“It’s 1:46 PM,” Nana announced, checking the watch on her wrist. Her face was grim. “We have just over two hours left. We must leave before 4 PM. If we’re still here when the sun sets, we’ll never leave.”

The survivors’ faces fell. Time was passing terrifyingly fast. They had arrived just past 11 AM, and yet two hours had evaporated in what felt like minutes.

A sharp sense of urgency pricked at Chen Ye.

As they exited the mini-mart, the initial rush of looting faded, replaced by cold dread. The Great Willow loomed over them, its branches heavy with the dead. Even Iron Lion, usually fearless, moved with exaggerated caution, tiptoeing past the tree as if the ground were made of eggshells.

Chen Ye swallowed hard, his grip tightening on his crossbow. He glanced up at the hanging corpses and his heart skipped a beat.

Something’s wrong.

When they arrived, the bodies had been facing the village entrance. Now… they seemed to have turned.

Forget it. He forced his eyes away. Get the supplies, get out. Nothing else matters.

“Ahhh—!”

A scream shattered the silence. It was shrill, mournful, and terrifyingly close.

The group froze. The color drained from every face.

“That’s… that’s…” Zhou Xiaoxiao stammered, recognition dawning in her eyes.

“Shut up! Move!” Chen Ye barked, cutting her off.

Zhou Xiaoxiao flinched, her pupils constricting in panic. She knew most of the survivors in the convoy, and that scream was disturbingly familiar. But Chen Ye’s command snapped her back to reality. Terror wouldn’t save them; movement would.

The group sprinted away from the Great Willow, not stopping until they were well clear of its immediate shadow. Chen Ye let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

Instinctively, he glanced back. When they left the store, a survivor named Xiao Zhuang had been right behind him.

But now, the space behind Chen Ye was empty.

Zhou Xiaoxiao gasped, her trembling finger pointing past Chen Ye’s shoulder. Her eyes were wide, filled with a horror that bordered on madness.

“You… look…”

Chen Ye felt a chill shoot from his heels to his scalp. He spun around, leveling his crossbow, ready to fire. Iron Lion and Nana reacted instantly, weapons raised.

But there was no monster behind him. Just the tree.

“It’s… it’s Xiao Zhuang!” Zhou Xiaoxiao shrieked. “Look!”

Everyone followed her pointing finger.

Hanging from a lower branch of the Great Willow was a fresh corpse.

In a tree filled with hundreds of dead, one more shouldn’t have mattered. But this one was different. He was wearing modern clothes. A bulging backpack was still strapped to his shoulders.

It was Xiao Zhuang. The man who had been walking behind Chen Ye less than a minute ago.

Chen Ye’s pupils shrank to pinpoints. His heart hammered against his ribs. How?

From the moment they left the store to now, only seconds had passed. There had been no sound of struggle, no footsteps, nothing. Yet Xiao Zhuang had been silently snatched, killed, and strung up like a decoration.

Even Chen Ye felt a deep, penetrating cold settle in his bones. This tree is alive.

“What happened?” someone whispered. “Why is he up there?”

Chen Ye didn’t answer. He turned and started walking, his pace fast and determined.

“Save him?” The thought didn’t even cross his mind. This wasn’t day one of the apocalypse. In a world full of Anomalies, heroism was just a faster way to die.

No one argued. The survivors turned their backs on their former companion and practically ran to catch up with the leaders.

Chen Ye’s desire for the 3,000 Slaughter Points burned hotter. He needed to awaken a true Sequence. In this hell, being a pseudo-Beyonder wasn’t enough.

Nana’s face was pale. As a Sequence 2 Sword Immortal, her senses were far sharper than a normal human’s. Yet even she hadn’t sensed a thing. The village felt like it was wrapped in a suffocating grey shroud. Outside, the sun blazed; inside, it was a twilight world of shadows and silent death.

“I… I have enough! I’m leaving!”

A survivor suddenly broke. Clutching a half-full bag, he turned and sprinted back toward the village entrance, scrambling like a frightened animal.

“Me too!” Another followed suit.

Iron Lion, Nana, and Chen Ye didn’t even pause. They watched the deserters go with indifferent eyes and kept moving.

Zhou Lan and Zhou Xiaoxiao hesitated. The terror was overwhelming; every instinct screamed at them to run. But they looked at their meager supplies. If they left now, they would starve in a few days.

The sisters exchanged a look of shared panic.

“Sis… let’s follow them,” Zhou Xiaoxiao whispered, her voice trembling. “It’s better than dying alone.”

Zhou Lan nodded silently, her eyes filled with worry.

The group pressed on. Longevity Village wasn’t large, so finding the Village Chief’s house was easy—it was the biggest building in town.

“This is it,” Iron Lion rumbled.

They stood before a three-story villa that stood out starkly against the humble adobe houses around it. It had floor-to-ceiling glass windows and a large courtyard where a black sedan sat gathering dust.

But the house felt… wrong.

Vines crawled up the exterior walls like veins. The large windows, which should have reflected the sunlight, were dull and grey, opaque as cataracts. It felt as if something was pressing its face against the glass from the inside, watching them.

Any normal person would have run screaming from such a place. But desperate people don’t have the luxury of fear.