Chapter 345: Now We Check Every Drop
When Yuche finally lowered his hands, hundreds of metal rods stood across the contaminated ground.
The sight reminded me of a field of dead grass.
Only sharper.
"Is that as deep as you can get them?" I asked.
"Some reached more than ten meters," Yuche replied. "The ones near the foundations couldn’t go as far."
"It’ll do," I replied. Hopefully was the one word that I didn’t say out loud.
Zhenlan looked toward me. Lightning had already begun flickering faintly beneath his skin as I pointed toward the rods. "Put enough electricity through them to kill everything under our feet," I said.
His gaze travelled across the ruined road, the abandoned yards, and the bare stretch leading toward the mansion.
Then he raised both hands.
The air changed immediately.
My hair lifted away from my neck. Static crawled over my skin, and the metal rods began humming inside the ground.
Lingyun’s fire spread over his hands again as he moved closer to the edge of the contaminated section.
Chenghai lowered the shovel and stepped in front of me as Yuche shifted to my other side, keeping every rod locked in place.
Zhenlan looked at the ground one final time, then lightning came down.
The first strike hit the center of the metal field with enough force to turn the entire world white.
Thunder cracked over the cul-de-sac, rattling the remaining windows and shaking loose pieces of brick from the abandoned houses. Electricity spread through the rods in branching lines, jumping from one piece of metal to the next before disappearing beneath the cracked pavement.
The ground convulsed around us like it was a dead body trying to become Frankenstein’s monster.
Long ridges raced beneath the road as everything hiding below tried to escape the current. Several rods bent sideways under the sudden pressure, but Yuche closed one hand and forced them back into position before anything could shove past them.
Pale shapes burst through the soil around the nearest yard, but Lingyun was already waiting.
Fire swept across the surface before the parasites could crawl more than a few inches. Their bodies curled and split beneath the heat, but more kept pushing through behind them, driven upward by the electricity still spreading through the damp ground.
Old Chen and the workers stumbled farther back as the smell of scorched soil and burned flesh filled the air. I barely noticed them. My attention remained on every patch of dirt between the ruins and the mansion, waiting to see whether anything made it through the grid.
A darker shape pushed halfway out of the road near Chenghai’s feet. It was thicker than the others and covered in the same hard shell that had protected the parasite from Lingyun’s fire earlier.
Chenghai brought the shovel down before it could free the rest of its body.
The edge struck hard enough to split the shell, and Lingyun immediately covered what remained with fire.
Zhenlan’s arms shook slightly as he held the lightning inside the metal field. Thin veins of white light crawled beneath his skin, brightening each time another bolt travelled through the rods.
The soil continued churning.
"Again," I ordered.
His jaw tightened, but he didn’t hesitate.
A second strike hit farther down the road, closer to the bare section leading toward the mansion. Every rod in that area lit at once, humming so loudly that I felt the vibration through the soles of my shoes.
The reaction beneath the ground was immediate.
Dozens of parasites erupted through the blackened soil, some pale and soft while others had already darkened into the harder form. Lingyun swung both hands outward, sending fire across them before they could scatter toward the clean yards.
One managed to crawl beneath a broken slab of pavement.
Yuche ripped the concrete into the air, exposing it, and Lingyun burned the creature without needing to be told.
The four of them moved as though we had planned this instead of making it up five minutes ago. Yuche kept the rods connected and tore away anything that gave the parasites cover. Zhenlan forced electricity through the deepest sections. Lingyun burned whatever surfaced, while Chenghai crushed anything large enough to resist.
My contribution consisted mostly of standing there and becoming angrier every time another one appeared.
There were far too many.
They poured from beneath the ruined house, the road, the trench, and the yards the plants had abandoned. Some were no longer than my finger, while others had grown thick enough to push entire sections of soil aside.
All of them had been beneath my feet.
All of them had been moving toward my mansion.
"Don’t stop," I hissed at Zhenlan when the lightning began fading around his hands.
He pulled in a breath through clenched teeth. "I wasn’t planning to."
Good. That was the right answer.
The third strike was smaller, but Zhenlan held it longer. Electricity continued pouring through the rods until the exposed soil began steaming and the remaining parasites stopped trying to crawl away.
Their bodies jerked on the surface before going still but Lingyun had already burned them anyway.
He sent flames into every open crack, around every rod, and across every section where the ground had moved. The fire followed the paths the parasites had made beneath the pavement, turning the narrow tunnels into glowing lines.
Eventually, the earth stopped fighting.
Yuche kept the rods buried while Zhenlan slowly released the lightning. The humming faded one section at a time until the only sounds left were Lingyun’s fire and the soft crackle of burned soil cooling beneath it.
No one moved closer.
We had made that mistake enough times.
After several minutes, Yuche pulled one of the thinner rods from the ground near the center of the grid. The metal came out blackened and coated in a thick layer of burned residue.
He turned it in the air, examining every side before looking toward Zhenlan. "They were wrapped around it."
"Not anymore," Zhenlan replied, lowering his hands.
A vine near the mansion slowly uncurled from the fence.
Every head turned toward it as the plant stretched across the edge of the bare ground. It stopped before touching the dirt, pulled back slightly, then tried again.
The tip of one leaf pressed against the scorched soil.
This time, the vine didn’t recoil.
It remained there for several seconds before stretching another inch across the scorched ground. It didn’t pull away, but it didn’t move any farther either.
The flowers behind it slowly began lifting their heads.
I released a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
"That’s better."
Lingyun glanced at the vine, then at the field of burned parasites scattered across the ruined ground. "So, are we done?"
"With this?" I asked, turning toward the mansion. "Maybe."
His expression fell as I pointed toward the house.
"Now we check every drop of water."