It started when a bloody rain was about to fall.

Seeing the desperate situation he was facing, Lin Ye couldn't help but take a deep, silent breath, letting the murky air mixed with dust and the smell of death fill his lungs.

Immediately afterwards, Lin Ye's consciousness sank into the quiet "space" within his body, which belonged only to him, as if he were diving.

The supplies floated silently in the space.

The two machetes, one with its blade curled like a withered leaf, seemed to have endured too many unnecessary battles.

The other sword, still gleaming with a cold, eerie light, had not yet had a chance to drink blood, but was already awaiting its fate today.

Dozens of brass-colored 9mm pistol bullets were left, but the gun itself had long since been reduced to scrap metal in a collapse, rendering the bullets a useless burden that only occupied precious space.

The three bottles of murky drinking water, despite being filtered repeatedly, still carried a lingering rusty taste—the taste of this world.

Five packets of expired compressed biscuits with worn edges. The production date on the packaging was 2025, which was the world "before" it existed. That world was dead, leaving only these remnants as tombstones.

A set of rusted tools, including wrenches, screwdrivers, and pliers, each stained with the blood of its former owners, who have long since turned to dust, leaving only these cold relics.

And then there was the blackish-gray "fragment" that he had just casually taken in, which was now quietly suspended in the very center of the space, pulsating with a dark, ethereal glow at a constant rhythm.

As Lin Ye inventoried the supplies, he was like a soldier silently wiping his weapon one last time before the final battle.

"Wang Qiang."

Then, Lin Ye finally spoke. His voice was hoarse from thirst, blood loss, and pain, yet it strangely maintained a calmness, like the sea frozen in the last moments before a storm, like the footsteps of a condemned prisoner walking to the execution ground.

"Aren't you going to introduce the friend behind you?" The air in the ruins seemed to be suddenly sucked out by these words, falling into a heavy, almost tangible solidification.

After a few seconds of suffocating silence, the scarred, bearded, bald man laughed.

The laughter was dry and rough, like sandpaper rubbing back and forth on bare bones, like an owl hooting among ruins.

"clever."

He stepped forward, and Wang Qiang and Li Feng immediately retreated to the sides, as if the curtain had been drawn back on a stage, revealing his complete and imposing figure.

"Lin Ye. The last survivor of the 'Grey Rat' team, a lone traveler in Ruins No. 3, a rare space-type ability user, although, he is only a 'storage type'."

As soon as the scarred, bearded, bald man uttered those words, a chill ran down Lin Ye's spine.

It was simply because the other party knew far more than he had anticipated, far more than he had anticipated, far more than he had anticipated, far more than he had anticipated, making him suspect that there was a deeper conspiracy behind it all.

"Zhang Zhen".

The scarred, bearded, bald man introduced himself, his venomous eyes seemingly able to pierce through the concrete pillars and fixate on Lin Ye.

"Seventh Search Team, Third Squad Leader. Our boss 'admires' you, or more precisely, admires your 'performance' in the No. 3 Ruins. That hellhole cost our entire team thirty or forty lives, and we barely managed to escape with our lives on the line. And you…"

He paused, his tone shifting to an undisguised, greedy coldness.

"One person went in, and another person came out, and I heard they brought 'something' out with them."

Then Zhang Zhen's gaze locked onto the shadow where Lin Ye was hiding:

"Hand over that mysterious fragment. I promise you a quick death, and I won't let you feed those howling 'things' outside."

The moment Zhang Zhen spoke, Lin Ye's brain was coldly working at an unprecedented speed.

The standard configuration for a search team is a five-person squad.

Chang Chen only brought two peripheral informants with him; the remaining two must have been lying in ambush on the more dangerous flanks.

Perhaps in the ruins to his left, or perhaps in the shadows to his right, someone is aiming a gun at every possible escape route.

The other party was able to locate him so accurately... using a tracker.

There must have been a tracking device planted on Wang Qiang or Li Feng beforehand.

It might be a microchip hidden in the seam of clothing, or a signal transmitter sewn into the sole of a shoe.

In the apocalypse, such methods are commonplace, yet he overlooked them.

"I'm very curious."

At the same time, Lin Ye deliberately delayed, but his consciousness rapidly moved the positions of several items within the "space," like a chess player making a final deduction before placing a piece.

"What price did they give me for selling me?"

Upon hearing this, before Zhang Zhen could speak, Wang Qiang chuckled twice. The laughter was particularly jarring in the frozen silence, like the squeal of a mouse.

"Brother Ye, it's the apocalypse, everyone has to look out for themselves... Captain Zhang and the others promised to give us two 'permanent residence permits for the safe zone' plus three months' worth of standard rations."

Upon hearing this, Li Feng subconsciously lowered his head and stared at the tips of his shoes, which were covered in mud and whose original color was no longer discernible.

His shoulders trembled slightly, as if bearing some invisible pressure—the weight of conscience, the price of betrayal.

"Safe zone...residence permit?"

Lin Ye almost chuckled aloud.

That laughter was imbued with a deep-seated sarcasm and desolation forged over five years of the apocalypse.

Like the wailing of the wind passing through ruins, like the mockery of the dead upon the living.

"Wang Qiang, Li Feng, do you really believe that those ruthless bureaucrats will keep their promises?"

Last year, of the 37 residence permits issued by the Sixth Search Team, only 3 were actually "delivered".

The remaining thirty-four people all died "accidentally" during the next mission to search for supplies. Some were torn apart by mutants, some were shot in the back by their own people, and some disappeared deep in the ruins, their bodies never to be found.

"Wang Qiang, Li Feng, haven't you heard about this?!"

Upon hearing this, Wang Qiang's greasy smile froze instantly, as if sliced ​​off by an invisible ice blade, leaving only naked fear.

Li Feng suddenly raised his head, and for the first time, a clear and intense wavering appeared in his gaze as he looked at Zhang Zhen. A crack of doubt appeared, and that crack would grow larger and larger until it swallowed up all trust.

Zhang Zhen's eyes turned cold. His last bit of patience went out like a candle that had burned out.

"Trying to sow discord is useless."

At the same time, he slowly raised his right hand holding the gun, the dark muzzle pointing steadily at the cement pillar.

"Lin Ye! I'll count to one. If you don't come out, I'll use an incendiary bomb to set this pillar and you inside on fire. Ten, nine, eight..."

Then Lin Ye made a move.

Not forward, not backward, but upward!

The muscles in his legs, which had been gathering strength for a long time, suddenly bulged, unleashing all the remaining power as he slammed his leg against the inside of the concrete pillar!

The body, like a spring compressed to its limit, is completely released in that instant!

The muscles in his right arm were bulging like iron, and his five fingers were grasping at the air!

The fairly sharp cleaver had leaped from the "space" into his palm, its cool hilt pressed against his burning palm lines!

At the same time, Lin Ye transformed into a blurry, resolute gray shadow, lunging towards a broken reinforced concrete beam that jutted out diagonally three meters to the upper left!

"court death!"

Upon seeing this, Zhang Zhen's roar and the explosion of the bullet leaving the barrel almost simultaneously shattered the silence of dusk!

Then, the scorching hot trajectory of the bullet grazed past Lin Ye's clothes under his ribs.

The charred fabric, mixed with the stinging pain of burns on his skin, traveled to Lin Ye at the same time, and the air was filled with the smell of burnt flesh.

With his body suspended in mid-air and nowhere to gain leverage, Lin Ye swiftly swung his left hand.

Three heavy, rough bricks, instantly retrieved from the "space," tore through the oppressive air in a triangular formation, accompanied by a whistling sound, and slammed directly into Chang Chen's face and upper body!

This is not a supernatural attack; it's just a primitive physical throw.

However, with the spatial ability of "instant object retrieval," its suddenness and speed far exceed the reaction limits of any ordinary person!

Like a shooting star appearing out of nowhere, like a die thrown by Death.

Zhang Zhen was forced to roll to the side to dodge, and the gun barrel instantly lost its aim.

Lin Ye, like a wounded yet more ferocious cheetah, merely tapped his right foot on the crossbeam and leaped again, this time aiming straight for the dark entrance to the underground parking lot, which resembled the esophagus of a giant beast!

"Stop him!"

Zhang Zhen's roar was completely distorted by the thwarted plan and his rage!

The sound contained humanity's most primal anger, the humiliation of a hunter being toyed with by his prey, and the roar of a wounded wild beast.

As if in response to his command, two figures that had been lying in wait emerged from the shadows on both sides of the ruins—the true ambush hunters!

A man held a short-barreled shotgun, the dark muzzle spewing out deadly flames the moment it was raised.

The other person held a miniature submachine gun with a slender silencer that gleamed coldly, and the muzzle spewed out crisscrossing tongues of death fire!

The scorching steel pellets rained down like a sudden downpour, shattering the rubble in front of Lin Ye into countless fragments and billowing dust! Each pellet left deep bullet marks on the walls and the ground, as if death itself were signing its name.

The submachine gun bullets emitted a sharp "whoosh" sound, drawing transparent and deadly ripples in the darkening air. Then, those ripples intertwined into a net, as if trying to trap Lin Ye within it.

Time, at this moment, seemed to be stretched, distorted, and almost frozen by an invisible hand.

Every speck of dust, refracting the afterglow of light as it flew through the hail of bullets, every fleeting burst of crimson sparks from the muzzle of a gun, every drop of murky sweat that flickered from Lin Ye's forehead, threatening to fall...

Everything was broken down into countless clear yet slow frames within Lin Ye's rapidly contracting pupils—each frame proclaiming the same word: "Death!"