Keep Struggling

The alliance rested where they were until the afternoon.

Chen Fan glanced at the time on his phone.

3:40.

They had been resting since around ten that morning. That was long enough.

During the afternoon, survivors who had been traveling slowly or stopped to rest along the way caught up with them one after another.

The alliance grew from around a hundred people to over two hundred.

With nothing to do, Chen Fan stood outside the vehicle and watched.

He watched the exhausted survivors approach along the highway, moving mechanically, their faces numb.

He was a little moved.

If he had not awakened supernatural powers, he would probably be pedaling a little yellow bike right now, wearing himself out on the road.

Leaving aside how exhausted the survivors were, the more pressing issue was how sharply the convoy's numbers had fallen.

They had dropped from over six hundred to around two hundred.

Of the four hundred who had left the convoy, there was no telling how many would survive.

A question sprang into Chen Fan's mind for no apparent reason.

Did humanity really still have hope?

Counting only the time since he had awakened his powers, he had already been through two crises that could have wiped out the convoy.

At every turn, hundreds of people died or fell behind.

At this rate, how long would it be before humanity went extinct?

Even if the supernaturals survived, what would be the point if that day came and only a scattered few were left on Blue Star?

Then again, if they really ran into something truly terrifying, there was no guarantee the supernaturals would survive either.

Chen Fan looked at the survivors, their clothes ragged, their bodies thin and hunched.

He suddenly realized that in the apocalypse, within a convoy, supernaturals might be the other survivors' best hope of staying alive.

But looking at humanity as a whole, the more numerous survivors were the hope and spark for rebuilding human civilization.

If all the survivors died, the supernaturals would not live much longer either.

At some point, Nie Shufeng had come to stand beside Chen Fan.

He held out a pebble.

Smiling, he asked, "Want to play?"

Chen Fan was about to take it when he noticed that although Nie Shufeng was smiling, there was something murderous in his eyes.

He awkwardly withdrew his hand. "So the cost has passed. Well, I was going along with you before. Maybe having someone play with you would make the cost pass faster?"

The smile vanished from Nie Shufeng's face in an instant. He tucked the pebble back into his pocket.

"Thanks a lot."

"Ah, what are friends for?"

Nie Shufeng did not respond. Instead, he said, "After resting for a while, Wang Bing performed another divination. We should get moving. We can't stay here forever. We'll travel a little farther, then rest tonight."

"Oh? Which way this time?"

"Back the way we came. Wang Bing divined that there's danger ahead. If we go back, we might also be able to pick up some survivors who fell behind."

"...I can already hear people cursing."

"Perception-type supernaturals sense danger to find a safer path to survival. Compared to a matter of life and death, what's a little backtracking? If they can't understand even that, they might as well leave the convoy and survive on their own. Then they can go wherever they want."

Chen Fan dropped the subject. After a moment of silence, he asked instead, "Brother Shu, do you think humanity still has hope?"

Nie Shufeng fell silent too.

He said nothing for a long while. Finally, he raised a hand and patted Chen Fan on the shoulder.

"Since we call ourselves the Dawn Alliance, we should firmly believe that a glimmer of dawn still exists. Even if this apocalypse really is dark and lightless, we'll fight for that glimmer of dawn ourselves. Don't give up. Keep struggling..."

Chen Fan looked up at Nie Shufeng in surprise.

"Brother Shu, you've got quite an enlightened outlook!"

"Learn more!"

With that, Nie Shufeng turned and walked away with an easy air.

Chen Fan curled his lip. "Give you an inch and you take a mile."

He did not stay outside watching anymore. After having Yan Kuan pass on the word for the convoy to prepare to leave, he went into the RV to lie down.

When Zheng Alin learned that the convoy was setting off, she came over to Chen Fan specifically to trade for purified water.

After experiencing its restorative effects, she ultimately could not resist.

In the end, Zheng Alin traded two packets of bread, five packets of instant noodles, and the bead that glimmered with firelight for two liters of Chen Fan's purified water.

She took it away in a large plastic bottle she had brought herself.

Before long, Nie Shufeng's voice came over the loudspeaker, announcing that the convoy was setting off again.

When the survivors learned that the convoy was going back the way it had come, they cursed and grumbled.

They had hurried along as fast as they could and finally caught up with the convoy, only to be told they were going back, and they were exhausted.

If they had known they were going back, why had they rushed? They could have just stayed where they were and waited.

No one could blame them for cursing. It was a real blow to morale.

Chen Fan, Nie Shufeng, and the others, however, paid no attention to what those people thought.

When the time came, the convoy set off, following the road back the way they had come.

Chen Fan asked about the fuel levels in his two vehicles.

Both the RV and the truck were running low. Although he still had some gasoline in his Storage Bag, the trouble with gasoline was that they might not find any more: they would keep using it without replenishing their supply.

He figured the other drivers in the convoy probably did not have much fuel left either.

Earlier, someone in a van had even approached him, hoping to trade supplies for fuel.

He picked up the walkie-talkie and said, "We should make finding a gas station a priority. Most people in the convoy probably don't have much fuel left."

Wang Bing's voice came through. "I performed a divination. We'll run into other convoys one after another later. None of them will be very dangerous, so we can safely make contact and trade. If we have supplies, we can trade for some gasoline."

They would run into other convoys going back?

Chen Fan considered it. Perhaps they could do some trading.

He was desperately short of Origin Material now, with only ten points left.

If there were no strange monsters to fight in the near future, he could also obtain Origin Material by trading others for strange monster materials.

He had just traded Zheng Alin for a bead.

It was the same strange material Zheng Alin had previously asked him to use in an attempt to refine a magic artifact, and which he had returned to her after failing.

He had not refined the bead into Origin Material because he wanted to save it to refine a magic artifact.

A magic artifact he had already envisioned.

The convoy moved slowly along the road.

After they had traveled for a while, they did indeed come across several dozen survivors who had fallen behind.

At first, the survivors thought the convoy had come back for them.

Happy smiles appeared on their tired faces.

Once they had rejoined the convoy and discovered it was still going back, their faces fell again.

After another hour on the road, the convoy encountered a huge convoy coming toward them.

The other convoy stretched on in an imposing procession. It had to have over five hundred survivors, along with five supernaturals.

It was another large, fairly strong convoy.

Notably, at least a hundred of its five hundred-plus survivors were people from Chen Fan's alliance who had fallen behind and been picked up along the way.

Nie Shufeng had obtained all this information using Clairvoyance and Clairaudience and told them beforehand.

When the two convoys met, both sides stopped without prior agreement, evidently wanting to talk.

As for the survivors in the other convoy who had originally belonged to the Dawn Alliance, none of them wanted to return after seeing their "old employer."

To most survivors, following either convoy was much the same. As long as it had supernaturals who could help them survive, that was enough.

The Dawn Alliance did have more supernaturals and was stronger, but it was also true that the Dawn Alliance had just "abandoned" them.

So they might as well stay with their new convoy.

Besides, most survivors did not actually know exactly how many supernaturals were in a convoy, especially now that there were more people.

They could keep track of three or four, but the Dawn Alliance now had ten. With several convoys having merged together, it was even harder to tell.

Neither Chen Fan nor Nie Shufeng brought the matter up.

They simply led their people out of the vehicles to meet the other side's supernaturals.

Qian Lei had not returned, so nine supernaturals from the Dawn Alliance got out.

From the vehicles at the head of the other convoy, five supernaturals also got out.

They were startled to see the nine supernaturals on Chen Fan's side.

They had thought their own convoy, with five supernaturals, was already a large one. They had not expected to encounter one with nine.

But were nine supernaturals protecting only around two hundred survivors?

Could the other side be some kind of elite convoy?