The evacuation convoy ground to a halt on the elevated highway bordering Donghu City and Shuanglong City. From this vantage point, the southern expanse of Donghu stretched out below them like a decaying corpse.

Wang Gangjian vaulted onto the roof of an armored transport. He raised his binoculars, his gaze sweeping over the only home he had ever known. Leaving it behind left a bitter taste in his mouth. He wanted one last look. Barring a miracle, he would never see these streets again.

Wang Yong, Song Dayi, and Tang Jinchuan climbed up to join him. Below them, the ordinary survivors remained locked inside the vehicles under Wang Gangjian's strict orders. Loading hundreds of panicked civilians back into the transports would waste precious time. It was safer to keep them caged.

"I see the horde," Wang Yong whispered, his sharp eyes locked on the southeast. "They're moving fast. Heading straight for Donghu."

The other three followed his gaze. A dark, writhing tide was spilling across the horizon—a vast, tireless Zombie Horde crashing into the city limits like a tsunami of rotting flesh. Donghu City still harbored scattered survivors who hadn't sought the protection of the major factions. Down there, they wouldn't even have time to scream before the tidal wave of teeth and claws swallowed them whole.

"They have flyers!" Song Dayi's eyes bulged as he spotted grotesque, winged silhouettes circling above the swarm. "It's been five years. The mutations are getting worse."

"If we don't evolve faster than them, we're dead," Wang Gangjian muttered. The others nodded grimly.

Psionic energy had saturated the globe, triggering explosive, violent mutations in flora and fauna alike. If humanity failed to harness this energy to climb the evolutionary ladder, they would be ruthlessly purged by the new apex predators.

"Let's move. The wind will carry our scent eventually. If we wait, we die," Song Dayi said, his voice tight.

Wang Yong and Tang Jinchuan turned to climb down.

"Wait," Wang Gangjian breathed, his binoculars freezing on a specific sector.

"Brother? What is it?" Wang Yong asked, pausing.

Wang Gangjian pointed a calloused finger. "Your eyes are better than mine. Look over there. Is that... mist?"

Wang Yong possessed the [Farsightedness] talent. When activated, his vision could pierce miles of distance with terrifying clarity, though it rendered his immediate surroundings into a useless blur. Because cycling the talent drained his stamina, he rarely used it without a spotter.

Frowning, Wang Yong channeled his Psionic energy. His pupils dilated, locking onto the distant coordinates.

"You're right," he murmured, squinting. "The fog is incredibly dense in that one specific sector. But the surrounding blocks are completely clear."

Seeing them linger, Tang Jinchuan and Song Dayi climbed back up. "What's the hold-up?" Tang Jinchuan asked.

Wang Yong pointed blindly. "Old Tang, do you know that district? The one choked with fog."

Tang Jinchuan squinted into the distance. "Isn't that the Spirit Dog Gang's old turf? I drove right past it two days ago when we scouted the bus depot."

"There was no mist then," Tang Jinchuan muttered. "Why now? That's not natural."

Song Dayi scoffed. "The dead are walking the earth, Old Tang. A little localized weather doesn't even make the top ten list of weird shit."

Wang Yong and Tang Jinchuan conceded the point. The apocalypse had shattered the laws of physics. There was no use burning brain cells over a patch of fog.

"Wait... what the hell?" Wang Yong gasped, freezing just as he was about to cut off his talent.

"What is it?"

"The horde. They're breaking off. They're charging straight into the mist!"

Through his enhanced vision, Wang Yong watched a dozen zombies abruptly snap their heads toward the fog and sprint into it. Then fifty. Then hundreds. In the blink of an eye, a massive tributary of rotting flesh splintered from the main northbound tide, pouring directly into the shrouded district.

The other three exchanged stunned looks. Since when did the undead ignore fresh meat to chase after empty air?

Wang Yong didn't dare blink. Over the next five minutes, entire swaths of the Zombie Horde peeled away. Even the advanced mutations—the hulking brutes and the agile leapers—were abandoning their march to hurl themselves into the white abyss.

What could possibly draw them in like that?

Five minutes later, the impossible happened. The entire northbound Zombie Horde executed a massive, chaotic U-turn, funneling entirely toward the mist.

"Talk to me, Yong. What's happening?" Wang Gangjian demanded.

Wang Yong relayed the unbelievable sight.

The three men stood in stunned silence. Was the apocalyptic tide just... gone? What kind of terrifying power was hidden in that fog?

"They're vanishing," Wang Yong said, his voice trembling slightly. "They go in, but nothing comes out. It's swallowing them whole."

A chill ran down Wang Gangjian's spine. A bottomless pit that could devour an entire city-ending horde?

He made a split-second decision. "Halt the convoy. Nobody steps foot outside the vehicles."

They held their position as the sun dragged across the sky and plunged the world into darkness.

Nightfall in the apocalypse was a death sentence. The shadows crawled with nocturnal mutants and roaming undead. Wang Gangjian split their four Espers and the toughest fighters from the Black Vanguard Security Company into two heavily armed patrol shifts.

Hundreds of living, breathing humans packed into a convoy was a beacon of fresh meat. Every man gripped his weapon with white knuckles, waiting for the inevitable slaughter.

But the slaughter never came.

Aside from a few straggling zombies and a pack of mutated wild dogs, the night passed in eerie, uninterrupted silence.

Dawn broke, painting the ruined city in pale gold.

Wang Gangjian and his lieutenants stood on the highway embankment, staring back at Donghu.

"The mist is still there," Tang Jinchuan noted.

"And it's still pulling them in," Wang Yong added, his eyes glowing with Psionic energy. "Stragglers, Supernatural Animals... they're all sprinting straight into the fog."

"Brother," Wang Yong said, turning to the blurry figure beside him. "Do you think the reason we survived last night is because that mist drew all the aggro?"

"I'm behind you, Yong," Wang Gangjian said flatly.

Wang Yong coughed awkwardly and spun around.

Tang Jinchuan rubbed his stubbled jaw. "He's right, though. That fog is acting like a massive lure for anything with a Psionic pulse."

"Like a heavenly treasure spawning in one of those old webnovels?" Wang Yong grinned. "Think about it. The zombies and the Supernatural Animals are probably tearing each other apart in there. A total bloodbath."

His eyes gleamed with greed. "If we wait it out, we could sweep in and pick the bones clean!"

Wang Gangjian's heart skipped a beat. The logic was sound. If two massive factions of monsters annihilated each other, the streets would be littered with Psionic Cores.

In this hellscape, Psionic Cores were the ultimate currency. They were the fuel for evolution and the only reliable way to barter for high-grade Supplies. A haul like that could set them up for life.

"Which is exactly why we need to leave. Now," Song Dayi interrupted, his voice like cracked ice. "If there is a treasure in there, and some apex predator claims it, it's going to evolve. What happens if a beast hits Level Three? Or Level Four? The four of us combined wouldn't last ten seconds against it."

He gestured to the convoy behind them. "We have hundreds of civilians relying on us to keep them breathing. We don't have the luxury of playing scavenger."

The greed vanished from Wang Gangjian's eyes, replaced by a crushing weight. Song Dayi was right. The lives of the entire Black Vanguard Security Company rested squarely on the shoulders of their four Espers.

They couldn't afford to gamble.

Because if they lost, everyone died.