Chapter 101: Mutant Bird
"What the hell is going on?!" Miles Dawson’s voice trembled with anxiety, and his first instinct was to rush inside.
With a flick of her fingers, Luna Dawson cleared away some of the bird corpses blocking their path. Kevin Keane and Evan Olson took the opportunity to inspect the bodies closely. They found that the skulls of these giant birds had been pried open, their Crystal Cores surgically extracted. Their anxious hearts settled slightly.
"Don’t worry. With a scene like this, it’s definitely our people doing the wiping out, not the other way around." Evan patted Miles on the shoulder, trying to soothe his agitation. Kevin glanced at Luna, a playful smirk curving his lips as he added, "Assuming your sister wasn’t just messing around."
Hearing this, Luna put on an innocent face, pressing her palms together in a pleading gesture. "Please, please! Just the general situation is enough; we can skip the trivial details!" Kevin let out a low chuckle. He reached out a large hand, palming the top of her head, and playfully ruffled her hair. Luna bristled instantly, shooting him a fierce, accusing glare.
The group navigated through the pile of corpses and pushed the door open. In the living room, a crowd was gathered around a purple, woven-vine cage that stood over two meters tall, trying to figure something out. Rollo was the first to notice them. Whining softly and wagging his tail, he trotted over and rubbed his massive head against Luna’s palm, begging for pets. Little Tiger let out loud "MEOW MEOW"s and bounded right into Luna’s arms, pressing its furry little body tightly against her.
"You’re finally back!" Lynn Shelby’s face broke into a bright smile the moment she spotted them, and she hurried over to greet them.
Luna replied while busily petting the dog and cuddling the cat. Only after giving Rollo and Little Tiger a thorough rubbing down did she finally relax a little. As the four stepped further into the living room, a quick scan revealed that almost everyone in the family was present—save for Grandpa and Little Sweet Potato.
"Where’s Grandpa?" Evan’s heart instantly leaped into his throat, his tone thick with panic.
"Evan, I’m fine. I’m right here in the cage." Grandpa’s slightly hoarse voice came from inside the cage. Hearing his grandson, he immediately called out. Evan’s expression shifted drastically. He rushed to the woven vine cage and tried to reach inside, only to find the weaving was completely airtight. He couldn’t even slip a fingertip through the gaps.
"What the hell is going on?! Grandpa, why are you in there?" His voice tightened with anxiety as he turned to question the others.
Blake Blue stepped forward and patted his shoulder, signaling him to calm down. "Don’t panic. Grandpa isn’t in any life-threatening danger at the moment." With that, he slowly began to recount everything that had happened that afternoon in exact detail.
Earlier that afternoon, shortly after everyone had finished lunch, Lynn had been sitting in the yard with her guitar, keeping Little Sweet Potato and Little Tiger company as they basked in the sun, singing songs for them. Aaron Palmer was happily playing fetch with Rollo when the base’s sirens suddenly shrieked. Everyone looked up to see a dense, dark cloud of mutated birds blotting out the sky from the south. Clearly drawn by the massive concentration of superpower fluctuations within the base, they were launching a direct assault. And leading the massive flock were two Third Rank mutated birds—one male and one female.
Hearing the mention of two Third Rank animals, the four who had just returned were collectively startled, their faces draining of color. They had struggled like crazy just to deal with a single Third Rank mutated snake by the river, and now the villa area had been attacked by two at the same time!
Little Sweet Potato was the first to sense the danger. It knew that dealing with two Aberrant Beasts of the same rank would be nearly impossible for a single plant. But its little mind was filled entirely with Luna’s parting instruction: protect the house. Without a second of hesitation, it plucked three ripe Evolution Fruits and hurled them with perfect precision at Lynn, Aaron, and Blake in the yard. Seeing this, the three didn’t even have time to rejoice; they immediately shoved the Evolution Fruits into their mouths and swallowed them down.
Aaron reacted the fastest. He spun around and dashed into the villa to warn the others, simultaneously activating the building’s maximum security defenses. Wayne Dawson, Rhonda Dawson, and Mrs. Dawson quickly grabbed their crossbows and axes, rushing out to join the battle alongside the size-shifted Rollo and Little Tiger. Grandpa and Hector both had supportive-type superpowers, meaning their physical stamina and combat abilities were limited. They could only hide inside the villa, trying their best not to be a burden.
Little Sweet Potato directly channeled its superpower to enlarge its body. Countless pale purple vines spiraled out, enveloping the entire villa. In its little head, this massive "shell" was its way of guarding the home Luna had entrusted to it. The female Third Rank mutated bird instantly locked its sights on the Evolution Fruits growing on Little Sweet Potato. The sweet, fragrant scent of the fruits was a fatal temptation, and the bird immediately flapped its wings and dove straight for the plant. Meanwhile, for some unknown reason, the male Third Rank mutated bird flew toward the other side of the villa. Later, they heard that it was jointly killed by the base military’s anti-aircraft guns and that gloomy-looking Ian Young.
The villa’s built-in sonic defense system also activated. The mindless First-Rank and Second Order mutated birds that swooped down to steal the Evolution Fruits were disrupted by the sonic waves, their movements growing sluggish and their reactions dulled. This made it much easier for the people in the yard to kill them. Rollo took them out one bite at a time, snapping their necks with ease. Little Tiger elegantly leaped about, in charge of sneak attacks. For no apparent reason, some birds simply lost their heads or dropped from the sky as half-mutilated corpses.
However, the sonic waves had zero effect on the Third Rank mutated bird. The female Third Rank black bird engaged Little Sweet Potato in a fierce back-and-forth battle, the two locked in a stalemate. To make matters worse, Little Sweet Potato had to split its focus to keep the villa wrapped in vines. Its superpower reserves depleted rapidly, and it gradually began to struggle. Anxious, it urgently called out to Grandpa, asking him to retrieve its special Luna-brand nutrient supplement from the fridge—the Crystal Core Solution.
The moment Little Sweet Potato opened a small gap in its vine-woven "shell" to let Grandpa pass the Crystal Core Solution through, the Third Rank mutated bird acted as if it had precisely locked onto a new target. It instantly abandoned its fight with the plant and dove straight at Grandpa! Little Sweet Potato hastily commanded its vines to entangle the creature, even activating its blood-sucking superpower, yet it still couldn’t stop the desperate mutated bird! Even though its entire body was left bruised and battered by the constricting vines, it was hell-bent on rushing over to snatch that Crystal Core Solution.
"Grandpa!" The group in the yard was scared out of their wits and screamed in unison.
In the nick of time, the deep purple soybean tree by the courtyard gate suddenly stretched its branches. Countless vines shot out instantly, tightly enveloping and protecting Grandpa. At the same time, its branches grew madly, covering the entire villa once more. No matter how many Wind Blades the Third Rank mutated bird wildly unleashed in its frenzied attack, it couldn’t leave a single scratch on the vines.
Seizing the opportunity, Little Sweet Potato swept up the Crystal Core Solution, pouring it over its potato-like body and chugging it down in one gulp. Following that, it immediately withdrew its offshoots from the villa, concentrating all its superpowers on fighting the Third Rank mutated bird. Within half an hour, it successfully finished the creature off.
With the two leading Third Rank mutated birds dead, the rest of the flock turned into a disorganized mess, easily swept away by the group. Luna’s family alone had slaughtered around a thousand mutated birds, reaping over seven hundred First-Rank Crystal Cores and a hundred and thirty Second Order Crystal Cores.
The only problem was that the vine cage trapping Grandpa simply wouldn’t open. The soybean tree seemed to have passed out. This was its very first time using its superpower, and it appeared to have overexerted itself and fainted from exhaustion.