly and carefully used it to bind the parrot’s beak.
Pei Ran, finally catching her breath, took a moment to look through the glass wall at the scene outside.
She thought to herself: Two more people lost. Now there are only thirty-five people left, and one bird.
The two people across the street likely had no chance of survival.
The human-drone swarm, flying high in the sky with an excellent vantage point, had already seen the couple run into the building across the street. They weren’t just attacking this side—they were also assaulting the opposite side of the street.
The ground floor of the building across the street was a bakery that had been looted. The glass on the door was already shattered.
As soon as the couple hid inside, they frantically began searching for things to block the door. They gathered everything in the shop that could be moved—small tables, chairs, advertising signs, the cash register—and piled it all in front of the entrance.
Seeing that the pile of debris at the door was more or less sufficient, the two of them hurriedly hid behind the counter.
The human-drone swarm split into two groups. One of them dove down and launched an attack on the bakery.
Bang—
Bang—
Bang—
The sound echoed through the street. Wave after wave, hundreds of them crashed into the pile of debris at the entrance with their flattened bodies and the flying devices on their abdomens.
It didn’t take long before a chaotic clattering sound erupted.
The pile of objects, lacking sufficient weight and stacked too high with an unstable center of gravity, couldn’t withstand the relentless collisions from the human-drone swarm. It toppled over into the shop.
A large gap immediately appeared at the entrance.
The human-drone swarm quickly adjusted their formation and flight posture. Their limbs, which had been spread wide open, now folded in like wings, their bodies contracting into a streamlined shape. One after another, they filed through the gap and flew into the bakery, charging toward the counter.
The couple hiding behind the counter panicked.
With the monsters breaking through the barricade, hiding was no longer an option. The two of them ran out from behind the counter, trying to make a desperate dash outside.
Pei Ran understood what they were thinking.
From this close distance, she could see clearly. These human-drone aircraft had bodies as thin as sheets, and the metal parts of their flying devices were round and smooth. Although they flew with the ferocity of eagles, they lacked the sharp beaks and talons of real birds of prey.
Their appearance was indeed terrifying, but from a practical standpoint, aside from crashing around like giant bats, they didn’t seem to have much offensive capability.
The couple must have thought there was no need to fear them. If they mustered enough courage to rush out into the street, they might be able to escape.
However, they underestimated the human-drone swarm.
What they were dealing with wasn’t humans, nor was it simple flying machines. These were monsters that had devoured the green light, driven into an irrational, frenzied state.
The two of them, heads down and arms covering their heads, ran swiftly through the bakery, which was now filled with human-drone aircraft darting around chaotically.
As they emerged, one of the human-drone aircraft happened to dive near the counter. While still in mid-air, its flight posture changed, and its flattened limbs instantly spread open.
From across the street, it wasn’t entirely clear, but it was still possible to see that in the pitch-black bakery after the power outage, a small point of bright green light flashed, flowing out from the flattened “wings” of the human-drone aircraft.
The human-drone aircraft, now glowing with green light, stretched itself to its limit, expanding to nearly double its original size. Its human-skin sheet became almost transparent, with veins clearly visible.
It was like a thin, oversized wrap or a giant bat that had locked onto its target. With a whooshing sound, it pounced, using its “wings” to envelop the young man in the couple from head to toe.
The attack was silent and almost instantaneous.
The young man’s girlfriend stood frozen in place, utterly bewildered.
The human-drone aircraft, now resembling a rolled-up flatbread, quickly unfurled its large “wings” again. Beneath its wings, there was no one.
The living person it had wrapped up had vanished into thin air.
On this side of the street, everyone was stunned. No one could figure out what had just happened, and they all stared intently at the scene across the street.
The young man’s girlfriend snapped out of her daze quickly, realizing something horrifying had occurred, and turned to run.
However, the bakery was cramped and filled with flying human-drone aircraft. In the next second, another human-drone aircraft spread its limbs and wrapped around her.
A moment later, the aircraft that had enveloped her also reopened.
She, too, was gone.
Everyone was baffled, exchanging confused glances.
The human-drone swarm, having dealt with the two people hiding in the bakery, completed their mission and flew out one by one over the pile of debris at the entrance. The aircraft that had wrapped around the two people also smoothly rejoined the formation.
Pei Ran suddenly noticed something.
As those human-drone aircraft flew out of the bakery’s door, unfurled their bodies, and ascended into the sky with the formation, she could clearly see their profiles from this side of the street.
Pei Ran realized that the human-drone aircraft that had wrapped around the young man no longer had just one layer of human skin. Instead, it now had two layers.
Two thin sheets of human skin, one in front of the other, were lined up sequentially on the flying device.
The same was true for the aircraft that had wrapped around the young woman.
These two human-drone aircraft had each gained an additional layer of human skin, transforming from single-winged aircraft into double-winged ones.
If this trend continued, they might eventually become triple-winged, quadruple-winged, or even quintuple-winged aircraft.
Others also noticed this and were terrified by the horrifying sight. Unable to speak, they pointed at the sky, their eyes wide with fear.
The double-winged aircraft that had enveloped the young man flew into the sky with the main formation, its posture precise and orderly.
On the front layer of human skin, a pair of black eyes rolled around—it was the young man’s eyes.
His denim jacket, stretched and distorted by the transformation, was no longer recognizable, blending into his skin, with only faint traces of the familiar denim blue pattern visible.
The young woman was on another aircraft beside him, maintaining an exact distance, her flight posture perfectly synchronized, as if she had always been a flawless flying machine.
Just like that, two living people had become part of the mad, fused entities.
With such terrifying monsters blocking the way outside, there was no chance of escaping.
Pei Ran silently summoned the Green Light No. 1 in her mind.
Having eaten and rested well, Green Light No. 1 appeared promptly in her mental vision, trembling slightly with excitement, ready to be deployed at any moment.
Pei Ran silently calculated in her mind.
The human-drone swarm maintained their formation, taking turns to attack. Only a portion of them would dive down at any given time, but their presence in the air was vast and spread out.
If she were to use the same range as when she tore through the dark alley, it would be far from sufficient to cover such a large area.
Last night at Tanggu Dam, when she tore through the onion-like high wall, the upward crack extended quite high, but it still didn’t reach the altitude where the human-drone swarm was flying.
There was no way to kill so many human-drone aircraft at once.
Green Light No. 1 had consumed quite a few “snacks,” so its power might have increased, but since it hadn’t been tested yet, no one could be sure.
The current method to deal with the frenzied fusion entities seemed to be destroying their mutated hearts. However, fusion entities often had bizarre shapes, making it difficult to precisely locate their hearts.
As Pei Ran pondered, she said to W, “I have an idea. If we shoot at the human-skin part, we might not hit the mutated heart. But if we target the flying devices…”
W immediately understood her meaning and added, “They rely on the flying devices to stay airborne. If we destroy the flying devices, even if we don’t kill them, we can at least ground them.”
If they couldn’t fly, the threat would be significantly reduced.
This seemed like a viable plan.
The only problem was that there were far too many human-drone aircraft outside, densely packed and countless.
W calmly said, “We don’t know if it’ll work, but let’s give it a try.”
Pei Ran immediately directed everyone to get down from the service counter and move it slightly to create a gap wide enough for the metal sphere to pass through.
Pei Ran grabbed the metal sphere and pushed it through the gap.
Everyone watched as the battered metal sphere that Pei Ran had been carrying opened fire.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Three shots rang out.
The shots were precise. In the orderly formation in the sky, three adjacent human-drone aircraft had their abdominal flying devices explode one after another.
Shards of machinery sprayed everywhere, and the thin human-skin sheets were torn to pieces by the explosions, fluttering down from the sky and landing on the street. The rolling eyes stopped moving.
The swarm, under attack, immediately adjusted their formation and dove toward the building.
Pei Ran quickly retracted her hand, pulling the metal sphere back inside. Everyone worked together to push the heavy service counter back into place, bracing the door.
The experiment was a resounding success.
Pei Ran: “They seem to be dead?”
“I just looked up the structure of this type of drone,” W said. “When aiming, I targeted the energy panel, which triggered an explosion.”
The explosion occurred in the abdomen of the human-drone, clearly destroying the mutated hearts of the three human-drone fusion entities.
Shooting at the flying devices of the human-drone fusion entities was feasible—not only could it ground them, but it could also kill them.
The problem was how to execute this.
Leaving W’s metal sphere outside to slowly pick off the human-drone swarm wasn’t safe.
The human-drone fusion entities could continue to fuse with others, and they might even fuse with the metal sphere. Even if they didn’t fuse, if one of the human-drone entities pounced on it and carried it into the sky, then dropped it from a great height, it would be game over.
They could only take them down bit by bit.
Then there was the issue of firepower.
She asked W, “Can your gun handle this many flying devices?”
W understood what she was calculating.
“I just counted,” he said. “There are a total of three thousand and twenty-eight flying devices here. With the remaining energy in my power cell, I can’t fire that many shots.”
Pei Ran asked, “Then how many can you take down?”
Perhaps she and Ai Xia could use their abilities to deal with the rest.
W replied, “To put it in more natural terms, probably a little over a thousand.”
Pei Ran silently thought: That’s only a third, Ball Brother.