Drum Mountain and Flag Mountain were scenic spots — legend had it that Fan Zeng, strategist and surrogate father to Xiang Yu, had once lived on Flag Mountain’s slopes. Flag Mountain stood 232 meters at its peak, Drum Mountain 206. Both were modest hills by any measure.

They were shorter now. The apocalypse storms had shaved them down.

Before the end, both mountains had been thickly wooded. Now they were bare rock, stripped clean. Not a trace of green on the slopes.

At the foot of the mountains, Shen Cong spotted a handful of poplar trees, their bark showing the metallic gradation that marked Activity transformation. Poplar leaves were inedible — they caused digestive problems — so the trees held no practical value for him. Beside the poplars, what had once been a small lake was now a dry basin, the lakebed cracked into fist-sized chunks by the drought.

Worth going up for a look.

High ground meant better sightlines. He suited up in the Baogai Armor and headed for Flag Mountain — slightly taller than Drum, though calling either of them a mountain felt generous. A brisk climb, and he was at the summit in minutes.

From the top he could see the edge of Juchao’s urban district, the ruins of village settlements visible at the mountain’s base. Green was almost entirely absent — only those few poplars below catching the sunlight. In every direction the land spread out in shades of grey and dull yellow.

Vajra sat on the road below, conspicuous against the emptiness.

He looked at it and frowned slightly. Silver-white — the color of polished steel plate, which was what Vajra’s armor actually was. The finish reflected sunlight well, but that was a liability as much as an asset. Too bright, too visible. Poor camouflage.

Should change the color. Matte grey would be better — flat finish, no glare. There might be an auto shop or dealership somewhere in Juchao that still has spray paint.

He filed the thought away, spent a few more minutes taking in the desolate panorama — the apocalypse had a particular kind of bleak grandeur from elevation — then headed back down.

The rest of the afternoon went to the wired drone version 2.0 redesign.

Evening: one bottle of mineral water chilled in the small fridge, one Melancholy Bird leg roasted over the burner. He ate it watching the remainder of last night’s B-movie, gnawing on the leg while blood filled the screen. This, more or less, was the texture of apocalypse life.

No one else. Shen Cong alone, entirely at ease with it.

Two films later, the clock in the corner of the screen rolled silently from August 21st, 23:59 — to August 22nd, 00:00.

He pulled the blanket around himself, let the cabin air conditioning run, and slept.

He didn’t stay asleep long.

Wind. Building fast, loud enough to wake him — sand and grit lifting off the ground and rattling against Vajra’s armor in a dry, sustained hiss.

Wind?

He was out of the bunk and into the cab in seconds, pulling up the camera feeds. The screens showed grey-white murk, dust moving everywhere.

1:02 AM.

Please don’t let this be another apocalypse storm.

He was already moving as he thought it — Baogai Armor on, and then out the hatch onto the roof while the wind was still manageable. The night was absolute black. Even with his enhanced vision he couldn’t make out anything past ten meters.

The Geiger counter in his hand was spiking hard.

Along with the sand, the air carried significant moisture. Storm precursor.

If this becomes heavy rain, the road is the wrong place to be. High ground. Flag Mountain — there’s a track up, Vajra can just about manage it.

Decision made in the same breath as the thought. He dropped back into the cab.

ROAR.

Vajra’s engine thundered to life. Air compressors cycled up, drum brakes pressurized and ready. He swung the nose toward Flag Mountain and started climbing.

The track was poor going for a vehicle nearly four meters wide. He worked it carefully — brake, throttle, brake, throttle — inching up the slope in a slow zigzag pattern. Flag Mountain’s reduced height worked in his favor; the grade was gentle enough that Vajra’s engine could push through with the throttle fully down.

Twenty minutes later, the zigzag approach delivered them to the summit.

The top was flat and open. Vajra rolled to the most exposed position at the center, and the eight retractable support legs extended, driving their tips into the surrounding rock and locking the vehicle in place.

All armor panels sealed tight.

Shen Cong settled back and let himself breathe.

Outside, the wind kept climbing. Humidity was rising with it — the camera lenses were already beading with condensation. Even inside the cab, the Geiger counter wouldn’t settle down. The radiation concentration out there was enormous.

The Bull Demon King Totem was running, its field-force storm amplifying the ambient Activity several times over — but Vajra’s absorption rate had a ceiling. The storm was producing far more than the vehicle could take in. All that extra Activity, wasted.

Then —

Every camera screen went white at once.

A lightning bolt, massive, driving down from the clouds.

The thunder arrived almost simultaneously — the gap between flash and sound was nearly nothing. The storm cell was directly overhead.

Lightning.

Shen Cong’s hand was already on the control panel. He hit the switch. At each corner of the external armor, a steel spike extended downward and drove into the rock beneath.

His improvised lightning protection. The armor was solid steel — it conducted electricity naturally. What it needed was a path to ground, and now it had four of them.

He finished the thought just as the first bolt hit.

It struck Vajra directly.

Through his perception — always connected to Vajra — he felt the current: a massive pulse of electrons flowing across the armor surface and bleeding away into Flag Mountain’s bedrock.

Then another bolt, minutes later.

High ground. Of course. Highest point for kilometers.

The lightning continued for half an hour. Vajra absorbed nine direct strikes before the bolts finally spaced out and stopped. Then, as if a valve had opened, the rain came down — not drops but a wall of water, connecting sky and earth in a single continuous curtain.

The second great storm had arrived.

Past 2 AM, and Shen Cong had no interest in sleep. He sat in the cab with the roof hatch cracked open, watching the rain through the glass panel he’d salvaged from the Hummer and fitted over the opening.

The water came down in sheets. The roof lights reached maybe a few meters before the rain swallowed them. The night vision cameras fared no better — beyond a short radius, everything was grey noise.

A storm like this sealed you inside yourself. He’d experienced it before — the apocalypse storm that had locked him down for a full month, the earlier cloudburst that had kept him grounded for days. This time he was better prepared, better equipped, and considerably calmer about it.

Crack.

A bolt found Drum Mountain across the valley. The thunder that followed was physical — he could feel it through the vehicle’s frame, a deep concussive roll that shook the air.

The temperature had dropped thirty degrees since afternoon. The thermometer read 17°C. Twelve hours ago it had been 47°C.

He watched the rain and didn’t mind the cold.

(End of Chapter 86)