The Creatures That We Are

Chapter 361: Equivalent Exchange

For a moment, Colorless felt her willpower screaming at her like boiling water, entering a frenzy that came with great power.

She turned to Vermilion Bird in surprise, wondering what she had done to her.

“Let’s go,” Vermilion Bird said instead of answering, her frosty eyes searching for Miao in the sea of sunflowers.

“Team Leader!” Old Mo, the short, stocky middle-aged man on Colorless’ team, shouted out.

Without missing a beat, Colorless rushed at him. Then Vermilion Bird and Scarlet Fox followed suit.

“Hahahaha! Hahahaha! Hahahaha!”

The short-haired man tipped his head up and laughed rhythmically, his bizarre, strangely infectious laughter ringing across the garden.

In response, there was a rustle amid the sunflowers thirty meters from him. Miao was rushing toward him.

Old Mo’s Talent was Jeer, serial number 143, Support-type.

It allowed him to taunt enemies into attacking him, thus disturbing their pace and relaxing their guard.

Vermilion Bird and Colorless immediately rushed over. Old Mo was still laughing, ensuring himself would be Miao’s target.

She, however, came to a halt ten meters from him and recovered from the trance, not falling for the trap.

Six vines of intertwining stems and roots shot out of the garden, aiming at Old Mo.

He started, not taking into account the possibility of a long range attack.

He swung his machete to cut the vines coming his way, but one string managed to sneak up on him by sticking low to the ground, suddenly wrapping around his ankle.

“Shit!”

Old Mo was shocked. Before he could do anything, the vine yanked and threw him into the air, flying toward where Miao was hiding.

Rustle.

She leapt up toward him from the garden, her arms wrapped in green vines and colorful flowers and her ten fingers morphing into sharp, dark brown tree branches. Then her branch-like fingers stabbed into Old Mo’s chest as he flew to him.

In a second, bloodied roses bloomed all over Old Mo.

Boom!

His body exploded into splattering blood and red rose petals.

“Old Mo!”

Miao activated Petrify at Miao while she was still in the air.

This time, even Vermilion Bird and Scarlet Fox could sense the twisted tension in the air in her proximity, which was a sign of extremely powerful willpower overflowing from the body.

Stepping on her vine, Miao suddenly halted, and without delay, the skin of her face began to turn into stone and crack, her left arm almost losing all senses.

Miao reacted quickly. She endured the psychic attack from Colorless and quickly lifted her right hand, sending a dozen vines flying toward Colorless.

“Watch out!”

Vermilion Bird pushed Colorless away, which interrupted her Talent, but saved her life.

The vines ended up wrapping around Vermilion Bird’s body, repeating the same move of throwing her into the air.

This time, Miao was much more cautious. The vines remained tight around Vermilion Bird while bringing her to Miao, keeping her in a dead grip.

Miao’s right hand fingers turned into sharp branches, stabbing at Vermilion Bird’s chest.

In two seconds, Vermilion Bird would turn into a cadaver blooming with flowers like Crimson Scorpion, Grass, and Old Mo.

Vermilion Bird scoffed. She had allowed Miao to grab her on purpose.

Equivalent Exchange!

To the max!

Instantly, the energy in her body surged, and her battle power increased to five times!

“Hah!” she shouted and flexed her arms, breaking free of the vines.

Miao was taken by surprise. Where did the monstrous raw power come from?

And in addition to her power, her agility had also quintupled.

Vermilion Bird lunged at Miao, eyes glinting with gold light as her punch landed on Miao’s face before Miao could attack.

Thud!

Miao fell into the garden in a diagonal trajectory, bringing up countless broken pieces of sunflowers. Even the blood fog was momentarily dispersed before reemerging.

Vermilion Bird landed, her chest heaving. She could stay in this state for at most half a minute.

Talent: Equivalent Exchange, serial number 10, the top Life-type Talent.

The mechanism of the Talent was quite complicated. First, there were the four active abilities:

1. Buff her for a short time at the price of exhausting the energy of her future self.

For others, she could at most buff them by 3 times, exhausting the energy of their future selves for the next 1-2 months.

For herself, she could apply a buff of 5 times, exhausting the energy of her future self for the next 3 months.

2. Heal herself and others at the price of exhausting part of her energy.

3. Interrogate bodies at the price of exhausting part of her energy.

4. Resurrect bodies at the price of exhausting all her energy.

Then there were the two passive abilities.

1. Her body had incredible regenerative power.

2. She could preserve 12 months worth of energy at the most.

The energy could be considered some sort of vitality. With it exhausted at once, her regenerative power would go dormant, necessitating the same length of time to recover.

By interrogating a body, Vermilion Bird would be exhausting one month worth of vitality.

The amount needed for healing others, on the other hand, would depend on their degree of injury, varying from 1 to 9 months worth of vitality. As long as she didn’t reach her limit, however, Vermilion Bird would be able to recover her vitality at a quickened rate with her enhanced regenerative power.

As for resurrecting the dead—their hearts and brains must be relatively intact—it would exhaust a whole year worth of vitality.

In other words, she would be in a deep coma for the coming year as a result.

At this moment, Vermilion Bird had buffed herself five times for 30 seconds by exhausting three months worth of vitality.

She still had nine months worth left, allowing her to buff herself for 30 seconds another three times.

However, Vermilion Bird’s brows remained furrowed.

While the punch had been cathartic, she knew that she hadn’t inflicted serious damage on the enemy. She couldn’t kill Miao even if she kept the fight going.

And Colorless would lose consciousness in about half a minute. Such was the price of having her power tripled. All exchanges must be equivalent.

Then with the two most powerful awakeners here disabled, the whole team would be doomed.

It took her only a couple seconds to think through all that. Then Miao stood back up—no, she had lifted off the ground with countless sunflowers and their stems and roots surrounding her.

She had blood coming out from a corner of her mouth, yet she was smiling. She raised her arms with colorful flowers blooming all over her body, the sight eerily beautiful.

“Let us all turn into everlasting beauty together.”

All at once, the wind stopped, and the air went still.

Tens of thousands of vines shot out from the ground, forming a green cage that trapped all of them, obscuring the sky.

Vermilion Bird started. Miao was aiming for mutual destruction!

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