The storm arrived faster and harder than anticipated.

The ambient Activity in the air seemed to boil. The Golden Jiao Totem’s field-force storm had Great Vajra sitting in what felt like an Activity ocean — absorbing, digesting, amalgamating, exchanging without pause. The Activity Value counter ticked up 0.001H every three minutes.

A magnificent feast, under ordinary circumstances.

What accompanied it was less pleasant. One moment the sky had been bright; within minutes the clouds were total, the light gone, enormous raindrops hammering the roof with a sound like irregular percussion. A blink later, standing water was already collecting on the ground — Great Vajra’s tires threw up sheets of water with each rotation.

Blackhead was in the greenhouse, pressed against the panoramic skylight, her compound eyes — or whatever sensory apparatus she used — tracking the patterns the rain drew and erased across the glass. The Antgod lay quietly in the ant burrow. Something was visible at the base of her wings: the root junctions were beginning to crack. Wing-shedding had begun. She was becoming, truly, a queen — preparing to reproduce and build her colony.

The water climbed quickly. Ten centimeters. Then the storm escalated beyond rain — the individual drops were gone, replaced by continuous curtains of water that reduced the camera feeds to grey static. Shen Cong opened the windshield panel and ran the wipers, which helped somewhat but not much.

Outside: dark. The headlights drowned in water. Even his 90x light sensitivity was scrambled by the interference.

The pulse radar came into its own. Salvaged from garrison stockpiles, it swept the terrain ahead continuously and rendered it as a three-dimensional model — enough to drive by.

He slowed to 20 kilometers per hour and turned toward camp.

He wasn’t staying out in the open overnight. He had no idea what the water levels would reach by morning, and Great Vajra’s fifty-plus ton weight didn’t prevent it from floating — in deep enough water, the vehicle would be at the mercy of the current. And in water, the Dog-Croc was unquestionably the dominant predator. That particular matchup had no appeal.

At 20 kilometers per hour, over an hour to camp. Hope the rain doesn’t get worse.

It got worse.

Twenty minutes after he started driving, the standing water was a meter deep.

“This isn’t rain. Someone is pouring water on us.” He’d reached the Second Ring Road — a straight section that let him push up to 40 kilometers per hour. A meter of standing water against a 1.5-meter ground clearance was manageable.

Twenty more minutes. Close to camp now. Standing water at two meters. Great Vajra was wading rather than driving — but the exhaust stacks were mounted at the cab roof with retractable extensions, and the air intakes had been designed specifically against flooding. The engine didn’t notice.

Ten more minutes.

Great Vajra crossed the Nanfei Moat bridge and found its dedicated elevated platform. The engine gave a last roar as the vehicle climbed up onto the three-meter raised surface.

Three meters up. The water hadn’t reached it yet.

The camp beyond was dark — faint light somewhere, indeterminate shapes, everything lost behind the wall of rain noise. He couldn’t hear anything except the unbroken rush of water.

How many people didn’t make it back in time? Did anyone get the sweet potato fields and the peach orchard covered?

No way to know.

The rain had severed him from everything outside. He was back in the familiar enclosure — alone, self-contained, cut off from the world. The environment had grown larger since the days of the original Vajra, but the essential condition was the same.

He killed the engine and went to the greenhouse.

Blackhead was already there, watching the rain patterns on the skylight. The Mechanical Vine drooped in its pot, transmitting its usual ambient complaint: uncomfortable, uncomfortable. Beside it, a small sapling occupied a second pot — the Activity Peach tree, germinated from the pit he’d planted. The Huoxue‘s Evolved Plant volume had renamed it the “Activity Peach Tree.” His original name — “Killer Peach Tree,” coined in breathless horror the first time he’d seen an Activity-evolved tree consuming carrion — had been deemed insufficiently scientific.

Activity Peach Tree was accurate. He accepted it.

He was settling in to play something on his phone when the rain stopped.

Not gradually. It switched — rain to hail, without transition.

The temperature gauge read minus 5 degrees Celsius inside the vehicle. He pulled a jacket over his shoulders — more habit than necessity; his body ran warm — and checked the external sensors.

Minus 12 degrees Celsius outside.

Hailstones the size of goose eggs were striking the skylight with irregular heavy impacts, each one threatening to shatter it. The glass held easily — Activity-infused, impervious to bullet impact, certainly impervious to ice.

At minus 12, there will be casualties in the camp tonight. Though the garrison distributed evolved beast hides to every survivor months ago. They’re not without resources.

He didn’t have a sense of belonging to the Mingfa Camp. There was no one there he felt responsible for.

But on a night like this, alone with the sound of ice striking metal, his mind went there anyway.

The teams still out in the field.
The sweet potato rows.
The peach seedlings.
The tunnel excavation crew.

And further, unbidden — the Fenghuang Mountain Vineyard Camp. Zhu Haifeng, the earnest district chief. Zhang Youhai, reliable as ever. Wang Yingying, holding her post. Li Weijun, quietly running everything. Zhao Yalan, permanently grudging. Li Junfu and his dog Heidou — whether they’d ever reached Fenghuang Mountain, he didn’t know.

“Am I being sentimental, Blackhead?”

He shook his head, dispersing the thoughts.

“I don’t need that. I am what I am. No one else enters into it.”

This world is dangerous. Caution above everything.

He pulled himself back to baseline.

Blackhead had become fascinated with the hailstones striking the roof. She’d been studying the phenomenon for some time now, too absorbed to pay him any attention.

He was about to say something about that when she turned.

Her antennae moved in a way he’d learned to read as excitement. Through the perceptual link came a distinct, clearly formed emotional signal — something that translated roughly as: I got stronger.

“What?”

Blackhead moved through the greenhouse in a purposeful circle, apparently trying to explain. She found a steel pipe left in the corner — material left over from the Spike King Javelin fabrication, not yet put away.

She positioned herself in front of it.

Raised both mandibles.

Lightly drew them across the pipe.

Crack.

The pipe fell in two pieces.

Shen Cong’s brow rose sharply.

“That’s… Activity application?”

(End of Chapter 175)