Chapter 539

Chapter 539 White Dress in Sight

Qi Xia was already drenched in sweat, utterly unable to recall how long he had been running. All he knew was that he had not pushed his body this far in years.

He panted in great, ragged gasps, his mouth and throat gritty and parched, incapable of producing even a drop of saliva.

Darkness flickered at the edges of his vision, his heart thrashing violently, and all he could hope for was that his breathing would remain steady. A sudden sharp intercostal pain now would leave him awaiting death in place.

Qi Xia cursed himself for never thinking to strengthen his body, yet on reflection, such prolonged exertion was likely beyond the endurance of anyone but professional athletes. Ordinary people, sooner or later, would inevitably overextend themselves; no common training could compensate for this.

Once this {Celestial Horse's Hour} passed, what would {End Point} become?

Would the paths each person had painstakingly laid out lie abandoned once more, forcing them to start over?

Though this Celestial-grade game could not rival the great reset wrought by Celestial Dragon or Azure Dragon, it was nonetheless enough to severely drain the vitality of all {participants}. Many would not have time to acquire their {Reverberation}, losing all the experience they had painstakingly accumulated.

Qi Xia furrowed his brow, turning to glance behind him. The strange black thread maintained a steady, unhurried pace, yet it advanced visibly toward him.

The stone thrown by Chen Junnan had been effortlessly sliced apart by it. Should such a thing make contact with the body, death would be certain.

It now became clear that the black threads drifting from the sun did not slither like snakes. Rather, they {extended endlessly} over the course of two hours, pivoting around the sun above like a fixed fulcrum.

Qi Xia realized he could not even put some distance between himself and the black strands to catch a few moments’ rest. For the instant he lost sight of his thread, he would have no sense of which direction it might strike from; one lapse in attention could cost him his life.

‘How troubling…’ he gritted his teeth, thinking inwardly. ‘At this rate, I won’t be able to hold out… but my {Reverberation}…’

Just as the world seemed to tilt around him, Qi Xia caught sight of a figure in the distance: a woman in a white dress rounding a street corner. In the next instant, she vanished from view.

For a brief instant, Qi Xia couldn’t distinguish reality from a dream.

That white dress was far too familiar. As the figure disappeared around the corner, Qi Xia felt as if something had been ripped from his chest.

‘An…?’ he forcefully shook his head to confirm he was still lucid. He then turned toward the direction the woman had fled. There, floating faintly in midair, was a strand so thin it was almost invisible.

This proved she was no mere illusion; she was real. And this woman, too, was being pursued by the black thread.

A female participant….in a white dress… with waist-length hair?

In the briefest instant of movement, that departing silhouette lodged itself deep in Qi Xia’s mind, impossible to dispel, leaving him unable to steady his thoughts.

‘My most painful {obsession}…’

Now two paths lay before Qi Xia. To the left was the open ground he had planned to reach. To the right stretched the tangled, labyrinthine alleys into which the woman in white had fled.

It was a gamble.

He had not yet triggered his {Reverberation}. If he chose to enter those narrow lanes, the road awaiting him would be wholly unknown.

And yet, in this vast {End Point}, what were the odds of glimpsing a figure whose back looked exactly like Yu Nian’An’s?

His strength was already nearing its limit. No matter what he did, there was every chance he would die in this {Celestial Horse's Hour}.

‘Since I have no way of obtaining my {Reverberation},’ Qi Xia pressed his lips together, ‘then at the very least… I won’t leave myself with regret.’

He drew in a deep breath and, summoning the last reserves of his strength, sprinted a few paces to put some distance between himself and the black thread. Scooping up a few discarded pieces of cardboard from the ground, he also grabbed a handful of fine sand.

Clutching these makeshift tools, Qi Xia steadied his ragged breathing and darted toward the narrow alley to his right, plunging into the dim corridor.

The lane, no more than two meters wide, stretched straight ahead, seeming to lead somewhere unknown.

The woman in white had vanished from sight, likely having sprinted to the farthest depths of the alley.

The sun was already weak here, and with no functional lighting on the street, the alley, though at midday, appeared swallowed by twilight. Every step made it difficult to spot even a single thread.

If he could not determine whether the woman had hugged the wall or stayed in the center, each stride Qi Xia took would carry the risk of instant death.

Fortunately, he had prepared for this. Qi Xia pulled out the scrap cardboard he had collected, raised them like poker cards, and flung it forward.

The spinning cardboard curved through the alley, but even after traveling its full length, not a single strand had sliced through it.

Qi Xia glanced back, tension tightening his chest. The black thread was now not more than eight meters behind him.

With no time to hesitate, he flung another piece of cardboard in a different direction. Midway down the alley, it struck with a faint thud before splitting into two pieces that drifted to the ground.

‘I see…’

It seemed the woman had been moving along the left wall of the alley, and her black thread had followed the same path.

Having confirmed her position, Qi Xia scattered the fine sand from his hand along the left side. No matter how sharp the black thread, it could not possibly slice through every tiny grain suspended in the air. Some of the dust clung to the thread, revealing its rough outline and allowing him to trace its path.

Ensuring that no black threads lay in his way, Qi Xia hastened forward.

Having already tested the alley with two pieces of cardboard, he knew that, aside from the black thread along the left wall, no other {participants} had passed through, and no second thread hovered in the air. For now, the path appeared safe.

However, once he entered the alley, black threads would trace both sides, leaving any latecomers little chance of surviving.

A few strides brought Qi Xia to the end of the lane. Here, a T-junction awaited, and the black thread of the woman in white had clearly turned left.

But the walls on the left were high, nearly blocking all light. It was not pitch black, but the illumination was so poor that Qi Xia could barely make out anything ahead.

It puzzled Qi Xia. Would a prudent person, seeking to escape, venture into a place so veiled and uncertain?