Chapter 9: "Perfect, a flawless start!"

There was certainly no way to stop the car and save anyone under these circumstances; if they stopped, everyone would die.

After the vehicle struck and sent several crawlers flying, the street ahead was largely clear of people and relatively safe.

Behind the car, one could vaguely see a large number of crawlers swarming the girl with short hair, beginning to feast upon her. Clearly, she could not have survived.

The high school student realized this as well. He didn't say anything more, though a glimmer of regret could not help but show in his eyes.

"..."

Chen Jiang, who was also sitting in the back seat, noticed the emotion in the student's eyes and a faint, subtle smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

...

"Where to next?"

After driving for a while, the middle-aged man, looking somewhat lost, glanced at Chen Jiang through the rearview mirror. "Brother, you clearly aren't a new player. That card-throwing trick you used earlier—I've only ever seen that in movies. You must be a veteran, right?"

"Give me some direction, brother."

"As long as I can make it out of this instance alive, when we return to reality, come find me in Chaoge City. My name is Qiu Ping, I'm the owner of Weiyang Trading Company. I will give you a very generous reward."

The middle-aged man was actually quite worldly, but this was a kind of experience he had never encountered before. Once those hundreds of crawlers rushed toward him in unison, all the composure he had been forcibly maintaining vanished into thin air.

Especially with one person already dead.

It made him feel that death was drawing closer, and this fear made him desperate to find a lifeline.

"..."

Chen Jiang did not speak. He simply looked down at the electronic paper map spread across his lap. The bar was located at the very center of the map. The known danger was that the people in this city would turn into crawlers and attack them.

The map even showed the city exits.

This was a city surrounded by a river on all sides, like an isolated island. The only connection to the outside world was a single cross-river bridge. If one could drive across this bridge, the hidden mission of this instance would be completed.

The main mission was to survive until dawn.

Completing the main mission allowed for a safe return to reality. Completing the hidden mission granted substantial rewards, but if one only completed the hidden mission without finishing the main one, they could not return.

The population of a city is immense.

It was currently the middle of the night, and there were not many people out on the streets, mostly gathered at bars or barbecue stalls. Most people were asleep in residential buildings. As dawn approached, the number of people on the streets would increase, and at that point, the number of crawlers would become terrifying.

They would clog the entire street, leaving no room to pass.

Just then—

The vehicle passed a barbecue stall. The stall was swarming with crawlers, and upon noticing Chen Jiang's car, they immediately hissed and charged toward them!

But the next moment—

These crawlers suddenly froze in place. As their bodies gradually twisted, they suddenly stood upright again. Then, as if they had completely forgotten what had just happened, they sat back down at the barbecue stall, raised their glasses, ate meat, and chatted.

Only the messy debris in the surrounding area served as proof that what had just occurred was not a hallucination.

"Ten minutes."

Chen Jiang rolled down the window and looked outside. "Ten minutes have passed from the time the people in the bar turned into crawlers until they returned to normal. In other words, there is a high probability that the people in this city remain in a normal state for thirty minutes, then turn into crawlers for ten minutes."

"That makes much more sense now."

When he left the bar earlier, he had noticed a manhole on the street outside with its cover missing. This meant that, theoretically, one could have hidden in that sewer to survive the first ten minutes before continuing on.

"Following this logic, we have another half hour of safety."

"Head to the police station."

"Let's get some firearms."

The middle-aged man nodded vigorously, clearly in favor of Chen Jiang's proposal. With a backbone to rely on, his fear began to subside. He looked at the navigation screen: "The GPS says this route will take 37 minutes."

"However, I possess the 'Basic Car Racing' buff, and I'm prepared to ignore all traffic rules. I'm confident I can make it in 20 minutes."

"Too slow. We don't have enough time."

Chen Jiang pushed open the car door, stepped out, and gestured for the man to move to the back seat. He then slid into the driver's seat and fastened his seatbelt. He tapped his fingers lightly on the steering wheel, feeling the pulse of the steel beast. The blue light of the dashboard reflected on his sharp-featured face, outlining a cold, stern silhouette.

He was reminded of the time his master taught him how to drive.

He had clearly seen in his master's eyes an uncontrollable desire to praise him as a genius—that no matter what he learned, he could pick it up quickly and master it. Yet, in the end, his master had suppressed those emotions and simply said, "Passable. Don't get arrogant."

Actually...

If the Gods' Paradise did not exist, living in the real world with his master forever would have been quite nice.

He quite liked that kind of life.

The next moment—

The roar of the engine ripped through the air above the street; at low revs, it rumbled like thunder, and at its peak, it sounded like a sword unsheathed.

Chen Jiang's left foot lifted the clutch with the precision of a surgeon's scalpel, while his right foot slammed the accelerator to the floor. The tachometer needle shot toward the redline like an arrow released from a bow.

The friction between the rubber tires and the ground released acrid white smoke under the extreme pressure. Although the vehicle should have been spinning out of control, it remained firmly planted. His right foot precisely controlled the pressure on the gas pedal, keeping the tires on the critical threshold of slipping while maintaining optimal grip.

Then!

The entire sedan shot forward like a cannonball.

Chen Jiang's gear-shifting movements were so fast they were almost a blur, keeping the engine RPMs consistently in the maximum power range.

If this were a racing game, a line of text would surely have appeared over the car:

"Perfect, perfect start!"

...

Eleven minutes later.

The vehicle pulled slowly to a stop in front of the city's police station. Chen Jiang stepped out, looked at the station where several officers were on duty, pulled a cigarette from his pocket, lit it, and glanced at the middle-aged man who had stumbled out of the car and was retching violently. "Are you alright?"

"I... I'm fine."

The middle-aged man forced himself to stop the churning in his stomach. He looked up at Chen Jiang as if he had seen a ghost, his voice trembling. "Just who among us... was the one who selected the 'Basic Car Racing' buff?"

"Who exactly are you in reality? A professional racer?"

"Is my getup really that unrecognizable?"

Chen Jiang tilted his head to look at the middle-aged man. "Obviously, a magician."

He didn't bother with the middle-aged man anymore, instead turning his attention to the officer walking toward him to inquire about the situation. In another 19 minutes, this officer would turn into a crawler.

Then, ten minutes later, he would return to normal.

Looking at it this way, the difficulty of this instance wasn't too high—one only needed to spend ten minutes on the run every half hour.