A massive spray of water crashed down, and within a short time, the yacht vanished without a trace.
After the sea surface churned violently for a while, only a few pieces of broken sampan remained swirling on the water, slowly returning to tranquility.
On the shore.
The Round-faced Man and the Skinny Tall Man felt as if their legs were filled with lead, firmly rooted to the spot, their eyes nearly popping out of their sockets.
"D... Dead?"
A meaningless gurgle came from the Round-faced Man's throat.
The powerful mage who had treated the zombies as mere ants all along was dragged down by the sea monster along with Herta, without even having time to cast a single spell?
Slap!
A loud slap landed heavily on the Round-faced Man's face, snapping him out of his daze.
"What are you dazing for! Do you want to die here? Run!"
At some point, Isabella had shed her previously respectful and humble demeanor.
Her facial muscles twitched slightly from extreme excitement and tension; after barking the command, she turned without hesitation and bolted back the way they came.
The two men snapped to their senses, their survival instinct overwhelming all fear and shock, as they scrambled and crawled to follow Isabella out of Fujin Port.
The three of them climbed into the off-road vehicle, panting heavily.
"Drive! Go back the way we came!"
Isabella sat in the passenger seat, her chest heaving violently.
"We passed a small cargo dock with a derelict sign on our way here; that is the real evacuation point!"
The Skinny Tall Man gripped the steering wheel with trembling hands and floored the accelerator, the car speeding down the empty road.
The atmosphere inside the car was eerie, with heavy breathing intermingling.
The Round-faced Man sat in the back, staring fixedly at the back of Isabella's head, and swallowed hard.
Recalling the scene at the port, a chilling thought emerged in his mind.
"You... you brought everyone to Fujin Port, intending to kill them from the very beginning?"
"That's right."
Isabella's lips curled into a cold sneer as she admitted it frankly, her tone filled with smugness.
"Looking at you two idiots, I can tell you never truly understood the work disorder. Did you think it was just an ordinary zombie movie?"
"No, no, no, disorder is actually a film adaptation of a novel of the same name!"
"The movie's ending indeed has the protagonist's daughter escaping by boat, but the movie's timeline spans only a few days at most!"
"Judging by the damage to the facilities we saw in the Hospital and the mutation of the zombies, at least three months have passed in this world's timeline."
"Only the original novel has detailed settings for three months later!"
"From then on, I knew that the Grizzly City we are in isn't the disorder movie at all, but an apocalyptic world manifested from the novel!"
Hearing this, cold sweat trickled down the Skinny Tall Man's forehead.
"...But what does that have to do with killing them?" the Round-faced Man pressed.
"The novel reveals a fatal hidden rule."
Isabella lowered her voice.
"There are only three evacuation slots, specifically prepared by the military for the protagonist's family. Unfortunately, the protagonist's wife was too unlucky and died of infection right at the start of the story."
Learning this fact, the two men gasped simultaneously.
Isabella continued, "Azure Star scholars have conducted countless studies on worlds where Virtual Substance Lifeforms are active and concluded that core settings cannot be defied."
"Once the number of people escaping Grizzly City and boarding the ship exceeds the set three slots, the world rules will judge that the plot has deviated, and no one will be able to leave."
The Round-faced Man finally understood everything that had happened.
...No wonder Isabella was determined to kill those two!
Including Qi Zhimu and Herta, there were five of them in total.
With only three slots, if they had brought those two to the real evacuation point...
Once Herta realized the setting, two of the three of them, who had no ability to protect themselves, would surely be discarded and eliminated.
Even... all of them, it wasn't impossible.
To survive, Qi Zhimu and Herta had to die.
Having figured this out, the way the Round-faced Man looked at Isabella completely changed, filled with absolute admiration.
"Brilliant, truly brilliant."
He wiped away his cold sweat and praised sincerely:
"A beautiful play of 'killing with a borrowed knife'! The monster hiding in Fujin Port must also be a plot point from the original novel, right?"
Isabella smiled triumphantly.
"Of course. After three months of viral baptism in Grizzly City, the living are basically all dead. Anyone who dares to show their face will be torn apart by the evolved Mutated Zombies."
"In the novel's setting, animal mutants from the sea, land, and air are even more terrifying than human zombies."
"The thing that dragged Herta and the other down just now was a Mutated Octopus entrenched in Fujin Port."
"In a water environment, even if that mage could cast lightning, he would be no match for a sea monster of that size."
Hearing this, the Skinny Tall Man had an epiphany and couldn't help but chime in.
"I see! You gave the Data Chip to Herta this morning not because you wanted to entrust her with the hope of the Azure Star, but simply to lower their guard and make them think you had accepted your fate."
"Just a little psychological suggestion."
Isabella toyed with a lock of hair by her ear, her gaze cold.
"Herta is very alert and hasn't trusted us yet. If I hadn't given her a reasonable explanation, she would definitely have suspected my motives for leading the way."
"Earlier, I deliberately pointed the wrong way to make that mage lose patience, so he would clear all the obstacles on the path to the evacuation port for us."
"Now that the greatest threat has been eliminated, we just need to be careful enough for the rest of the way."
"Awesome!" the two men praised in unison.
Outside the car window, the setting sun was like blood, dyeing half the sky dark red.
The journey was surprisingly smooth.
On the way there, Qi Zhimu had cleared the swarms of zombies and roadblocks along the route, so the road was now perfectly smooth.
Before long, the off-road vehicle turned onto a secluded coastal highway.
"Stop the car, it's just ahead," Isabella said.
The three of them got out and approached an extremely inconspicuous Small Freight Station.
There were no prominent signs here, and a heavy Blast-proof Steel Door was tightly closed.
"Is this the place?"
The Round-faced Man looked excited, his breathing becoming a bit heavier.
After being in fear for so long, the hope of escape was within reach; no one could remain calm.
Isabella nodded, walked straight to the combination lock next to the blast-proof door, skillfully slid open the cover, and entered a string of numbers accurately.
The electronic lock made a crisp unlocking sound, and the blast-proof door slowly slid open to both sides.
"Let's go."
To the two men, her voice sounded like heavenly music.
"Great! We can finally leave this hellhole!"
They now trusted Isabella implicitly; this was the correct evacuation point!
The Round-faced Man rubbed his hands in ecstasy, eager to follow.
But he never expected Isabella to turn around without warning, a knife suddenly in her hand, piercing his throat in one stroke.