Chapter 990 - 302: Murkiness (Part 2)

Their next target was the Central South Gathering Place, at a midpoint near District Two, also where the buildings were densely packed. The Zombies here were far more concentrated than in the previous areas, and there were more dangerous creatures as well. Correspondingly, the Gathering Place’s strength here was relatively greater.

The Lan feng Gathering Place was rather special, mostly made up of Extraordinary, so its overall strength was naturally beyond that of ordinary Gathering Places. In ordinary Gathering Places, Ordinary People still made up the majority; becoming an Extraordinary wasn’t that easy.

For Ordinary humans it was a hurdle: you needed talent, you needed chance and coincidence, and also the aid of some Mysterious Items. If you were lucky, you could directly become an Extraordinary with the help of the Doomsday Game.

"The situation in this Gathering Place looks good, there hasn’t been any mutiny. Everything is still under control." Liu Lilan continued.

Things like Gathering Place rebellions, they hadn’t run into again; at most there had been riots, with some people escaping.

This was a Gathering Place built in an industrial zone, the terrain rather spacious, and it lay by a riverbank, so they didn’t lack water. It was just that there were some monsters in the water that attacked people who came near the riverbank, often suddenly bursting out to drag someone into the water, then vanishing again.

As soon as they walked in, Chen Tiannan looked at the people around them, his expression even calmer than before, secretly signaling Ximen Long with a hand gesture.

They had anticipated this kind of situation beforehand—a very bad scenario—and yet it had still happened: the Phantoms in the Gathering Place outnumbered the real people, essentially taking over as the main occupants.

But how had it ended up like this?

This Gathering Place had never been heard to have any riots or other incidents; it had always been in a Status of Order.

Even so, he was still prepared to first meet the leader here, see what he really was. If he turned out to be a Phantom, they would act immediately; there was no need to keep hiding it.

"You’ve arrived?"

An aged voice came from inside the room. It was an old man sitting on a chair, one leg severed. There was an oil lamp burning on the table, lighting the room brightly.

Chen Tiannan glanced at the tightly closed curtains and said, "It’s daytime outside. You’re not opening the window?"

The old man shook his head and sighed. "They must stay shut, otherwise the things outside will come in."

Chen Tiannan grabbed the liquor on the table, poured it into a cup, took a big swallow, and felt its harsh burn in his throat. "You’ve sensed it? I didn’t expect the leader of this Gathering Place to actually be a normal person."

The old man’s eyes were cloudy; only when he looked at Chen Tiannan did they seem to clear. "You’re from the Law Enforcement Team, sir? I’ve been waiting for you to come over. You finally made it..."

His reason was not entirely clear; the way he talked was disjointed and rambling. Clearly, his Spirit had been twisted to a certain degree—not from pollution, but seemingly from long-term contact with those Phantoms.

Chen Tiannan sat opposite him and said calmly, "We’re here to take care of this matter. What exactly happened here? Why are there so many... people who don’t exist."

As his voice fell, the old man lowered his head and sank into a long silence, as if thinking. The clarity on his face grew stronger bit by bit.

All of a sudden, he stood up from the chair, braced both hands on the table, and looked at Chen Tiannan, speaking with firm certainty:

"Right, they’re people who don’t exist. Starting a few days ago, I suddenly realized that I didn’t know many of them anymore. I thought it was just that I was getting old, my mind not so clear, and I was actually considering whether I should resign from the position of leader."

...

"We’ve already covered more than half the journey. We’re getting close." Xu Jie lowered her head and looked at the map in her hand as she spoke.

"I heard a lot of Gathering Places have been polluted. The Law Enforcement Team is carrying out massive cleanup operations right now; plenty of people have been slaughtered because of it." someone beside her said.

Yi Xiaodong remained silent and taciturn, looking at the people around him, his face utterly expressionless. He kept feeling that some people were gone, but he couldn’t remember what those people had been called.

Maybe he had already forgotten some who were dead, forgotten their names.

"..."

Xu Jie tilted her head to look at the absent-minded Yi Xiaodong, a charming smile appearing on her face. "What’s wrong? Why are you spacing out?"

Yi Xiaodong smiled back, took the water Xu Jie handed him, and drank a sip. "Nothing, I just thought of some things. Maybe it’s the pollution making my head unclear."

Xu Jie watched him like that, a pained look in her eyes. "It’s okay. Maybe once we get there it’ll be better. When the end of the world is over, everything will get better."

Yi Xiaodong nodded. "Yeah. Everything will get better."

As they spoke, the warmth between the two of them kept rising, probably from the love slowly filling them up.

In the apocalypse, this kind of thing was exceedingly precious, yet it never completely vanished. Humanity was always a race that kept chasing after beautiful things.

Almost everyone probably had a beautiful original intention; as for how things ended, that was another matter.

This was a long journey, so long that no one could know the outcome—whether they would reach their destination, or fall into the Abyss.

Along the way, their numbers kept dwindling, from six hundred at the start, to four hundred, and now down to two hundred.

Their destination was a town on the border of District Two. It was called a town, but its industrialization was extremely high; it seemed to have been some kind of research institute in this world before the apocalypse, with very good defenses, entirely suitable to serve as a Gathering Place. Its location was rather remote, but for them, that made it all the better.