The whole nation is trying to survive on the cable car; I'm choosing one of three options at ea

The large golden bird is flying in this direction, and it has bloodstains on it... not its own, but that of the giant golden bear.

It moved faster than Su Mu had anticipated, its wingspan so wide it blotted out the sky, sunlight filtering through its golden feathers and casting a huge, moving shadow on the ground.

Its eyes were fixed on the rooftop, on the brown bear sucking on the eggshell, and on the two empty nest hollows.

Su Mu did not turn around.

He heard the howl behind him, the heavy thud of a brown bear leaping from the rooftop, and the sharp whistling of a large bird's wings swooping down. He didn't care about anything else; all he wanted to do was run, run as far away as possible.

Lin Yuwei's voice rang in his ear, this time through the communicator, tinged with obvious urgency and panting: "Run south. There are fewer monsters there. I'll follow you."

Su Mu didn't reply; his feet reacted before his brain could, turning into a narrow alley leading south.

Behind them, on the horizon, the large golden bird had already swooped down to the rooftop. Its claws grabbed the half-eaten egg that the brown bear hadn't had time to drink, and with a powerful flap of its wings, it swept the entire nest off the roof.

Su Mu ran through two streets, turned a corner, and finally stopped behind an abandoned commercial street.

He leaned against a wall, panting heavily, sweat dripping from his forehead and blurring his vision. He pulled out a half-empty bottle of mineral water from his backpack, unscrewed the cap, took several large gulps, and then poured half the bottle over his head.

The cold liquid trickled down his neck, taking away some of the fatigue, but not the deep-seated exhaustion. His hands were trembling, not from fear, but from the fact that his muscles had reached their limit.

In the distance, the cries of large birds still echoed across the sky, mingled with the roars of brown bears and the deafening crashes of collapsing buildings.

Su Mu leaned against the wall, closed his eyes, and listened as the sounds grew farther and farther away, becoming increasingly indistinct, until they finally disappeared completely in the direction of the zoo.

.......

On the rooftop of the abandoned commercial building in the distance, He Lin slowly lowered her hand that had been holding the binoculars.

Her fingers were still trembling slightly, not because of the strong wind, but because the scene she had just witnessed was etched into her retina like a nail, impossible to erase.

After the bear ate the egg liquid, its strength continued to increase.

Her perception talent was constantly at work, and that number was jumping wildly in her consciousness... twenty times that of a level three job changer, twenty-two times, twenty-five times, twenty-seven times.

The golden flames burned ever brighter inside the brown bear's body, each pulsation sending chills down her spine. She knew the bear was growing stronger, and she also knew it hadn't fully digested the energy from the egg yolks. Given enough time, the crippled brown bear might even grow to the same level as the giant golden bear.

But even under those circumstances, that man... Su Mu... still managed to withstand the bear's attack.

It wasn't an evenly matched contest; he was clearly at a disadvantage. Every time he blocked, he was forced back several steps, and every counterattack was neutralized by the bear's thick hide and rapid healing.

But he did not fall, he did not run away, he did not give up.

With that spear, with that invisible shield, he dragged the bear onto the rooftop for nearly three minutes. Three minutes was enough time for the invisible thief to take anything from the bird's nest.

He Lin put down the binoculars and rubbed her temples, which were sore from the shock.

The team members behind her were still whispering something, but she didn't listen or turn around.

Her gaze swept over the edge of the rooftop to the still-churning dust in the north section of the zoo. The large bird was still chasing, the brown bear was still running, and the golden giant bear was also rushing in that direction. The entire north section was like a pot of boiling porridge; nothing could be seen clearly, and nothing mattered anymore.

"What a pity." A teammate's voice drifted from behind, carrying a subtle tone that was hard to define as either relief or regret. "He didn't get the egg."

He Lin did not respond.

Qian Sheng pushed up his glasses, stood up from the shadow of the parapet, and patted the dust off his pants.

He glanced in the direction Su Mu had disappeared, then at the forest in the North District that was being turned upside down by the giant bird and the brown bear. His lips twitched slightly, but it wasn't a smile; it was more like a complex expression, as if he were chewing on something hard to swallow.

"If he gets his hands on that egg," Qian Sheng's voice wasn't loud, but every word was clear, "I don't know how powerful he'll become."

No one answered. A moment of silence fell over the rooftop, broken only by the rustling of the wind through the corrugated iron roof.

"But it's a silver lining amidst misfortune," another person added, their tone clearly self-consoling. "If he had taken that thing, that big bird wouldn't have been chasing that bear anymore. Look at that bird now, it's gone mad. I doubt the bear would have fared much better."

Several people nodded, and one of them let out a long sigh of relief.

He Lin didn't nod. Her gaze was still fixed on the direction where Su Mu had disappeared. There was nothing there anymore, only a quiet expanse of rooftops and streets, pale in the sunlight.

That person is gone, taking with him the terrifying energy fluctuations that no one wants to relive, disappearing into some corner of the city.

Was he really one of the survivors who came down from the cable car like them?

The thought kept swirling in He Lin's mind.

Number Seven said that only those who have been in this world for less than a week can enter this secret realm. Su Mu being able to enter means that he has been in this world for about the same time as them, less than a week.

A week.

He Lin lowered her head, looked at her hands, then at the level on her panel that had barely broken through to level four, and fell silent. How could the gap between people be so vast?

......

Su Mu found Lin Yuwei on the ground floor of an abandoned building.

That building probably used to be a supermarket. The roller shutter door was half-closed, the shelves inside were overturned, and moldy packaging bags and broken glass bottles were scattered on the floor.

Lin Yuwei squatted in the innermost corner, leaning against a relatively intact wall, her cloak already removed from her body.

Her face was somewhat pale, and there were still beads of sweat on her forehead, but her eyes were bright... the kind of bright, almost blinding light that only appears after one has truly accomplished something great.

On the floor in front of her lay an old garment that had been torn from a shelf, with two eggs on top of it.

The eggshell on the left was intact, its dark gold surface covered with fine lines, gleaming with a warm luster in the dim light. It was about the size of two fists put together, even larger than the one Su Mu had seen from the rooftop.