Chapter Sixty-Nine: The Eastern Sea

Although Erha was a level stronger than Iron Pillar, its disadvantage was that it couldn’t fly. Fortunately, after Iron Pillar transformed, he was able to carry Erha, saving Ma Yi quite a bit of trouble. Besides, compared to walking, flying didn’t require avoiding obstacles and was much faster. The snow still fell relentlessly, as if intent on burying the entire world. As the three continued eastward, the buildings on the ground vanished from sight, everything sealed beneath the snow.

“Wow, so high up.” “It’s really high,” Erha chattered to itself, wind and snow and ash constantly blowing into its mouth mid-flight. It paid no attention; for a zombie, things like ash and dirt were hardly unclean. Ma Yi, on the other hand, appeared far more composed. Though he made no visible movements, not a single snowflake could touch his body, as if a wall of air encased him. The snowflakes would bounce away before even nearing him, giving him an ethereal, almost immortal grace.

“Boss, the further we go, the stronger the wind gets. More importantly, look—there’s obviously much more gray in the air,” Iron Pillar observed the surroundings and the ground below. Indeed, what had started as a faint haze now covered the entire landscape in gray, making everything look bleak. Coupled with the fierce wind, the place seemed desolate and bitterly cold.

“I feel it too—the temperature’s dropping,” Ma Yi agreed. “There’s more black snow now, and it tastes sour,” Erha complained, snapping out of its joy at eating snow; it clearly didn’t enjoy the current flavor.

The gray sky severely limited Ma Yi’s vision; his sight was now compressed to less than a thousand meters. At his current altitude, he could barely make out the land below, but ahead, everything dissolved into gray, as if the world was reduced to nothing but black, white, and gray.

“Let’s go down and take a look,” Ma Yi said. He had flown in a fixed direction the whole way; in weather like this, with no navigation and nothing to help orient oneself, it would be easy to get lost in unfamiliar territory. If there were a sun or landmarks, finding direction would be simpler, but now everything was buried under snow. All along, Ma Yi had been careful to look for anything on the ground he could remember as a reference.

When they landed, the thick snow supported Iron Pillar’s massive body without sinking at all, even though Iron Pillar’s weight was measured in tons. “Dig it up and see,” Ma Yi instructed after stamping his foot and finding the ground solid. He glanced about, frowning in puzzlement.

The snow’s evenness left no obstacles, making the slope of the ground obvious—one side sloped downward, the other upward, and the incline seemed even steeper than what he’d seen in City P. With his limited vision, Ma Yi was more curious than ever about the heights to the east.

“Boss, look,” Iron Pillar said, cutting a circular hole in the snow with his hand and digging out the contents. “Wow, there’s snow underneath!” Erha exclaimed. “It’s so cool and delicious, but a bit salty.” After Iron Pillar dug through half a meter of icy, ashen snow, they found a layer of pure white snow beneath. Erha leaped in, scooping it up and stuffing it into his mouth, calling out in excitement.

“Keep digging,” Ma Yi ordered. Having helpers was certainly convenient—he didn’t have to lift a finger, just stand by and give instructions. He was starting to get used to being the boss.

Before Iron Pillar could even get to work, Erha was already gnawing away at the snow below. With its sharp, strong teeth, it could bite through solid iron; this mixture of ice and snow was nothing. Like a drilling machine, Erha used both heads and its front paws to break up the compacted snow and ice, spraying the powder out of the hole.

Ma Yi slowly took a cigarette from his pocket, lit it out of the wind, and drew the sharp smoke deep into his lungs before exhaling. Iron Pillar stood by, watching Ma Yi with envy—not because he wanted to smoke, but because he admired Ma Yi’s effortless style. Ma Yi had tried to teach him to smoke, but Iron Pillar just couldn’t get the hang of it.

“We’ve hit dirt—there are plants down here,” Erha announced, emerging from the hole. He’d widened the opening so Iron Pillar could fit.

Ten meters—the snow and ice mixture was ten meters thick, and beneath the frozen layer, in the soil, plants still clung to life. In the apocalypse, plants could no longer be defined by old logic. These, for example, grew within the permafrost, displaying incredible vitality even in winter.

With his keen eye, Ma Yi saw the plants slowly pushing through the ice, their tender shoots melting just enough of the surrounding frost to grow and fill the space, then melting more to keep advancing. He couldn’t identify these plants, try as he might.

Since the apocalypse began, plants had grown wildly but hadn’t shown any truly strange traits. Now, after nearly a year in dormancy, even the plants had become bizarre. The snow and ice mixture beneath was harder than solid ice, yet these plants grew within, untouched by the cold. Ma Yi felt they seemed perfectly adapted, thriving within the frost.

Without damaging the plants, the three of them opened a space several hundred square meters wide beneath the ice. Within, they found three more of these strange plants. The thickest had a base nearly as thick as a person’s arms wrapped around it, its twisted trunk reaching six or seven meters up through the ice.

Ma Yi broke off a branch, feeling a faint warmth inside. No wonder these plants could melt the ice. Once the branch was broken, the plant seemed to sense an irresistible force and stopped growing at the broken end.

“Don’t tell me even the plants have developed some intelligence,” Ma Yi muttered helplessly, studying the strange flora.

“Boss, come here!” Iron Pillar called from the other side.

Ma Yi flashed over and looked down at Iron Pillar’s discovery: at Iron Pillar’s feet lay a transparent fungus, sending out long tendrils. When the tendrils touched Iron Pillar, they instantly withdrew; when they touched the snow and ice mixture, they clung tightly, growing through the frozen layer.

“A fungus that loves the cold,” Ma Yi murmured, crouching to observe more closely.

Erha squeezed in, both heads craning to peer at the oddity, both faces blank with confusion as they looked to Ma Yi and Iron Pillar.

“Don’t look at me—I have no idea what it is either,” Ma Yi said helplessly, seeing both of them staring at him.

They explored the ice cave a while longer but found nothing else of note.

Leaving the cave, the three continued east. At their speed, they should be nearing the coastline.

Suddenly, Ma Yi spotted a black mountain ahead, standing straight up a kilometer away. As they drew closer, even flying as they were, they had to crane their heads to look up at the peak, which rose at least three thousand meters.

“Let’s fly up,” Ma Yi said, skimming up the rock face. Along the way they saw various frozen sea creatures, but more often mutated marine life—two-meter-long worms searching for shelter in the rock, giant shellfish dead and exposing their flesh, within which lay gleaming ocean pearls, some several centimeters across, others nearly thirty centimeters.

There was no time to stop and see if they were particularly rare treasures. Besides, in these times, pearls and gold—once heirlooms in ages of chaos—were worthless.

Ma Yi didn’t yet know that pearls now surpassed soul shards in quality; they stored more powerful, gentle energy. By the time he returned, the pearls would have been devoured by ravenous sea worms, creating many powerful marine monsters.

Clouds swirled around the mountain’s waist, thick with occasional flickers of static electricity. Ma Yi’s body was tough enough that only a major lightning strike could harm him; this static was nothing. He plunged straight into the clouds.

Iron Pillar, carrying Erha, followed closely. Once in the cloud, their visibility dropped to just a few meters. Fortunately, by sticking to the cliff face, they could keep ascending, though Ma Yi’s figure was already out of sight.

Ma Yi was first to emerge from the electrically charged clouds, surprised by the mountain’s height—beyond the cloud layer, there were still several hundred meters to the summit.

Standing at the peak, he found clear skies and dry air. Looking around, he saw that this summit was the highest of all. Sunlight shone gently, bathing the mountaintop, which featured a natural stone platform reminiscent of a seaside observation deck.

Some distant peaks pierced the clouds, others were hidden below. Gazing out, Ma Yi saw that what should have been ocean was now replaced by mountains. Here, snow fell in thick drifts, while on the other side of the range, lightning flashed and rain poured.

“Amazing,” Erha said. “Snow on one side, rain on the other.” Iron Pillar and Erha joined Ma Yi at the summit, standing at the edge and looking down. This part of the mountain was sheer, like a giant slab of rock thrust up from the earth.

“Boss, should we go down and take a look?” Iron Pillar asked, eyeing the rainy side. This mountain range perfectly divided the two climates; perhaps it was the cause of this strange weather.

“Of course—we came to find out what’s happened,” Ma Yi replied, scanning for a suitable path. Below, everything was wracked by thunder and lightning; from above the clouds, the bolts looked like monstrous snakes weaving through the mist.

Following the ridge, the three began heading slowly south. The range was vast—if not for his memory that this was the East Sea, Ma Yi might have thought he’d wandered into West Kunlun.