A crab leg

There were hidden experts everywhere. Some curious onlookers actually used various reference points to calculate Zhang Ming's running speed.

Faster than Bolt!

A hundred meters in just 9.2 seconds!

Of course, there might have been errors in their calculations.

But this guy was definitely fast.

"As long as he's got superpowers. I'm just worried he has no trump card and one slipup will finish him." Wang Fumin took out a cigarette without lighting it and merely took a dry drag.

Cigarettes had already become hard currency. In just two days, their price had soared twentyfold.

And it would keep rising.

Wang Fumin didn't know how to describe his strange feelings toward the young man stranded on that island. Somehow, this nationwide obsession felt more than ten times as intense as the craze over Liu Xiang back in the day.

It was as though this death game carried enormous significance, and this young man was competing on behalf of Great Xia.

Yet they couldn't ask too much of him. After all, failure to survive meant death.

"I hear a few people with superpowers have turned up here too?" Wang Fumin stared at the sky and asked casually.

"Very few. Only one or two per city, and the government's recruited most of them." The bespectacled Lu Tuyu was battling his way through foreign websites beyond the firewall. Without looking back, he said, "It's the revival of spiritual energy. The people in the Mysterious Zones awakened first, and only then did it reach the surrounding areas."

"And the appearance of these few people with superpowers actually proves that the scenes in the mirages are probably real."

"No idea why these mirages appeared. A lot of people overseas say they're revelations from God or something..."

"God this, God that, all day long. Not like their superpowered people are anything special."

Wang Fumin hadn't given it that much thought. He was thirty-six, had a loving family, and still owed the bank a mountain of mortgage debt.

As for things like superpowers, well, how should he put it...

So what if you had superpowers? Could a human beat guns and artillery?

Would you no longer have to pay your mortgage?

Would you become superior to everyone else and see all living beings as ants?

Would you no longer have to eat or shit?

Of course, if superpowers could get him a better-paying job and improve his life, that would be ideal.

Take this young island survivor, for instance. He had become famous. In just a few days, his popularity and fame had already surpassed former national sports stars Liu Xiang, Yao Ming, and Ma Long. His struggle to survive kept every viewer's nerves on edge.

People were discussing him everywhere. The appearance of the "crab" instantly sent online discussion figures soaring past a hundred million.

The frenzy was far greater than anything a sporting event could inspire!

If this guy made it back alive, he would rake in endorsement money until his hands cramped!

Even middle-aged men like Wang Fumin couldn't stop thinking about him, as though they were following a TV series.

Whenever something new happened, not watching left him itching with curiosity.

And if someone spoiled it for him, he became utterly irritated.

"Look at Mirage No. 7! Something huge is happening! Hurry, look!"

A voice suddenly rang out in the stadium.

Wang Fumin and Lu Tuyu hurriedly turned their attention to another part of the sky.

Mirage No. 7.

A glowing blue, jellyfish-like life-form had climbed aboard the Fuso whaling ship!

"Well, damn. Just... damn." Lu Tuyu sucked in a breath, taking pleasure in their misfortune.

Ocean-going whaling ships were generally equipped with refrigeration systems to preserve their catches.

But to conserve energy, the crew had shut down several refrigerated holds and spread fish out on deck to dry and salt for long-term storage.

And now they had gone and attracted that bizarre, glowing blue jellyfish!

The creature was roughly the size of a cow. Through its transparent skin, its internal organs were clearly visible. Various chambers secreted digestive fluids as they slowly writhed. That grotesque anatomy alone assaulted the human senses.

Even more horrifying were the thirty or so densely packed eyeballs growing on its head.

It crawled frantically toward the salted seafood!

Wang Fumin swallowed. The scene was genuinely terrifying, like something out of a horror movie. He covered his daughter's eyes and kept muttering inwardly, It's fine. The victims are Fuso people.

Not our damn problem.

Then he shifted his attention to Zhang Ming, who was beating up a crab in Mysterious Zone 16...

A fierce battle was unfolding in Mysterious Zone 16.

Clang!

The metal pipe struck something hard, and the violent recoil sent pain shooting through the web of Zhang Ming's hand.

"Bili!"

The crab reacted far faster than Zhang Ming had expected. In that split second, it actually clamped its huge pincer around the pipe.

Then came a crack.

The small aluminum-alloy pipe was snapped clean in two!

Zhang Ming's scalp prickled. As the crab's pincer swept toward him, a deadly chill gripped his heart.

At the critical moment, he yanked his crotch back and took a small step in retreat, feeling a cold touch at the top of his thigh.

He glanced down out of the corner of his eye.

His jeans had been sliced open, and the precious equipment that would carry on his family line had almost spilled out.

"You dirty bastard!"

"Bili!" The crab attacked with both pincers, shrieking louder and louder.

Zhang Ming took off toward the coconut grove, sweat pouring off him as his mind raced to find a way to fight this crab.

The crab refused to give up. It chased him sideways, screeching wildly. It had come so close to tasting delicious human flesh-how could it possibly let its prey escape?

An idea struck Zhang Ming, and he quickly scrambled onto a large boulder.

The crab climbed up after him, waving its enormous pincers and snapping at his thighs again!

"Get the hell down!"

The muscles in Zhang Ming's arms tensed explosively as he thrust the little pipe forward from above.

Thud!

The pipe jabbed into the crab's belly and shoved it clean off the rock.

The crab tumbled down the boulder and hit the ground hard. Zhang Ming was no weakling, after all, and he had put absolutely everything into that thrust!

The crab might have suffered a minor injury. It stopped trying to climb the boulder and scuttled away sideways, its long legs moving in a blur. It kept crying, "Bili, bili!" Clearly, it hated giving up.

Zhang Ming drew a deep breath and watched the huge crab flee into the sea, trying to calm his wildly pounding heart.

Worry began to creep in, followed by lingering fear at how recklessly he had acted.

In his old world, crabs were merely food, helpless against humans. As a result, he subconsciously felt little fear of them, even when they were as monstrously huge as these.

But now... the crabs wanted to eat humans instead.

Both their fighting strength and their ferocity were far beyond anything he had known before.

In other words, he was at the bottom of the food chain. Even with his cheat, that hadn't changed.

"I really am a rookie."

He felt utterly overwhelmed. He was alone, with no one to turn to and no help to be had. He had to rely on himself for everything.

"I can't be this reckless again. Everything on this island is different from before. I finally found some crabs, but I can't even beat them. Without a source of food, what am I supposed to do?"

"If I keep living off my supplies, I'll only last ten days to half a month at most..."

Would a rescue team arrive within ten days? Probably not.

Suddenly, his eyes widened. Beneath the boulder, he spotted...

A blue-gray crab leg!