"Attention, everyone. At our current speed, we can leave this grassland in another three days."
Elder Qi's voice came over the radio, and smiles appeared on everyone's faces.
After days of consumption, some survivors' supplies were gradually running out.
Dangerous as the city was, it held the supplies they needed to survive.
Lin Yi's four large bags of supplies, along with the supplies the survivors had returned, were mostly gone too.
The main reason was that Da Sha could eat far too much.
He didn't seem to have grown much bigger, but he could really pack it away...
As long as he was allowed to eat, he seemed incapable of ever getting full.
Lin Yi had even fed Da Sha's Contribution all the way up to a hundred.
For now, Lin Yi had given up on using Da Sha as cannon fodder.
After all, Da Sha's fighting ability was reliable.
Of course, that would be another matter if all his death-substitute ghosts were used up.
Nothing mattered more than Lin Yi's own life.
The day passed without incident.
Under the night sky.
Everyone lit fires and cooked.
Some survivors had already approached Elder Qi to ask for food.
Elder Qi went to the Sequence Transcendence and explained the survivors' situation.
Lin Yi was the first to jump in. "I agree!"
Although he had used up a lot of food, he had enough for three days.
Besides, how much could handing some out to the survivors take?
"Hmm?"
Everyone cast puzzled looks his way.
Bai Xiaoyu looked more suspicious than anything.
She didn't believe Lin Yi would be so kindhearted.
Li Yong, on the other hand, looked at Lin Yi with admiration.
With Lin Yi taking a stand, the other Sequence Transcendence donated some food as well.
Of course, everyone only brought out things like flour and rice.
Under the circumstances, keeping people from starving to death was enough.
Li Yong picked two older women from among the survivors, set up a large pot, and had them start cooking thin porridge.
Lin Yi glanced at it.
The porridge was so thin that it would have gotten someone beheaded in ancient times.
But right now, the survivors were already endlessly grateful just to have something to eat.
As for why Lin Yi was so enthusiastic.
Naturally, it was because...
"Hehehe, leave handing out the food to me."
Lin Yi took the thin porridge the women handed him and distributed it bowl by bowl.
The Contribution above the survivors' heads shot upward.
"Hehehe..."
Looking at those numbers.
Lin Yi's grin almost split his face.
The happy porridge distribution soon came to an end.
He strolled toward the survivors.
The Transcendent Sequence had exceptionally sharp senses.
He had barely stepped among the survivors when he heard hushed discussions.
"Have you heard? Lu Sheng disappeared."
"They say that sneaky bastard really holds a grudge. He couldn't beat Lu Sheng at Fight the Landlord yesterday, so he butchered him."
"Shh, don't go saying things like that..."
The murmurs reached Lin Yi's ears.
Dark lines appeared across his forehead.
How could a sunny, cheerful guy like me be the person you're talking about!
Slander! He's slandering me!
His gaze swept over the survivors, and everyone he looked at hurriedly lowered their heads to drink their porridge.
His eyes finally settled on an old man.
It was an old man who had once joined in looting his supplies.
Right now, a bright red 400 floated above the old man's head.
"Hehehe, Xiao Chusheng, did you think I wouldn't find you in a new disguise?"
Chuckling, Lin Yi shuffled the cards in his hands and walked straight up to the Skinning Ghost. "Hehe, sir, come play cards!"
The Skinning Ghost had been chatting with the old man's family.
The sudden voice behind it made it shudder instinctively.
It turned around, and sure enough, there was that evil smiling face again.
Come on, man, don't you know how to respect the elderly and care for the young? I've turned into an old man, and you're still coming after me!
"Hiss, that old man's done for. I remember he stole supplies from that sneaky bastard!"
"I bet that old man will definitely be dead tomorrow!"
"I told you he really holds a grudge."
The murmurs made Lin Yi's expression darken further and further.
The Skinning Ghost thought Lin Yi was about to lash out, so it could only grit its teeth and spit out one word. "Fine!"
Lin Yi couldn't be bothered with the slander. He looked at a middle-aged couple and their teenage child. "Who's playing Fight the Landlord?"
The man met Lin Yi's eyes and could only steel himself and walk over. "I-I'll play."
"I hope... I hope you can spare my wife."
Lin Yi: ...
"Pair of twos."
"Can't beat that!"
"One three!"
"Pass!"
Happy times were always brief. After earning thirty Contribution, Lin Yi climbed back into his Doomsday Assembled Car.
"Does the Skinning Ghost not like playing cards anymore? Farming Contribution is so slow. Looks like I'll have to try something else..."
Watching Lin Yi's retreating figure, the Skinning Ghost nearly ground its back teeth to pieces.
Its original script had been to infiltrate the convoy, keep devouring and growing, and ultimately become invincible.
Yet this bastard kept interrupting it, time after time.
"I'll go butcher him tonight!"
At that thought, the Skinning Ghost shook its head again. "I've devoured too little. If I alert the others, it'll probably be a lot of trouble."
Then the Skinning Ghost looked out over the vast grassland and gritted its teeth. "Once we're off the grassland, I'll find a new convoy."
"Fortunes rise and fall. Don't look down on a poor young ghost! Once I've evolved and returned, I'll chop you into mincemeat!"
Two days passed in a flash.
Every day, Lin Yi tirelessly farmed Contribution.
Until the afternoon of the second day.
The advancing convoy suddenly stopped.
Without Elder Qi needing to explain, everyone saw the scene before them.
The wild grass had been lush and green.
Yet up ahead, it had turned an eerie purple.
Such an abnormal sight forced Elder Qi to take it seriously.
"Can't we go around?"
Bai Xiaoyu asked curiously.
"A detour would take at least half a month. We don't have enough food reserves." Elder Qi's reply made everyone frown.
"I'll scout ahead with a decoy first."
As Elder Qi finished speaking, the illusory convoy sped into the swaying purple grass.
Before long, Elder Qi reported back.
"The danger isn't the purple grass, but the eerie creatures inside it."
"The purple grass can block my ability to sense eerie creatures."
"And hiding in the purple grass lets them ignore sunlight."
"But the eerie creatures hiding in the grass aren't very strong. We can charge through."
"Everyone, get ready to fight."
Elder Qi's words let everyone breathe a sigh of relief.
Rumble, rumble, rumble.
The convoy moved forward again.
Da Hu, the mental patient, and Clown all sprang onto the roofs.
They kept watch for any changes around them.
"Da Sha, you go up to the roof and keep watch too."
Lin Yi gave the order.
"Hehehe." Da Sha leaped out through the window and stood imposingly on the roof, Rolling Pin in hand.
The Apocalypse Heavy Truck pushed forward at the front, clearing swath after swath of purple grass.
Less than five minutes into their advance, the first eerie creature appeared.
It crawled rapidly on all fours, without a single hair on its body. Instead, it was covered in purple grass, as though the grass had parasitized it.
It suddenly burst out of the swaying purple grass and charged straight at the Apocalypse Heavy Truck.
Boom!
Da Hu leaped down from the roof and drove a fist hard at the eerie creature.
At Sequence 2, Da Hu was clearly much stronger.
With a single punch, the eerie creature was scattered outright, leaving only a shrill scream echoing through the air.
The scream seemed to be some kind of signal.
Before long, rustling began to echo through the purple grass.
Within their field of vision, wave after wave rippled through the grass.
Eerie creatures darted through it nonstop.
The first.
The second.
The third.
These eerie creatures all looked exactly like the first one.
As they approached the convoy, they burst out as swiftly as cheetahs.
Boom!
A sudden crash rang out.
Screams and agonized cries followed.
A survivor's vehicle farther back had been overturned.
Several eerie creatures rapidly closed in, dragging the shrilly screaming survivors away until they disappeared into the wild grass.
Seeing this, Lin Yi immediately activated Divine Thief, and all the supplies remaining inside the vehicle appeared in his back seat.
He couldn't save the people, but he could at least save the supplies.
The eerie creatures were densely packed.
Elder Qi and the others were struggling to look after themselves, let alone the survivors behind them.
Before long, the screams grew increasingly frequent.
More vehicles overturned from time to time.
Whoosh.
The modified off-roader drifted.
Li Yong had actually chosen to take Da Hu and cover the rear.
Seeing this, Lin Yi said nothing more.
"Change formation! Change formation!"
Elder Qi's voice rang out over the loudspeaker. "Bring all the vehicles together! Brace against each other to reduce the risk of being overturned!"
Elder Qi responded immediately.
Without another word, Lin Yi stepped on the gas and sped up beside the Apocalypse Heavy Truck.
The Apocalypse Heavy Truck was very heavy.
Even with eerie creatures repeatedly ramming his vehicle, having the Apocalypse Heavy Truck blocking beside him still couldn't keep his Jury-Rigged Car from overturning.
After the convoy changed formation, far fewer vehicles were overturned.
Sequence Transcendence users drew attacks at all four corners, while Bai Xiaoyu's singing rang out from time to time.
The convoy's losses immediately dropped considerably.
Bang, bang, bang.
The horrors slammed into the convoy like they had no regard for their lives.
Some even clung directly to the doors, tearing at them frantically.
Their goal seemed to be to drag the people out of the vehicles.
Even Da Sha on the roof was not spared.
Countless horrors scrambled madly onto the roof, trying to drag Da Sha off.
But the Rolling Pin in Da Sha's hands was no pushover, either.
One swing, one crisp crunch.
Lin Yi had noticed, too. These horrors were not very strong; there were simply a lot of them, and they relied on numbers to win.
Yet these sheer numbers had already allowed them to drag away quite a few survivors from the convoy.
The horrors tore open doors and dragged survivors deep into the weeds.
All they left behind were blood-soaked scratch marks and the survivors' desperate screams.
Their fate was easy to imagine.
Screech, screech, screech.
A grating sound of friction rang out.
The moving convoy suddenly jerked to a halt.
Only three modified vehicles roared onward.
Even Lin Yi's Jury-Rigged Car was stuck in place.
"What's going on?!"
Lin Yi's heart jolted.
Through the rearview mirror, he saw that dozens of vines had emerged from the ground at some point and bound the tires tight.
Elder Qi and the others' modified vehicles had more power and forcibly broke free of the bizarre vines.
"Ah! Help!"
With just that delay from the vines, more vehicles at the rear were overturned by the horrors, their survivors dragged deep into the weeds.
"Use fire! Burn them!"
Someone shouted.
Lin Yi quickly pulled out a can of gasoline and poured it over the vines without hesitation.
Fss.
A hot flame sprang from the lighter.
Lin Yi lit a roll of toilet paper and tossed it straight underneath the car.
Whether the flames would set the vehicle alight was no longer something he could afford to consider.
As though alive, the vines began retracting the instant they touched the flames.
The Jury-Rigged Car broke free. Lin Yi floored the accelerator and roared forward.
The survivors followed suit, but it still cost them five vehicles to escape the vines' entanglement.
Behind them, everything had become a sea of fire.
Yet the flames did not spread through the weeds.
As though alive, the purple weeds instantly retreated from the sea of fire, creating a firebreak.
The fire only reduced a single area to ash.
Waves of heat swept through the breeze.
Bai Xiaoyu's singing rang out from time to time.
Whenever the horrors stopped, the convoy managed to surge a long way forward.
"Hang in there! Three more hours and we'll be out!"
After an unknown amount of time, Elder Qi's voice rang out again, giving everyone a shot in the arm.
The purple weeds still stretched on without end.
The horrors crawling on all fours seemed tireless, constantly charging the convoy from every direction.
Even though Lin Yi's Jury-Rigged Car was already an Anomaly, it was now battered and dented all over.
He did not even know what state Da Sha was in up on the roof.
Just hearing his heavy breathing was enough to tell him Da Sha was struggling, too.
Everyone else's Sequence Transcendence had already advanced to Sequence 2, so they were not having as much trouble.
Only Da Sha was still at Sequence 1, leaving him panting like a dog.
It was not that Lin Yi did not want to help.
The problem was that only he could drive the Jury-Rigged Car. He could not even ask Elder Qi for someone to help drive.
Under the circumstances, the car could hardly stay put and wait for him to kill the horrors.
Time crawled by, each day feeling like a year.
The convoy had been battered into wrecks.
"Bzzzt, bzzzt, bzzzt. Two more hours!"
"Bzzzt, bzzzt, bzzzt. One more hour!"
"Bzzzt, bzzzt, bzzzt. Half an hour left!"
Bang!
In the end, Lin Yi's Jury-Rigged Car could not withstand the repeated impacts.
A vicious collision from several horrors overturned his Jury-Rigged Car. It rolled a full three hundred and sixty degrees across the ground and landed upside down.
Caught off guard, Da Sha also took a tumble that left him reeling.
Reacting swiftly, Lin Yi activated Void Walking and dashed out of the vehicle as the Jury-Rigged Car rolled.
Looking up, he saw that the once-imposing convoy of more than a dozen vehicles now numbered fewer than ten.
Apart from the three modified vehicles, every vehicle was battered.
"Lin Yi!"
Bai Xiaoyu cried out.
She used her ability again, and everything around them slowed considerably.
Looking at his Jury-Rigged Car, Lin Yi felt a flicker of reluctance.
But he still ran swiftly through the grass toward Bai Xiaoyu's modified pickup.
Da Sha shook his head, knocked several horrors over with fierce blows from the Rolling Pin, and hurried after him.
Whoosh.
A vine shot out and instantly bound Lin Yi's lower leg.
"Activate Otherworldly Walking!"
Lin Yi broke free instantly and continued fleeing.
Whoosh.
Another vine lashed out.
Only this time, the vine's target was not Lin Yi, but Da Sha following behind him.
Thud.
Da Sha was yanked to the ground.
In an instant, several vines swarmed him.
Before Da Sha could even react, the vines were dragging him deep into the weeds.
"Da Sha!"
Li Yong and Bai Xiaoyu cried out at the same time.
But with horrors surrounding them like a tide, how could they spare the effort to go to his rescue?
"He's an idiot. If he dies, he dies."
Lin Yi kept fleeing without looking back.
Five seconds later.
His footsteps stopped after all.
Ah, I really am sick in the head.
He turned. Otherworldly Walking...
All in one fluid motion...
Before you continue