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

And on the top floor of the ruins.

At the same moment, the detector in Zhao Rong's hand emitted an extremely short, soft sound.

His gaze shifted from the direction of the zoo to the screen, where the moving energy marker was clearly visible. The direction and speed indicated that the target was rapidly moving away from its current location, not towards a teleportation point, but towards a more remote suburb.

He frowned slightly. "He left. He didn't go towards the teleportation point; he headed towards the outskirts of the city."

The chief of staff leaned over and glanced at the data: "We confirmed before that there are no defensive lines deployed over there."

Zhao Rong was silent for a moment, then spoke: "The entire army shall disengage from the battle line and follow me."

The chief of staff paused for a moment: "If we withdraw now, the main battlefield will collapse immediately."

"Our mission is not to defend the city."

Zhao Rong's voice wasn't loud, but it was steady. "Our mission is to find him. Now that he's left the main battlefield, we'll follow him."

The chief of staff did not object further and turned to relay the orders.

The dark gray ranks quickly closed at the edge of the ruins, their footsteps maintaining a steady rhythm in the night fog. They didn't attract much attention, but the gap in the battle line had begun to widen after the troops left.

......

When Su Mu arrived, the pale pink light gate at the entrance of Peach Blossom Village was flickering irregularly.

The light at the edge seemed to be disturbed by something, sometimes bright and sometimes dim, like a lamp being blown by the wind.

The moment he stepped through the gate of light, he stopped.

The peach orchard is no longer the peach orchard it once was.

The trees that were originally arranged in an orderly manner were uprooted and large numbers of them were broken. The broken trunks lay scattered on the ground, and broken branches and fallen leaves covered the ground, as if a storm had plowed through the middle of the ground.

The farmland on the ground has been crushed under continuous high intensity, and its original shape is no longer visible. Soil and gravel are mixed together, leaving large areas of depressions of varying depths.

Several through cracks run along the exterior wall of the guild building, extending from the base of the wall to the roof, and the brickwork at the edges is slowly peeling away.

In the relatively open space in the center of the territory, two figures were clashing continuously.

The blood vine was in much worse condition than Su Mu had expected.

Most of its branches have been broken or torn, leaving only a few broken branches that continue to wave, as if it is no longer able to organize a denser defensive network.

There are several penetrating wounds on the main trunk, from which dark red sap continuously oozes, forming a slowly expanding puddle on the ground around it.

The moment Su Mu saw this guy, he was certain that it was this guy who stole the Blue Silver Grass. Its color and scent matched the liquid left at the bottom of the Blue Silver Grass pit.

At this moment, it is being chased and has no chance to conceal its tracks. It is like a creature that has been chased to the brink of despair and is using its last strength to maintain the most basic defensive posture.

The pursuer is a tall, skeletal creature.

He wore tattered armor, the surface of which was covered with a layer of grayish-white bone, the bone fragments gleaming dimly in the moonlight, as if they had been repeatedly worn down.

Each step he took left a ring of spreading cracks in the ground. Dark mist seeped from the irregular edges of these cracks and continued to churn, as if something was brewing beneath his feet, but it never took shape.

His jaw opened and closed repeatedly during the battle, as if emitting some kind of silent laughter, or continuously chewing on something that only he himself could perceive.

When Su Mu saw the outline of the skeleton, he matched it with the outline of the ghost commander who had crushed the shield formation on the left flank earlier.

Bone-faced General.

He had somehow broken away from the main battlefield and followed the blood vine all the way to this place, with Peach Blossom Village becoming the end of that pursuit.

Su Mu cursed under his breath. Good heavens, they're using my territory as a battlefield.

He noticed that the damage on the periphery was caused by the aftermath of the battle, not by a deliberate search. This indicated that General Boneface knew from the beginning that the Blood Vine was hidden in Peach Blossom Village. He directly locked onto its location and tracked it all the way here, and then the battle broke out in this area.

Both the Bone-Faced General and the Blood Vine sensed Su Mu's presence.

The few remaining branches of the blood vine briefly turned towards him the instant they sensed his presence, like someone being continuously suppressed subconsciously tilting their head towards possible support. General Boneface's attention lingered on Su Mu for less than half a second before returning to the blood vine.

It was an extremely brief action, lasting less than the blink of an eye. In that less than half a second of eye contact, Su Mu sensed very little emotion. He was completely unconcerned about his presence, as if there had been an extra stone on the ground or a crack in the wall.

Su Mu stood at the edge of the territory without moving.

He admitted that he had hesitated.

He could sense the power of the Bone-Faced General, judging from the continuously spreading cracks and the degree of tremors in the ground with each step he took.

His strength was at least much greater than some of the high-level ghosts he had encountered before, and he even had the feeling of facing the costumed ghost princess back then.

He would have a hard time winning in a head-on confrontation.

If it were anywhere else, Su Mu would have run away without hesitation.

However, this is Peach Blossom Valley, an area within the Ash City instance. Death here will force him to be teleported back to the cable car instead of actually dying, which means that the risk of his involvement in this battle has been greatly reduced.

However, Su Mu did not make a move.

When the snipe and the clam fight, I have absolutely no reason to intervene.

And this moment.

The blood vine was further damaged in the following rounds of combat.

The remaining branches were torn off one by one during the continuous attack, and the number of wounds on the main trunk was increasing, with dark red sap gushing out at an even faster rate.

Then, after a certain round of impact, a very faint ripple came from the direction of the main trunk of the vine. When it touched the edge of Su Mu's consciousness, it bent over, as if it had been flattened by some force before it was barely delivered.

The signal was very short, not a complete sentence, just a few fragmented words...

The general meaning is "it can't hold on any longer" and "if you're willing to sell, it can be exchanged in some form".

Su Mu stood still.

The signal did carry a clear sense of urgency, but he did not respond immediately.

He noticed that the Bone-Faced General hadn't even bothered to confirm the direction of the signal; in its assessment, Su Mu still posed no threat and wasn't worth the extra attention.

Under the continued attack, Moyun Teng retreated further to the edge of its territory.

Its branches dwindled until only two or three remained, barely managing to maintain its defenses.