Power Unknown! Strong Against the Strong!

...Since some unknown time last night, Fang Yishu, who should theoretically have been asleep in her dorm room hugging a body pillow, suddenly found herself fully dressed and reclining in a seat.

Along with nearly thirty other people around her, she "woke up" on a double-decker bus.

It was strange. Outside the bus was clearly a dim, gray daytime, yet the digital display on the watch on her left wrist—which for some reason had completely stopped—showed a time just before one in the morning.

Fang Yishu immediately felt her heart tighten, sensing that something was wrong. She did not say anything, only cautiously looked around.

She noticed that an elderly, rather gaunt man was sitting in the front passenger seat of the bus, which had stopped beside what appeared to be an abandoned old-fashioned bus stop. Yet the driver's seat was completely empty.

Only after the people, clearly from different countries and social classes and unable to understand one another, had woken up and begun arguing noisily—nearly coming to blows—did the old man finally speak.

The elderly man, who leaned on a cane and called himself a "Guide," did not say much. He merely gave them a brief explanation of their "current situation."

Not many people were truly fools.

Faced with the flood of information that had suddenly appeared in their minds, as well as the illusory light screen before them that seemed like a "hallucination," most people quickly chose to place a degree of trust in it despite their doubts.

Naturally, the "translation" effect that allowed these bus "passengers" to go from "Don't you understand human language?!" to communicating with—or insulting—one another was also undeniable proof.

But the key was that once everyone got off, the driverless bus somehow started itself from nothing and drove into the vast fog near the station right before their eyes...

The "passengers" were all dumbfounded.

According to the information on the light screen, the shared main quest of these temporary bus passengers, who clearly came from different countries and regions, was—"Board the correct vehicle within twelve hours."

That absurdly concise quest description left everyone completely baffled.

And when the group had no choice but to remain at this bizarre bus stop, where thick fog blocked them whenever they ventured too far away...

Every so often, all manner of bizarre, strange new vehicles would inexplicably emerge from the fog and pass before the not particularly large station.

An old-fashioned diesel bus.

An utterly ordinary long-distance coach, along with its eyeless driver.

A modern bus with one headlight smashed, its windows streaked with large patches of blood.

A flaming skeleton riding a literal ghostfire motorcycle.

A stretched Lincoln sedan, its body badly rusted like the wreckage of a vehicle scrapped after an accident years ago, yet still able to drive.

A midsized van moving at about the speed of an ordinary person walking, leisurely driving past the roadside...

Fang Yishu even personally saw a dark gold carriage in an old British style, with four black "horses" sporting spiraled horns hitched to its front!

It raced smoothly onward without pause under the control of a driver so enormous that he exceeded the carriage's own height, while the equally oversized hat on his head nearly concealed his entire face!

The countless situations, too bizarre to describe clearly, made it all feel like a nightmare.

At this bus stop, some vehicles would voluntarily pull over and wait for dozens of seconds or several minutes. Others ignored everyone's cries and sped away, while a few would occasionally hear them and slow down to stop briefly.

By comparison, the phrase "board the correct vehicle" in the so-called "main quest" became incredibly difficult to decipher.

What exactly counted as the "correct vehicle"?

Standing not far from that "Guide," Fang Yishu vaguely heard him mutter something like, "Why does the Newcomer Trial main quest only have one objective?" and "So there aren't any hints at all, huh...?"

He seemed especially troubled as well.

Within only an hour or two, perhaps because they thought the opportunity was rare, some "passengers" had already risked boarding an SUV that looked the most normal from the outside. They could find practically nothing wrong with it, and even the driver appeared to be an ordinary person without any obvious issues.

—It was worth mentioning that, after getting a clear look at the situation, six people scrambled aboard the seven-seater! The driver then lawfully announced that the seats were full and he could not take anyone else.

Those still trying to force their way inside were directly flung back by an invisible force.

Then, not long after the vehicle drove into the fog, many passengers who had stayed behind and were regretting their missed chance clearly heard a series of piercing screams drifting from the direction the SUV had gone...

The situation was starting to feel more and more like a horror story.

Compared with those strange "drivers," or the various "vehicles" that were simply unmanned automatic transmissions crookedly driving onto the road by themselves, Fang Yishu noticed an inconspicuous detail—

Whenever certain rare vehicles briefly stopped at the bus station beneath her feet, the digital time display in the middle of her watch, along with the hands around its edge, would suddenly begin moving.

Although the hands jumped at uneven speeds, sometimes fast and sometimes slow, there was clearly something significant about it.

Soon, by observing those vehicles that rarely triggered the "flow of time" in her watch, Fang Yishu realized a distinction—

Only a very few vehicles that met both conditions of "having a license plate" and "having a driver" could make her watch react.

No, that was not quite right.

More precisely, they needed to have both a license plate and a driver, but at least part of the license plate also had to be obscured!

Because her height put her at a slight disadvantage, she had to stand on tiptoe and observe carefully amid the crowd for a long time before reaching that more precise conclusion.

But this strange guess made her deeply uneasy.

There needed to be a driver and a license plate... but neither could be fully visible?

Finally, they encountered a small van whose front end had nearly been smashed halfway inward, its license plate tightly hidden beneath bent, broken body panels.

After confirming that there were still three or four empty seats besides the already-crumpled front passenger seat...

Her gaze lingered particularly long on the driver's seat. Only when she saw that it was preparing to close its doors and leave did she grit her teeth, steel herself, and get in.

But for some reason, when the terrifying driver—his head covered in blood, his hair and features almost completely pasted over until he barely looked human, nothing more than a "bloody man"—barely turned back and smiled at her, Fang Yishu suddenly felt at ease.

Unexpectedly, just as the vehicle ignited and was about to set off, the elderly "Guide" forcefully dragged another limping middle-aged man aboard. He yanked open the door, slipped inside, pulled it shut, and sat down in one smooth sequence.

"A Wuling Hongguang that's still running after getting smashed up like this... that's got to be a good car."

"So good that even my leg is starting to hurt like it does on rainy days."

Fang Yishu remembered the limping middle-aged man giving a thumbs-up and seeming to say that.

"Those cars that went by earlier might have looked all flashy and spooky, but I'm afraid not many of them can outrun this one! Do you know what it means to have power unknown? Strong against the strong!"

"I don't know much about cars at my age... but kid, like I said, among all the cars that passed through here earlier, there weren't many where you could still hear heartbeats from inside..."

The elderly man, who was clearly under considerable strain, panted heavily and rubbed his leg, looking rather exhausted. Yet his face also showed a measure of agreement.

The blood-soaked driver, who had not spoken from beginning to end, merely glanced at the three "passengers," silently stepped on the accelerator, and let the engine roar like an awakened tiger as the vehicle plunged headlong into the fog.

...Faster! Faster! Faster!

Within the seemingly endless fog, and under the violent force pressing her into her seat as the speed climbed madly until she almost suspected she was riding in a manned rocket launch, Fang Yishu eventually found it difficult even to breathe...

When she woke again, what lay before her were the lights of an emergency room, blurred and chaotic figures, what seemed to be a full-face breathing mask over her mouth, and a heavily echoed voice in her ears—

"Get a doctor! Another drowning victim from the vehicle has woken up..."

At the same time, an illusory light screen quietly hung within her dizzy vision.

...At that moment, a cold, indifferent voice issued a notification.

—Main quest completed.