Midnight School Bus, Depart!

Screams, curses, and desperate pleas wove a symphony of carnage inside Warehouse No. 3.

Yet the Thirteen Steps' absolute Spatial Labyrinth sealed it all tightly within, and not a trace of sound could be heard outside.

Su Bai stood on the rooftop in the Wasteland Divine Kingdom, watching those self-important assassins and deathsworn being ruthlessly harvested like wheat by Hongdou and the power of the rules in the labyrinth.

In less than an hour, more than thirty second-tier experts had been wiped out.

Their corpses became fertilizer for the expansion of the divine kingdom, and the wasteland greedily sucked dry the divine kingdom origin within them.

What excited Su Bai most, however, were the dozens of dead souls floating in midair, radiating dense black aura!

These assassins and deathsworn had slaughtered countless people in life, then endured the combined torment of the Thirteen Steps and Hongdou before they died. The resentment and despair they produced were so thick they practically dripped!

"Enough! More than enough!"

His heart pounding like a drum, Su Bai immediately issued a command in his mind.

"System! Extract the fourteen most powerful resentful souls and inject them into [Midnight School Bus]!"

[Ding! Command received.]

[Extracting high-quality resentful souls... Extraction complete.]

[Beginning final fusion!]

In midair, the fourteen largest, most twisted masses of black soul-light let out soundless shrieks, as though drawn by some mysterious force, and rushed wildly toward the terrifying bus parked in the center of the wasteland.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh-

The instant the fourteen souls each slipped into one of the fourteen pale bone chairs inside the bus.

Boom!!!

The entire [Midnight School Bus] shuddered violently.

Immediately afterward, the two eerie green headlights at the front blazed to life like balls of ghostfire from the Nine Nether Hells! The dazzling green light even pierced the layers of black mist over the wasteland, illuminating half the sky.

In the engine compartment, the strange ghostfire soaked in heavily polluted black oil roared like ten thousand wailing ghosts.

"Vroom-woooo-"

What sprayed from the exhaust pipe was not exhaust, but thick gray smoke of resentment carrying a pungent stench of blood.

The steering wheel on the driver's seat, covered in the driver's resentful blood, turned by itself without a breeze, slowly making two rotations, as if an invisible ghost driver were making adjustments before departure.

[Ding! Final fusion complete!]

[Urban legend created successfully!]

[Congratulations, host. You have obtained a three-star urban legend vehicle Domain: Midnight School Bus.]

[Dependent panel generated.]

Su Bai eagerly opened the panel.

[Name]: Midnight School Bus (spatial movement/forced passenger pickup urban legend)

[Level]: peak second tier (initial level extremely high due to the injection of numerous high-tier assassin souls; can grow to third tier)

[Core rules]:

1. Forced Boarding: after midnight (can be triggered at any time within the divine kingdom; activating the Domain in reality consumes divine power), any living being that hears the school bus brake and has a fear or greed level above 30% must board immediately. No matter where they are, as long as they are within sight, the rule cannot be defied.

2. Passenger Disembarkation at Stops: once the school bus starts, it must travel through a full three stops. At each stop, one passenger must "disembark" (be torn apart and devoured by the fourteen evil spirits inside the bus). If there are not enough passengers aboard, the school bus will automatically seize targets from outside reality or an enemy divine kingdom to make up the shortfall.

[Way to break the situation and survive (blind spot)]: before boarding, anyone who covers their eyes with a completely pure white cloth untouched by any bloodshed or killing and shouts "I didn't buy a ticket" three times can avoid Forced Boarding. After boarding, the only way to escape is to break a window at the instant the ghost driver in the driver's seat turns his head (but all the evil spirits on the bus will hunt the escapee down).

[Growth conditions]: devour the flesh and blood of a full load of passengers. The more heavily polluted the area it travels through, the faster it goes and the stronger its rule judgments become.

Looking at the panel, Su Bai couldn't help sucking in a sharp breath, then burst out laughing.

"Divine skill! This is absolutely a divine skill!"

Not only did the [Midnight School Bus] possess a terrifying rule that could forcibly drag enemies aboard, but more importantly, it filled Su Bai's greatest current shortcoming-mobility!

Though Hongdou and the Thirteen Steps were powerful, they were both "waiting by a tree stump for a rabbit" types of urban legend. If others didn't enter Su Bai's divine kingdom or connect to it through a divine kingdom passage, it was difficult for him to inflict large-scale casualties on the outside world.

But now that he had this bus, things were different!

This thing could be driven out of the divine kingdom and straight into someone else's lair to "forcibly pick up passengers"!

"The Gu Family wants me to die without a burial place on the way to the hospital, don't they?" Su Bai sprang up, jumped straight off the rooftop, and strode toward the Midnight School Bus, which glowed with an eerie green light.

"Then I'll drive the hearse there myself! Let's see who dares stop my bus on the roads of Linhai City tonight!"

Su Bai walked up to the bus door, and the tightly shut doors slid open to either side with a hiss.

A chill wind blew out of the bus, carrying a heavy stench of blood.

Su Bai stepped onto the footboard without a care and entered the bus.

Inside, twisted black figures could faintly be seen sitting quietly in the fourteen seats made of bones. They had no facial features, but Su Bai could feel fourteen pairs of malicious eyes staring fixedly at him.

However, as the creator of the urban legend and the master of the divine kingdom, Su Bai had absolute control.

He gave a cold snort, and a terrifying pressure belonging to the 99.5% wasteland pollution instantly enveloped the entire bus.

The fourteen evil spirits immediately shrank back into their seats, trembling like frightened chicks, not daring to act up again.

Su Bai nodded in satisfaction, walked straight to the driver's seat, and plopped down.

He gripped the steering wheel, covered in resentful blood, with both hands.

It felt cold and slimy. But to Su Bai, it was even more thrilling than a leather steering wheel in a sports car.

"Hongdou!" Su Bai pressed the horn, but what came out was a shrill female ghost's scream, frightening several mutated dead rats in the distance so badly that they burst into clouds of bloody mist.

A red shadow flashed past, and Hongdou obediently appeared in the front passenger seat and sat down quietly.

If anyone else saw this scene, they'd probably suffer a cerebral hemorrhage on the spot.

A high school student driving a scrapped bus clad in bloody clothes and lit by eerie green ghostfire, with a faceless female ghost in red in the front passenger seat and fourteen evil spirits in the back.

Was he really going on a City Appearance Bureau mission? He was clearly going to rob the underworld!

Su Bai glanced at his watch. Eleven thirty at night.

Only half an hour remained until midnight.

"Destination: Benevolent Heart Hospital in the western suburbs."

Su Bai stepped on the accelerator pedal, which was made from some unknown bone.

Rumble-woooo!

The Midnight School Bus let out a deafening roar, its wheels striking two trails of dark red sparks against the wasteland.

"The old driver is setting off. Everyone sit tight and hold on!"

Su Bai spun the steering wheel sharply.

Ahead of the Midnight School Bus, the spatial barrier marking the divine kingdom's boundary shattered like a sheet of thin paper as the bus smashed through it with its powerful spatial penetration!

The next second.

A battered bus flickering with eerie green ghostfire burst out of the abandoned chemical plant amid billowing smoke and an endless aura of death, then sped straight onto the desolate road leading to the western suburbs.

Tonight was destined to be a sleepless night for Linhai City.

Meanwhile.

Benevolent Heart Hospital, in the western suburbs of Linhai City.

The sprawling private hospital was shrouded in a dark red miasma so thick it would not disperse.

The hospital gates had long since rusted shut, and the outpatient and inpatient buildings lay silently in wait in the night like monsters with their huge mouths wide open.

This was one of Linhai City's three great forbidden zones. Its pollution index remained above 80% year-round, and countless Anomalies lurked inside, including a third-tier, partially formed rule Anomaly—the "director."

At that moment, in an abandoned ward on the third floor of the outpatient building.

Four young people were trembling with their backs against the wall. There were two men and two women, all wearing professional outdoor exploration gear, though their clothes had been torn to rags. One of the young men also had a makeshift bandage wrapped around his arm, and blood had soaked through the gauze.

A military-grade, radiation-resistant livestreaming device sat on the floor, its red light flashing.

These four were underground exploration streamers who, in pursuit of traffic, had recklessly sneaked into Benevolent Heart Hospital.

"Brother Long... are we going to be trapped here forever...?" A girl with a ponytail clutched the injured young man's arm, her voice thick with tears.

The young man called Brother Long clenched his teeth, his face deathly pale. "Don't be scared, Xiaoya. I've already sent out the highest-level distress signal through the livestream. The City Appearance Bureau must already be on its way!"

The comments in the livestream, however, offered them little comfort.

[They're done for, they're done for. Brother Long and the others are really finished this time. That's Benevolent Heart Hospital! Even the City Appearance Bureau's elite teams would lose a layer of skin going in there!]

[That mutated nurse with the chainsaw just now was terrifying! She chopped Old Zhao's leg off in one blow! This isn't a script at all!]

[I called the police, already called them! But the police said the spatial magnetic field in that area is in chaos, and helicopters can't get in at all. We can only wait for professional demigod experts to come to the rescue.]

[By the time a demigod gets there, Brother Long and the others will probably already be specimens...]

Listening to the hair-raising sound of metal being dragged through the corridor from time to time, the four streamers sank into deep despair.

Tap, tap, tap...

Suddenly, a series of heavy, rhythmic footsteps sounded in the corridor.

Along with the footsteps came the sound of metal wheels rolling over the concrete floor.

"Time for ward rounds..."

A mechanical, icy voice, devoid of the slightest human emotion, rang out from outside the door.

The four streamers froze instantly, even their breathing stopping.

The ward door was suddenly pushed open by a tremendous force.

A monster over two meters tall, wearing a bloodstained white coat, slowly entered, pushing a medical cart covered in rusty scalpels and chainsaws.

Four different human faces were stitched onto the monster's head, each wearing an eerie smile.

Peak second-tier Anomaly derivative-[Mutated Attending Physician]!

"Patient number 04, symptoms: elevated heart rate, suspected cardiac necrosis."

The mutated doctor's four faces all turned toward Xiaoya, who had been crying just moments ago, and its four mouths issued the diagnosis in perfect unison.

"That's the hospital's Forced Diagnosis rule! Once you're diagnosed, the condition immediately becomes real!" Brother Long shouted in despair.

Sure enough, Xiaoya suddenly clutched her chest and let out a bloodcurdling scream. She felt as though an invisible hand had seized her heart in a crushing grip, and it was rapidly rotting away!

"Must... remove immediately... replace with a new heart..."

The mutated doctor picked up a rusty chainsaw and started its engine.

Bzzzz!

The chainsaw roared shrilly as it slowly descended toward Xiaoya's chest.

"Help! Someone save us!" Brother Long and the others broke down sobbing, but suppressed by the rule, they didn't even have the strength to stand.

However.

The instant the chainsaw was less than a centimeter from Xiaoya's chest.

Outside Benevolent Heart Hospital's tightly shut, rusty iron gates.

A sudden, piercing screech of brakes rang out, as if it could tear apart a person's soul!

Screeeeech!!!

Accompanying the screech of brakes was a deafening crash.

Boom!

Benevolent Heart Hospital's heavy iron gates, said to be impervious even to explosives, were smashed to pieces by a savage, terrifying force!

Two beams of dazzling, eerie green light pierced the hospital's thick dark red miasma like sharp swords, shining straight into the outpatient lobby!

The mutated doctor stopped the chainsaw in its hand.

All four heads turned toward the window at once, and for the first time, a trace of astonishment and wariness appeared on those emotionless faces.

What dares to act so arrogantly on Benevolent Heart Hospital's turf?!