The world was in black and white, and the woman’s scarlet dress was a shocking splash of blood, like a freeze-frame in a monochrome photograph, exuding a stifling and gloomy aura. This was undoubtedly one of the strange entities within the cage.
Lu Zhi’s divine imprint began to feel intensely hot. Suddenly, the woman’s still body moved, and a chilling premonition surged into his heart. His instinct screamed at Lan Yushan, “Watch your back!”
Normally, when people hear such a warning, their first reaction isn’t to run, but to look behind them.
However, after Lu Zhi’s startled shout, Lan Yushan bolted eight hundred meters without looking back before finally turning around, his face contorted in terror. “Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap! What the hell is that thing!”
The woman in the red dress didn’t pursue Lan Yushan. Her entire body began to twist and contort. Suddenly, she sharply turned her head towards Lu Zhi’s direction, and with a *click*, her head fell to the ground, rolling a couple of times. Beneath her long, black hair, hollow black eye sockets and a mouth full of sharp fangs, she let out a ferocious, beast-like roar at Lu Zhi.
The next second, the headless female corpse raised her hand and charged at Lu Zhi.
Lu Zhi turned and ran without a second thought. The moment he started running, the paper covering the colorful world was torn open. The surrounding black and white receded, and the scattered paper fragments touched everything, breathing life back into it with color.
“Down!”
Lu Zhi dove forward without hesitation. A gun shot suddenly rang out. A bullet grazed his hair, and with a *thump*, the sound of it embedding into flesh followed. Then, the sound of a heavy object hitting the ground came from behind him.
Lu Zhi looked back and saw a bullet hole in the chest of the zombie woman. Flames erupted from the point of impact, spreading rapidly. In the blink of an eye, the corpse was completely incinerated, leaving not even a speck of dust.
“Are you okay?” Lan Yushan extended his hand, asking with concern.
Lu Zhi shook his head, took Lan Yushan’s hand to steady himself, and stood up, looking at Luo Shiyu, who had fired the shot behind Lan Yushan.
If he remembered correctly, this type of handgun was specifically used to deal with low-level anomalies within the cage. He had one in his backpack too, but the bullets required the condensed psychic energy of an extraordinary.
“Brother Luo, your aim is incredible,” Lan Yushan gushed, running towards Luo Shiyu with admiration.
Lu Zhi subtly lowered his gaze to the emerald ring on his finger. During the test at the Clock Tower’s Tree of Life, he hadn’t felt any special abilities. If it weren’t for the existence of this ring, he would have thought he was dreaming.
Perhaps this ring was his extraordinary ability, but he didn’t know how to use it, much like the divine imprint that required him to explore it himself.
Just now, when facing the strange zombie woman, both the imprint and the emerald ring had simultaneously issued ‘warnings.’ If the emerald ring gave him a feeling of cool, flowing water, gushing with vast life force, then the imprint felt like a volcanic eruption, an endless inferno of burning and spreading, filled with bloodlust and slaughter.
“The three of us got separated from them.” Lan Yushan’s conversation with Luo Shiyu interrupted Lu Zhi’s thoughts.
Luo Shiyu raised his left hand, gesturing for them to look at his optic device. Lu Zhi saw a green dot appear on the device. Upon clicking it, a projection emerged, displaying a map of District B in Nianfeng City. The green dot indicated their current location.
Luo Shiyu explained, “There’s a high chance of being randomly teleported to different areas upon entering the cage. The reason the three of us are together is because of a magic formation inscribed on our optic devices, which prevents us from being separated.”
“Besides medicine and food, the items in our backpacks include other life-saving props, all of which are single-use. Don’t use them unless it’s an emergency. Our psychic energy is limited, so using psychic guns helps us conserve it. However, my strategy is to avoid anomalies if possible.”
“Do you remember our primary mission? It’s to assist the populace in reaching safe havens as much as possible. The anomaly I just killed was the lowest level.”
This explanation caused both Lu Zhi and Lan Yushan to nod in understanding. Lan Yushan opened his backpack, took out his handgun, and said seriously, “Brother Luo, you seem very experienced. I’ve decided, until we rendezvous with Captain Wang, you’ll be the temporary leader, okay? What do you think, Lu Zhi?”
Lu Zhi wholeheartedly agreed, “I agree. To be honest, I don’t know much about the cage. If it weren’t for Brother Luo’s intervention just now, we might have been caught by that anomaly, and the consequences would have been unimaginable.”
Luo Shiyu was a year older than both of them, and Lu Zhi and Lan Yushan were the same age. Coupled with Luo Shiyu’s decisive action earlier, they trusted him implicitly.
Luo Shiyu blinked, then readily accepted, “Alright, let’s follow my lead for now.”
Lu Zhi surveyed their surroundings, empty except for the buildings. “Where should we go next?”
Before the cage opened, members of various national organizations had systematically set up safe havens in each district. As long as the populace reached a safe point after the cage opened, their chances of survival would be significantly high.
“Let’s head to a safe haven first, and keep an eye out for any stragglers,” Luo Shiyu said. By stragglers, he meant those who refused to go to the safe points or those who wished to become demon hunters.
The primary distinction for demon hunters was that they had to kill a certain number of anomalies within the cage and enter the middle zone of the cage.
The cage was semicircular, with its abyss seed as the highest central point. The lowest level was the outer periphery, leading upwards to the middle and highest abyss areas. Anomalies within the outer boundary were mostly Level 1-2.
Level 1 was similar to the zombie-like living corpses from before. Level 2 only increased in speed and strength. It was the most suitable for new recruits entering trials. As long as they weren’t too unlucky to encounter a Level 3 anomaly that had already begun to develop self-awareness, they could successfully emerge from the cage alive.
“Wait, there seems to be someone over there.” Lu Zhi focused his gaze on a large shopping mall, half-hidden by the smog. A figure rushed past the glass railing of the pedestrian overpass. “Looks like a child.”
Lan Yushan removed his earbuds and put them in his backpack. He strained his ears, “I hear it. It sounds like they’re on the third floor. There are two, no… three voices.”
“Let’s go,” Luo Shiyu decided instantly, cautioning, “Be careful. No one knows what might appear inside the shopping mall.”
Within the cage, strange things could exist. Besides anomalies, they had to be even more wary of Nightmare Beasts. Although most of them only appeared near the middle zone, some mutated animals, contaminated by the cage, could launch sneak attacks from the darkness, making them the hardest to defend against.
Luo Shiyu led the way. The shopping mall’s power was out, and the doors were open. As soon as they entered, Lan Yushan said nervously, “Wait, something’s not right.” He listened intently and said grimly, “There seems to be something upstairs.”
“Let’s be careful,” Luo Shiyu drew his gun and cautiously ascended the stairs.
Lu Zhi noticed two police batons placed by the entrance out of the corner of his eye. After a moment’s thought, he casually picked one up and put the other in his backpack, just in case.
The second floor was a marketplace with various goods. The lighting was dim, and to reach the third floor, they had to detour to the other side.
Lu Zhi glanced at a counter next to the elevator on the opposite side. A mirror was directly facing the staircase. Through the mirror, he could see the dark staircase entrance, flanked by two incredibly realistic mannequins. Their glassy black eyes suddenly moved and looked directly at Lu Zhi from within the mirror, smiling faintly.
Lu Zhi: …