Hold the Bus and Await Rescue

"I need to get off this bus as soon as possible."

Having heard about the horrors of the Gray Domain on the Player Forum, Wang Zhifan quickly armed himself, then hurried from his seat, weaving past the passengers sitting with their eyes closed in wooden stupors, and made his way from the rear of the bus to the middle door.

The bus was still moving forward at its original speed, but Wang Zhifan could see that the driver had also fallen into that stiff, wooden state and was completely unable to control the vehicle.

For safety's sake, he went over to the driver's seat, personally brought the bus to a stop, and prepared to press the door-open button to the right of the steering wheel.

But just as Wang Zhifan's finger was about to press it, a cool, calm voice suddenly came from behind him.

"I advise you not to open the door right now."

Turning around, Wang Zhifan saw that the speaker was a young girl seated in the second row of the bus.

She wore a white baseball cap, beneath whose brim peeked a neat head of light-brown, ear-length short hair. Her eyes were bright and calm, and her delicate face, though only lightly made up, radiated youthful charm.

Wang Zhifan remembered catching a glimpse of this girl when he had come toward the front of the bus earlier. He had naturally taken her for one of the other wooden people, never expecting that she had been concealing her abilities. There was no doubt that she was also a player.

"Why can't I open the door?"

When someone tried to dissuade him, Wang Zhifan generally chose to hear them out first. As for what he decided afterward, that was another matter.

Seeing the young man ahead of her ask for a reason, the Short-Haired Girl, who remained seated steadily in her seat, raised her head slightly and replied to Wang Zhifan at the front of the bus.

"There may be danger outside. We'd be better off holding our ground and waiting for rescue. This Gray Domain was triggered in the city, so people from the Special Administration Bureau will definitely arrive soon."

Her reasoning sounded somewhat sensible, but Wang Zhifan did not entirely agree. After a brief moment of thought, he replied.

"I think we should get out of here as soon as possible. Rather than pinning our hopes of escape on others, we should rely on ourselves."

After saying that, he prepared to press the door-open button beside him.

But as it happened, something abnormal stopped Wang Zhifan from doing so at that very moment.

This time, however, it was not the Short-Haired Girl on the bus trying to stop him. From the gray gloom outside, in every direction at once, came the sound of hurried, chaotic footsteps.

"They're here."

The sign was obvious enough that both people on the bus who could still move freely knew what it meant, yet neither of them panicked.

The Short-Haired Girl in the white baseball cap rose unhurriedly from her seat and stepped into the center aisle. With a casual wave of her hand, a cold, stern female phantom with waterfall-like long hair drifting loose behind her appeared at her side, floating in the air.

"What's your class?"

Having once again given up on pressing the door-open button, Wang Zhifan gripped the Wolfbane Longblade and stood ready for battle. As he watched the unclear scene outside through the bus window, he asked his temporary companion.

There was no helping it. At this point, as the only two players on the bus, they had to join forces if they wanted to survive.

"Summoner Class. Spiritualist."

The girl promptly answered.

"Warrior Class. Blade Warrior."

Wang Zhifan gave his own information as well, though anyone could have guessed it from the longblade in his hand.

Their brief exchange had barely ended when the strange noises outside the bus drew close enough for them to finally see what was coming.

One after another, humanoid monsters with blackish-purple skin, limbs bent like insect joints, and vicious faces like evil ghosts charged across the muddy ground on all fours, lurching toward their bus from every direction! At a glance, there seemed to be well over a hundred of them! And farther behind those monsters, a unique individual roughly three times their size was slowly crawling closer. Its unhurried manner made it look exactly like an Overseer supervising its subordinates in battle!

"There are so many monsters?! And when did it turn into mud outside? Wasn't this a city block?"

Wang Zhifan now understood just how bizarre the Gray Domain was. Just moments ago, he had been riding this bus through the bustling city, yet in the blink of an eye, everything had changed. Beneath the wheels of the bus was now unfamiliar, desolate land, and over a hundred horrifying monsters that made one sick to look at had appeared all around them.

The situation instantly became extremely dire. There was no need to think about it—they would have to fight these monsters to the death next, or they would be letting down the sheer momentum of this terrifying swarm bearing down on them.

"We need to hold out as long as possible, until the people from the Special Administration Bureau arrive."

Amid the tense, suffocating atmosphere, Wang Zhifan heard the Short-Haired Girl reiterate her opinion. She then quickly moved toward the rear of the bus, leaving only her long-haired female ghost-like summon behind where it was.

"Yeah. Let's work together and do everything we can to eliminate the monsters that get inside."

Wang Zhifan knew that charging outside on his own now would be idiotic, so he immediately agreed to the girl's plan of holding their ground and awaiting rescue.

The oppressive atmosphere lasted for less than another two seconds before the overall calm was shattered.

A window in the middle of the bus was the first to violently break from the outside, and a black, hideous monster climbed up from outside and thrust its terrifying head through the opening!

In an instant, the long-haired female ghost-like being that had been quietly floating inside the bus flickered and appeared directly before that window. Its pale, slender claws lashed out, and as five translucent, razor-sharp nails swept across the ugly head that had just poked through the window, the monster's skull split apart instantly. Several pieces, spraying black viscous fluid, fell onto the wooden passengers inside the bus, while the rest dropped outside.

But killing only one monster meant little. Immediately afterward, more fearless monsters leaped high from the ground outside the window guarded by the Long-Haired Female Ghost, trying to jump through it. At the same time, the other windows of the bus began shattering one after another as even more monsters chose to break in from different positions!

"There are too many of them! I'll guard the front for you! Use your summon to keep as many of them occupied as possible!"

At this critical moment, Wang Zhifan did not recklessly rush toward some window and start attacking. Instead, he immediately chose the best way for him and the girl to cooperate: he would serve as her Bodyguard, protecting the space in front of her, while the girl used her seemingly formidable Long-Haired Female Ghost summon to harass and eliminate as many enemies as possible, reducing the pressure they faced as much as they could.