Divine and Demonic Breeding Grounds

Chapter 5 The Vanguard

Turning his head, Su Yu glared intently at Zhang Zhongmou, and through gritted teeth, he spat out, "Really?"

Zhang Zhongmou nodded, a strange mix of fear and unease in his eyes.

With a sigh, Su Yu lay back down, feeling as if his brain was about to explode. The events of the day were too shocking and bizarre, but the most unsettling part was how the area around the school had transformed into something unrecognizable—a place no longer of this world, but of a strange, unfamiliar one.

After lying still for a while, the door opened, and a few people walked in, including the class monitor, Lei Rui, and Su Yu.

They were carrying lunchboxes and approached the beds of Su Yu and Zhang Zhongmou.

"I'm starving; it must be dark outside by now," Zhang Zhongmou said as he sat up in bed.

Su Yu, unable to move his body but still able to use his left hand, had no choice but to rely on others to feed him.

“Su Yu, you do it,” Lei Rui handed the task over to Su Yu.

Su Yu's face turned red. She hesitated, letting out a small grunt as she reluctantly sat down, looking somewhat unwilling.

Su Yu got angry, thinking, I risked my life to save you, and now you're reluctant to even feed me? He huffed, "Not hungry," and turned his head away.

Su Yu was taken aback, while Lei Rui seemed to catch on to something. She took the lunchbox from Su Yu's hand and smiled, "Let me feed you, Su Yu. You have to give me, the class monitor, some face, right? You're the hero of our class. If you starve, no one will forgive me. Everyone wanted to visit you, but I stopped them. You need rest the most right now.”

Lei Rui, now without her usual class monitor's demeanor, smiled warmly, appearing both cute and kind.

Su Yu couldn't help but smile back, saying, "Suddenly, I feel hungry. Oh, I just realized my stomach is empty." He opened his mouth for a bite.

Seeing this, Su Yu was so annoyed that she ground her teeth, huffed, and turned away.

After a few bites, Lei Rui's expression suddenly dimmed.

“What's wrong, class monitor?” Su Yu noticed and asked curiously.

Lei Rui looked at the food in the lunchbox and sighed softly, “If no one comes to rescue us soon, we won't have any food left in two days. And the electricity…” She looked up at the lights in the room, her expression anxious.

Thankfully, the school had a generator, so the power hadn't been cut off yet.

Su Yu was puzzled, “Even if the outside has turned into a forest, hasn't the school organized anyone to go out and explore?”

“The outside…” Lei Rui shivered and whispered, “It's full of those green-skinned monsters. Fortunately, the school's outer walls are high, and the gates are tightly shut, keeping them out for now. But… we won't last much longer.”

Su Yu felt a chill in his heart. The forest outside the school was full of those green monsters?

Looking around, he saw that everyone had a heavy expression, no longer showing the youthful energy of twenty-year-olds. A faint sense of despair and fear hung in the room.

That night, everyone was consumed by terror. Outside, terrifying roars echoed occasionally. Su Yu could tell most of them were from the green-skinned monsters, but sometimes there were other roars, even more frightening, sending chills down the spine.

Lying in bed, Su Yu could clearly feel the strange energy in his left arm slowly flowing throughout his body, as if it was constantly altering his physique, making him sweat profusely.

Su Yu's injuries were severe—three broken fingers, a fractured right arm, and a deep wound on his abdomen, nearly reaching his internal organs. Such injuries would normally leave someone bedridden for half a month.

But after just one night, possibly due to the strange energy, Su Yu felt much better. Although his right arm, with its broken bone, was slower to heal, the wound on his abdomen had mostly healed, and he could walk without much difficulty.

This was another discovery—the strange energy not only enhanced the strength of his left hand but also accelerated his body's healing process.

But what exactly was this strange energy? And what were those black, scale-like things appearing on the back of his left hand?

Su Yu couldn't figure it out. Many of the things he had encountered lately defied logic.

Zhang Zhongmou's injuries were much lighter. Apart from the bandages on his head, the rest were just superficial wounds. After a day's rest, he was fine.

At Su Yu's request, Zhang Zhongmou helped him walk out of the infirmary.

Once outside, they were greeted by the sight of a gloomy sky and the dense forest in the distance.

Zhang Zhongmou hadn't lied. The area around the school had indeed turned into a forest—a strange, terrifying forest filled with monsters.

Everywhere they looked, they saw groups of confused male and female students. With such a huge event happening, classes had naturally been canceled. Although the school was only a third- or fourth-rate university, it had nearly two thousand students, all now trapped here. Food and drink immediately became the top priority.

As Lei Rui said, if the situation didn't change, they would run out of food in two days.

And the forest full of green-skinned monsters outside had effectively trapped them here. If this continued for a few more days, they would all starve to death, the despair permeating every heart.

“We can't stay here; we have to get out,” Su Yu suddenly muttered.

“Yes!” someone behind him echoed.

Su Yu turned around to see Meng Bo, the tall, fair-skinned, round-faced counselor, approaching.

“We can't just wait here to die. Are your injuries better? Come with me; the school leadership is looking for you.”

When Su Yu and Zhang Zhongmou followed Meng Bo to the cafeteria hall, they found it already filled with people, mostly men. Su Yu spotted familiar classmates Qin Jiagui and Ning Yan among them.

“Su Yu, Zhang Zhongmou,” Qin Jiagui greeted them. Su Yu and Zhang Zhongmou nodded back.

Su Yu discreetly glanced at Ning Yan, who stood calmly to the side, her gaze restrained, not looking around.

It was strange to see everyone gathered in the cafeteria, and even stranger that so many students were gathered outside, peeking in but not entering.

“Everyone, please have a seat,” said the middle-aged man standing at the front. Su Yu recognized him as Dean Zheng, with several other school leaders beside him.

Su Yu, still puzzled, found a chair and sat down. Zhang Zhongmou sat next to him, and surprisingly, Qin Jiagui also came over and sat beside him.

Although they were classmates, Su Yu and Zhang Zhongmou hadn't been particularly close to Qin Jiagui, but now he seemed unusually friendly. The others also found seats.

“Qin Jiagui, do you know what this is about?” Su Yu asked in a low voice.

Qin Jiagui clenched his right hand and whispered back, “Didn't Meng tell you? We've been gathered here for an important mission.”

Su Yu shook his head, just as Dean Zheng began to speak.

Su Yu remembered Dean Zheng as a typically long-winded official, but this time he was brief and to the point. In a few words, Su Yu and Zhang Zhongmou understood the reason for their gathering.

They had been assembled to form a vanguard team to explore the unknown forest, hoping to contact the authorities or anyone capable of rescuing them. At the very least, they needed to find food.

Among those gathered, over a dozen had fought and killed the green-skinned monsters and now possessed special abilities. Of course, the only one who had killed four was Su Yu, making him a standout. Even Dean Zheng glanced at him several times during his speech.

A total of seventeen green-skinned monsters had been killed. Su Yu killed four, a girl from the Foreign Languages Department killed two, and the remaining eleven were killed by ten people, meaning thirteen people in total had gained special abilities.

What surprised Su Yu most was that Ning Yan, who appeared so calm and gentle, had also killed a green-skinned monster, making her one of the two girls among the thirteen.

Su Yu realized that in the chaos, luck played a big role in whether one could kill a green-skinned monster. Take himself and Qin Jiagui, for example.

Before absorbing the strange energy, Qin Jiagui, with his physical strength, was definitely stronger than Su Yu. But Su Yu was lucky—a green-skinned monster got stuck in the iron window frame, allowing him to kill it and gain the strange energy, leading to his later feats of killing three more monsters.

Thinking this way, Su Yu felt at ease.