Man and rat charged head-on toward each other. Just before they were about to collide, Jiang Le leaned back and bent at the waist, sliding forward beneath the giant rat’s body. At the same time, he gripped the serrated mountain-cleaving knife with both hands and slashed forcefully at the giant rat’s abdomen. The force was so great that his palms went numb; the blade cut a not-too-deep gash in the giant rat’s fur, failing to inflict a fatal wound—but that was precisely the opening Jiang Le was looking for.

A rumbling sound emanated from the giant rat’s throat, as if it were trying to launch another sonic attack but was momentarily unable to do so. Jiang Le intended to seize this brief window to end the rat’s life in hand-to-hand combat.

His knees scraped against the rough ground, leaving trails of blood. Jiang Le tossed aside the knife in his hand, pushed himself up from the ground to dodge the giant rat’s retaliatory bite, then braced his feet against the pitted pipe wall, using the momentum to leap upward. Taking advantage of the height difference, he slammed his elbow viciously into the giant rat’s head.

The collision of bone against bone produced a dull, cracking sound.

The young wolf’s fur had now turned from golden to silvery-white, and the wounds on its body had ignited its fighting spirit and killing intent. Coordinating with Jiang Le’s movements, it exhaled a blast of icy air. The standing water at the bottom of the pipe froze in the wake of the cold air, rapidly spreading to the giant rat’s feet and trapping all four of its paws in a layer of ice. The freezing didn’t stop there; it continued upward until thick blocks of ice completely bound the giant rat’s limbs.

Before the giant rat could even react, it was already immobilized. The giant wolf leaped onto the giant rat’s back, sinking its fangs into the back of its neck—piercing the skin and sinking deep into the flesh—forcing the giant rat, which had been locked in combat with Jiang Le, to throw its head back and thrash violently, trying to break free from the mutant wolf’s attack from behind.

Jiang Le, however, gave it no chance to lose focus. The wound on the mutant rat’s abdomen from earlier had not yet healed. He gripped the mutant rat’s fur tightly, using one hand to pull the wound open while swinging his fist with all his might with the other. Without the protection of fur, his fist punched a bloody hole through the wound. Jiang Le’s hand seized the opening and tore it apart with all his strength!

At the same time, the blood vine’s tendrils sprang into action, burrowing into the mutant giant rat’s body through the massive gash Jiang Le had torn open. The pain of the tendrils sinking deeper into its flesh, accompanied by the corrosive fluid, caused the giant rat to writhe in madness as it struggled desperately for survival.

The strange gurgling sound in the giant rat’s throat finally began to take shape, preparing to unleash another sonic attack designed to mentally shatter the attacker’s combat capabilities.

However, before the giant rat could make a sound, its belly had already been swiftly gutted, and the fangs piercing its neck had severed its vocal cords. With its sole remaining red eye wide open in agony, the last thing it saw was Jiang Le—his body covered in blood—reaching toward the back of its head.

The rat’s head crashed to the ground. Aside from the subcutaneous pulsing of vine nodes where the blood vine had devoured its insides, there was no sound anywhere else.

Jiang Le was now truly exhausted. He pulled out the Level 4 Mutant Rat’s nucleus crystal—a red crystal the size of his fist, resembling the giant rat’s pupil—but he no longer had the strength to support himself.

The sound of dripping water still echoed through the pipes, and the floor was littered with the corpses of mutant rats strewn haphazardly about, yet the person who had just been fighting here had vanished along with his pet.

Jiang Le entered the farm’s spatial realm, and his taut nerves finally relaxed.

He placed the blood vine back among the fields, allowing it to recover on its own.

Due to overexertion, Xiao Lang had shrunk to the size of a pup almost the moment he entered the space, but after examining Xiao Lang and confirming there were no life-threatening injuries—it should be able to heal on its own—Jiang Le’s worries subsided.

High-level mutant beings, including Jiang Le himself, possess regenerative abilities far surpassing those of ordinary beings. Whether it’s wounds or broken bones, as long as they’re still alive, the problem isn’t too serious.

This mutated rat specialized in sonic attacks, a type of psychic attack; aside from that, it didn’t possess any particularly outstanding offensive or defensive capabilities.

Jiang Le opened the Biological Compendium; he had received a notification even before entering the space.

“Congratulations, Host. What a spectacular battle! The Encyclopedia’s exploration level has once again reached a new tier, unlocking the Intermediate Nucleus Crystal Synthesizer. Please keep up the good work and strive for new heights!”

Thanks to defeating the Level 4 Mutant Rat, the Exploration Level of the Biological Compendium had once again surged.

The Intermediate Nucleus Crystal Synthesizer has a 10% higher synthesis success rate than the Basic model, and its synthesis range has expanded from ordinary nucleus crystals to zombie nucleus crystals.

Although the Mutant Giant Rat is already considered high-level at this stage, its mutation potential is only 2 stars; otherwise, it would likely have been even more difficult to deal with.

However, the fact that a Mutant Giant Rat with only 2-star potential was able to force-feed itself to become a Level 4 Mutant Beast right here in these underground tunnels further suggests that some extremely unusual substance in this environment is causing interference.

The first thing Jiang Le thought of—something capable of having such a massive impact on the environment—was meteorite fragments.

Meteorites have fallen all over the world; most have burned up into nothingness, their remnants scattered in the atmosphere and affecting the mutation and evolution of most living beings. However, a very small number still exist in physical form, continuously emitting anomalous energy.

Jiang Le recalled that in his previous life, once people gradually discovered the existence of this energy, superpower users scoured the land in search of traces of meteorites. Typically, areas where meteorites were found not only harbored highly advanced and difficult-to-deal-with mutated beasts, but also triggered waves of beasts or zombies.

Thinking of this, Jiang Le was almost certain that a meteorite existed somewhere within this underground tunnel system.

He fed Xiao Lang and the blood vine two nucleus crystals from Level 2 mutated rats, allowing the energy within to help them recover their strength as quickly as possible. Jiang Le then entered the spatial cabin, stripped off his blood-stained clothes in the bathroom, and rinsed himself from head to toe with water.

The congealed blood was washed away from his body, finally revealing the clean, fair skin beneath. Jiang Le braced himself against the wall with his uninjured hand, closing his eyes to feel his body slowly recover.

Until a pair of eyes interrupted Jiang Le’s drowsy state.

As the water washed over him, he turned his head and saw a pair of aqua-blue eyes peering through the slightly ajar bathroom door. He had no idea what the puppy was thinking, but it was staring right at him, unblinking.

It was a little black puppy with white eyebrows.

Jiang Le chuckled. Perhaps because Xiao Lang had shrunk in size, its aggressiveness and hostility had both diminished. Jiang Le didn’t think anything of it and almost truly mistook Xiao Lang for a harmless puppy.

“Hey,” Jiang Le said as he walked over naked, placing his hand on the bathroom door. “What’s up? Do you want to come in and take a shower too? Not yet—you can’t get in the water until your wounds have healed.”

As he spoke, he closed the door and locked it.

The silhouette of the little dog at the doorway lingered for a few seconds before disappearing.

By the time Jiang Le came out of the shower, Xiao Lang was already lying in the corner with his back to him.

“It actually knows not to get on the bed when it’s dirty,” Jiang Le thought with a slight smile. He lay down on the bed himself and began to regain his strength.

Exhaustion, combined with the sense of being in a safe place, lulled Jiang Le into a deep sleep. When he awoke again, according to the time displayed on the farm’s backend system, a full day and night had passed.

The fracture in Jiang Le’s wrist had almost completely healed, and what roused him now was a fierce pang of hunger.

Jiang Le took a large bowl of knife-cut noodles, several roujiamo, and a roasted leg of lamb from the warehouse. After devouring them all, he finally banished his hunger.

Not forgetting Xiao Lang and blood vine, Jiang Le retrieved the mutated frog from the warehouse. Once skinned, the frog meat was tender and actually tasted quite good. Xiao Lang buried his head in the meal, while Jiang Le parted the fur on his body with his hands to inspect the wound beneath.

The areas that had been covered in blood just yesterday were now covered with a layer of light-colored scabs; they didn’t seem to be a major concern. Jiang Le let them rest in the spatial pocket while he, armed with a flashlight and a dagger, leaped back into reality.

The pipeline was quiet and empty; the corpses of mutated rats littering the floor remained unchanged, suggesting there were no other mutated creatures in this underground passage.

Jiang Le moved all the corpses scattered on the ground into his storage space. First, he extracted the nucleus crystals from the bodies of the Level 2 mutated rats—a total of four or five hundred. Although the stats of these nucleus crystals barely scraped the threshold for Level 2 in every aspect, Level 2 was still Level 2, a world of difference from Level 1.

Jiang Le fed the carcasses of the small rats, now stripped of their nucleus crystals, directly into the composting machine to turn them into high-grade fertilizer. As for the giant mutant rat, its internal organs had already been devoured by the blood vine. Jiang Le skinned it and cut up the meat inside; since the blood vine was willing to eat it, he decided to save it as a snack for the plant later.

By the time he finished all this, another half-day had passed.

But Jiang Le didn’t idle away the remaining half-day. He brought out the intermediate-level nucleus crystal synthesizer, placed the Level 2 mutant rat’s nucleus crystal he’d just obtained into it, and began synthesizing a Level 3 nucleus crystal.

Although the success rate of the medium-tier nucleus crystal synthesizer was 10% higher than that of the basic model, successfully synthesizing a Level 3 nucleus crystal from a Level 2 one was still no easy task; it often took dozens of attempts to successfully produce just one.

By the end of the day, several hundred Level 2 nucleus crystals had been converted into 12 Level 3 nucleus crystals. If he took three or five of them, it would be enough to upgrade the current blood vine to Level 4. However, for Xiao Lang, who was already at Level 4, even consuming all 12 might not guarantee a successful upgrade.

The Level 4 Mutant Giant Rat’s nucleus crystal isn’t a great match for Xiao Lang. If he were to consume it, not only might the upgrade fail, but there’s also a chance it could backfire on him. To increase Xiao Lang’s compatibility with this high-spiritual-power nucleus crystal, his spiritual power would first need to be moderately enhanced.

Most importantly, time is running out.

Although the building where Zhang Haiyang and his group were staying was sturdier than the surrounding ones, if the zombies continued to pour in, drawn by the meteorite, the mountains of corpses piling up layer upon layer might not only deal a devastating blow to the already fragile building but could also be forced through gaps like windows into the mall, wandering up to the upper floors and threatening their survival.

The farm’s daily operations provided Jiang Le with a steady stream of experience points, and he was now just a hair’s breadth away from leveling up. Jiang Le decided to rest for another day in the spatial pocket before continuing his search for any traces of the meteorite.

He fed Xiao Lang and the blood vine a newly synthesized Level 3 nucleus crystal. While this wasn’t enough to level them up, it provided them with sufficient energy.

When he woke up the next day, Jiang Le stretched his arms and felt that the injury from the previous day no longer affected him at all. A thin layer of fur had already grown over Xiao Lang’s wound; unless you looked closely, you couldn’t tell where he’d been injured.

He took Xiao Lang to the bathroom for a rinse. After washing the bloodstains from his fur, Xiao Lang began to radiate heat, and before long, the water droplets on his fur had evaporated.

The blood vine had also fully regained its energy.

The man and his two pets left the space once more and entered the underground tunnels.

There was no need to figure out which way to go; the unusual sound of flowing water had already pointed Jiang Le in the right direction.

After walking more than a hundred meters along the pipeline, a gap over a meter wide appeared at the bottom. Below it lay a massive caved-in space connected to an underground river, where the water flowed gently.

The riverbed was another four or five meters away from the opening.

Jiang Le crouched at the opening and shone his flashlight downward, illuminating an underground cavern. The riverbed was strewn with rocks, and the water didn’t appear to be very deep. However, further along the riverbed, another pit had formed, creating a pool of unknown depth. In the center of the pool, something was faintly glowing blue.

Jiang Le turned off his flashlight, plunging the surroundings into darkness. The pale blue glow in the pool became even more distinct, shimmering faintly. Suddenly, a black object flashed across the surface of the pool and vanished instantly.

It was some kind of mutant. Jiang Le couldn’t identify its species from that fleeting glimpse, but he could see its level through the system.

Level 4 High-Grade Mutant.

The flashlight came back on, illuminating every nook and cranny of the underground cave. Aside from the underground river’s current and the deep pools, the riverbanks were littered with animal skeletons of various sizes; though their sizes differed, they were all of the same species.

It was clear that the single creature lurking in the pool must be the victor among them.

The flashlight’s beam struck the pool, casting a distinct halo of light that nearly obscured the deep blue of the water below; yet the creature that had briefly surfaced moments earlier showed no reaction whatsoever.

Noticing that the skulls of those skeletons appeared to lack eye sockets, Jiang Le boldly speculated that the advanced mutant species below might be some kind of fish that had lived in a completely dark environment for so long that its eyesight had completely atrophied.

As he gazed at the faint blue glow, an intensely powerful longing welled up within Jiang Le for some unknown reason. An invisible voice told him that he must obtain the meteorite below, no matter the cost.

Driven by this desire, Jiang Le was on the verge of jumping down, but he managed to restrain himself with reason. He immediately averted his gaze from the blue light, and only then did the intense impulse subside somewhat.

The Blood Vine and Xiao Lang were clearly affected as well; they appeared extremely restless. If not for their telepathic connection with Jiang Le—and the restraints he had placed on them—they likely would have rushed down long ago.

However, Jiang Le had no intention of leaving either.

He had killed a Level 4 mutant not long ago, so he wasn’t afraid to take on the one below—he simply decided to err on the side of caution until he understood its tactics.

He pressed his hand against Xiao Lang’s back to prevent it from dashing straight in, then whispered into its ear, “Don’t rush. First, use your freezing ability to freeze the riverbed and the pond below.”

Xiao Lang didn’t understand why it had been so eager to jump in; it only snapped back to its senses upon hearing Jiang Le’s command. A blast of cold air swept across the river’s surface like a gale, spreading instantly from the river to the pond.

It solidly froze the blue-glowing pool into a massive block of ice.

The incessant dripping sound inside the cave finally ceased, and the surroundings fell into silence. However, this silence did not last long. The creature trapped beneath the pond—now completely encased in ice—merely gave its tail a flick, and the solid ice layer exploded from the center. Shards of ice flew in all directions, striking the rock walls with a cracking sound.

The advanced mutant burst out of the pool. It was over five meters long, quadrupedal, and covered in thick bony scales that shimmered like obsidian. As it crawled rapidly forward, it opened its mouth—revealing several layers of razor-sharp teeth packed densely within its massive jaws.