Refining the Watermelon Knife

Chen Fan's face darkened.

He had only just awakened as a transcendent, and he didn't want to die.

If he really got caught in the fog, his current strength wouldn't be enough. After all, he was only a first-tier transcendent.

"Speed up, Sun Hong! Floor it! Don't worry about the fuel!"

Chen Fan's urgent tone made Sun Hong and Yan Kuan realize something was wrong.

"I understand."

Sun Hong slammed the accelerator to the floor.

The bus slowly picked up speed.

The expected surge of acceleration never came.

The bus's design meant it could never accelerate that sharply.

Still, its speed was steadily increasing. Chen Fan watched the scenery rush backward outside the window, then looked at the fog behind them, which didn't seem to have drawn any closer.

Chen Fan frowned deeply.

Hopefully... we can get away...

At the very back of the convoy, the slowest group, the people traveling on foot, had already been caught by the fog.

Some had started running as soon as they spotted the fog in the distance.

But it was no use.

No matter how fast they ran, they only had two legs.

The fog quickly swallowed the survivors at the very rear.

Trapped in the fog, the survivors grew more and more panicked.

Visibility was severely limited, and they could only make sure they were still going in the right direction by checking that the road beneath their feet was still asphalt.

Not long after the fog engulfed them, a strange rustling came from its depths.

The survivors looked up in terror.

Huge flying monster bugs swooped down from the sky.

They looked like a cross between mosquitoes and grasshoppers. Their bodies were gray all over, and they were absurdly large, nearly as big as an adult's forearm.

The monster bugs swooped down, and one of their mouthparts, nearly twenty centimeters long and sharp as a blade, pierced a survivor's skull in an instant.

The bug then clung to the survivor's head and sucked his brain dry in a few gulps.

It took off again and swooped toward the next person.

"Ah!!"

"Ah...!! Help!"

"Nooo!!"

Screams rang out one after another. There were even more monster bugs descending from the sky than there were survivors.

In mere moments, all the survivors on foot were dead.

The swarm continued flying ahead.

The fog had already engulfed the cyclists, and the swarm's slaughter would soon reach them.

Inside the bus, Sun Hong was driving at the front.

Chen Fan and Yan Kuan leaned over the back row of seats, looking out through the rear window.

"Old Yan, do you think the fog's getting closer, or has it stayed where it was?"

"It's obviously getting closer."

"Old Yan, couldn't you tell me something nice and lie to me?"

"..."

The walkie-talkie crackled again.

Qian Lei's voice was trembling even more.

"C-captain, I'm currently two kilometers ahead of you. I can see... fog has appeared up ahead of me..."

Chen Fan darted to the front of the bus. Through the windshield, he could indeed make out fog stretching from the ground to the sky in the distance ahead.

It was driving them to their deaths.

His face ashen, he picked up the walkie-talkie.

"Qian Lei, what's going on? Why is this happening? Can't you sense the right road? Lead us properly!"

Qian Lei's voice was bitter over the walkie-talkie.

"Captain, right now I feel like whichever way I go, there's a risk of an overtime penalty..."

Chen Fan fell silent.

A moment later, he said, "Qian Lei, come back. Stay with my bus. Don't go into the fog alone."

"Understood, Captain. I'm coming back right away."

Qian Lei breathed a sigh of relief. He usually liked being alone, but at a time like this, he would never dare enter the fog by himself.

Qian Lei twisted the throttle and swung his little electric scooter around in a skid, heading back to rejoin the bus.

The bus and the motor vehicles in the convoy behind it were also moving forward.

Qian Lei and Chen Fan's group were traveling toward each other and soon met.

Qian Lei then rode his little electric scooter about twenty meters ahead of the bus.

Chen Fan didn't order the convoy to slow down. Instead, he told it to maintain its speed.

Their only chance of survival now was to hope the convoy could make it through the fog in time.

Seen from high above, the desolate highway had vast, sky-obscuring fog on both sides, ahead and behind.

A few vehicles were surrounded by the fog.

As the fog closed in from both sides, the convoy was completely swallowed.

The bus plunged into the fog, and visibility vanished in an instant.

Never mind Qian Lei in front of the bus-even the road two or three meters ahead was hard to make out.

Sun Hong switched on the bus's headlights, fog lights, and hazard lights, trying to make it a little more conspicuous in the fog.

As for illumination, there was no counting on that. The lights couldn't penetrate the fog at all.

Chen Fan shouted into the walkie-talkie, "Qian Lei, fall back and stay right next to the bus! We can't see you at all like this!"

Hiss, hiss-

An indistinct voice came through the walkie-talkie.

After they entered the fog, even the walkie-talkie's signal was affected.

Furious, Chen Fan slammed his fist against the dashboard.

Just then, a light suddenly appeared in the fog.

A lone figure on a little electric scooter approached the bus, the scooter's headlight shining.

Qian Lei appeared and waved at the bus, then rode over to its side and traveled alongside it.

Fortunately, Qian Lei was quick-witted enough.

Realizing something was wrong, he had come back.

A miniature Ten Thousand Souls Banner appeared in Chen Fan's palm.

He released Old Zhao's yin soul.

Chen Fan waved his hand, and Old Zhao, trailing billowing yin qi, passed through the bus window and floated into the fog.

He sent Old Zhao about a hundred meters ahead to scout the way through the fog.

Any farther, and he would have trouble controlling him.

He hoped the yin soul Old Zhao's [Snake Hand], relying on a beast's sense for danger, could help them avoid peril in the fog.

The fog was unnaturally quiet, with only the sound of the vehicles moving echoing in their ears.

Chen Fan stood at the front of the bus, staring into the fog, not daring to relax for a moment.

The people in the other vehicles behind them were all tense as well, staring at the fog outside their windows and scarcely daring to breathe.

The bus's fog lights flickered in and out of sight ahead of them.

Fortunately, they could still make out a faint glimmer from the fog lights. Otherwise, those vehicles would all have been like headless flies.

Rustle, rustle-

A strange sound came from the fog.

Chen Fan went on alert at once.

The others in the convoy were also on guard, as if facing a formidable enemy.

A giant gray bug the size of a forearm, resembling both a grasshopper and a mosquito, burst out of the fog.

It landed on the bus's windshield.

Sun Hong and Yan Kuan jolted in fright.

Chen Fan immediately controlled the Ten Thousand Souls Banner and sent out a stream of yin qi.

The yin qi curled around the giant bug and pulled out its soul.

The Ten Thousand Souls Banner gained another soul, that of the giant bug.

According to Chen Fan's senses, the giant bug was nowhere near the level of a first-tier monster.

Harvesting its soul with the Ten Thousand Souls Banner was as easy as playing.

He was just about to breathe a sigh of relief.

Then, from the fog ahead, a mass of giant bugs came down like raindrops, pattering against the outside of the bus.

Screams had already begun to ring out behind the bus.

More than half of those riding motorcycles and electric scooters died in the blink of an eye.

At the bus, the giant bugs clinging to the windshield began stabbing at the glass with their long mouthparts.

Crack, crack-

The window glass shattered easily.

As the glass broke, a mass of bugs poured into the bus.

Chen Fan hurriedly acted, using the Ten Thousand Souls Banner at full power. Billowing yin qi swept out and shielded Sun Hong and Yan Kuan.

The bugs died the instant they touched the yin qi.

As the yin qi swept through them, the surrounding bugs fell like dumplings into a pot.

But there were simply too many of them. The bugs pouring out of the fog seemed endless.

Beside him, Yan Kuan was drenched in cold sweat.

Sun Hong's legs were trembling as he drove.

They could see the bugs swooping at them one after another.

Every one of them could kill them, yet at the very last moment, the billowing black qi blocked them.

Beside them, Chen Fan strained to control the Ten Thousand Souls Banner. While protecting the two of them, he also had to use the yin qi to shield himself.

The sheer number of bugs had already left him feeling somewhat overwhelmed.

He felt that he was lacking a handy weapon right now.

The Ten Thousand Souls Banner couldn't be swung around to smash things, and his empty hands felt somewhat awkward with nowhere to put them.

The zombies in the Endless Black Coffin hadn't finished transforming yet, so they were no use right now either.

"C-captain... I'm here too..."

Chen Fan looked down and saw someone lying beneath the driver's seat. It was Qian Lei.

When the bugs attacked, Qian Lei's [Super Deliveryman] intuition had told him that only inside the bus could he avoid being "fined."

As the bugs shattered the window glass, he had abandoned his scooter and climbed onto the bus, relying on his helmet and other protective gear, as well as his first-tier transcendent physique.

He had then crawled under the seats all the way to Chen Fan's side.

Chen Fan looked at him. Well, now he had another burden to carry.

"Let me make this clear: you'd better prioritize protecting yourselves. When it comes down to it, I can't look after everyone!"

Chen Fan snorted and took out his old companion, the watermelon knife.

[Consume 100 points of origin materials to refine the watermelon knife into the low-grade magic artifact Spirit Refining Sword]