Crisis of Town Destruction

"Get ready!" Tan Jie raised his left hand, about to give the order.

"Wait." Bai Ye suddenly spoke up to stop him.

Tan Jie grew even angrier. He thought Bai Ye was trying to seize command from him and immediately glared at him, only to find that Bai Ye was not looking at him at all, but frowning at the hyena pack.

"Put your guns away." Bai Ye put away [Breath of Bones] and spoke calmly to the crowd.

Everyone froze, unable to make sense of it.

Tan Jie demanded angrily, "Deputy Commander Bai, what exactly are you trying to—"

"Our enemy isn't the hyenas. There's no need to waste bullets." Bai Ye's gaze passed over the hyena pack and fixed tightly on the sandstorm behind them.

Not the hyena pack?

Tan Jie thought Bai Ye was acting up again, and his anger flared. But before he could lash out, one of his men suddenly cried out.

"The hyenas turned!"

"What?!"

Tan Jie hurriedly looked over and saw that the menacing hyena pack had actually changed direction, avoiding Gray Soil Town and running into the distance.

"Why did the hyena pack run away?"

"Did we scare them off after beating them last time?"

Quite a few of the town's defenders said so in delight. They had no desire to fight the hyena pack.

Unlike them, King Snake and Tan Jie both sensed that something was wrong.

"Deputy Commander Bai, what is going on?" King Snake asked gravely. He knew Bai Ye was a wasteland hunter. Though only an ordinary person, he had extensive experience surviving in the wild.

"The hyenas aren't attacking the town. They're running away," Bai Ye said calmly.

The moment he said that, everyone's faces changed drastically. Running away? Could something even more terrifying be coming?

The vicious hyena pack had already put Gray Soil Town on high alert, yet now they were fleeing like stray dogs. What kind of powerful creature could be chasing them?

Panic and unease instantly spread through the crowd. They all turned to their respective commanders as though seeking something to hold on to.

Yet the commanders they had placed their hopes in were panicking too. Tan Jie and King Snake exchanged flustered looks, having no idea what to do.

Tan Jie gave a dry laugh. "Could Dawn City's army be nearby? Maybe that scared the hyena pack away?"

"The army? I'd rather face mutated beasts," King Snake said darkly.

"Quiet. It's here." Bai Ye suddenly raised his head toward the distant sky.

Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!!

A faint buzzing drifted down from the horizon. Its frequency was high, as though it could pierce eardrums and reach straight into the soul, stirring an inexplicable dread.

"What's that sound?!" someone asked in panic.

The buzzing grew louder and louder.

"It sounds a little like an electric current..."

"No! They're birds! Look!"

The crowd looked up in horror. A dense mass of black specks had suddenly appeared on the distant horizon, overlapping with the white clouds. The sea of clouds looked chillingly riddled with holes.

They drew closer and closer, a vast black mass. Bird cries and beating wings rang out without end until they became deafening!

"Gray sparrows!!"

"Mutated gray sparrows! There are so many... They're everywhere... Run! Gray Soil Town can't hold!"

The terrified screams erupting from the crowd were like a signal flare. The pale-faced townspeople snapped out of their daze and fled in terror, not even listening to their commanders' orders.

Bai Ye narrowed his eyes as he watched the gray sparrows rush closer. They were another kind of mutated beast, originally the most common sparrows, and they liked to gather in flocks.

There were visibly over a thousand gray sparrows in this incoming swarm. More than a thousand sparrows might not sound like much, perhaps only frightening to look at, but reality was nothing like that.

The mutated gray sparrows were covered in gray hide, with lifeless pale eyes. They were as large as eagles, and their claws were as sharp as steel.

A thousand eagles flying over the town were enough to blot out the sky, their shadows slicing the sunlight into countless cracks.

"This is trouble." Bai Ye's face darkened. Individually, gray sparrows were no match for hyenas, but there were simply too many of them, and they were extremely mobile.

He could stop time, sure, but he could not fly. If all the gray sparrows were on the ground, then once he stopped time, he could slaughter them freely. The problem was that they were in the sky, beyond his reach.

It was not as though he had not considered using a gun, but his marksmanship was poor. If he had to aim and shoot them one by one, even after using up four minutes and ten seconds, he might not kill them all.

He could only retreat into a building first and take things one step at a time.

Bai Ye jumped down from the town wall and sprinted at full speed. His enhanced physique made him incredibly fast, and he soon overtook the first group of people who had fled. But there were still people ahead of him.

They were King Snake and Tan Jie!

The moment those two saw the gray sparrows, they ran. They knew perfectly well that Gray Soil Town's walls could not stop an attack from the sky.

But no matter how fast people ran, they could not outrun birds—especially mutated birds.

"Ah!!" A piercing scream rang out from the crowd.

A gray sparrow swooped down from the sky. Its beak, gleaming with metallic coldness, pierced straight through a man's skull like an arrow, then began greedily sucking up his blood and brains.

More and more gray sparrows dove down from above, hunting like they were catching insects—vicious and swift!

Bang! Bang! Bang...

Scattered gunfire erupted as some people fought back desperately.

"I'll fight you! Aaaah!!"

Someone scrambled into a house. "Get inside!"

Pedestrians on the road wailed and fled, racing home like mad.

But how could houses built from rotten wood withstand gray sparrows? Even brick houses could only barely hold them off—and what about the windows?

After all, it was not only their bodies that mutated. Their brains did too.

Chaos! Complete chaos!

All of Gray Soil Town fell into utter disorder. Bai Ye continued accelerating through the panicked crowd. Unlike Tan Jie, King Snake, and the others, he did not immediately hide in a building. Instead, he headed straight for Tire Tavern.

That was Tan Jie's stronghold, where they had stockpiled water, food, guns, and ammunition!

The bullets were Bai Ye's goal. [Breath of Bones] drained its user's vitality, so Tan Jie had not given him many bullets, believing he would never be able to use that many.

Whoosh!

A sound like an arrow cutting through the air rushed toward Bai Ye from overhead.

A savage gleam flashed in the young man's eyes. He knew a gray sparrow had targeted him. There were fewer and fewer residents left on the road; they were either dead or hiding inside buildings. Only he was still sprinting. It had only been a matter of time before he was targeted.

He did not choose to dodge. Instead...

Time Stop!