One hour later, they caught up with the migrating convoy.
It was a large group of survivors consisting of over 100 people, and the line stretched out quite far.
Leading the way was a heavily modified black SUV, its body welded with anti-collision steel plates.
Following closely behind was a heavy truck.
As it passed over the sandy road, it left deep tire tracks, indicating it was heavily loaded with supplies.
Behind the truck were various private cars, and at the very back were the survivors traveling on foot.
“We’re here.”
Mu Yingying stopped, pulled her hiking bag higher, and scanned the crowd with a wary gaze.
Su Shuang’er stopped as she rode White Night and looked up. On the lead SUV, several men wearing tactical vests were peering in their direction through binoculars.
“According to the information I have, the ruler of this group is in that SUV,” Mu Yingying introduced in a low voice.
“They have at least four Class Holders. The leader is named Wang Ziming, and he’s a tough character. Aside from the Navigator who can sense directions, the abilities of the other three are still a secret.”
“Why are they willing to take so many ordinary people with them?” White Night asked, feeling a bit puzzled.
“With supplies being so tight, wouldn’t these people be a burden?”
“A burden?” Mu Yingying let out a cold laugh.
“Little White Night, in this world, people are also resources. When we encounter a large-scale Corpse Tide or an ambush by Weirdness, who goes to the front to scout the path? Who stays at the back to cover the retreat? Who draws the monsters’ attention?”
Mu Yingying spoke the cold, hard truth in a calm voice, and Su Shuang’er’s heart sank.
These people weren’t fools. Even though they knew they were walking into a fire pit, they had no choice if they wanted to escape the impending Eerie Rift. If the two of them were just ordinary people, they would likely only be used as cannon fodder.
Su Shuang’er and Mu Yingying silently blended into the rear of the convoy.
No one was surprised by the newly joined refugees.
People died every day, and people joined every day.
The lead SUV didn’t even slow down, clearly long since having acquiesced to this kind of following.
After all, one could never have too much free cannon fodder.
However, Su Shuang’er and Mu Yingying stood out in the crowd.
The people around them were covered in dirt, their faces sallow and thin.
Although Su Shuang’er was wearing a somewhat dirty professional skirt, her curvaceous figure and cold temperament could not be hidden.
Mu Yingying’s height of 6 feet 3 inches and her explosive physique were even more eye-catching, and the hideous scar on her face inspired fear.
Many malicious gazes turned toward them.
“Yo, where did these top-tier beauties come from?”
As soon as the convoy stopped to rest, several thuggish men surrounded them.
The leader was a bald man with a face full of scars and cheap tattoos of dragons and tigers on his arms.
He held a blood-stained watermelon knife in his hand. His triangular eyes stared greedily at Su Shuang’er.
“Beauty, riding a bicycle is so tiring.” The bald man breathed out a foul stench from his yellowed teeth as he approached Su Shuang’er with a grin.
“The boys and I have a van. It’s a bit cramped, but it has four wheels. Why not come in and squeeze with us? I’ll take you to Spark City and even give you a bite to eat.”
“Get lost, or I’ll crack your big bald head open,” Mu Yingying said, stepping forward and swinging her steel pipe. The pipe whistled through the air as it cut the wind.
“Don’t refuse a gesture of goodwill,” the bald man said, ignoring Mu Yingying. His expression darkened as he reached out to grab White Night’s handlebars. “What’s so special about this piece of junk? Let me throw it away for you.”
“Are you deaf?”
Mu Yingying’s steel pipe pressed directly against the bald man’s forehead.
She stood in front of Su Shuang’er, looking down at the bald man who was a head shorter than her.
A playful smile played on the corners of her mouth, but her eyes were cold.
“Mr. Baldy, do you still want your head? If you don’t, I can take it off and feed it to the dogs.”
The pressure brought by her 6-foot-3-inch height was very real. The bald man felt a chill wash over him and instinctively stepped back.
“You bitch. You dare point that at my head?”
The bald man’s face looked ugly. Behind him, four lackeys immediately raised their iron bars and blades, surrounding her.
The commotion wasn’t small. The surrounding survivors watched with varying gazes—some with sympathy, some with schadenfreude, but most with numbness.
In the black SUV at the front of the convoy, the window rolled down a crack. A pair of cold eyes watched everything through the gap.
“Boss, should we step in?” the driver asked.
“Step in for what?” The man in the passenger seat lit a cigarette and exhaled a puff of smoke. “A few punks testing the newcomers’ background, that’s all. If they’re trash, it doesn’t matter if they die. If they have some skill… maybe we can recruit them into the team.”
The window rolled back up.
“Do you want to die?”
Facing the five thugs, Mu Yingying wasn’t flustered at all. Instead, she loosened her shoulders, looking as if she intended to go on a killing spree.
Seeing how sinister this tall, burly woman was, the bald man looked at the solid steel pipe in her hand and then at her terrifying size. He knew that a head-on fight might not end well for him.
“Fine… you’ve got guts.” The bald man spat viciously on the ground. “A real man doesn’t fight with women.”
After saying that, he led his lackeys away, cursing. The gaze he left behind was incredibly venomous.
“Coward,” Mu Yingying said with disdain.
Su Shuang’er’s face was somewhat pale. She had seen plenty of schemes and infighting in the business world, but this kind of blatant, violent threat still made her feel a surge of fear.
‘I don’t think they’ll let this go,’ White Night’s voice rang out in her mind. ‘Auntie Frost, Yingying, we need to be prepared.’
Night fell.
The convoy stopped to camp at an abandoned service area.
The SUVs and trucks in the inner circle occupied the safest buildings. They had dedicated guards, and the aroma of canned meat wafted out.
The ordinary people in the outer circle could only huddle together for warmth in the open-air parking lot, gnawing on moldy dry rations while staying alert for the Weirdness that might jump out of the darkness at any moment.
Su Shuang’er and Mu Yingying found a secluded corner and leaned against a broken wall.
“Here.” Mu Yingying handed over an energy bar. “Eat something to regain your strength. Tonight is bound to be a sleepless night.”
Su Shuang’er took the food but had no appetite. She looked at the several sneaky figures not far away, her palms drenched in cold sweat. It was the bald man and his gang. They hadn’t gone far. Instead, they were staring this way from the shadows, knives in hand.
“Are you afraid?” Mu Yingying asked nonchalantly while wiping her solid steel pipe.
“I am,” Su Shuang’er nodded honestly. “But I think I should overcome it.”
“That’s the right mindset.” Mu Yingying smiled and pulled out the gold coin from her pocket, giving it a light flick. “In this world, killing people is much easier than killing Weirdness.”
The Red Moon hung high. Five dark shadows used the cover of night to crouch and creep over.
The bald man held a sharpened watermelon knife, his eyes fierce. He felt that although the tall woman was difficult to deal with, she didn’t have a gun, and the big shots in the SUV didn’t care to mind other people’s business.
“Go!” the bald man whispered. The five men instantly lunged, pouncing toward the two women in the corner.
However, White Night had already seen their movements clearly.
The seemingly fast-asleep Su Shuang’er and Mu Yingying opened their eyes at the same time. Mu Yingying’s lips curled into a grim smile as she tossed the gold coin into the air.
[Ding!]
[Judgment: Failure]
“My luck is still pretty bad,” Mu Yingying lamented. Instead of retreating, she charged forward, meeting the bald man’s blade head-on.
The watermelon knife collided with the steel pipe, producing a crisp crack. It was knocked right out of his hand.
“What?” The bald man turned pale with shock.
In the next second, the solid steel pipe in Mu Yingying’s hand carried the sound of the wind and smashed into his shoulder.
A sickening sound of bone cracking rang out, and the bald man screamed as he was sent flying.
At the same time, two other lackeys lunged at the seemingly weak Su Shuang’er.
“Bitch, go to hell!” A lackey raised an iron bar and swung it down.
Su Shuang’er’s mind went blank.
She had no combat experience or fighting techniques.
At this moment, only instinct remained, along with the Supernatural Strength granted by the Miracle Potion of Great Strength.
“Die!”
Su Shuang’er swung the dumbbell bar in her hand from the ground. The strike had no technique, only pure power.
[Passive Triggered: Miracle Critical!]
After a muffled thud, the lackey who lunged forward didn’t even scream. His head was struck by the dumbbell bar. The massive impact caused his neck to twist at a bizarre angle, and he was sent flying sideways. He slammed heavily into a wall, his chest caving in, and died on the spot.
Blood splattered across Su Shuang’er’s face.
She snapped her eyes open and looked at the twisted corpse. Her entire body froze.
She… she had killed someone?
“Stop dazing out, there’s another one,” White Night’s anxious voice called her back to her senses.
Another thug had already been scared silly by his companion’s tragic state. But seeing Su Shuang’er distracted, malice grew in his heart. He raised his knife and stabbed toward her abdomen.
“You’re asking for it.”
This time, Su Shuang’er didn’t close her eyes again. Adrenaline surged, her heart pounded violently, and the thrill produced by killing washed away her fear. She lunged forward, grabbed a prepared stone, and threw it out.
The thug let out a scream as a blood hole exploded in his chest.
The man, who weighed over 150 pounds, was sent flying 5 meters away. After landing, he twitched twice and stopped moving.
In less than one minute, the battle was over.
Of the five thugs, the remaining three had their legs broken by Mu Yingying and were lying on the ground wailing.
“Don’t… don’t kill me… Heroine, please spare my life…”
The bald man no longer had any of his previous arrogance. Holding his broken arm, he knelt on the ground and kowtowed, snot and tears streaming down his face.
Mu Yingying shook the blood off her steel pipe and turned to look at Su Shuang’er. “Frost, have you ever heard the old saying? If you don’t pull the grass by its roots, it will grow again when the spring breeze blows.”
Su Shuang’er stood where she was, her chest heaving violently.
Blood was on her face, and she gripped a stone tightly in her hand. She looked at the bald man kneeling and begging for mercy. If they had lost tonight, their fate would have been worse than death.
“Kill,” a single word escaped her trembling lips.
Mu Yingying nodded appreciatively. Without any hesitation, she raised her pipe and brought it down.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
After three muffled sounds, the wailing stopped abruptly. The world went silent.
In the SUV in the distance, the man who had been watching extinguished his cigarette, his expression turning grave.
“Interesting. That tall one actually took out three people without using an ability. And that other woman… is she Strength-type? That power is a bit too terrifying.”
In the corner, when everything had settled, Su Shuang’er’s tensed nerves finally relaxed.
She leaned against the broken wall and bent over, her face pale. But beneath the intense physical discomfort, the excitement brought by the adrenaline spike also crawled up her spine.
White Night floated out and silently accompanied her.
‘Auntie Frost, it’s okay now,’ White Night said softly. ‘You did the right thing. In this world, it’s either kill or be killed.’
Mu Yingying leaned against the wall, wiping her gold coin with a deep look in her eyes. “The first time is always like this. Once you kill a few more… you’ll get used to it.”
Su Shuang’er looked up and wiped the smudge from the corner of her mouth.
She looked at her blood-stained hands, her gaze gradually changing from confusion to determination, finally turning into a cold hardness.
“I’m fine.”
Su Shuang’er stood up straight and gripped her dumbbell bar again. “Let’s go. There are corpses here. Let’s find another place to rest.”