Doomsday police, please show your god/demon ID card.

"What is this?"

Suddenly, a voice rang out.

Liu Qiang also came up and stared at the screen in astonishment.

"I don't know." Su Yan frowned, staring intently at the screen.

"There is no temperature...and I can't feel any life force or mental fluctuations."

"Continue the reconnaissance," Tang Long's voice remained calm. "Go check the rooftop."

The drone climbed again, following the giant vines all the way up.

The view from the top of the building was fully revealed to everyone: a giant bird's nest structure woven from countless vines.

"Holy crap! What is this?" Wang Hu couldn't help but curse.

"Wait, look at the middle." Su Yan pointed to the center of the nest. "Xiao Ming, zoom in there."

Chen Ming's finger swiped across the screen.

As the image zooms in, the details in the central area gradually become clearer.

Only then did everyone realize that

In the center of the nest, a huge oval sphere is quietly fitted in, its surface covered with bluish-purple veins that resemble blood vessels, and it is connected to the surrounding vines.

At this moment, it throbs slightly with a slow, incomprehensible rhythm.

"This is... an egg?" Luo Yongchao guessed.

"I don't know." Chen Ming frowned slightly and pushed the focus to its limit.

Just then.

In the middle of the vine nest, the sphere twitched without warning.

The epidermis in the center of the sphere tears to both sides like an eyelid, and thick, transparent tissue fluid drips out in strands.

A huge, cloudy, dark yellow eyeball was suddenly exposed to the air!

Its pupils were strangely cross-shaped, and its eyeballs were covered with a nictitating membrane. It was staring intently at the drone hovering in mid-air.

Even through the screen, the overwhelming evil and brutality sent chills down the spines of everyone present.

"Holy crap!" Chen Ming cursed instinctively, leaning back abruptly and almost dropping the tablet.

at the same time.

Su Yan, who was standing to the side, seemed to sense something.

His face turned pale instantly, and fine beads of sweat appeared on his forehead.

"Retreat immediately!"

"I sense that the other side has awakened! It's looking for us."

"..."

It seemed as if to confirm Su Yan's words.

On the screen, a sudden change occurs.

The gray-white vines that had been still and wrapped around the exterior walls of the building suddenly came to life, like pythons awakening from their slumber.

They wriggled and convulsed wildly, breaking free from the wall and stretching towards the sky like giant, clawing hands reaching for the drones in the air.

It blotted out the sky and blocked out the sun!

The entire building seemed to have transformed into a terrifying forest with fangs bared towards the sky.

Chen Ming's finger had already left a trail of afterimages on the tablet.

The "Night Owl" drone suddenly pulled up, its thrusters at full power, to perform an extreme side roll maneuver.

The next second, several vines as thick as buckets lashed out with a terrifying whooshing sound, lashing the spot where it had just been hovering, causing the scene to shake violently.

If it had been even half a second slower, this police reconnaissance and strike drone, worth 500 order points, would have been scrapped on the spot.

The drone continued to climb, disappearing into the clouds. Under the cover of darkness, it circled around before finally flying back towards the gas station.

Even after the image on the screen was cut off, the command room remained deathly silent.

Only the mournful sound of the wind outside the window.

a long time.

"Smack."

A crisp sound broke the silence.

Tang Long lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, and the sparks flickered in the darkness.

"Tell me about it," he said, exhaling a puff of smoke, his expression now calm. "What is that thing?"

Everyone's eyes instinctively turned to Chen Ming.

As the team's "best brain," this is indeed his area of ​​expertise.

Chen Ming took off his glasses, wiped the fog off, and put them back on.

Although the fear in his eyes had not yet subsided, there was an even stronger fervent desire to explore.

"This is illogical, but it's apocalyptic."

Chen Ming pulled up the video he had just recorded and focused on the eyeball with the cross-shaped pupil.

"First of all, it has no body temperature. Thermal imaging shows that its temperature is the same as the surrounding environment, which means that it is not a holothermic animal and may not even have a regular metabolism."

"Secondly, look at the texture and movement of these vines." Chen Ming pointed to the details on the screen. "Although they look like snakes, their skin is rough, with a texture similar to tree bark. And that 'egg' looks more like a giant sporangium or fruit."

"The conclusion?" Tang Long asked succinctly.

"A plant-based mutant," Chen Ming said confidently. "A super mutant we've never seen before, combining perception, defense, and what appears to be reproductive functions."

"Plants?" Wang Hu frowned, looking incredulous. "Plants can have eyes? And move that fast?"

"Before the apocalypse, you wouldn't think that dead people could run and jump," Chen Ming retorted, then continued, "But there's good news: their intelligence level is probably not high."

"Why?" Su Yan asked.

Chen Ming pushed up his glasses: "It only reacted after the drone approached the 'nest,' which is more like an instinctive choice as a defensive mechanism."

"At the same time, the attack methods are limited; currently, only whipping and entanglement have been discovered."

"In other words, he's just a big, clumsy guy who's good at guarding the house," Wang Hu concluded.

"That's one way to understand it." Chen Ming nodded slightly.

These words eased the tense atmosphere somewhat.

"Plants are great." Wang Hu stroked his stubble, a fierce glint in his eyes. "Even if a plant mutates and becomes sentient, its fear of fire is in its nature, isn't it?"

"That's what I think too," Luo Yongchao nodded in agreement. "No matter how thick its skin is, I don't believe it won't be cooked after being burned."

Tang Long looked at Liu Qiang in the corner, "Old Liu, how much wealth do you have left?"

Liu Qiang flipped through the notebook and gave a wry smile.

"Team Leader Tang, things aren't looking too good."

"We threw them indiscriminately when we were fighting off the zombie horde at the bridge. We also used some more while cleaning up the gas station."

He paused for a moment.

He gave us a number: "We have 52 standard sticky incendiary bottles left. Materials are limited, and we can't replenish them here."

"52..." Tang Long frowned slightly.

This quantity is sufficient if used to block off intersections or clear out small groups of corpses.

However, burning down a building that is more than ten stories high and completely covered by giant mutated plants would be like a drop in the ocean.

"Quantity is one aspect, but the key is how to throw it over there."

Luo Yongchao pointed out a more practical problem: "Let's not even talk about the plaza in front of the building, which is full of zombies. If we want to throw Molotov cocktails, we have to rush to the bottom of the building. Before you can even throw them, those vines will have already wrapped you up and made you fertilizer."

"This creates a vicious cycle."

Wang Hu scratched his head in frustration. "If they're too far away, we can't hit them; if we get too close, we're just throwing our lives away. How are we supposed to fight this?"

All eyes turned to Tang Long once again.

Tang Long pursed his lips, turned to Chen Ming, and then looked at the black drone on the table.

"Chen Ming, what is the maximum effective payload of the Night Owl drone?"