Chapter Thirty-Two: What on Earth Happened?

"Caw, caw!"

When the raven once again cried out in the sky, signaling Ye Hai to change direction, he suddenly halted, his brows furrowing tightly.

"Something isn't right!"

"Judging by the position of the moon in the sky, I haven’t strayed far from my path!"

"But the zombie raven has already prompted me to adjust my direction seven times..."

"What’s going on?"

Ye Hai summoned the raven that guided him, confirming with it again and again. The raven assured him its judgment was correct—Ye Hai had indeed deviated from the intended route seven times.

After releasing the zombie raven back to the sky, Ye Hai grew even more perplexed. It was true that the Gobi landscape was monotonous, making it easy to lose one’s bearings, but seven deviations in such a short span was far from normal.

He scanned his surroundings but found nothing out of the ordinary.

Helpless, Ye Hai could only stay vigilant and continue on.

After running for a little over a minute, the raven cried out once more. Ye Hai adjusted his route and kept running. Again, the raven called.

"Seventy-five seconds," Ye Hai counted silently.

"Seventy-six seconds..."

"Seventy-four seconds..."

After the raven called five more times in quick succession, Ye Hai finally detected something strange.

He was running at a steady pace, and every time he'd run for about one minute and fifteen seconds, the raven would alert him that he’d veered off course.

This time, Ye Hai observed his surroundings with particular care. When the raven cried out for the first, third, and fifth times, he noticed a weathered stone pillar two hundred meters to his left—it was the very same pillar each time.

He realized he was running in circles!

The situation baffled him. If it was only him on the ground, running in circles because of the environment, that would be understandable. But the zombie ravens soared high overhead, their view unobstructed. They shouldn't have been circling with him.

Moreover, while running, he'd paid close attention to the six moons in the sky—six different colored moons, their dim light split between three in the south and three in the north. He was absolutely certain he’d been running northward the entire time.

If he were circling, half the time he should have seen the three southern moons in his field of vision. Yet, he had never glimpsed the southern moons behind him, and still he was running in circles? It made no sense...

But that was the reality.

He was looping around two crazed stone pillars, running like mad.

"When did this start?" Ye Hai tried to recall past events.

In his memory, about two hours ago, he’d begun feeling the scenery around him was oddly familiar.

"Why, during the previous two hours of running in circles, did the zombie raven give no warning?"

"Why did it only start signaling me fifteen minutes ago?"

"This is so strange... What on earth is happening?"

"I wasted two whole hours running in circles here, without noticing anything amiss..."

"Why? Is it some bizarre ability of a mutant?"

Ye Hai shook his head, denying the thought. Even if the zombie virus had evolved myriad abilities, those relied on the virus within the mutant's body. The zombie virus was ineffective against Ye Hai; a mutant's power couldn't influence him.

No matter how he racked his brains, Ye Hai found no answer and could only keep running.

He’d faked his death to slip from the crowd's sight and get ahead of them, aiming to obtain the access card to Karan BioGen ahead of everyone else.

He was racing against time.

Yet here he was, delayed for so long, his plans upended.

If, before reaching his destination, he encountered a few stage seven mutants, it would seriously hinder his progress and cost him precious time.

Then, when dawn came and the others caught up, the eye in the sky would turn its gaze upon him.

Even if he managed to get Dr. Everett Schmidt’s identity card in the end, he would still be hunted by the Great Tree Star.

Though he didn’t fear fleeing to distant lands, the corpse hunter organization might suffer retaliation from the First Defense Army of Great Tree Star.

Ye Hai could not accept such a result.

Yet he didn’t know that even if the identity card of Dr. Everett Schmidt fell into Great Tree Star’s hands first, as long as he desired it, the other party would offer it to him without resistance...

Ye Hai’s anxiety grew. This time, he ignored the raven’s guidance to adjust his direction.

Nevertheless, after another ninety seconds, the raven cried out again, and the now-familiar stone pillar appeared to his left once more.

His face grew grim.

"I can’t get out... I’m still running circles in place!"

"By not following the raven’s prompts, I only changed the seventy-five-second loop into a larger loop that takes ninety seconds to complete..."

"Damn it, what’s going on here?"

"Did the ghost wall come with me through the wormhole? There’s no such thing as ghost walls on Zombie Star!"

"I’ve been stuck here for almost three hours!"

He glanced at the position of the moons overhead.

"In about three hours, dawn will break! Damn it..."

"What is it?"

"What haven’t I noticed?"

Suddenly, Ye Hai looked at the familiar stone pillar, inspiration striking him.

"Am I running circles around you?"

Ye Hai stared intently at the pillar, sprinting towards it.

Soon, he reached the pillar’s base, picked up a piece of broken stone, and drew a large triangle on the pillar. Then he continued onward, quickly leaving the weathered pillar behind.

"Did I break free?"

Ye Hai quickened his pace, stopping after a minute and a half, only to stare in shock at the pillar before him—the very triangle he’d drawn a minute and a half ago still etched upon it.

His right arm instantly transformed, becoming zombie-like, and he smashed his fist into the stone pillar.

"Why?"

"Why can’t I escape?"

"What is keeping me trapped, running circles in place?"

Since crossing over, Ye Hai had never felt so powerless.

He forced himself to calm down.

Sitting quietly beneath the pillar, he recalled everything again and again, searching for the reason.

Suddenly, a gentle breeze swept across the Gobi, lasting about ten seconds.

The zombie raven, which had been silently circling overhead, cried out again, signaling Ye Hai had deviated from his path.

Instantly, Ye Hai sprang to his feet.

"Wind?"

"The last time the raven started giving repeated prompts, there was also... a breeze..."

In that moment, Ye Hai felt he had grasped something crucial, yet the answer remained just out of reach.

Suddenly, his form shifted, entering zombie mode, mimicking a licker!

Relying on the licker’s sense of smell, a hundred times more sensitive than a human’s, he detected a faint fragrance in the air...