Chapter Ninety-Five: Clearing the Stage

Fang Nian set off with everyone’s hope resting on him, and the carriage fell instantly quiet. They kept watch by the window, waiting for that familiar figure to appear.

But time passed by the second, and with each passing second the air inside the carriage grew colder. They knew they did not have much time left.

Xiao Xueluan draped his padded coat over Jin Jinhui’s shoulders, while he himself curled up in a corner wearing only a thin shirt, and said with a wry smile, “Old Fang really is slow. It’s been this long, and who knows whether he’s alive or dead.”

Jin Jinhui shot him a glare, and the slightest goodwill she had just felt toward him vanished at once.

“Can your crow’s mouth say anything people actually want to hear? All you ever do is back down before the fight even starts. Just listening makes me annoyed.”

Xiao Xueluan was left staring blankly after being scolded, and Guo Ji and Duan Rui looked at the two of them and exchanged a smile.

“They really do suit each other,” Guo Ji said. “One timid, one fierce.”

Duan Rui rarely smiled at Guo Ji.

“Yes. They do complement each other. Don’t let Jin Jinhui fool you with that wild, scatterbrained act; inside, she’s rather soft. Having a steel-strong straight man watching over her isn’t so bad.”

A little over half an hour passed. In the once-silent carriage, the atmosphere suddenly grew heavy. In the bitter cold of minus forty-odd degrees, some people had already begun to faint from the freezing air.

Even so, even though some had lost their loved ones because of this, not a single person uttered a word of complaint. They still waited there, hoping for Fang Nian to appear, all of them waiting for that last thread of hope in the midst of despair.

“Someone’s coming.”

Suddenly, a sharp cry rang out from the crowd. A woman pointed into the distance and shouted.

At that, almost everyone turned to look in that direction. They truly saw a figure running toward them with determined strides. The road, though level, seemed terribly broken beneath his feet.

Because the distance was too great, they could not tell whether it was really Fang Nian. But as the figure drew nearer, his features became clear.

It was Fang Nian.

By then, his hair was in complete disarray, his clothes were soaked through with blood, and one arm was covered in blade wounds, the injuries plainly visible and shockingly brutal.

No one knew what Fang Nian had experienced along the way, but everyone felt deep respect for him. They truly admired the young man before them.

Fang Nian’s pace grew slower and slower. He went from running to walking, and in the end he was dragging one leg forward. It was obvious he had reached the very end of his strength, moving on pure will alone. The sight was heartbreaking.

At that moment, almost everyone was cheering him on, praying that this young man could hold on just a little longer.

“Hang in there, brother! Whether we can get back to that world depends on you!”

“Yeah, brother, please get up. We need you. We need your willpower.”

“Brother, you have to stand up. I miss home. I miss my mom and dad.”

“Fang Nian, hold on! Just one step left. Whether we can get out depends on that step.”

“Fang Nian... keep going.”

But just then, more than a hundred figures suddenly surged out from behind Fang Nian. They all wore matching gear, each with a machete slung at their side, and several of them were carrying submachine guns. They were charging straight toward him at full speed.

Everyone understood that these must have been the people who had reduced Fang Nian to this state. At once, all of them clenched their jaws, wishing they could rush out immediately and save him.

But that hateful glass wall stood in the way. They could only pin their hopes on Fang Nian, hoping he could hold on long enough to reach them and open this gate.

Yet things were not as ideal as they had imagined. When Fang Nian was still more than ten meters from the glass wall, he finally could not endure the pain any longer and collapsed. The pursuers behind him were less than a hundred meters away; in only a few breaths, they would be upon him.

Duan Rui stared at victory just within reach and cried out frantically toward Fang Nian. Jin Jinhui and Xiao Xueluan also hammered desperately on the glass, trying to wake Fang Nian, who had nearly lost consciousness.

But all of it seemed futile. Fang Nian still lay motionless on the ground.

And then, just as everyone had fallen into despair and the pursuers were about to seize Fang Nian, the unconscious man suddenly lifted his hand instinctively toward the glass wall. In the next instant, everyone watched in delight as a pebble no bigger than a ring flew out from Fang Nian’s hand and hurtled toward the glass wall at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The stone flew so fast that in less than a second it struck the glass wall. Yet those moments felt like a year to everyone there. At the instant the pebble hit the glass, Fang Nian was also pinned down by the pursuers.

But everyone’s gaze was fixed on that pebble. After striking the glass, it left only a faint mark on the surface. The glass did not shatter.

In that instant, all hope was lost. Their last glimmer of expectation was extinguished just like that.

Guo Ji looked at Fang Nian, now already bound and restrained, and fury rose in his heart. He pounded the glass wall in anger, but the wall remained as hard as a boulder, showing not the slightest change.

And just when everyone had given up, Jin Jinhui suddenly shouted, “Hey, look, there’s a crack here!”

Her words were like a powerful stimulant, instantly bringing the half-frozen crowd back to life. When they leaned in to look at the crack, a shocking sight unfolded before them.

Starting from that point, fine spiderweb fissures began spreading rapidly across the glass wall. The cracks expanded at astonishing speed, branching and branching again like falling dominoes. In just a few breaths, the entire glass wall was covered in fractures.

Then, three seconds later, a deafening explosion rang out. The glass wall burst into powder in a single instant, and the violent shockwave of the blast sent nearly everyone in the carriage sprawling.

Two seconds later, the dust of shattered glass settled. A breath of the natural world blew through the massive hole in the wall and into the carriage. In that moment, almost everyone became wildly excited. One by one, they grabbed their weapons and surged madly toward that long-missed blue expanse.

Duan Rui and the others rushed out of the carriage as well, and soon they had rescued Fang Nian from the pursuers. Looking at Fang Nian, now covered in wounds from head to toe, everyone silently admired him in their hearts, admiring the team’s most formidable fifth member.

“Successfully cleared E-rank hunting ground, Doomsday Train. Hunters will exit the hunting ground in three seconds. Please make preparations.”