Instance Restart, Another Choice
"Try to avoid contact between your skin and Life objects..."
Slightly narrowing his eyes and shaking his bloodied hand, Bai Zhi calmly put [Radiance] back into his Inventory.
In this situation, forget about driving; otherwise, you'll just end up merging with the car. So, there's no point in continuing on that route.
So, where should I go now?
Bai Zhi tilted his head slightly and glanced at Tong, who was clinging to his back and hugging his neck without saying a word.
The other person remained remarkably quiet throughout; she hadn't uttered a single word since waking up that morning.
After a moment's thought, Bai Zhi put the other person down from his back and then held them in his arms with one hand.
"Watch out behind me."
After saying this, without expecting a reply, Bai Zhi picked up the other person and ran in the opposite direction from where they had come from.
"..."
With her hands wrapped around Bai Zhi's neck, Tong looked at the increasingly thick White Mist behind and around her, pursed her lips, and remained silent.
The fog that permeated the entire city was itself an Anomaly, capable of unleashing Stand Attack on everyone within its range... However, Bai Zhi didn't think that was the reason those Players ran away.
Avoiding the effects of this Anomaly is actually quite simple: just wrap yourself up completely before the fog arrives to prevent your skin from coming into contact with non- Life things.
Therefore, based on Bai Zhi's deduction, something even more terrifying must exist within the Mist...
As time went on, the fog thickened, forcing Bai Zhi to narrow his view to a few meters, which compelled him to slow down.
If you accidentally bump into something, your bloodied and mangled right hand will serve as a warning, and every now and then, a few people will stumble and rush out from the fog.
Some of them had a knife or a stick stuck in their hand, or a stone embedded in their body. The most terrifying one Bai Zhi saw was a person who had been stripped naked and thrown into Garbage Heap.
Even he felt a little uneasy seeing the eerie and creepy situation surrounding the other person.
The increasingly low visibility, along with the occasional screams of people bursting out of the Mist, greatly slowed his movements.
Moreover, among these people, there are some who have given up on themselves and maliciously want to drag others down with them.
... This was the same person he had seen lying in the Garbage Heap earlier.
In addition, some people maliciously threw things around in the Mist, but fortunately, the [Beat Up Doll] was still firmly playing its role, deflecting all the Item flying towards it.
In such a desperate environment, the malice within human nature is laid bare.
--But these weren't the things that made Bai Zhi wary.
As time went on, he increasingly felt the temperature around him dropping and the air becoming stagnant, as if something terrifying was about to arrive.
In addition, Tong seemed to sense something, hands unconsciously tightened around his neck, as if facing an invincible predator. Bai Zhi could clearly feel that the other's body was trembling slightly.
Unbeknownst to Bai Zhi, Tong was in great pain, biting her lip tightly, with thin trickles of blood flowing from her mouth.
In fact, it wasn't just her; everyone in the town shrouded in fog, except for Bai Zhi, wore expressions of pain, as if some strange voice was constantly echoing in their minds.
Tong was arguably the one most severely affected among these people.
"This can't go on..."
Unaware of the Girl's unusual behavior, Bai Zhi stopped and frowned deeply as he looked at the thick fog that had reduced visibility to less than a meter.
"Splash..."
Just then, a voice suddenly drifted faintly from the depths of the thick fog.
It was as if a thick iron chain was being dragged across the ground; the sound grew louder and louder—ten chains, a hundred chains, a thousand chains, ten thousand chains...
In the end, the thick fog was filled with the overwhelming sound of chains being dragged.
Amidst the overwhelming clatter of dragging chains, a hazy, Giant Black Shadow, seemingly pulled forward by these chains, slowly emerged from the depths of the thick fog...
"It can be eaten as a snack with drinks... what the heck?"
Bai Zhi looked up at the hazy, Giant Black Shadow and frowned slightly.
Just then, a thick Chains suddenly emerged silently from the mist and lunged towards Bai Zhi.
The [Beat Up Doll] faithfully fulfilled its duty, mocking the iron chain, but in the next moment, the invisible [Beat Up Doll] was bound by the iron chain and forcibly dragged into the mist.
This sudden turn of events was unexpected even for Bai Zhi himself. In the blink of an eye, the [Beat Up Doll] that had been guarding him was dragged into the Mist and disappeared from sight.
Then, in Bai Zhi's Perception, the [Beat Up Doll]'s Durability rapidly decreased, dropping to zero after a few seconds, and automatically returned to his Inventory.
"Wow, this thing can be used like this...?"
He only had time to utter a brief sigh before, seeing the Hundreds of Thousands of Chains reappearing in the Mist, Bai Zhi forgot all about his thoughts and quickly got up, went to the nearest house, kicked open the door, rushed in, and then slammed the door shut behind him.
Outside, amidst the thick fog, the clanging sound continued incessantly, as countless Chains moved through the Mist.
"This thing is impossible to fight..."
Looking at the white expanse outside, Bai Zhi couldn't help but feel a bit of a toothache.
He knew just how resilient the [Beat Up Doll] was. It had taken so many hits from the Librarian in the Library Labyrinth, and then at least a hundred more shots, yet its Durability had only dropped by less than 100 points.
But after being dragged into the thick fog by that Chains for a few seconds, all of his remaining 900-plus durability points were completely depleted... That's just ridiculous.
Just as Bai Zhi was pondering what to do next, Tong, whom he was holding, suddenly began to struggle.
"What's wrong?"
Frowning slightly, Bai Zhi put the other person down.
"Remember, don't touch..."
Before he could finish his sentence, Bai Zhi was taken aback.
The Girl's eyes had turned completely black at some point, and her face showed intense pain, as if she was desperately suppressing something; she had even bitten her lips until they were almost raw.
"..."
After glancing up at him, Tong suddenly turned and ran towards the door.
Upon seeing this, almost instinctively, Bai Zhi reached out and grabbed the other person's hand. Then, in the next moment, Bone Spur suddenly protruded from the other person's hand and pierced through his palm.
The other person's body was undergoing a bizarre pulsation, their entire body began to twist and deform, bones piercing through the skin and protruding from their body... Some kind of extremely terrifying mutation seemed to be happening to the other person.
"Let go... let me leave... you'll die..."
Clenching her teeth, Tong managed to squeeze out a few words, struggling to pull her deformed hand away from the other person's grasp.
However, Bai Zhi showed no intention of letting go; instead, he gripped even tighter, letting the blood flow from his hands.
"Was it that Black Shadow being dragged by the chain?"
Staring at the Girl in front of him who was enduring immense pain and whose body was beginning to contort and deform, Bai Zhi's expression was extremely cold.
His pupils were well concealed; he had no idea when the other party had been affected.
"... Hide... and survive...!!"
Feeling the changes in her body, after managing a weak smile at Bai Zhi, the Girl forcefully tore her arm off. Then, dragging her severely deformed body, Tong yanked open the door and rushed out, closing it behind her.
After her body underwent a mutation, her Strength and speed became even greater than Bai Zhi's, leaving Bai Zhi momentarily stunned and unable to react.
A moment later, when Bai Zhi finally came to his senses, the Girl in front of him had disappeared, and he was tightly clutching a deformed, severed hand.
In a pure white room, accompanied by a flash of white light, Bai Zhi's figure appeared.
The room was pure white. In the very center of the room was a Four-Sided Table and a chair, on which lay a sheet of white paper and a pen.
In addition, a faint Virtual Screen appeared directly in front of the Four-Sided Table, displaying a 30-minute Countdown, and next to it, there seemed to be many messages.
In the upper left corner of the Virtual Screen, the number 25 slowly changed to 24.
"... So it really is reopening?"
Looking down at his hands, which had fully recovered, Bai Zhi let out a slight breath and walked to his desk, looking at the blank sheet of paper on it.
On the blank sheet of paper, three Multiple Choice Question are clearly visible, except that the answer to the first Multiple Choice Question has already been written on, while the answers to the other two Multiple Choice Question have been cleared.
A 30-minute time limit, another choice.