The brief silence didn’t last a moment before the black mist surged again.
The black smoke rose and fell like a living thing, breathing. It slowly closed in from all directions, swallowing this small clearing.
The compass needle began to tremble violently again, and the previously dim red light brightened once more.
The dark red halo made the surroundings look eerie, and the air seemed stained with the color of blood.
“It’s back,” Mu Yingying’s voice dropped, her fingertips unconsciously tightening around the Tang Dao at her waist.
Su Shuang’er said nothing.
Her gaze swept across the black mist of varying thickness, and her brow furrowed deeper.
The mist was thickest in the direction they had come from.
Distorted silhouettes could be seen faintly bobbing in the fog, looking like predators peering at their prey.
The mist on the left was slightly thinner but was thickening at a rate visible to the naked eye; it would soon swallow that narrow gap.
To the right —
Thud!
A muffled sound came from the right rear, and the vehicle jerked violently. The bicycle White Night possessed shook along with it, nearly losing its balance.
“The tire!” Mu Yingying glanced down, her expression darkening with urgency.
The right rear wheel was completely flat.
It hadn’t been punctured by a sharp object; instead, a layer of grayish-white crystals had grown over its surface.
Under the erosion of the crystals, the rubber aged rapidly and cracked. Soon, the entire tire crumbled into debris from the inside out.
The Calculus Ghost had somehow crept behind the vehicle, curling up on the ground less than 5 meters away.
Dark red pus and blood were still seeping from the stones in its abdomen, dripping onto the ground with a faint sizzle.
It let out incoherent whimpers.
It didn’t attack actively, but as the pus sprayed from its kidney wounds, the metal body of the car began to bubble and corrode.
“Get out!” Su Shuang’er’s voice held no hesitation, carrying an unquestionable decisiveness.
Mu Yingying didn’t say a word, grabbing her Tang Dao and leaping out of the cab.
Su Shuang’er quickly grabbed the alloy javelin and two spare steel pipes from the back, kicked the door open, and jumped out, staring warily at the surrounding black mist.
White Night’s soul body floated lightly out of the basket, hovering above the bicycle. She looked back at the car; the left front wheel had also started to bubble, and a piercing screech came from the chassis. The vehicle was completely ruined.
“Ride me and let’s go!” White Night shouted urgently, her soul body swaying slightly.
Su Shuang’er immediately straddled the bicycle, gripping the handlebars with one hand and the alloy javelin with the other. Mu Yingying followed closely beside the bike, her Tang Dao already unsheathed. The blade reflected the dark red glow of the compass, flashing with a cold, sharp light.
The black mist was surging frantically from all sides like an invisible net, closing off their remaining paths one by one.
The first anomaly was the first to pounce from the mist on the left front — it was a Migraine Anomaly.
Half of its head was swollen as if it were about to explode, with bulging blood vessels crawling beneath the skin.
Its eyes were bloodshot as it charged frantically toward the reflection of the headlights, hands clutching its head while it let out broken, shrill howls.
Su Shuang’er didn’t even turn her head. The tip of the javelin flickered and pierced the swollen temple, hitting the most violently throbbing blood vessel.
Puff —
A cloud of dark red blood mist exploded, and the anomaly’s body dissipated, leaving only a pungent smell of rust.
The second anomaly pounced from the right immediately after — the Gout Anomaly. Its joints were covered in lumps that looked like rotten grapes. it could only crawl quickly on its knees and palms, letting out hoarse roars.
Mu Yingying leaped to meet it, her Tang Dao swinging in a horizontal slash. The blade cut into its right knee joint, shearing off a gout stone the size of a fist along with half the kneecap. The anomaly screamed as its body slumped, but it didn’t explode into mist like the previous one; it continued to struggle and writhe on the ground.
‘It’s not the knee!’
White Night’s gaze swept over the anomaly’s body, quickly locking onto the key.
At its ankle joint, there was a gout stone larger and darker than the others, and it was pulsing slightly.
“The foot! The one on its foot!” White Night shouted.
Mu Yingying reacted instantly, pulling her blade back and thrusting the tip upward, shattering the dark gout stone.
Puff —
Another cloud of blood mist erupted, and the anomaly’s body completely vanished.
Three, four, five…
The anomalies in the black mist seemed to have caught the scent of blood and grew even more frenzied.
They swarmed in large groups, a dense mass of roars and whimpers intertwining.
Su Shuang’er rode White Night at the front, the alloy javelin becoming a spear in her hands as she stabbed, flicked, and thrust with precision.
Every strike aimed at the disease focus White Night called out, resulting in instant kills.
Mu Yingying ran on the flank, guarding the bicycle while her Tang Dao never stopped slashing. Her swordsmanship was a wild style born from a lifetime of fighting, but its strength lay in its ruthlessness. Wherever White Night told her to strike, she struck, her blade never hesitating.
One, two… ten… twenty…
One cloud of blood mist after another exploded and dissipated, and the smell of rust in the air grew thicker. However, the number of anomalies didn’t decrease; instead, they multiplied. For every ten they killed, twenty more emerged from the fog, as if there were no end to them.
White Night understood the reason instantly. After all the survivors in the convoy had perished, the anomalies that had been surrounding them were now free to converge on them from all directions. They were about to become the final prey in the black mist.
“Auntie Frost, left shoulder!” White Night’s voice suddenly spiked.
Su Shuang’er jerked her body to the side just as a Shingles Ghost lunged past her shoulder.
At the moment of contact, several blisters around its waist burst, splashing yellowish-green pus onto Su Shuang’er’s forearm.
Sizzle —
Su Shuang’er groaned.
The skin on her forearm instantly turned red as if burned, and several blisters swelled up rapidly.
The pain felt like it was drilling into the marrow of her bones.
“Auntie Frost!” White Night was so anxious that the color of her soul body changed, the faint light around her shaking violently.
“I’m fine,” Su Shuang’er said through gritted teeth, her voice trembling slightly but remaining firm. She stabbed backward with the javelin, piercing the largest blister on the anomaly’s abdomen.
The disease focus ruptured, and the blood mist exploded. But the burn on her forearm didn’t ease at all; the blisters only grew larger.
Mu Yingying wasn’t faring much better. When she hacked down a Calculus Ghost, dark red pus splashed onto her cheek. The old scar there was scalded by the pus, sending a jolt of intense pain through her. Her eyes twitched and cold sweat broke out on her forehead. Yet, she didn’t even wipe it away, gritting her teeth and enduring it while her Tang Dao continued to slash.
“Little bikey baby, Auntie’s about to run out of steam. Can you give Auntie a mana refill?”
She was still forcing out witty remarks, trying to lighten the atmosphere. But White Night could hear that her voice was half a pitch deeper than before, and her breathing was becoming unstable. Every swing of her sword was accompanied by heavy panting.
They couldn’t keep dragging this out.
White Night knew that if this continued, they would eventually be worn down by the anomalies as their physical strength was being exhausted at a rapid pace.
She looked down at the front basket where the black bowknot lay quietly.
Her soul body reached out and gripped the bowknot, a chill passing through her fingertips.
Last time in the tunnel, the bowknot’s power had been poured entirely into Su Shuang’er, allowing her to throw that world-shattering punch, but it had also left her completely exhausted.
This time, she couldn’t use it that way.
They didn’t need a single punch to shatter everything; they just needed the two aunties to hold on until they broke through this black mist.
‘Bowknot, help us,’ White Night pleaded in her mind. ‘Let them run faster and strike truer. Just let them hold on until we get out.’
‘Please.’
Hum —
The bowknot suddenly moved.
The ink-black ribbon slowly dissolved from White Night’s palm.
It split into two slender black threads that, like two spirit snakes, quietly wrapped around Su Shuang’er and Mu Yingying’s wrists.
That power poured into Su Shuang’er’s body once more.
This time, it wasn’t as violent as before; it felt more like a thin layer of armor clinging to her muscles and bones.
The burning pain on her forearm was instantly suppressed, and her strength mostly returned. The once heavy javelin now felt much lighter.
Mu Yingying felt it too.
The hand holding her Tang Dao stopped shaking.
Although the burned skin on her face still stung, a cool energy surged through her body, temporarily suppressing the pain.
Mu Yingying glanced at the faint black thread on her wrist and raised an eyebrow, but she didn’t stop her movements.
“We have to break through!”
Su Shuang’er didn’t have time to explain. She slammed her foot down on the pedal. The bicycle shot forward, its speed significantly faster than before, looking like an afterimage as it pierced the black mist ahead.
The javelin rotated flexibly in her hand, the tip enveloped in a faint black halo.
Every thrust hit the disease focus of an anomaly.
She pierced the abdomen of a Gastric Ulcer Ghost, and blood mist instantly exploded.
Mu Yingying followed closely at her side, her blade speed noticeably faster.
As her sword passed through, she slashed the disease focuses of two anomalies in a row.
Blood mist exploded one after another, and though the roars and whimpers rose all around her, they didn’t affect her rhythm in the slightest.