Rewriting My Fate in the Apocalypse-Chapter 407: Going Back Home

The team returned to the testing center first to collect the remaining supplies and the crystal cores the small dragon had gathered earlier.

The three teammates assigned to crystal cores collection earlier had completed their task efficiently and the harvest was enormous.

Even after dividing a portion for immediate team advancement, they still had enough to strengthen the base significantly.

The modified humans stood silently nearby. After witnessing Lu Hao’s power, they had both awe and fear in them.

Leng Pan approached them.

"We have wasted too much time. We cannot leave at the moment otherwise we will turn into charcoal from the heat. It will be dawn soon. Let’s wait until evening to start moving, then you will leave for the military base." She explained everything to them then urged everyone to go back inside the building of the testing center.

They all bowed and replied in unison.

"We understand."

"If anything unusual happens," Leng Pan continued, "don’t act recklessly. Observe. Send information back." She continued to give instructions as they climbed the stairs back to the third floor.

"How should we send the information?" One of the men asked cautiously.

Leng Pan turned to look at Lu Tao, who understood and handed over small modified communication devices built from salvaged electronics.

"They have limited range," Lu Tao explained, puffing his chest slightly, "but enough to transmit encrypted short bursts of information."

He had run out of watches and needed time to make new ones. So, for now, he could only give them more primitive communication devices.

The modified humans accepted them like sacred objects.

Lu Zhen observed all this from the side, feeling proud of his wife.

His wife had just placed a chess piece on the board. The game was on.

By the time they left the city, the sky had darkened into deep indigo.

The journey back was quieter than the journey out. Exhaustion hung heavy over the group.

But Leng Pan could see the confidence radiating from all of them.

They had taken down a commander of the aliens. This had changed the psychological battlefield.

Halfway back, Lu Hao finally regained enough strength to walk on his own. Unlike the rest of them who could recharge using crystal cores, he couldn’t. And Leng Pan had been so preoccupied she forgot to give him spiritual spring water.

She was sure that if she put him in the mansion inside the space bangle he would recover faster due to the catalyst core but she couldn’t do that in front of all those people.

That would expose her space and she wasn’t ready to take that risk.

Lu Tao refused to leave his side. He kept pestering him so much that even Lu Zhen felt tired on his behalf.

"Second brother, that golden lightning thingy, can you teach me"

Lu Hao blinked a few times before replying, "I don’t know how."

"...What?" Lu Tao asked in disbelief.

"It happened because I was angry. I don’t know how to actively do it." Lu Hao explained because he realized that his younger brother was overly curious.

Lu Tao stared at his second brother intensely as if to confirm his words.

Leng Pan, who was sitting in the passenger seat of the car they were in, chuckled.

"That’s how breakthroughs usually happen." She said lightly.

Lu Zhen glanced sideways at her. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

"What’s on your mind? You seem preoccupied."

"That alien Commander called him a hybrid." Leng Pan replied.

"I know."

"That means they recognized what he is." She emphasized.

"But what matters is that he does not acknowledge that identity. He is just the second son of the Lu family. My younger brother. Nothing else matters." Lu Zhen reassured her.

"Yeah, that’s true. As long as we recognize him as a member of our family, nothing else matters." Leng Pan agreed immediately with a relieved smile.

When they finally reached the reinforced high-rise where their base was located, the outer sentries nearly panicked at the sight of two massive dragons descending from the sky behind the vehicles.

"It’s us," Lu Tao shouted quickly to stop panic from spreading.

The gates opened and inside most of the residents rushed forward.

Gasps echoed among them as the story of dragons that are usually seen in movies spread throughout the base.

Lu Tao, like always, ran up to tell the story of how they had killed a whole stadium of zombies including a commander-level alien and hundreds of other strong aliens.

Whispers spread, turning into belief. And belief turned into something stronger.

Hope.

Leng Pan and the others walked into the community and noticed the changes inside. The walls had been repaired and more houses had been fixed.

Leng Pan walked to a small platform that had been erected for large meetings and raised a hand to quiet everyone down.

"Three of ours fell today," she said, sadness hanging over her like a cloak.

The atmosphere shifted immediately.

"We will hold a short memorial at sunrise."

She didn’t want her teammates to be buried under the cover of darkness.

Even though it was dangerous to be outside in the sun, if they held the memorial early enough, they could still do it.

At sunrise, the memorial took place in the open. No long speeches or dramatic grief. In the apocalypse, they honored the fallen and continued to grow stronger.

That night, in their apartment, the Lu family sat together for a sumptuous dinner to welcome their new member, Lu Hao.

Lu Zhen brewed spiritual tea harvested from the farm land in the space bangle.

Lu Tao finally fell asleep mid-sentence while trying to recount the battle for the tenth time.

Li Yunjia was fussing over Lu Hao like he was a son she had given birth to. She had accepted him even more readily than Lu Tao had called him second brother.

Leng Pan couldn’t help wondering if such big hearts ran in the family.

How could they treat an alien so well even knowing what he is? They didn’t have reservations whatsoever.