Ruins

All it needed was a little more careful polishing to become a sharp weapon. He would make the tip a bit sturdier.

He stood up straight and scanned his surroundings. Other than the clamor of the crowd, there were no unusual sounds. It was silent; everything seemed to have fallen into a world of silence.

This world was completely unfamiliar. His first priority was to find a safe base.

"Who's that?!"

A woman suddenly cried out in alarm.

Lu Ren followed the sound, and his pupils abruptly constricted.

Thirty meters from the crowd, an unusually muscular man stood atop a pile of rubble. White cloth wrapped around his body covered his private parts, while a filthy dark-gray rag was tied over his eyes.

He looked a little like Blind Monk.

He simply stood there, staring straight in their direction.

Yet the strange man's shoulders unconsciously contracted and rose with every breath. His hanging hands were thick and powerful, and his entire body bulged with muscle.

He was around one meter seventy-five tall. Dark brown patches covered his body, seemingly dried bloodstains, while shocking scars crisscrossed his physique.

"Chak."

A strange sound came from the freak's mouth—the sound of his tongue clicking. Then he suddenly bent forward and charged at them. Every step he took boomed with a heavy thud, and he was as fast as a flying arrow.

"Ahhh!!!"

Seeing the freak charge at them with obvious hostility, the crowd erupted into terrified screams before scattering in every direction in a blind panic.

In five seconds, the freak reached a man in a suit and raised his right hand without the slightest hesitation.

That hand was broad, its fingers short and thick, covered in calluses. This was clearly the mark of extraordinarily grueling training.

Such fingers possessed tremendous gripping and clawing strength.

Lu Ren had no doubt that this person possessed the strength to crush bricks and bend steel pipes with his bare hands.

The freak formed his hand into an eagle claw, his chest swelling high as a fierce breath gathered in his lungs.

Lu Ren could imagine the freak's powerful heart pumping blood through his body like a water pump, hormones within his organs surging to a terrifying level.

Whoosh!

Accompanied by a dull tearing sound, the freak's clawed hand stabbed toward the neck of the suited man, who had been scared stiff.

One thrust, one pull.

The suited man's windpipe was ripped straight out. Blood sprayed everywhere, and he died on the spot.

The bloody, horrifying sight broke the crowd completely. Everyone wailed for their parents and fled in all directions.

Lu Ren was shaken, but he did not panic too much. He took a deep look at the monster as it continued pouncing on the crowd and slaughtering them. Its movements were clean and efficient; it could kill a person barehanded in just a few moves.

Lu Ren gripped the iron shard in his hand, turned around, and fled without hesitation.

He was not strong enough. If he did not want to die on the spot, temporarily retreating was the best option.

He had no idea what was happening, so he could only pick a direction at random and quickly get away. Cruel as it was, as long as he ran faster than everyone else, he could easily survive.

Most modern people, especially city dwellers, were office workers who had been pampered and rarely exercised. How could they compare with Lu Ren?

Maintaining an even breath, Lu Ren darted and leaped through the ruins at no slow pace. The boosts from Basic Combat and Basic Swordsmanship gave his body excellent balance and endurance.

It was not until half an hour later that Lu Ren finally stopped and entered a high-rise that had been reduced to only half its original structure.

The sky was gradually darkening. If he did not find somewhere to use as a shelter and remained exposed on the street, it would likely be extremely dangerous. Having experienced entering another space once before, he was not particularly flustered.

Still, such frequent encounters made him wonder whether some drastic change had occurred in the real world.

Holding the iron shard carefully, Lu Ren entered the lobby. The thick dust beneath his feet suggested that there had been no signs of activity here for a long time.

Scattered sofas, desks, the reception counter, floor tiles, and cracked stone pillars in the central hall all seemed to have suffered an immensely powerful impact when the building split apart.

What exactly was this other space known as the Otherworld Wasteland?

He walked to the reception counter, saw a book lying there, and picked it up.

"Warm congratulations to Professor Chen Guohua for successfully discovering a brand-new particle using a two-hundred-kilometer particle accelerator!"

They were Chinese characters, and the date was 2046.

Other space access detected. Hyperdimensional Perception activated...

Those words in the system prompt contained an enormous amount of information.

In other words, some change he did not know about was taking place in the real world, leading to this situation.

But from another perspective, he seemed to be a victim too. This method of dragging people into other spaces appeared to require certain predetermined conditions, yet the system had activated this so-called Hyperdimensional Perception for him without hesitation, allowing him to meet those conditions.

At that thought, Lu Ren could not help feeling the urge to display his refined and amiable side.

This is fucking like a magnet. Wherever iron appears, as long as I'm nearby, I'll get sucked in!

Not daring to remain in the lobby for long, Lu Ren rushed up the stairs two at a time, then followed the stairwell up to the higher floors.

He did not stop until he reached the third floor of the middle section.

This height was enough to ensure that he could break a window and jump out, landing safely.

When choosing a hiding place, he also had to find somewhere with escape routes in both directions. If he stayed in a room with only one entrance and exit, then once he encountered something he could not defeat, he would have no chance to escape.

After finding a relatively intact room near the center of the floor, he walked through the room's routes one by one and gained a general familiarity with the layout. Only then did he use office desks and cabinets to barricade the door.

By the time everything was done, the sky had already grown dim, and the darkest hour on the horizon steadily spread closer.

He casually dragged over a sofa, found several blankets and shook off the dust, then took a high-energy nutritional bar from his backpack and stuffed it into his mouth. After taking a few sips of mineral water, he slowly lay down to rest for a while.

Ever since surviving his last stay in another space, and with his appetite increasing from constant training, he had always kept two bottles of mineral water and food in his backpack. Especially whenever he went to Yan Zhenghua's convenience store to train, he needed to replenish a considerable amount of energy after intense activity.

There was still quite a lot left in his backpack.

Listening to the faint screams and cries for help outside the window, Lu Ren pursed his lips without expression.

If he had the ability, he could help when convenient. But the first freak that had appeared was far stronger than him, and it also seemed highly proficient in combat techniques. Just from the way it had grabbed that suited man, it was clear that its fighting skills had been honed through countless trials.

Facing it head-on would be no different from smashing an egg against a rock.

The proper way was to lie low and survive for seven days. Running around recklessly would only get him killed.

Only by gradually figuring out the situation and seizing every opportunity to increase his strength could he survive in the long term.

If those monsters fell within a range he could handle, it was not as though he could not use them as appetizers.

He would advance while keeping a low profile.

Suddenly, Lu Ren faintly heard movement from downstairs, followed by a jumble of footsteps.

Lu Ren closed his eyes and listened, carefully counting them. There were six people in total.

Damn it!