As the sunset spread across the Gobi Desert, it looked as though a red carpet had been laid over the land.
Jack drove the pickup truck around Las Vegas again and made it back to the highway.
"Are you even going to make it? Didn't you say we'd definitely get there by tonight?"
Tao Yu sat in the passenger seat, eating Beef Can and speaking lazily.
"How was I supposed to know we'd get this unlucky? We've had two flat tires."
Jack looked just as exasperated.
They had solved the Corpse King problem, but by the time they left the base, it was already noon. There hadn't been enough time to climb back out of the military camp, so Jack had simply taken Tao Yu into Las Vegas again to gather supplies. They rested outside for the night before setting off once more.
They'd solved the problem in three days and two nights, and brought back plenty of supplies. That was already quite efficient.
Unfortunately, the terrain in the Gobi Desert was no match for the highway. Two flat tires had cost them a lot of time, and they had only just made it around Las Vegas and back onto the highway at dusk.
They still had an even more complicated stretch of road to navigate once they entered Henderson. They probably wouldn't make it before dark.
Tao Yu had only been making conversation. He circulated the Breathing Technique, using his vital energy to drive his power and strengthen his body, while lifting his charged watch to listen for any new information on the two channels.
"...There's another stretch of rainforest to the south. Initial estimates put the north-south distance across the Alien 01 fragment at around two thousand kilometers. The Rainforest 02 region to the south appears to be