Above the mage

Chapter 63 Symbiosis

It was past ten o'clock at night.

By this time, Hogan City had already fallen into a deep sleep.

Apart from a few drunkards and certain professionals who only venture out at night, most people are already sound asleep at home and not wandering around outside.

The night was very quiet, with the occasional chirping of birds and insects, or the noise of a drunkard.

Gao De quietly left the herb garden from the backyard, his steps extremely light and swift as he headed towards the city center.

We passed through the dirty and chaotic slums, and occasionally spotted a few people.

There are quite a few restless people in the slums at night.

Soon, Gaode arrived at a relatively safe and clean residential area.

After each sale of medicine, he would stroll around Hogan City.

Therefore, compared to when he first came to this world, Gao De is now quite familiar with Hogan City.

Therefore, Gaode quickly found its destination.

A sewer entrance in a working-class neighborhood.

Gaode glanced around and quickly found a suitable spot.

Opposite the sewer entrance, there is a lush roadside tree.

He quickly approached the roadside trees, drew on his childhood experience of climbing trees, and climbed up the trees in a few strides, hiding his figure in the shade of the trees.

After confirming that the branches and leaves of the roadside trees completely concealed his figure without leaving any trace or even a hint of his shadow, Gao De carefully parted the branches and then stared intently at the sewer entrance.

His purpose in this trip is obvious:

To finally verify their suspicions and try to uncover the true identity of the "mastermind" behind the strange events in the city.

There aren't a particularly large number of sewer entrances in the city, but there aren't a few either.

Therefore, "waiting for a rabbit to run into a tree stump" still involves an element of luck.

However, Gaode Maps couldn't think of any better solutions.

I sat there in the tree for more than an hour.

The moon rises above the willow branches.

Just as Gao De was starting to feel sleepy, a faint rustling sound reached his ears.

This invigorated him, and all his drowsiness vanished without a trace.

His eyes widened as he looked in the direction the sound came from—the entrance to the sewer.

To Gao De's horrified gaze, a swarm of black rats emerged from the dimly lit entrance, barely wide enough for one person to pass through.

These rats were of normal size, unlike the terrifying wolf-rat that raided the herb garden at night. They looked no different from the most common rats.

But the appearance of so many rats in the dark is itself an extremely eerie thing.

After leaving the sewer entrance, the rats surged in one direction like a tide.

In no time at all, this large group of rats disappeared from Gaode's sight and vanished into the night.

Gao De, who witnessed this horrifying scene, waited silently.

About half an hour later.

Under the moonlight, countless black dots reappeared, surging towards the sewer entrance.

As the black dot grew larger and larger in Gaode's vision until the appearance of the rats became clear, the situation changed.

"Hiss!" Gao De couldn't help but gasp.

Moonlight pierced through the sparse clouds, illuminating the eerie scene before them.

These rats, lined up in a row, moved in perfect unison, and together they lifted several humans who appeared to be unconscious or asleep.

"One, two, three." Gao De glanced at the number of humans carried over by the strange rat swarm.

The three showed no signs of regaining consciousness despite being moved so violently.

The rats had a clear objective and carried the three people to the entrance of the sewer.

"And then?" Gao De couldn't imagine what these rats would do next.

Why were these three people taken into the sewers? And what was the purpose of doing that?

The next moment, Gaode's question was answered.

With a whoosh.

A streak of blood-red light shot out from the dark sewer entrance.

By the moonlight, Gao De saw the true nature of the blood-red light.

It was a blood-red vine.

Blood-red vines stretched out from the sewers and coiled towards one of the three humans being carried in by the rats.

The vines had sharp thorns that, like teeth, pierced the human's skin.

Then, the blood in the human body flowed out like a stream and was quickly absorbed by the vines.

Correspondingly, the person's body was visibly shriveling up.

A chill ran from Gao De's feet and quickly spread throughout his body.

His breathing became heavy.

In just a few minutes, a living person was turned into a pale, shriveled corpse right under Gaode's nose.

The vines, after drinking the blood, stretched out their branches and leaves.

It was clearly a vine, yet Gaode seemed to sense that it was releasing a joyful and pleasant emotion.

At the same time, a faint red mist rose from the branches and leaves of the vines, spreading out and flowing into the bodies of the rats.

The next moment, a familiar yet terrifying scene unfolded before Gaode's eyes.

Nourished by the red mist, the rats' eyes turned an eerie deep red, like burning rubies, shimmering with an ominous light in the night.

The two deep red dots that Gaode caught a glimpse of when he left the sewers last time were exactly the same.

In the darkness, so many deep red eyes gleamed with an eerie light, making one's scalp tingle.

"Symbiosis," Gao De murmured to himself.

Clearly, the rats and this strange plant have a classic symbiotic relationship.

The strange plant should possess the characteristics of a plant, be unable to move, and require a swarm of rodents to hunt it.

The rats, on the other hand, needed the strange red mist released after the exotic plant consumed its food.

Although the exact function is unknown, it is certainly beneficial to them.

Seeing that the vines had temporarily "eaten and drunk their fill," and the red-eyed rats had also enjoyed the red mist, a small group of rats separated and grabbed the clothes of the dried corpse, dragging it down into the sewer.

Soon, the mummified corpse fell straight down the sewer entrance into the sewer and disappeared.

The murderer, the crime itself, the whereabouts of the body—Golden Age had now uncovered the truth about this bizarre disappearance.

He even corrected his previous judgment.

Why have the bigwigs in the city been unable to solve the problem of missing persons for so long?

It's not necessarily true that the possibility of using sewers wasn't considered at all.

Unless you happen to witness the red-eyed form of the rats.

Otherwise, under normal circumstances, even if the city guards inspected the sewers and saw these rats with their own eyes, how could they possibly associate such seemingly harmless and normal rats with the murderer?

It's perfectly normal for rats to be found in sewers.

This disguise is too natural.

On the field, this "feeding" is not over yet.

After a brief pause, the vine seemed to have finished digesting its food and began to move again.

The target was undoubtedly one of the remaining two people.

call out!

Just as the vines moved.

A blazing light burst forth in the night, piercing the oppressive air and striking the swarm of rats gathered beside the vines.

It was a flame shaped like an arrow.

The moment the flaming arrow struck its target rat, it exploded with a loud bang and a blinding flash of light. The flames spread rapidly, engulfing a small group of red-eyed monster rats at the center of the explosion.

The red-eyed rats scattered and fled in panic at the sudden attack of the flames.

Screams mingled with the crackling of flames.

The air was filled with the pungent smell of burning fur.

"What's that sound!"

"It's coming from over there, let's go check it out!"

Da da da!

The sound of hurried, disordered, but powerful footsteps approached.

The explosion and flash, which seemed unusually abrupt and startling in the quiet night, quickly attracted the attention of a squad of city guards patrolling just a street away.

Seemingly having heard the commotion from the city guards, the swarm of red-eyed rats disregarded everything else and, amidst a flurry of squeaking noises, quickly scurried into the sewer entrance and disappeared.

The charred corpses of the dead rats were picked up by the living red-eyed rats and taken back to the sewers.

The eerie vines moved even faster, and with a whoosh, they burrowed back into the sewer entrance.

At the same time, a figure jumped down from the roadside tree opposite the entrance and quickly disappeared into the night.

They scattered like birds and beasts.

(End of this chapter)