CHAPTER 81: CHAPTER 81: DARK CLOUD_1

Lu Yuan tore a piece from the hem of his T-shirt, split it in half, and forcefully stuffed the pieces into his ears.

It was still noisy enough to give him a headache, but it was a slight improvement.

He watched in awe as a spectacular flock of crows, swirling like a black tornado, engulfed the house.

The scene before his eyes was just like something out of a fantasy film.

Fortunately, this was a desolate rural area, and it was the middle of the night. Otherwise, he couldn’t imagine the amount of attention it would attract.

Just as he was thinking this, Lu Yuan suddenly felt the noise in his ears intensify again.

He initially thought the fabric in his ears had loosened, so he pushed it in harder.

Under the horrifying noise, even his other senses seemed to dull.

But Lu Yuan soon realized something was wrong.

The increased noise was coming from an external source.

He squinted and looked up, seeing a large black cloud rapidly approaching from about a kilometer away.

This black cloud was very close to the ground, only about ten meters high.

If it weren’t continuously moving, it would have been almost invisible in the darkness.

Another large flock of crows?

Lu Yuan took out his phone from his pocket.

His phone still showed no signal.

He had previously tried to send a message to Ge Wenjun, but a red exclamation mark had appeared right after he sent it.

Lu Yuan quickly opened the phone’s camera.

Pointing it toward the black cloud, he repeatedly tapped the screen to zoom in and enlarge the image.

In the darkness, the image was blurry, and distant objects were just indistinct patches.

However, it was still clearer than what he could see with his naked eye.

The image revealed the true nature of the black cloud: just as he had guessed, it consisted of countless crows clustered together.

As the flock of crows rapidly approached, Lu Yuan could see them more clearly.

Suddenly, a red light flashed on the phone screen. For an instant, Lu Yuan thought he saw a vague figure within the black cloud.

There’s someone in the flock of crows?!

Was someone being carried by the black cloud of crows, continuously drawing closer? Could it be an Extraordinary from the Crow God Sect?

He urgently wanted to get a closer look, as the flock of crows was already very close to the house.

Lu Yuan kept swiping his phone screen, his eyes darting between reality and the display.

Suddenly, BUZZ! An extremely intense blue light abruptly flared up from below Lu Yuan’s line of sight.

It instantly pierced the darkness before him.

Like an incredibly powerful flashlight beam, it shot out abruptly and accurately struck the approaching black cloud nearby.

CAW—

BOOM!

Accompanied by a surging blast of fire from within the black cloud, a large part of it was obliterated.

The flock of crows hovering above the house seemed to be stimulated by something. They suddenly became uncontrollably frenetic, their agitation skyrocketing in moments.

Originally, they were only hovering, cawing, and defecating wildly. Now, like commanded fighter jets, they began a collective dive-bomb, attacking all living creatures within the house’s vicinity.

Naturally, Lu Yuan was also a target.

He lifted his hand and swung it vigorously, his arm making a sound like tearing silk as it cut through the air.

He instantly swatted away seven or eight crows that were about to pounce on him.

Seizing the brief respite before other crows arrived, Lu Yuan quickly looked down.

He saw a person standing at the main entrance, right hand clenched into a fist, a faint blue light quickly fading from his forearm.

It was Zhou Ling!

"Damn it!"

Lu Yuan couldn’t watch any longer, as a wave of crows threatened to engulf him.

Within a single second, Lu Yuan couldn’t count how many times he was pecked and clawed.

He had to turn abruptly, pull open the door of a nearby room, and rush inside.

It felt like forcefully bursting through a thick shroud of black clouds.

SLAM!

As soon as Lu Yuan entered the room, he slammed the door shut.

Several crows caught in the doorframe were crushed to a pulp.

His hands moved constantly as he quickly ripped off the crows still clinging to him, slamming them to the floor one by one.

When he got to the last one, he held it up for a closer look.

The small creature struggling frantically in his hand was sleek and pitch-black all over; its feet and beak were also pure black, but its eyes were a horrifying red.

CAW! CAW—

As it shrieked desperately, Lu Yuan saw that its mouth was filled with tiny, sharp teeth.

It was both unsettling and disgusting.

Lu Yuan quickly squeezed it to death and tossed the carcass onto the floor.

Having seen a rat man before, crows with teeth were no longer a strange sight to Lu Yuan.

Only after calming down did Lu Yuan begin to feel stinging pain all over his body.

Both his arms were covered in scratches from the crows, and he guessed his face was too.

If he went home in this state, his mother, Zheng Qiuling, would definitely scold him harshly.

Of course, whether he would be scolded at home was the least of his worries right now.

Ignoring the corpses and the pungent, metallic smell of blood in the room, he quickly walked to the window facing the hallway.

He pulled open the curtains. The window was closed, but it was completely obscured by a dense mass of countless black crows, making it impossible to see what was happening outside.

The crows continued to relentlessly attack the window and door, producing a series of muffled THUDS.

If they continued their fearless assault, this so-called "safe house" probably wouldn’t last much longer.

Lu Yuan’s expression grew grim; he was ready to charge out again at any moment.

His mind kept replaying the image of the blue beam of light he had seen earlier.

What was that? A laser cannon?

Lu Yuan now believed what Zhou Ling had said earlier. If No. 13 had truly wanted to attack him, Lu Yuan would never have had the chance to beat him unconscious and disable him.

If every Modified Human from Yellow Bear was equipped like Zhou Ling... No, they wouldn’t all need to be that powerful. Even something slightly weaker, just more powerful than a handgun, would be enough. If they knew my position beforehand and fired a shot like that through a wall... I’d probably be a corpse by now, wouldn’t I?

Extraordinary power, achieved through technology!

Lu Yuan clenched his fists, his emotions extremely complex.

After crossing over, although he knew this world’s technology was far more advanced than his previous life’s, everyday life hadn’t seemed all that different.

At most, the news on TV had become a bit more science fiction-like.

Now, this setting, which had always been mere backdrop, suddenly sprang to life before his eyes. In his daze, he felt as if he had stumbled another step forward.

He felt a little closer to the true essence of this world.

BOOM!

Suddenly, a loud explosion sounded from outside the house.

Lu Yuan felt the ground beneath his feet tremble slightly.

Before Lu Yuan could react, a second explosion followed, then another, and another, in continuous succession.

The crows clinging to the window were thinned out by an invisible shockwave, and dust trickled down from the ceiling.

CRACK—

Lu Yuan heard the distinct sound of a wall cracking.

He scanned his surroundings but couldn’t find the source of the sound. Heaven knew which room’s wall had cracked.