An agonizing scream came through the walkie-talkie. The one who had spoken earlier had been killed. Orrick roared again, “Continue to go after them! Whoever dares to speak another word otherwise will be killed!”He had lost his mind, and the pursuit continued.Mya chuckled upon seeing the cars continuing to chase their SUV. “These morons are quite something. Come chase me the whole night. I promise to keep you company and give you a fun time.” She drove at a leisurely pace, but would instantly accelerate to leave them behind as soon as they caught up.Orrick grew restless and impatient upon seeing they were about to catch up to Adrian. None of his underlings had the courage to bring up stopping the chase. The fleet formed by hundreds of cars chased after Adrian’s SUV for one whole night. When dawn broke the next day, the desert darkness had faded and the blazing hot sun roasted the ground. The yellow sand spanned as far as the eye could see, and it was difficult to distinguish a
A few thousand of Orrick’s underlings had gotten separated in the desert. Moreover, they did not have food or water with them. By the time it was noon, when the sun was at its hottest, they would meet their end. Orrick felt more crestfallen than anybody else and was shaking inside. It was a great mistake he had made in a moment of weakness. Had he not chased Adrian through the desert, he would be lying in an air-conditioned room and having a good time with a few women right now. However, he was now in a desert that stretched as far as the eye could see. Very few people walked out of here alive.***The sun was blazing down on the Uduma Desert. Adrian carried Gloria on his back and walked across the yellow sand. Mya walked ahead, constantly checking their coordinates. They had discarded their SUV and could only leave the desert on foot.She held up a pair of binoculars and scanned their surroundings. “We managed to throw off Black Mamba. They won’t live for long and will die out
Mya screamed a few times and ran down the sand dune before leaping and clinging to Adrian. “What’s going on?” Adrian asked in puzzlement when he caught her.“There are so many dead people over there!” said Mya with her eyes shut as she pointed behind her. Adrian put Mya down upon hearing her remark and hiked up the sand dune. “Go check on Gloria.”Mya passed the binoculars to Adrian and made her way to Gloria.Adrian arrived at the top of the sand dune and looked at the ground below. He found more than forty corpses lying on the other side of the sand dune. These corpses were either lying on top of the yellow sand or half buried. Some corpses had already been sun-dried into human jerky, and their expressions were horrendous. He made his way to one of the corpses and looked it up and down.Mya walked to the top of the sand dune with Gloria, who asked, “What’s going on?”Adrian said, “It’s our people.”“What?”Gloria and Mya were astonished upon hearing Adrian’s words. They ha
At this point, Adrian felt puzzled. How did Mya not notice that when she observed this place with her binoculars earlier? He looked at Mya and asked, “How did you not notice that earlier? Am I remembering things wrong too?”Adrian did not recall seeing the lake or the farmhouse when he was looking around earlier either. It was like they had shown up out of nowhere. “I checked in that direction earlier but there was no sign of a lake or a house. Are we hallucinating?” Mya rubbed her eyes. It was common for people to experience hallucinations in the desert. But judging by their current situation, they were not weakened to the extent of hallucinating yet.Adrian and Gloria exchanged glances. He did not put too much thought into the situation and checked the corpses for a while. He then stood up and bowed toward these corpses, saying, “Seniors of Wyvern Peak, I’m in a rush today and time is of the essence. I’m sorry I can’t take you out of this place for now. I’ll send people to retr
Mya said, “Those men are from Black Mamba.”Adrian beckoned at them and said, “Let’s follow them and find out the situation over there.”“Okay,” Mya answered.The trio quickly headed for the lake, staying behind Black Mamba at all times. They walked for roughly an hour but they still had yet to reach the lake. In fact, it did not look like they were getting any closer. There was no change in the distance. Black Mamba’s initially excited members were exhausted after running for an hour. A few people had already collapsed under the blazing sun. It was clear that they were not to survive until they reached the lake.“Let’s not walk anymore.” Adrian stopped because he could sense that the situation was off. If there really was a lake, they would have reached it in half an hour in view of the distance. If the distance was that far, they would not be able to see the lake at all. It was a lake and not a mountain after all. If it was a mountain, one could see it from afar, but this w
Adrian sat on a dune and pondered deeply. He had to figure out the lake, or it would be difficult for them to walk out of the desert. He considered every possibility to eliminate all the possible occurrences.About ten minutes later, Adrian opened his eyes and said to Gloria and Mya, “Close our eyes. We’ll try walking with our eyes closed.”“Walk with our eyes closed?” Mya was stunned. Was walking closed-eyed through a desert not akin to a headless chicken?Adrian beckoned and said, “We might be able to walk out of the desert with our eyes closed.”He did not explain further and placed Gloria on his back. He then grabbed Mya’s hand and said, “Close your eyes and don’t speak, just walk. When I tell you to open your eyes, open them.”The two women followed his instructions. Adrian started to walk forward, with one hand pulling Mya along and Gloria on his back. The three of them walked in the direction of the lake with their eyes shut. There was no concern of hitting something in
In other words, they were at the farmhouse when their eyes were shut, but were back out in the desert as soon as they opened their eyes. The video continued to play and dozens of corpses showed up on the screen, lying all throughout the farmhouse’s yard. Then a few other figures appeared in the video—the people from Black Mamba. They were walking through the yard.“Those corpses are the bodies of the Wyvern Peak seniors we saw earlier. Aren’t they out in the desert? How did they end up in the yard?” Gloria was extremely astonished to see the corpses on the screen. Mya was astounded and looked at Adrian in a daze. “What’s going on, Adrian? It feels like we’ve been in the yard all this time but we just can’t walk out of it. Are we hallucinating?”Adrian shook his head. “This isn’t a hallucination. It’s real. The yard is the desert, and I believe that there’s some sort of magic circle protecting the farmhouse. The desert that we see is actually an illusion. The desert doesn’t exist.”
They shut their eyes and lost count of how long they had been riding the camel.Suddenly, the blazing heat ceased to exist and the air turned gloomy and cold. It felt as if the surrounding area had changed, and the camel stopped walking.Mya asked, “Can we open our eyes now? It doesn’t feel like the desert anymore.”“I think we’ve gotten out of there,” said Gloria. Adrian hesitated for a while. Then, he slowly opened his eyes. He realized they had entered a forest. There were beautiful flowers and singing birds everywhere, while a farmhouse sat quietly ahead of them. The camel that they rode had vanished.It was as if they were still in the same place and had not left. Gloria and Mya opened their eyes and looked at their surroundings in astonishment.Mya asked, “What’s going on? Where’s the desert?”Gloria was astounded as well. Words could not describe the situation that was happening here. Other than the farmhouse, everything else had vanished. The trio looked toward the