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

Su Mu glanced down at the message; it was from Zhang Yu. It was longer than he'd expected, and the tone was more urgent than usual.

"Su Mu, we've confirmed it. The US, South Korea, and Japan have officially joined forces. Their target is you, and the unsealing stone in the ancient city of Loulan. They've somehow determined the exact location of Loulan and will likely be moving in in large numbers soon. Be careful."

After reading the message, Su Mu replied with a "Thanks".

Although he had already guessed this outcome, receiving confirmation was always more reassuring than guessing. However, even knowing the result, he felt no fear.

With his current strength, even if he were surrounded by three cables, he would have enough confidence to escape.

His talent for adapting to any road conditions allows him to walk in the air, and as long as he doesn't want to fight, no one can catch him.

If he wanted to fight, those people who were generally around level seven or eight would be no different from paper in front of him.

Moreover, he possesses rule-based abilities such as shadow clones, parrying, immunity to diminishing returns from attacks of the same type, and damage transfer. Even if he can't win, at least he won't die.

"Let's go," he said to Lin Yuwei, who was standing to the side.

Lin Yuwei nodded.

The two continued forward. The main road between the ruins grew narrower and narrower, and the building remains on both sides became increasingly dense.

A damper, decaying odor began to mix with the dry, dusty smell in the air.

Then, the texture of the space changed.

It felt like passing through an extremely thin curtain of water, or stepping through an invisible door.

The moment Su Mu's feet touched the ground, the scene before him suddenly changed.

The desert has disappeared.

Instead, there is a landscape where ancient city ruins, half-buried in yellow sand, are interwoven with oasis forests.

Beneath my feet lay the ruins of a stone-paved street, its surface covered with sand and moss; on either side lay half-collapsed houses and crumbling courtyard walls, covered with withered vines and dark green moss.

Further away, a dense forest of broad-leaved and coniferous trees stretched from the edge of the ruins to the horizon, its overlapping canopies obscuring most of the sky.

The sky turned a dim, yellowish hue, bright yet without the sun, as if shrouded in a thin layer of dust clouds. The light was soft and even, without shadows or any sense of direction.

The air was filled with the smell of dry sand and decaying vegetation. The temperature was lower than in the desert outside, but the humidity was significantly higher, and you could feel the fine moisture in the air when you breathed it.

Su Mu immediately sensed the gaze.

Not just one or two, but dozens of gazes simultaneously fell upon him from different directions. Those gazes came from behind trees, behind walls, and from the gaps in the rubble, concealed and wary.

He didn't move, he just stood there, his gaze sweeping over the positions of the Tibetans.

Soon, someone recognized him.

"Su Mu?"

A young man's voice came from behind a half-collapsed wall on the left, his tone filled with obvious tension, which quickly turned into surprise.

He peeked halfway out from behind the wall, glanced at Su Mu's face, then at Lin Yuwei behind him, and breathed a sigh of relief, making a gesture behind him.

"It's Su Mu! It really is him!"

The people who had been hiding behind the trees and walls gradually revealed themselves.

Su Mu glanced at them briefly and saw that there were about twenty or thirty people, all wearing light combat uniforms, holding weapons, and maintaining a vigilant posture.

Most of them were between level six and seven, and their equipment was not particularly good, but their positioning was very methodical, and the distance between them and the angles of cover were calculated.

"Su Mu, Chairman Zhou asked us to wait for you here." The young man walked over quickly, his voice filled with barely suppressed excitement. "He just received word that you've arrived and is on his way. He asked you to wait a moment."

Su Mu nodded: "Okay."

The young man turned and ran towards the deeper ruins.

While waiting, Su Mu stood in place and looked around at his surroundings.

The area was much larger than he had expected. The stone-paved streets stretched out to both sides, and he could vaguely see more people moving around at the edge of the distant forest.

Zhou Zhenguo and his men have already established a preliminary stronghold here. Several ruins have been cleared out and simple defensive fortifications have been piled up.

The fact that Zhou Zhenguo was able to organize so many people and maintain basic order in such a short time truly demonstrates that he had a knack for it.

Lin Yuwei stood beside him, also observing. Her gaze fell on the positions of those people, and she whispered, "Their arrangement is very solid. It looks like someone has been directing them."

"Zhou Zhenguo is a veteran," Su Mu said. "His organizational skills were never lacking."

Not long after, footsteps came from deep within the ruins.

Zhou Zhenguo walked at the front, followed by Han Lei and several faces that Su Mu had never seen before.

His pace was a bit faster than usual, and his expression was somewhat serious, but when he saw Su Mu, the tension between his brows and eyes visibly relaxed for a moment.

"Su Mu, you've arrived." He approached and, without any formalities, went straight to the point. "You know about the three cables?"

"I understand," Su Mu said. "Zhang Yu just sent me a confirmation message. It's a joint effort between the US, South Korea, and Japan."

Zhou Zhenguo nodded, his face darkening: "This is the worst-case scenario."

He paused, his gaze sweeping over the busy people around him, his tone low and steady: "But we won't just give this place up like this. We found this place first, and we paid a price to figure out the situation on the outskirts. If we can't even withstand this three-way alliance, then we won't be able to make any waves among the 100 cable lines in the future."

Su Mu looked at him: "What are your plans?"

Zhou Zhenguo did not answer immediately, but waved to the people behind him.

Several people gathered around and spread out a rough hand-drawn map on the ground, on which the distribution of ruins, the direction of the forest, and some markers were marked with charcoal.

"We arrived here quite early," Zhou Zhenguo said, pointing to the map. "Since discovering the ancient city, we've explored almost the entire outer area. It's much larger than it appears from the outside. The outer ruins alone stretch for dozens of miles, and further in, the forest area is even larger. We've only grasped about one-tenth of the area so far; there are still much more distant and expansive areas we haven't had time to explore."

He looked up at Su Mu: "This is our advantage. We have a lot of land."

Su Mu looked at the map without interrupting.