Chapter 15
On the Death Path, the air was as thick as gelatin, and every breath carried the distinct, ionized, fishy smell of space energy raging. The half-meter-wide "road" beneath my feet was rubbled with jagged stones. On the other side lay a bottomless, terrifying chasm that occasionally emitted purple-black electric snakes.
Zhao Jun walked in front, each step carefully chosen, his muscles tensed to the utmost. His "stealth enhancement" not only gave him a lightness of footsteps, but also a subtler perception of energy fluctuations. He could feel the unsettling tremors emanating from the deep earth beneath his feet, and the soul-shattering suction emanating from the cracks beside him. Cold sweat soaked his back, and his heart pounded so hard it threatened to burst from his throat. He didn't dare look back, sensing the two gazes behind him—one filled with pure fear, the other with a cold, unrelenting scrutiny, like the muzzle of a gun pressed against his spine.
Lin Xiaozhou followed behind Zhao Jun, practically crawling forward, his fingers digging into the rough ground, his nails cracking and bleeding unnoticed. He dared not look at the all-consuming darkness beside him, only staring intently at Zhao Jun's heels. Every slight pause in his steps sent a shiver through him, as if the end had arrived. A suppressed sob caught in his throat, tears and snot covering his face.
Chen Mengzhou walked last. Her pace was surprisingly steady, her eyes sharp as a hawk's, constantly scanning the energy flows in the rift ahead. Her internal spatial abilities were fully operational, creating a dangerous resonance and confrontation with the raging energy outside. Her [Spatial Perception] was at its peak, constructing in her mind the weak and strong areas of the energy field ahead. She constantly fine-tuned her route, choosing a landing point with relatively stable energy.
"Move three inches to the left." Her cold voice suddenly sounded, like knocking on Zhao Jun's tense nerves.
Zhao Jun obeyed almost instinctively and moved slightly to the left.
Just to the right where he was about to land, a small piece of space collapsed without warning, forming a black hole the size of a fist, which then closed up and disappeared in an instant, leaving behind only a wisp of green smoke and a teeth-grinding sound of shattering.
Zhao Jun was so frightened that his soul was about to leave his body. His legs went weak and he almost fell to his knees.
"Keep going." Chen Mengzhou's voice was flat, as if he had just reminded him to avoid a puddle.
Zhao Jun gritted his teeth and forced himself to keep going. He understood completely that he was a human mine detector, risking his life to test the traps on this road of death.
After walking another dozen meters, they reached the most dangerous section. The path here was even narrower, and the cracks ahead seemed extremely unstable. Energy turbulence surged violently like a tidal wave, and the purple-black lightning almost merged into one, emitting a continuous, deafening roar!
"Stop." Chen Mengzhou spoke again.
The three of them stopped where they were. Ahead was the area where the energy storm was the most intense, making it impossible to pass through.
"Wait... wait for it to pass?" Lin Xiaozhou asked in a trembling voice, looking at the destructive energy in despair.
"I can't wait." Chen Mengzhou's cold eyes swept across the front. "The interval between energy tides is too short. It's not enough for us all to pass through. The next violent fluctuation will be in twenty seconds."
She reported the time accurately, as if the god of death was counting down.
"Then...what should we do?!" Zhao Jun's voice was filled with despair.
Chen Mengzhou's gaze slowly fell on the bulging backpack on Zhao Jun's back - it contained half of the supplies he had been allocated, as well as a few packs of cigarettes that he treasured.
"Throw your backpack in," she ordered, her tone leaving no room for doubt.
"What?!" Zhao Jun turned around suddenly, his face full of disbelief and pain, "The things in there..."
"Throw it in!" Chen Mengzhou interrupted him, his eyes suddenly sharp. "Use its mass to temporarily disrupt the energy field within three meters ahead. This is our only chance to rush through! Quick!"
Time is running out and the roar of the energy storm is intensifying!
Zhao Jun's face twisted, his heart pounding. He'd desperately saved up all that food and medicine! But looking at Chen Mengzhou's unyielding eyes, and the increasingly violent energy turbulence behind him, his desire to survive ultimately overwhelmed everything.
He suddenly pulled off his backpack and threw it towards the area with the most violent energy in front of him with all his strength!
The backpack drew an arc and crashed into the purple-black electric light!
Buzz——!
The imagined explosion didn't occur. Instead, the backpack seemed to crash into a ball of sticky mud, its speed plummeting! The surrounding turbulent energy, like water after a stone was dropped, suddenly rippled and became chaotic! A brief, unstable energy vortex formed with the backpack as its center. While still dangerous, the destructive, orderly fluctuations were interrupted!
"Walk!"
Chen Mengzhou shouted loudly and rushed out first! Her figure was like a ghost in the chaotic energy wind, stepping precisely on the gaps between the energy vortexes!
Zhao Jun and Lin Xiaozhou also reacted, their survival instincts kicked in, and they tried their best to keep up!
The three of them rushed through the three-meter-long death zone like three sharp arrows!
Just when Lin Xiaozhou, who was at the back, had just left that area!
Boom!!!
The turbulent energy behind him erupted completely! An energy shockwave several times more powerful than before suddenly spread out! The backpack was instantly vaporized, leaving not even ash! The terrifying impact force slammed into the backs of the three people!
"Puff!" Lin Xiaozhou was the weakest, and was knocked forward, spurting out a mouthful of blood.
Zhao Jun also staggered, his throat felt sweet, and he forced himself to suppress the surging blood.
Chen Mengzhou groaned, and the spatial energy around her protected her body automatically, rippling violently, helping her to relieve most of the impact, but her face turned pale in an instant.
The three of them fell to the ground in a panic on the relatively safe roadbed. Looking back, they found that the area behind them had been completely submerged by even more violent energy, and they could no longer see the other side clearly.
They're coming! At the cost of losing a backpack of supplies!
Zhao Jun looked at the disappearing backpack, his facial muscles twitching and his heart aching, but he didn't dare to complain at all.
Lin Xiaozhou lay on the ground, coughing up blood, trembling with fear.
Chen Mengzhou slowly stood up, calming her surging breath and supernatural powers. She glanced at the two people who were still in shock, and her gaze finally fell on Lin Xiaozhou.
"Can you still walk?" Her voice was still cold.
Lin Xiaozhou struggled to stand up, but fell to the ground again due to the internal shock and excessive fright.
Chen Mengzhou frowned, said nothing, took out a bottle of water and a small piece of compressed biscuits from his backpack, and threw them in front of him.
"Take a five-minute break."
She also found a place to sit down and closed her eyes to recover. She had just been forcing herself to sense and deal with the energy turbulence, which had consumed a huge amount of energy.
Zhao Jun looked at Chen Mengzhou giving Lin Xiaozhou food and water, his eyes darkened for a moment, but he didn't dare to say anything. He just secretly gathered his luck and checked his physical condition.
Five minutes passed quickly.
Chen Mengzhou opened her eyes on time. Her mental strength had recovered somewhat, but it was far from optimal. She looked ahead. The broken railway line stretched out again, passing through an even more desolate and ruined factory area. According to the map and fragments of her future dreams, passing through this factory area should lead to the edge of the western suburbs, where there might be clues to a "safe zone" or "fortress."
"Walk."
She stood up and continued on without hesitation.
Zhao Jun and Lin Xiaozhou hurried to follow.
The interior of the factory was even more dilapidated than it appeared from the outside, with collapsed buildings and rusted giant equipment. Deep cracks and traces of crystallized energy erosion could be seen on the ground from time to time. This place had clearly suffered a severe impact from the space-time turbulence.
Zhao Jun, who was walking in front, suddenly stopped, his face changed slightly, and he made a warning gesture.
"There's movement... ahead." He lowered his voice and listened carefully. "It's not a corpse... but... a human voice? And... crying?"
Chen Mengzhou concentrated his perception. Fragments of his time-based energy flashed by—several ragged, emaciated survivors gathered together, seemingly guarding something. The atmosphere was tense and desperate. No weapons were visible, so the threat level didn't seem high.
But the future dream didn't give any hints about this place. Was it an insignificant cutscene, or... a new variable?
She signaled Zhao Jun and Lin Xiaozhou to keep quiet, while she herself moved forward quietly, hiding behind a half-collapsed wall and observing what was ahead.
Ahead was a relatively untouched, small, open space. Sure enough, there were five or six people gathered there, both men and women, all sallow and thin, their eyes dull. Lying on the ground between them was a little girl, about seven or eight years old. Her eyes were closed, her face flushed, and her breathing was rapid. She was clearly running a high fever and had fallen into a coma. A middle-aged woman knelt beside them, sobbing softly and wiping the sweat from the girl's forehead with a handkerchief.
“…I can’t take it anymore…I’m out of fever medicine…” “…I can’t even take the energy water…” “…What should I do…Am I just going to watch…” “…This is just the way the world is…”
The survivors talked in low voices, full of despair and helplessness.
At this moment, the mother who was kneeling and crying seemed to sense something. She suddenly raised her head and happened to see the figure of Shen Mengzhou flashing by behind the wall!
"Who?!" she screamed, her voice hoarse and terrified.
The other survivors jumped up like frightened rabbits, gathered together nervously, and protected the sick little girl behind them. They looked in the direction of Chen Mengzhou in horror, grabbed the gravel and steel bars on the ground as weapons, and faced this side with a cowardly look.
"Come out!" "Don't come over here! We're going to fight you!"
Chen Mengzhou frowned and slowly walked out from behind the wall. Zhao Jun and Lin Xiaozhou had no choice but to follow him out.
Seeing Chen Mengzhou and the other two (especially Zhao Jun with a gun in his hand), the survivors became even more frightened, but their determination to protect the children overwhelmed their fear and they did not retreat.
"We were just passing by." Chen Mengzhou spoke calmly, his eyes sweeping over the sick little girl, "We have no ill intentions."
Seeing that Chen Mengzhou didn't seem to have any intention of attacking immediately, the mother grabbed at her last straw. She knelt down and crawled forward a few steps, crying and begging, "Please... save my child! She's dying! She's had a fever for three days... She can't eat anything... Please, do you have any medicine? Even a little bit will do! I'm willing to give you anything in exchange! I can even give you my life!"
The other survivors looked at her with complicated eyes, including sympathy and a deep sense of powerlessness.
Medicine? Chen Mengzhou's backpack did contain antibiotics and a basic medical kit he had obtained from the library. Should he save her, or not?
Reason told her that in the apocalypse, mercy often leads to death. Medicine was an extremely precious resource, and using it on a little girl who had a high probability of not being saved, and who would be a burden even if she were, was a foolish waste. These survivors also seemed worthless.
but……
Her gaze fell on the little girl's flushed face, her tightly closed eyes. In her future dream, in that square torn apart by the turbulence of time and space, it seemed as if there had been a child like this, wearing a small skirt, running and laughing...
During the few seconds of her silence, something strange happened!
The little girl's body suddenly twitched violently, white foam began to overflow from her mouth and nose, and her body temperature was frighteningly high!
"Niuniu! Niuniu, what's wrong with you? Don't scare your mother!" The mother cried miserably, at a loss.
At this moment, the time power within Chen Mengzhou's body passively and violently stirred! It wasn't a warning of danger, but a strange other kind of induction—pointing to the dying little girl!
[Warning: Ultra-high intensity, undefined mental energy fluctuations detected! Source: Target person (near death)! Energy attribute: Unknown! Danger level: Unable to assess!]
The system's sharp alarm sounded in my mind!
At the same time, in front of Chen Mengzhou's "eyes", fragments of future dreams flashed wildly and uncontrollably - no longer the previous picture, but a distorted and broken "future" about this little girl!
She "saw" a little girl weeping in the endless darkness, and then something "awoke" within her... She "saw" the earth cracking, and terrifying erosion debris pouring out like a tide... She then "saw" the little girl standing on a pile of ruins, radiating a soft white light. Wherever she passed, the violent energy currents became docile, and the hideous erosion debris retreated like a tide...
The scene is fragmented, chaotic, and contradictory, but it all revolves around this seemingly ordinary little girl!
What is this?! A prophecy? Or... some kind of huge variable about the future that was triggered by her arrival?!
Chen Mengzhou's pupils suddenly shrank, and without any hesitation, he took a step forward!
“Get out of the way!”
She pushed the panicked mother away, squatted down, and pressed her fingers directly on the little girl's hot forehead!
The spatial ability and mental power were explored at the same time, not for treatment, but to forcibly suppress and channel the unknown and huge mental energy that was about to explode out of control!
"What are you doing?!" The survivor next to him wanted to stop him in shock and anger.
"Don't move if you don't want her to die!" Chen Mengzhou shouted coldly without even turning his head. The cold aura and inhuman energy fluctuations emanating from his body instantly shocked everyone!
Zhao Jun and Lin Xiaozhou were also stunned, completely confused as to what was happening.
Beads of sweat formed on Chen Mengzhou's forehead. The energy within the little girl was vast and chaotic, like a volcano about to erupt! Her powers could only temporarily restrain it, but could not truly channel or calm it!
Need guidance! Need an outlet! Or... a container?
Her eyes suddenly looked at the metal box in her backpack - the three "Gene Enhancement Potion Type I (Standard)"!
This thing can strengthen the body, maybe... it can also temporarily carry this spiritual energy? Let's take a gamble!
She quickly took out the metal box, took out a potion, pried open the little girl's mouth without hesitation, and forced the azure liquid into her mouth!
"What did you give her to drink?!" the mother screamed in horror.
Chen Mengzhou ignored her, concentrating all his mental strength, guiding the violent mental energy to pulse towards the girl's body meridians that were temporarily strengthened by the power of the potion!
Buzz!
A soft, yet terrifyingly powerful white light suddenly emanated from the little girl's body! Wherever the light reached, the tiny gravel on the ground silently turned to dust!
All the survivors were pushed back by this force, terrified!
Zhao Jun was so frightened that he almost dropped the gun in his hand! What the hell is this?!
The light lasted for more than ten seconds before slowly retracting into the little girl's body.
The little girl stopped twitching, and the foam from her mouth and nose stopped flowing. Although her breathing was still weak, it became much more stable. The flush on her face also faded a little, as if she had simply fallen into a deep sleep. The terrifying energy fluctuations also temporarily dormant.
Chen Mengzhou breathed a sigh of relief and withdrew his hand. His face became even paler and his mental strength was almost exhausted.
Dead silence.
The clearing was deathly silent. All the survivors looked at Chen Mengzhou as if he were a god or demon, then at the little girl breathing steadily on the ground, their faces filled with disbelief and immense shock.
The mother was the first to react. She rolled and crawled to her daughter's side. With trembling hands, she felt her breath. Feeling the steady breathing, she burst into tears of joy and was about to kowtow to Chen Mengzhou: "Thank you! Thank you! Are you a god?! Thank you for saving my daughter!"
Chen Mengzhou stood up, avoiding her kneeling, and said with a hint of fatigue that was hard to conceal: "She is fine for now. But whether she can survive depends on her luck."
She glanced at the two remaining potions in her hand, then looked at the little girl sleeping on the ground with a complicated look in her eyes.
She seemed to have... accidentally triggered a huge, unpredictable variable.
Who exactly is this little girl named "Niuniu"?
And where will the future go?
She put away the potion, her eyes becoming cold and sharp again as she swept over the survivors who were still in shock.
"Now, tell me about the west side, 'the fortress.'
"Tell me everything you know."
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