Chapter 368: Chapter 368
As they were getting closer to the base, a sudden commotion made Mark slow down, driving carefully forward.
Ahead of them, several cars were gathered in a scattered pattern as if they were all just waiting for something. In the dark, it was hard to figure out what was going on, but it seemed as if the passage was swallowed by darkness.
"What is going on?" Suzy asked, scanning the cars from inside her van.
"I don’t think we can move forward," Mark replied, frowning. "Looks like the road is blocked."
"Blocked?" Suzy narrowed her eyes, struggling to figure out whether the darkness ahead was just the lack of illumination. From a distance, it looked like the road was cut off by a wall of fog.
That was strange. There should not be anything blocking the path there.
It was then that she noticed Tina––the woman she had seen at the Black Mist Base before.
Coming to a full stop, Suzy nodded at Mark. "There is someone I know there. I’ll go check."
Tina was standing away from her car, nervously kicking pebbles around the road. The moment she heard approaching steps, she turned around tensely, only to relax as she recognized the approaching person.
"Miss Kale?" She beamed, surprisingly happy.
"Hello," Suzy smiled back. "I was going to the P City when I saw all the cars here. What’s going on? Are you guys all together?"
Tina shook her head, turning around to face the rest of the vehicles. "We were going to the P City too; we were the first ones to arrive here. No one had expected the passage to be blocked. We don’t know how to get around now."
"That car came from the south," Tina explained further, noticing Suzy staring at the black sedan parked not far away. "There are two people in it. Word is they were headin’ north to hunt for supplies, but stopped here once they hit a dead end."
She nudged her chin toward a dusty green off-roader to their left. "Only one guy in that one—just passing through, arrived around the same time we did. And over there—"
She pointed toward a mud-splattered white box truck further down. "The folks in that truck haven’t stepped foot outside, so no clue how many are inside, but the headlights flashed earlier, so someone’s definitely in there."
Suzy followed her pointing finger, taking in each vehicle before looking back. "None of you knew each other before this?"
"Nope," Tina shook her head. "Total strangers, every last one. When the first few cars rolled up, everybody was jumpy as hell—a few guys almost came to blows. It was only after we realized we were all stuck here in the same boat that folks started settling down."
Taking a swig from her water bottle, she added, "Still, nobody’s really talking. Aside from asking if there’s any other way around, folks are keeping to themselves."
"What do you think this is?" Suzy asked at last, returning her gaze to the source of the blockage. It was a wall of blackness that resembled a silent, slow waterfall of black water.
"No idea," Tina shook her head once more, releasing a long sigh. "A few guys went in to investigate but they never came back. We don’t know what to do about it... We are still waiting to see if they will be back."
As they spoke, another pair of headlights emerged in the distance, cutting through the dark.
It didn’t take long for the others to notice.
"Another car’s coming!" someone called out.
Suzy and Tina broke off their conversation at once, turning to look down the stretch behind them.
Through the pitch-black night, a pinpoint of light moved slowly toward them, growing larger by the second until a silver pickup truck rolled into view.
The pickup decelerated, pulling to a stop about twenty meters from the clustered vehicles. Its high beams remained on, casting a harsh glow across a patch of rocky, desolate earth ahead.
The driver’s side door swung open, and a middle-aged man in a dark grey jacket hopped down, holding a half-empty water bottle.
His gaze swept over the row of idling cars and the shadowy figures standing by them, before finally settling on the wall of impenetrable darkness blocking the road ahead.
Turning toward the nearest bystander, he called out, "What’s the hold-up up front? Road blocked?"
The man closest to him happened to be one of Tina’s teammates.
The teammate gestured toward the shadow ahead, his tone lukewarm yet patient. "There’s a mass of black stuff blocking the path ahead. Light can’t penetrate it, and anyone who steps in can’t get back out. A few of our guys already went in—you can’t push through."
The pickup driver didn’t reply right away. He tilted his head for another look at the darkness, screwed the cap back onto his water bottle, and tossed it onto his passenger seat.
"Ain’t that just a thick fog wall? Just walk on through and see for yourselves—what’s the point of everyone sitting around here like helpless ducks?"
A collective frown rippled through the crowd at his disdainful tone.
As if we’d be standing around if we had a choice!
Paying no mind to their scowls, the driver slammed his door shut with a heavy bang and marched straight toward the dark wall.
"How hard can it be? Y’all are just scared of your own shadows," he grumbled under his breath, utterly convinced they were exaggerating for nothing.
Tina’s teammate shouted after him, "Hold on! That’s no ordinary fog! Don’t be a suicidal hero!"
But the man didn’t slow down; he merely waved a hand dismissively behind his back, as if to say, "Yeah, yeah, whatever."
Nobody tried to stop him again.
The onlookers watched in silence as he took step after step toward the black barrier.
He stepped inside—and was instantly swallowed whole. Gone. Just like that.
Suzy and Tina exchanged a subtle look.
"Do you think there’s real danger in there?" Suzy asked softly.
Tina kept her eyes fixed on the black barrier, her expression unreadable. "I honestly don’t know."
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