Early the next morning.
Liu Chuan started shouting in the village, his expression turning grim.
"Get up! Everyone, get ready to leave right now!"
"Captain, an anomaly is heading our way! It's only about a kilometer out!"
"What are you staring at? All you fucking do is sleep! Why don't you just sleep forever?"
Inside his pickup, Lin Yi watched Liu Chuan curse at everyone around him. For a moment, he could hardly reconcile him with the bespectacled, refined-looking man from yesterday.
When Xu Xiaohan heard that an anomaly was approaching, she immediately ran out of her house, clutching an urn.
It was clearly her parents' ashes.
But there was no time to worry about anything else. The moment everyone got into their vehicles, they set off.
As Xu Xiaohan's car took the lead, Lin Yi immediately started his pickup and followed, with Da Mei's white sedan close behind.
After shouting for everyone, Liu Chuan wasted no more time.
He got into his car and drove straight after them.
The stragglers panicked when they saw that the convoy was already leaving.
"Wait for me!"
"Damn it, whose car is that up ahead? Move aside, or I'll ram you!"
"The anomaly is coming! If you're trying to get me killed, I'll kill you first!"
"You bastards! Who stole my instant noodles? Where's the half case I left in my car last night? Which animal did it?"
"..."
The people behind them descended into chaos.
Meanwhile, Xu Xiaohan led part of the convoy toward Zhenning County Town without looking back.
Whether the rest of the convoy could catch up was down to luck.
They didn't know what the anomaly a kilometer away was, let alone what level it was.
Even knowing that Lin Yi could fight anomalies, Xu Xiaohan didn't want to take the risk.
The reason was simple.
They didn't know the anomaly's level.
If it was a level-two anomaly, the Safe Passage Convoy wouldn't even be able to resist. Even escaping would probably be a serious problem.
The few of them with Sequence powers might get away, but what about everyone else?
They would be doomed.
After days of traveling, they had finally been able to rest safely for a night, and that had caused many of them to let their guard down.
If Liu Chuan hadn't possessed the [Watcher] Sequence, they might all have died in Xu Family Village.
Zhenning County Town toll station.
The convoy members who caught up afterward were all utterly exhausted.
The Safe Passage Convoy had originally numbered around fifty, but only forty-three people had reached Zhenning County Town.
Eleven people were missing!
After getting out of his car, Liu Chuan looked at the last person to arrive, who had caught up on a bicycle. He frowned. "Xiao Liu, where are the others?"
"They're probably all dead..."
Xiao Liu cursed, his expression dark. "Some bastard parked in the middle of the road and blocked the cars behind him. I only got through by carrying my bike around the side."
"Did you see that anomaly on your way here?"
Liu Chuan's supernatural ability was perception. He could sense anomalies within a certain range, allowing him to react in advance.
The [Watcher] probed the locations of anomalies to improve his chances of survival.
"I did. Dark clouds rolled in. It was probably a Rain Man."
Xiao Liu trembled with lingering fear as he spoke. "I saw Old Liu's body explode into bloody water. I practically pedaled my bike hard enough to make it smoke before I caught up."
Hearing that, Liu Chuan patted his chest, still shaken.
A Rain Man.
A level-three anomaly.
It rarely appeared in cities. Unlike most anomalies, it didn't gather with the others, instead frequently roaming the wilderness.
Under normal circumstances, a Rain Man only appeared during heavy rain.
A Rain Man could turn into rainwater and seep into a person's body, either draining all the moisture from them or making them explode into bloody water.
Its methods of killing made people's scalps crawl.
"It's going to rain!"
Xu Xiaohan turned to Da Mei and asked, "Da Mei, should we enter Zhenning County Town?"
"We can go in."
Da Mei nodded, leaning against her sedan's window.
Her [Direction] only told her to head north, and that general route required them to pass through Zhenning County Town.
Even if there was danger, she would survive.
"Liu Chuan, sense what's going on in Zhenning County Town."
Xu Xiaohan picked up her binoculars, walked to the roadside, and looked toward the distant town.
Liu Chuan closed his eyes and focused his senses.
In his vision, the world seemed to turn black and white, while anomalies stood out in a distinctive blood red.
At that moment, there was only one blood-red figure in Zhenning County Town, right at its center.
That immediately put Liu Chuan on his guard.
Only one anomaly in an entire county town?
No matter how he looked at it, that was unbelievable.
They had passed several county towns on their journey.
Even the one with the fewest anomalies had contained three.
"Captain, we could be in serious trouble."
Liu Chuan opened his eyes and approached her. "There's only one anomaly's presence in town, but I don't think it's anything ordinary."
As he finished speaking, Xu Xiaohan handed him the binoculars, signaling for him to look for himself.
Lin Yi also walked over, the blood-red Soul-Devouring Saw strapped to his back, and stood by the roadside looking toward Zhenning County Town.
From a distance, he could take in the town's general layout.
But in its center stood a hazy shape roughly as tall as the surrounding buildings.
At first glance, it looked like a mushroom had sprouted there.
"Fuck!"
Liu Chuan couldn't help cursing as he looked through the binoculars.
Then he handed them to Lin Yi, looking as though someone in his family had died.
What had he seen?
Curious, Lin Yi took the binoculars and looked.
The hazy mushroom shape revealed its true form through the lenses.
A tree!
Its trunk was as massive as a building, and its countless roots spread throughout the town. Its enormous crown swayed in the wind, with human corpses hanging all over it.
That was no crown of leaves. It was made entirely of human corpses pierced by branches and suspended in the air.
Even from so far away, Lin Yi could feel the terrifying presence emanating from the tree.
This was definitely not a level-one anomaly.
He had killed a ghost shadow before. Although level-one anomalies were troublesome, anyone with an anomalous weapon could kill them.
But facing that tree, Lin Yi felt like nothing more than an ant.
Even with the Soul-Devouring Saw in his hands, he would be helpless.
"What should we do?"
Xu Xiaohan wanted to hear Lin Yi's opinion.
"Go around!"
Lin Yi offered the simplest solution.
Charging in was out of the question.
That tree was at least a level-three anomaly. If they entered, they would probably be walking straight to their deaths.
Even gathering supplies required enough strength to do it.
As things stood, Zhenning County Town was no place to search for supplies. The moment they stepped inside, danger would surround them...
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