Chapter 3: Escape and Hope

Yang Zicang and Zhang Yang exchanged glances, hesitating inwardly.
From the moment of the mutation until now, except for Xiao Yu, everyone’s lifespan was already running short.
“We…”
No one could say for sure how many more years they would live; they might meet their end in the very next second.
“Investment yields returns. If you defeat this evil nightmare, 30% of its temporal sequence will be returned to you in proportion to your investment.” Bai Yuan said.
The group exchanged glances with one another.
“I’ll invest thirty years!” The girl gritted her silver teeth and made her investment.
She had already come to despise that middle-aged bald man. If it hadn’t been for Yang Zicang beside her just now, she would have likely died already. At this point, spending her lifespan counted as participating in the battle.
“Good, that takes guts.”
Mu Xiaoyu received feedback in her mind, with her lifespan reduced by thirty years.
Her appearance quickly turned youthful and plump, then gradually grew slack and sallow, with a few crow’s feet appearing.
From an extra perspective, the girl could “see” that thirty years had been directly cut from her lifespan. However, she wasn’t entirely sure how much remained, only having a vague sense that there was about ten or twenty years left.
From this same perspective, Yang Zicang could also see that his own lifespan was around ten more years.
“I’ll put in five years. Sorry, I’ve already used up a lot of my lifespan.” Yang Zicang said.
“I offer three years.”
“You’re all amazing. It seems I don’t have long to live, so I’ll just…”
Just as Liu Ming was about to refuse, Bai Yuan chuckled, “You can offer up a month.”
“Fine, a month it is.”
As the dark mist of the evil nightmare drew closer, the geometric lines on the man’s body suddenly stretched out continuously, extending into the void, reaching toward distant places.
YangZicang saw that the light radiating from the man in the trench coat was growing increasingly intense, with countless tiny luminous dots converging into the star-shaped light on his chest—this was the “investment” from people in other places.
He had no idea where those people were, but it seemed that this strange city had many others like himself. As YangZicang was pondering this, the man before him stomped his foot and turned into a blur as he dashed into the alleyway.
Over twenty meters away, the wall of a residential house was smashed open by the bus monster, and black fog spewed from its twisted, gaping maw.
“Haha, another one volunteering to die!”
By this time, Director Huang inside the bus was consumed by bloodlust, viewing humans as mere punching bags beneath him.
Director Huang thought excitedly: That man saw my child and yet showed no fear. Doesn’t this fool realize that I am now the “god” of this land?!”
“Eat him—he must have a long life span. Ha!”
Boom!
Bai Yuan swung his right arm and punched out. His enormous fist, wrapped in a silvery light, slammed into the bus with a deafening impact, stirring up a shocking commotion.
The bus fiend immediately halted its forward charge.
“How terrifying! That man stopped the bus with just his fist!” gasped Zhang Yang, who had turned into an old man, panting heavily beside YangZicang.
The bus’s headlights flickered with an eerie glow, and the surrounding ground quickly turned translucent.
“Ha, so he still has this kind of ability.” Bai Yuan glanced at the ground, his figure wavering as he stepped back a few paces.
He clasped his hands together and then abruptly pulled them apart, sparks of starlight flickering between his palms as he drew out an energy force field that stood upright in front of him. The extending translucent ground was blocked by this force field.
“He seems really strong, and he can even create a light shield.”
Yang Zicang and the others continued running forward.
“Although it’s making a big commotion, Bai Yuan seems to be struggling more.”
In the mental perception image, the originally narrow alley looked as if it had been blasted by a bomb, walls collapsing into pits beneath the ground.
Bai Yuan’s burly figure, relying on the force field in his hands, steadily closed the distance to the bus monster. Upon reaching close range, he raised his hand and struck it with an energy spire.
Huang Xu’s figure inside the bus let out a roar, a streak of crimson bursting from his chest. The monster bus flickered with shimmering energy phantoms that clashed violently against Bai Yuan.
The skin of the person inside the vehicle and of the person outside striking it visibly aged in real-time.
Yang Zicang saw that the faint light points gathered inside the glow on Bai Yuan’s chest were diminishing at a terrifying rate, like water gushing from a breach.
“How terrifying… how much lifespan have they burned through?”
“This damned world. Damn it, am I still trapped in a nightmare and haven’t woken up? He actually stopped the bus with his bare hands!”
“I wish this were just a nightmare too.” The girl’s eyes widened nervously as she glanced backward.
She was a little worried that Bai Yuan might lose; if that happened, she and the others probably wouldn’t survive either.
She couldn’t help but think, if only the person who’d warned everyone in the car earlier could show up to help—but who knew how many years of life he’d demand? After all, he’d wanted to take fifty years just for telling them how to get off the bus.
“Those geometric shapes on him are really impressive.”
Having witnessed firsthand the decay of the building, Yang Zicang guessed that Bai Yuan had likely absorbed the white energy within the structure, thereby gaining the ability to bloom a geometric form that wrapped around him/herself.
Could it be that those man-made objects were the source of this ability?
“There’s a subway entrance over there.” Mu Xiaoyu pointed ahead and said.
Although the subway entrance is more than spacious enough for the monsters’ size to fit through, it can still lead to exits in other places via the underground. So, the four of them quickly entered.
Whoo-
As soon as they entered the ticket hall, they heard the subway’s buzzer sound from below.
They weren’t sure if these trains could be boarded; if they could, they might be able to get far away in no time.
The group passed through the phantom crowd and, after descending to the platform, looked disappointedly at the translucent apparitions.
“Great, at least these trains won‘t turn into monsters，” the old man beside him panted， offering words of encouragement.
“Sigh, how are we supposed to escape？”
“Bai Yuan is starting to struggle，” the girl thought bitterly to herself, panicking about what they would do if Bai Yuan lost.
She had used up thirty years of her life, and while compared to the others beside her, her sacrifice was the least, the most beautiful youthful years of a girl had been drained away just like that.
Yang Zicang showed a grave expression.
“No, haven’t you noticed? None of the cars and pedestrians on the ground that we can walk through make a sound.”
As he finished speaking, another “whoosh-” of wind roared through the underground passage.
With a loud rumble, a reddish-yellow train hurtled and crashed into the phantom subway stopped on the tracks, overlapping and halting with it.
This train was real!
The four of them stepped back in unison, watching the eerie train warily. With a clang, the door opened, and a suffocating atmosphere seeped out from inside.
A man’s figure, swaying unsteadily, walked to the door. He said hoarsely, “You… are no longer… worth it. Over seventeen years… to be able to board.”
After speaking, the door slammed closed with a bang.
Through the window, they saw the man’s figure listlessly walk back and sit down in his seat. Dozens of people sat silently inside the carriage, like a bunch of soul-lost wax statues.
With a whistle, the train hurtled off again.
Only when it left did Yang Zicang feel the suffocation in the air recede.
“This place… is no longer Earth…” he said.
They all saw that the train had faint, fine scales, as if it were alive.
The girl stood blankly, recalling his words. Could she not live for seventeen years? Of those here, could none of them have many years left!
“Bai Yuan is also fleeing outside. That bus monster can even grow tentacles.”
In his perception, the man in the white trench coat was retreating. Mu Xiaoyu had fallen into despair; her first investment in life seemed destined for a heavy loss.
“Run quickly, get out the other way, and see if we can shake that thing off.” The two men who had been running alongside Yang Zicang were now resolved to split up again, as this was the only way to increase their chances of survival.
Yet Yang Zicang stayed where he was, lost in thought as he surveyed his surroundings.
“Big brother, are you… coming?”
“Let’s go.” Watching the few turn and dash toward the stairs, Yang Zicang followed. But after taking two steps, he paused once more.
The young man looked up and took in the subway station.
This was an interchange station where several subway lines converged, making the station quite spacious. At that moment, a light bulb overhead flickered, on the verge of giving out.
Turning his head, he noticed a poster on a pillar that looked like it hadn’t been changed in ages, its colors faded with time.
There seemed to be an invisible energy, like a thin mist, settling upon him.
“Big brother, if you’re not coming, I’ll go on ahead, okay?”
“Okay.” Yang Zicang replied absentmindedly, his heart cloaked in a strange emotion, as if the subway station was trying to hold him back.
His gaze roamed around, finally settling on the moving escalators that were still running.
The fact that their group hadn’t fallen off the escalator proved it was real.
“The subway station…” Yang Zicang muttered to himself.
Because he had been in contact with Bai Yuan, he could still perceive the faint white light within his heart.
At this moment, he felt that the white light point on his chest was faintly absorbing some kind of energy from the surroundings. This feeling became even stronger after Mu Xiaoyu left too.
[Sorry, the four of you, this monster nightmare is someone else’s companion nightmare. I can’t handle it alone. Don’t worry; when my teammate returns tomorrow, they will definitely subdue it.]
After finishing, the image of Bai Yuan observed from a third-person perspective suddenly disappeared.
That guy ran away!
And at that moment, inside the subway station on this transfer line where Yang Zicang was.
Suddenly, countless white spiderwebs surged on the surrounding walls. They flowed like currents of energy, and the nearby buildings quickly became old and worn.