As the two convoys split up, the Anomalies they had already detected seemed to sense their food moving away and immediately roared.
From every direction, the Anomalies that had been pursuing them at a normal pace suddenly accelerated.
A Golden Armored Zombie covered in golden armor plates, with a blue face, protruding fangs, and vacant eyes, sniffed the air around him. Then, as though he had found his target, he leaped in one direction, covering dozens or even a hundred meters with each bound.
Nearby, an Anomalies that resembled a cat yet was not a cat had a pair of snail-like eyes sprouting from its eye sockets. Its fur writhed like tentacles, reaching around for food. With a roar, it headed in the same direction as the Golden Armored Zombie.
In another direction, a naked Anomalies over twenty meters tall, its body a mass of fat densely covered in eyeballs, trudged toward the place where the two convoys had gathered. The sun had baked it until oil seeped from its fat and coated its entire body.
Anomalies did not see the way ordinary creatures did, but they possessed a perception unique to their kind.
To their senses, every person was an enticing morsel, and every convoy was a feast.
That was why the convoys had to keep moving.
Anomalies were always chasing them from behind, always watching them.
Sometimes a convoy would shake off a few Anomalies, but in the process, others along the road would notice them and join the pursuit.
That was also why a guide was so incredibly important.
With a guide, they could avoid the Anomalies' movements. With a guide, the convoy would not be surrounded.
If they still failed to avoid the Anomalies under the guide's direction, the Sequence Adepts had to step in. If even the Sequence Adepts were no match for them, the remaining survivors would have to take their turn.
They would become the convoy's tail. Whether they were willing did not matter. If they were slower than everyone else, they were the tail.
Cruel, but fitting for the apocalypse.
The two convoys headed in completely opposite directions. Captain Hui led the way, with Chu Sheng close behind, followed by Zhu Qing, Old Man Li, An Xi, and over a hundred survivors.
There had originally been over two hundred survivors, but after meeting Li Feifei's convoy, some had left with them.
Of course, some survivors from their convoy had also joined Chu Sheng's. Neither convoy treated its survivors like slaves, so no one had anything to say about it.
Chu Sheng drove his pickup, keeping his eyes fixed on the vehicle ahead. At the very front, Captain Hui's right hand froze in the middle of a divination calculation. He looked at Chu Sheng following behind in the rearview mirror and drew a deep breath, having divined something.
"Stop! I'm going over to Chu Sheng's truck. Follow behind us!"
The driver froze and stared at him in disbelief, but out of habit, he still hit the brakes.
Screeech.
The tires scraped against the ground as the vehicle slowed.
Following behind, Chu Sheng had not expected them to stop so suddenly. Caught off guard, he slammed straight into the back of the Off-Road Vehicle. The powerful momentum left a deep dent in its tailgate and pushed it forward some distance.
The drivers behind him saw what had happened in advance and hit their brakes. Only Zhu Qing's vehicle struck the pickup's bed, but the damage was minor.
"Fuck!" Chu Sheng had barely cursed before he saw Captain Hui jump out of the Off-Road Vehicle before it had even come to a complete stop.
Then Captain Hui darted over to his passenger seat at incredible speed.
But with all sorts of things piled on the passenger seat, Captain Hui could only squeeze into a spot where he could see ahead, moving the things beside him into the back.
Seeing Chu Sheng staring at him wide-eyed, Captain Hui wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. "There's no time to explain. There are too many Anomalies around us."
"We're definitely going to run into Anomalies this time. My divination tells me you have to lead the way, or we'll all die!"
"Get moving! I'll give you directions!"
He rattled off those sentences, and hearing them, Chu Sheng felt that things had gone terribly wrong.
Shit, we're done for!
Although the Off-Road Vehicle ahead had been hit, its driver reacted quickly. Immediately after the collision, he released the brakes and let its momentum carry it forward some distance.
Chu Sheng had no time to think. He floored the accelerator, and the pickup roared like a cheetah, shooting straight ahead. Zhu Qing and the others behind him followed the instant he hit the gas.
No one cared about following distance anymore. They all kept their accelerators floored. The survivors behind them also knew things were going badly. Those with vehicles drove after them, while those without traded supplies or their bodies for a chance to get aboard.
Some even lay directly on the roofs, securing themselves with ropes.
Those who truly had no vehicles and could not get aboard ran as hard as they could, or hitched wooden boards and similar things behind the vehicles, holding on to ropes or tying them to the towing hooks at the rear.
Everyone had their own solution, with all manner of methods and tricks.
Chu Sheng was now driving the pickup at the very front, while Captain Hui kept calculating beside him. A moment later, Captain Hui let out a relieved breath.
"Your truck really is better!"
"A lot of dead ends have opened up!"
"Keep driving straight ahead. Don't worry about anything else. An Anomalies is coming about a thousand meters ahead. Just ram it out of the way!"
"Got it!"
Chu Sheng drove with his eyes fixed ahead. Even without Captain Hui telling him, he had already seen the black aura up ahead. It simply was not very dense.
The pickup kept accelerating, the needle on the speedometer slowly moving right from 60.
70, 90, 120, 140...
Its speed continued to rise, and everything around them whipped past.
He was fast, but the vehicles behind him were not slow either. They stayed right on his tail, keeping only ten meters or so between them.
The convoy charged ahead, while the Anomalies up front came toward them.
On the highway, they met on a narrow road!
As the distance closed, that black aura stood out starkly in Chu Sheng's scarlet world.
A thousand meters vanished in an instant.
And Chu Sheng finally saw what the thing was!
An Anomalies three meters tall came into view, hovering above the ground. It looked like an eyeball, but its pupil and the area surrounding it bore a Sun Pattern.
Captain Hui hurriedly shut his eyes and shouted, "Close your eyes! This Anomalies can cause hallucinations!"
"Close my eyes?!" A crazed look crossed Chu Sheng's face.
"It's blocking my escape, and I haven't even gone after it, yet it dares use illusions on me?!"
"Fuck that!" An eerie red glow began to shine in Chu Sheng's scarlet eyes.
In Chu Sheng's vision, the Eyeball Anomalies with its Sun Pattern was emitting waves of eerie ripples.
But when those ripples approached him, something seemed to block them. A gap appeared at his position in the ripples spreading outward.
Out of three hundred and sixty degrees, as long as even one degree was blocked, that obstruction would only grow wider farther back!
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