Beyond the Timescape

Chapter 4: The Uninvited Guest

The instant he turned, Xu Qing’s gaze swept the ruins behind him.

Twenty paces away, seven figures fanned out, closing in on his position. They were all adults, men and women clad in dark gray animal furs, their belts heavy with leather pouches. Each carried a weapon, and they maintained a careful distance from one another.

Three held bows. Two gripped heavy blades. None exposed their backs to the others, their postures tight with mutual suspicion.

In the center of the formation walked an old man wearing heavy combat gauntlets.

As for the one who had just spoken with a mocking sneer, it was a towering, burly man carrying a massive battle-axe. He was the closest to Xu Qing. A hideous scar tore across his bearded face, and his eyes gleamed with cruelty as he closed the distance with a feral grin.

Xu Qing took all of this in with a single glance.

His pupils contracted. His mind instantly processed their loose formation and guarded body language. They weren’t a unified squad; they were a temporary alliance.

He already knew what they were. Scavengers.

The South Phoenix Continent was crawling with them. Most were ruthless, lacking any moral bottom line. Out here, the only law was that the weak were prey to the strong.

Clearly, the blood rain in the Restricted Zone had stopped and the barrier had opened, drawing these scavengers in like vultures to a corpse. To them, the lethal dangers of the Restricted Zone were just another Tuesday. They lived on the edge of a blade, and the resources hidden within this ruined city were enough to make them see red. Even if most of the supplies were contaminated by mutagen, there was still profit to be made.

Thoughts racing, Xu Qing shifted his weight, preparing to dart into the alleyway.

Seeing the boy tense up, the burly man’s grin widened into a bloodthirsty sneer. “Trying to run? I love breaking little rat-bastards like you. I bet that leather pouch of yours is full of goodies. Captain Lei, leave this kid to me.”

The man’s towering physique and heavy axe exuded a suffocating pressure. Without breaking stride, he hurled the battle-axe directly at Xu Qing’s escape route.

*Whoosh!*

The heavy weapon cleaved through the air, crossing the distance in a heartbeat.

The man was strong, and his throw was fast. But Xu Qing was faster. The moment the axe left the man’s hand, Xu Qing abruptly shifted his momentum, throwing himself sideways.

The battle-axe roared past his face. The violent gust of wind whipped his disheveled hair back, revealing the cold, wolf-like eyes beneath.

Instead of fleeing, Xu Qing used his momentum to roll forward, closing the gap between him and the burly man. A sharp black iron skewer slipped from his sleeve into his right hand.

Exploiting his smaller stature, Xu Qing lunged upward, thrusting the iron skewer directly at the underside of the man’s jaw.

It happened too fast. Xu Qing’s frail appearance and his feigned attempt to flee had been the perfect camouflage. For a split second, the burly man felt the icy grip of death.

But he was a veteran scavenger. Roaring, he violently threw his upper body backward. The iron skewer narrowly missed piercing his brain, leaving a bloody gash across his chin instead.

Before the man’s shock could ignite into fury, Xu Qing’s expression remained deadpan. The moment his first strike missed, his left hand dropped, drawing a bone dagger from his calf.

Using the man’s backward momentum against him, Xu Qing dropped low and drove the dagger straight down into the top of the man’s right foot.

*Thud!*

The blade punched through the straw sandal, tore through flesh and bone, and buried itself deep into the dirt, pinning the man to the ground.

The burly man’s face contorted. A shrill, agonizing scream tore from his throat as blinding pain swept through his body. He raised his fists to counterattack, but Xu Qing was already gone. Like a coiled spring, the boy had launched himself backward, taking cover behind a collapsed wall. He crouched in the shadows, his skewer raised, ready to strike again.

The flickering light of a nearby fire danced across Xu Qing’s dirt-streaked face, casting him in sharp relief. It could not hide the feral, hyper-vigilant glare he leveled at the scavengers.

The exchange had been blindingly fast. Xu Qing’s age and size had deceived them, leaving the rest of the scavengers momentarily stunned.

Now, their eyes hardened. The three archers drew their bowstrings taut, their gazes locking onto the boy’s cover.

Ignoring the screaming man struggling to pull the dagger from his foot, Xu Qing swept his gaze past the archers and locked eyes with the old man in the center.

Though dressed in the same ragged leathers as the rest, the old man’s gaze was piercing. More importantly, Xu Qing could faintly sense the subtle, dangerous thrum of spiritual energy radiating from him.

Based on his central position and the way the others instinctively deferred to him, Xu Qing made his judgment. This was the temporary leader.

As Xu Qing analyzed him, the old man stared back, a flicker of surprise in his weathered eyes. Eventually, the old man looked away, his gaze settling on the rising flames of a nearby cremation fire. He remained silent.

By now, the burly man had wrenched the dagger from his foot. Eyes bloodshot with rage, he let out a furious roar and lunged toward Xu Qing’s cover.

“You little rat, I’ll tear you apart!”

Xu Qing’s eyes narrowed into slits. His grip tightened on the black iron skewer.

Just as he prepared to move, a calm, raspy voice cut through the tension.

“Enough.”

The single word carried an oppressive weight, forcing the enraged man to freeze in his tracks. He whipped his head around to look at the old man with the gauntlets.

“Captain Lei—”

“This child is likely a survivor from the outer slums,” Captain Lei said evenly. “Even the Fragmented Face of God spared him. Stay your hand. We are leaving.”

“But…” The big man gritted his teeth, his face twisting with indignation. He was convinced he had only been caught off guard. If they fought for real, he was certain he could snap the boy’s neck in seconds.

Before he could argue further, Captain Lei shot him a cold, flat look.

“Do I need to repeat myself?”

The big man’s jaw clenched, but he finally lowered his head. As he did, he shot a venomous glare at Xu Qing’s hiding spot, raw killing intent flashing across his face. Then, with a dark scowl, he turned and limped back to the group.

Xu Qing felt the killing intent wash over him. His eyes narrowed further, watching the scavengers with cold vigilance as they began to walk away.

But after they had gone twenty paces, Captain Lei suddenly stopped. He turned his head—whether to look at Xu Qing or the burning corpses, it was hard to tell. After a long moment, he spoke.

“Child. Do you want to leave this place with me?”

Xu Qing blinked. He noticed the old man had said *me*, not *us*.

He remained silent, his gaze sweeping over the squad. Captain Lei was patient, standing quietly in the distance, waiting for an answer.

Ten seconds passed. Xu Qing evaluated the group, lingering on the old man, and finally on the limping, furious big man he had just crippled.

A strange, cold light flickered in the boy’s eyes.

Without a word, he slowly stood up and began walking toward them.

Seeing Xu Qing approach, Captain Lei gave a faint smile, turned, and resumed walking. The others cast deep, appraising looks at the boy before following suit.

And so, Xu Qing trailed behind the scavengers, watching as they scoured the ruined city for supplies.

Along the way, he learned the burly man’s moniker: Crippled Ox.

Crippled Ox glared at Xu Qing repeatedly, his eyes burning with malice. But he held himself back, biding his time. He was waiting for an opportunity when Captain Lei wasn’t looking. He seemed absolutely certain that such a chance would present itself on the road ahead.

Xu Qing thought about this. He considered Crippled Ox’s blatant greed. Relying on his intimate knowledge of the ruined city, Xu Qing began pointing out hidden caches to the scavengers.

He kept his head down and his demeanor submissive, acting as a humble guide. Thanks to him, the squad found valuable salvage much faster.

Crippled Ox was a slave to his own greed. Even when his pack was overflowing and the weight strained his injured foot, he refused to leave anything behind. Driven by avarice, he scoured wider areas than the others and hauled the heaviest loads.

At first, it didn’t seem to affect him. But as the hours dragged on, the physical toll compounded. By late afternoon, Crippled Ox was visibly exhausted, panting heavily and lagging behind the rest of the group.

As for the City Lord’s Mansion, Xu Qing deliberately steered the group away from it. Captain Lei had intervened on his behalf, so Xu Qing decided not to lead them into the lethal traps hidden there.

As dusk began to fall, the squad finally left the city limits and set up camp in the ruins of the outer slums.

They moved with practiced efficiency, pitching six tents. The two blade-wielders shared one, while the rest took their own. They lit specialized incense outside the flaps and sprinkled a ring of pale powder around the perimeter.

As the sky darkened and the horrifying roars of mutated beasts began to echo from the city, the scavengers retreated into their tents.

Only Captain Lei lingered. He glanced at Xu Qing, who stood alone in the dirt, and tossed him a heavy sleeping bag.

“The incense repels the beasts. The powder wards off the anomalies,” Captain Lei said. “Given your contributions today, and with me here, Crippled Ox won’t dare make a move. You’re relatively safe.”

Without waiting for a response, the old man ducked into his tent.

Xu Qing didn’t say a word. He stared at Captain Lei’s tent for a long moment, then picked up the sleeping bag and crawled inside.

He didn’t zip it shut. He left a narrow gap, perfectly angled toward the scavengers’ camp.

Deep into the night, the roars and shrieks from the city grew deafening. Eerie, spectral weeping drifted on the wind, suffocating the camp in a terrifying atmosphere. No sane person would dare leave their shelter in this darkness.

Except for Xu Qing.

Inside his sleeping bag, his eyes snapped open. He lay perfectly still, waiting.

He waited until the dead of night, the hour when human sleep is deepest. Only then did he slowly, silently slide out of the bag.

His movements were ghost-like, producing no sound. The horrifying shrieks echoing from the city washed over him, but his focus remained absolute.

Creeping through the dark, Xu Qing approached Crippled Ox’s tent.

He did not allow threats to his life to exist. Even a potential threat had to be eradicated immediately. This was the law of the slums, written in blood. It was the only reason he had agreed to follow them in the first place.

His subservience during the day, his helpfulness in finding loot—it had all been a calculated trap. He had exploited Crippled Ox’s greed to exhaust him, compounding the toll of his injured foot, all to strip away the man’s vigilance.

It had all led to this moment.

Xu Qing crouched outside the tent, his expression as placid as a still lake. He didn’t rush. He knelt in the dirt and listened.

The snoring from inside was heavy, rhythmic, and deep. It wasn’t faked.

Satisfied, Xu Qing drew his black iron skewer. With surgical precision, he sliced through the tent’s leather ties and slipped inside.

The interior was pitch black. Xu Qing could just make out the massive silhouette of Crippled Ox, dead to the world. The day’s grueling labor and blood loss had left him completely drained. Furthermore, the arrogance of the strong blinded him; he never imagined the submissive, helpful boy from the day would dare infiltrate his tent while the rest of the squad slept nearby.

He had no idea death was standing right beside him.

Xu Qing stared down at the sleeping giant, his eyes cold and bottomless. He stepped in close. Without a microsecond of hesitation, he drew his bone dagger and slashed it brutally across Crippled Ox’s throat.

The strike was devastating, nearly severing the man’s head from his shoulders.

Blood erupted in a geyser.

The agonizing pain snapped Crippled Ox awake. His eyes bulged in absolute terror as he stared up at Xu Qing’s emotionless face. He tried to thrash, to scream, but Xu Qing’s left hand clamped down over his mouth like a vice, smothering the sound.

Crippled Ox convulsed violently, his massive frame bucking in a desperate bid for life.

But Xu Qing was anchored. He drove his right knee hard into the man’s stomach, bowing his own body to leverage his entire weight against the struggling giant. The mechanical, unyielding pressure rendered the man’s frantic thrashing useless.

As arterial blood flooded the cot, Crippled Ox floundered like a suffocating fish. The rage in his eyes dissolved into absolute despair, and finally, into a pathetic, begging plea.

But all he saw in return was Xu Qing’s dead, indifferent stare. The muffled sounds of the struggle were entirely swallowed by the monstrous roars echoing from the city outside.

Seconds ticked by. The violent convulsions weakened into pathetic twitches. Finally, with one last shudder, Crippled Ox went limp. His eyes remained wide open, frozen in the terror of his final moments.

Xu Qing didn’t move. He held the man down for another full minute, ensuring he was truly dead.

Only then did he release his grip. He wiped the blood from his hands and opened his leather pouch.

Carefully, he withdrew the burlap-wrapped head of the mutated snake he had killed days ago. Gripping it tightly, he drove the venomous fangs deep into Crippled Ox’s exposed flesh.

Instantly, the potent mutagenic toxin went to work. Sickly green blisters bubbled across the corpse, and the flesh began to rapidly liquefy.

Minutes later, the massive body had dissolved entirely into a pool of foul, bloody sludge that seeped into the dirt.

Xu Qing watched in silence. He meticulously cleaned the scene, gathered Crippled Ox’s belongings, and arranged the tent to look as though the man had simply packed up and left.

Stepping back out into the night, the biting wind washed over him, stripping away the faint scent of copper and blood. Xu Qing looked up at the pitch-black sky, took a deep breath of the freezing air, and silently returned to his sleeping bag.

The moment he lay down, a profound sense of peace settled over him. The threat was gone. The security of survival allowed him to close his eyes, and he quickly drifted to sleep.

But his hand never released its death grip on the black iron skewer.

***

The night passed without incident.

When dawn broke, casting a pale light over the wasteland, Xu Qing opened his eyes. He crawled out of his sleeping bag and casually glanced toward Crippled Ox’s campsite.

His pupils instantly contracted.

Crippled Ox’s tent was gone. Not just empty—*gone*.

Xu Qing’s heart sank. A chill ran down his spine, and his vigilance spiked. He had only dissolved the body and hidden the gear; he hadn’t touched the tent itself.

Soon, the other scavengers emerged. They immediately noticed the missing camp and muttered in surprise. A quick search of the perimeter yielded nothing.

Because the disappearance was so absolute—even the tent was missing—the squad quickly concluded that Crippled Ox had either sneaked back into the city out of greed or abandoned them without a word.

In the Restricted Zone, people vanished every day. There were a thousand ways to die out here.

Since they were only a temporary squad and Crippled Ox was a loner, the scavengers quickly lost interest. A few glanced at Xu Qing, but dismissed the thought instantly. It was physically impossible for a scrawny kid to make a veteran like Crippled Ox vanish without a trace. With no obligation to investigate, they dropped the matter entirely.

Only Captain Lei lingered. As he walked over to collect Xu Qing’s sleeping bag, he gave the boy a long, profound look.

“Now,” the old man said softly. “Will you still come with me?”

The words carried a heavy, unspoken weight. Xu Qing remained silent.

Captain Lei didn’t press him. He turned and signaled the squad to move out under the morning sun.

Xu Qing stood frozen for a moment. He looked back at the ruined city, its jagged skyline silhouetted against the dawn. Then, he turned back to the old man’s retreating figure.

After a brief calculation, he took a step forward. With every pace he took, his stride grew firmer.

Six scavengers and one child. Their shadows stretched long across the cracked earth.

The wind howled across the wasteland, carrying fragments of the scavengers’ conversation back to him.

“That’s the divine calamity for you. A whole city, wiped off the map.”

“Just another Restricted Zone added to the world…”

“You think this is bad? Seven years ago, up north, there was a massive metropolis. The god in the sky opened its eyes and looked at it. The whole region—millions of people—just vanished. Like they never existed.”

The voices grew fainter as they marched into the horizon. Under the pale morning sun, the boy walked in silence. Listening. Surviving.

The further he walked, the further he left his past behind.