Behind, Before

"Vice Branch Manager Xu! Manager Li?"

Niu Luo stood in the Ash World, repeatedly adjusting his communicator. When that failed, he took out his phone, only to curse under his breath moments later.

He turned to Wen Yongxin and said in a low voice:

"We've been cut off."

The moment Wen Yongxin saw the ashes appear, he had already felt a strong sense of dread.

Though he had not experienced many missions himself, he had observed plenty of similar ones. They had clearly been dragged into another world.

And only an hour after the mission began, they had already lost contact with the main group. That was certainly not a friendly sign.

For the first time, Wen Yongxin felt a cramped, uneasy tension. After taking a deep breath, he replied gravely:

"We've probably been targeted by a ghost. It's determined to make us enter the building.

If we go in, we'll most likely die. But if we don't..."

He turned back toward the direction from which they had come, but it was already impossible to make out where that was.

The emptiness of this Ash World seemed to have buried all causes and consequences, leaving behind only a solitary building.

Niu Luo painfully clenched his hands and finished the rest of the sentence:

"If we don't go, we'll be completely lost in the Ash World."

For a time, the situation fell into a deadlock of silence.

There was simply too much they did not know, too much that left them lost.

With no understanding of anything, the chance of entering a supernatural site and finding a way out was minuscule.

But now, there was no way back.

Only one question remained in both their minds: how had they ended up here?

"What are you two dawdling for? Let's go."

Nong