Return

"Main quest complete. Return to the Main God Platform immediately?"

"...Return! Right awa—pff..."

In his panic, a cold mechanical voice suddenly rang out beside his ear. But he had not heard much of it at all. The moment he caught the keyword "return," Du Qifeng instinctively shouted.

Before his words had fully fallen, the young college student, who had been gritting his teeth and bracing the door, suddenly found empty space beneath him. He crashed heavily to the ground, nearly knocking the breath out of himself. The others beside him also went tumbling head over heels in a chaotic heap.

His heart sank!

Without time to think, his body moved faster than his mind, which was already beginning to go numb. Enduring the pain, the young man abruptly rolled to his feet, trying to continue holding that flimsy metal door—the barrier between life and death—shut!

But what met his eyes was an unfamiliar sight. Amid flickering light, figures were scattered all across the broad platform beneath his feet. Quite a few people had already turned to look at him in surprise.

Only then did he realize in shock—he was no longer where he had been before.

"Here again..."

"Main God! Heal everyone, now! Is there a full-party healing option?!?"

"Bloody hell, what kind of arrival is this..."

"Move aside, there are more people coming! Stop crowding..."

"Are there any veteran seniors here? Can any veteran seniors explain the rules here?!?"

"Where the hell is my knife?! Who stole my knife?!"

Amid the noisy voices, clusters of white light continuously appeared and vanished around them. Along with vague outlines that condensed out of thin air, as though being filled in with color and detail, countless figures emerged in this open space, shifting from blurry to clear within only a few breaths.

He blankly glanced at the companions around him. The sudden change of scenery had left everyone unable to fully process what was happening.

It was not until the memories of what had just happened surfaced in his muddled mind that Du Qifeng finally understood completely. Their group had apparently finished the so-called Newcomer Trial and arrived in the so-called "Main God Space."

It seemed... they were safe for now?

The realization had barely appeared when his entire body went weak. Staggering, he half-fell, half-knelt back onto the ground.

At that moment, there was only one thought left in the young man's mind.

—They had survived at last.

Just a few minutes earlier, one of the countdown numbers in the main quest had been ticking down slowly, second by second, still short of the twelve-hour limit.

The group, still hiding in a bedroom at the far end of the third floor, had been using every ounce of strength they possessed to barricade the bedroom door. Outside, the gathered horde of corpses howled mindlessly with even more fervor than concert fans, clawing and pounding tirelessly at the final line of defense before them.

Clearly, although the thin metal door itself would not immediately give way to biological structures and keratin proteins, Du Qifeng swore that he had already heard faint creaks from the overloaded wooden doorframe.

Fortunately, the middle-aged man named Lu Yun had reacted quickly. He flung aside the chairs, plastic items, and other junk that had originally been used to block the door, then lunged forward like a mad dog. The group piled their combined body weight against the battered door, reducing the strain on the frame. Only then had they narrowly prevented the ravenous "gourmets" outside from enjoying a meal!

There was no helping it. Anyone who looked out the window and saw the corpse horde already gathering outside—those "corpses" with their lower bodies nearly torn apart, half their grayish intestines dragging along the ground, yet still stubbornly stretching out their arms and crawling forward slowly and stiffly...

This was not some simple situation where you looked down from a stage and shouted, "Let me see your hands!"

Especially when faced with those gray, decaying arms reaching up beneath the windowsill, their skin marked with bluish-black corpse spots, and those rotten faces opening their mouths with hoarse, rasping breaths, every expression written with "hunger," no one had the time to care how things had reached this point. Even less did anyone dare gamble on whether jumping out the window would leave them any chance of survival.

If they wanted to live, they could only risk their lives and gamble.

...To be precise, perhaps the startled cries they had made upon seeing the information screen had vaguely exposed their presence. Or perhaps several living, breathing people hiding in the house could not completely conceal the scent of life gradually spreading from them, even beneath that nauseatingly thick stench.

In any case, not long after the specific main quest message had been triggered, they noticed that the zombies on the street outside were beginning to drift toward the small villa.

Those moving corpses appeared to wander around aimlessly, yet they also seemed to sense something faintly. Naturally, they began stopping around the area and lingering nearby.

Before long, as the density of zombies on the surrounding streets visibly began to rise, everyone inside the house started to panic.

Had they not learned from Du Qifeng about such seemingly fantastical concepts as the "Main God Space," "Killing City," "Shadow Street," "Superstring Space," "Horror Academy," "Nightmare Space," and "Death Academy," they might have tried their luck. They might have risked leaving to find another house that was less exposed and easier to hide in.

But once they had tentatively realized that, as the quest information said, they might be able to leave this zombie-filled city directly as long as they survived twelve hours, they gritted their teeth and chose to keep hiding in this villa, which had clearly already been breached once and was not safe at all.

—There was no helping it. The risk of going outside was simply too great.

Sure enough, as more and more zombies gathered nearby, a few "lucky ones" eventually began wandering into the small villa by chance.

Clearly, while the group, tortured by the foul stench, had gradually become numb to the smell of rotting flesh and blood, the zombies constantly seeking fresh food still retained a certain sensitivity to the scent of living people.

In the end, one of them wandered all the way to the staircase. Although it was stopped by the barriers the newcomers had hastily built with scavenged clutter after realizing the danger, a more animated, excited screech still rose from the zombie's rotten chest.

It had discovered traces of prey nearby!

...The nightmare had officially begun.

Drawn by their companion's shrieks, the zombie horde gradually identified its target and accelerated its convergence upon the isolated little villa. As time passed second by second, more and more zombies flooded into the house.

Slowly, the barricades piled between the first and second floors, then between the second and third floors, were all crushed one after another by the gathered corpse horde.

And when only this last bit of distance remained, the "fragrance" of living humans on the third floor became as impossible to hide as freshly baked butter-and-jam bread in an ordinary bakery!

As though stimulated by something, the corpse horde seemed to enter a berserk state, and even its overall movements sped up considerably.

Finally, these zombies, densely packed inside and outside the house like sardines, gathered with a clear purpose before one bedroom door, impatiently savoring the precious time spent "opening the can."

—Unfortunately, even a can opened with all one's strength could sometimes turn out to be empty.

After all, at the most critical moment, the people inside had stubbornly wrestled against the corpse horde beyond the door and, in an explosion of potential, forcibly endured that final stretch of time...

Perhaps it could only be said that unless people pushed themselves, they never knew exactly how far they could go!

"Hah... fuck, hah... I actually... I actually survived..."

Once he truly realized that he was safe, Zheng Defa, perhaps the most emotionally unrestrained of them all, nearly collapsed completely.

Cold sweat poured from his forehead and temples, streaming down his flushed cheeks. His expression was almost beyond control as he gasped heavily. It was as if his bones had been removed in an instant; the moment he stood up, he dropped to the ground with a thud, limp as a puddle of mud.

Though his lips still trembled, Zheng Defa's entire body quickly began to twitch faintly as his body suddenly relaxed after such extreme strain. His wheezing breaths came and went like a broken bellows, and a trace of pink foam even unconsciously bubbled from the corner of his mouth.

That was often a sign of damage to the trachea or even the lungs.

Under such circumstances, that low curse-laced roar had likewise been forced out from the depths of his lungs. Hoarse, but real.

It could only be said that people under extreme psychological pressure often displayed seemingly incomprehensible reactions like this to one degree or another.

Watching him shout like a madman, looking as though he had to let it all out, everyone understood him. Or rather, none of them was doing much better.

At that moment, all of them had abandoned any concern for appearances. They sat, lay, or leaned against the ground, gasping heavily. Even Wang Yawen, who had earlier torn half her skirt off to use as a makeshift rag for the long sword that had never actually been used, was no exception.

...When exhaustion reached such heights, even thinking felt difficult, let alone moving.

Even when those nearby who did not know what had happened cast one or two strange looks their way, none of them cared.

Those who had truly crossed the line between life and death often underwent a tremendous shift in mindset, a change in values so open-minded it seemed almost unreasonable!

—Are you kidding? We just fought for our lives to get back! Do you understand the weight of knowing that if we had been a few minutes later, you would probably be collecting our bodies right now?

Oh, no, that was not right. Judging from the scene outside the door, even collecting their bodies could have been skipped!

...Tsk. Thinking about it that way, even Du Qifeng had to admit that this was far too dark of a joke!

A particularly strained smile appeared on his face.

But as he smiled, a few hot tears unconsciously slipped from his eyes.

He had not felt it while desperately fighting for his life, but now that he had relaxed, the relief of surviving the ordeal, along with the even more chilling fear and horror, finally surged into his heart belatedly.

Amid his intense exhaustion, he vaguely realized that he had finally shown weakness. Before anyone seemed to notice, the young college student sniffed and hurriedly wiped his face.

Thank goodness!

In the end, they had survived! That was what mattered most!

Compared to that, no one even wanted to think too deeply about what had just happened—

After all, even though the so-called quest information had stated beforehand that everyone had entered this Newcomer Trial in pure consciousness and that death would not cause any real consequences, no one truly dared to casually experience the thrill of dying.

No one wanted to gamble on whether they would really emerge "completely unharmed" if they died there...

Because the most basic instinct of life was often to flee from death and do everything possible to survive.

Only by living could everything begin...