The old woman watched the Yellow Wraith draw ever closer, strained, rasping breaths escaping her mouth as though she might breathe her last at any moment.
"Granny, do you think I look like a human or a god?" the Yellow Wraith asked again.
She knew a little about weasels and their tricks. She could only try this last desperate measure.
"A god, a god."
The old woman hurried to answer.
A streak of cyan light, almost invisible to the naked eye, flew out of the old woman and sank into the Yellow Wraith's forehead.
The Yellow Wraith's brow relaxed. With a very polite nod to the old woman, the wraith chose another target, a middle-aged woman this time.
Chaotic screams erupted among the survivors at the rear. A wraith was upon them, and whoever came last would die. No one wanted to be last. Those who still had strength kept forcing their way forward, while some who could no longer run even grabbed at the people ahead.
If I can't live, none of you will.
People kept falling, letting out brief, agonized cries before the surging crowd behind them swallowed them up and trampled them.
Seeing that she was unharmed, the old woman hastily got up and ran back the way she had come. As for following the main group forward, the wraith was there-how could she dare? The wraith had spared her once, but there was no telling whether she would be spared a second time.
A gust of chilling wind brushed her cheek. Before she had taken two steps, her ankle inexplicably twisted, and her head struck the ground squarely. She never got up again.
Blood trickled all the way to the edge of the road, where it flowed into the Gray Fog.
Hao Ren withdrew his gaze from the rearview mirror. The wraiths were growing stronger and stronger, while humans could only flee helplessly. He did not know how much longer they could keep running.
If the highway lost its protective mechanism one day, how would humanity survive?
"How much do you know about the Grave-Crying Specter?" Su Nian asked.
Hao Ren's fingers stopped tapping the window ledge. After a few seconds of silence, he rubbed his chin with his left hand and looked into the distance.
"The Grave-Crying Specter is a Class A Wraith. I don't know much about it! Everything I know comes from intelligence gathered by other convoys."
"Every time it appears, there are heavy casualties, but that's about it. It really doesn't live up to its class. Its crying starts, people within range begin weeping and breaking down, and then they die. A killing rule like that wouldn't even be particularly outstanding among Class B Wraiths."
"But there's definitely more to it. I'm more inclined to believe that everyone who witnessed its 'Class A side' died, so no intelligence ever got out."
"The groups that survived all have one thing in common: they started out large, but only a handful were left at the end. I suspect it falls asleep once it's eaten its fill. If it hasn't had enough, then...!"
Hao Ren stopped, and silence fell over the vehicle again.
Wraiths had limits to their appetites too. Just like people eating a meal, a wraith of a given class could only eat so much. Once full, it would stop eating.
Su Nian remained silent. He had known it could not be that simple. He had not finished reading the booklet Hao Ren had given him. In truth, he could not be bothered; it felt pointless.
All its records were incomplete, entirely different from what the system's appraisal revealed.
Outside the window, the straight, four-lane asphalt road stretched beyond sight, flanked by towering walls of fog that churned ceaselessly.
The Grave-Crying Specter's sobbing echoed overhead.
The procession stretched into a long line along the highway. At the front, more than twenty vehicles sped along the two right-hand lanes. Behind them, motorcycle riders crouched low over their bikes as their engines screamed.
Motorized tricycles sputtered black smoke from their exhaust pipes, their rear beds loaded with pots, bowls, and people trembling beneath quilts.
Electric bikes with dead batteries were abandoned carelessly by the roadside.
On a slight uphill stretch, a college student pedaling a tricycle gritted his teeth, veins throbbing on his forehead. In the end, he had no choice but to discard some of the supplies aboard.
Corn, potatoes, rice-these heavier supplies were dumped outright.
Many others who could no longer keep pedaling were also throwing away supplies.
Heart-wrenching sobs could be heard everywhere along the road. Some people had collapsed to their knees, hands clamped over their ears, their eyes unfocused. They were already dead.
At the very rear of the procession, a burial mound abruptly appeared on the flat highway. A hunched wraith in white mourning clothes, its face indistinct, rose from it, weeping.
With a gust of howling, chilling wind, the wraith appeared before a corpse. Its head shifted slightly, and the corpse became a mass of dried flesh soil.
One corpse, two, ten-the wraith began its buffet along the highway.
Hao Ren held Morning Glory as he asked about the situation up ahead.
The Raptor sped along the two right-hand lanes, with Big Black Bull running behind. The bull's heavy hoofbeats sent faint tremors through the road.
Su Nian spotted two sedans that had collided at grotesque angles. Their bodies were badly mangled, and their doors hung like scraps of sheet metal. An SUV lay overturned with its undercarriage facing the sky. The three vehicles blocked the middle of the road.
The Raptor slowed down. Su Nian was about to use it to push them aside...
Just then, Big Black Bull stepped forward on his own. With a flick of his horns, a car blocking the way flew into the fog like a toy.
"Good bull!" Su Nian praised him.
Smart, strong, and quick to spot what needed doing.
"Moo..."
The engine roared again as they sped onward, Big Black Bull running close behind.
Soon, they spotted a very familiar vehicle lying on its side, half of its body jutting into the fog. Supplies were scattered all over the ground.
Iced black tea, Sprite, biscuits, dried wood ear mushrooms, instant noodles.
"That's our supply truck!" Hao Ren sat up straight.
The crooked word "Evil" that Wen Kele had painted was still on its cargo compartment.
Su Nian glanced at the supply truck. He had long anticipated this day. There were still plenty of supplies in the Raptor's bed.
You could not put all your eggs in one basket.
"You all have supplies in your own vehicles, right?" Su Nian gave him a pointed look.
If Hao Ren said no, he was going to swear at him.
Surely a veteran survivor who had lasted a year could not be that brain-dead.
"Of course. Gong Qing and I both have some reserve food in our vehicles."
"Doesn't Wen Keyi have any in hers?"
"We didn't put any there. Cola would eat it all." Hao Ren spread his hands.
Although they were Awakened, that did not mean they had no shortage of supplies. How much a city contained, how much they could bring out, and how much they could fit into their vehicles were different matters altogether.
[Ding! Congratulations, host, on successfully surviving one day. You have earned 100 Survival Points.] [Survival Points: 2590]
At the very front of the convoy, Hao Ren's modified off-road vehicle sat nose-down, everything below its wheels already completely "sunk" into the road. The once dry, level asphalt seemed to have turned into a pool of thick tar.
A dozen or so meters in front of the vehicle, a burial mound bulged upward. The mound split open, and dark, damp grave soil spilled out, steadily eating away at the ground.
At the same time, a stench of rotting corpses spread unchecked.
Wherever the grave soil passed, the hard asphalt softened and blackened, becoming part of that viscous pool.
Still shaken, Zhang Ping stuck his head out of the window to examine the situation.
He had been driving too fast earlier. Under the headlights, the asphalt had merely looked as though it had been rained on-the difference between a dry road and a wet one.
He had not paid much attention and had driven straight in. Then it had felt as though something had seized the tires, and the steering wheel had instantly locked up.
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