"Sis Chang !"
Chang Zitong's timely support filled Xu Mo with unexpected joy. Without hesitation, he rushed forward and unleashed a "Zero Eruption," smashing the already rising Female Tyrant back down. He pulled the short sword out of her head and thrust it straight into her blood-red left eye!
Roar!
The eyeball is one of the most vulnerable parts of the human body, and Xu Mo's strike sank in nearly five centimeters. The egg-white-like eyeball fluid mixed with bright red blood, flowing down the Tyrant's cheek. The Female Tyrant let out an earth-shattering roar, her body thrashing violently. The ground beneath her feet was kicked into dozens of shallow pits. Her claws flexed and scraped against each other, creating an ear-piercing screech, but despite her pain, she could not move as Chang Zitong had locked her arms firmly under her armpits.
"Xu Mo! Hurry! I can't hold on much longer!" Despite her title as a physically strong woman, Chang Zitong could not withstand the terrifying power of the Tyrant. Her skin turned bright red from the strain, with visible veins bulging. Her once composed face twisted into a grotesque, terrifying mask.
Xu Mo dared not waste another second of the precious time Chang Zitong had bought for him. He steadied the Spatha short sword with his left hand and relentlessly pounded it with his right "Demon's Hand" as though hammering it into place, each strike an unrelenting "Zero Eruption."
The Spatha short sword dug into the Tyrant's head, inch by inch, with the blood from her eye socket spraying all over Xu Mo's face and body. Realizing death was closing in, the Female Tyrant finally experienced fear. Driven by her survival instinct, she unleashed unimaginable strength, and her increased resistance indicated that she was on the verge of breaking free from both Xu Mo and Chang Zitong's grip.
"I... can't hold on... much longer..."
Chang Zitong managed to squeeze out these words through her gritted teeth. Her fingers, once tightly interlocked, now barely touched at the tips, her joints creaking under the strain.
"Just give me a little more time!"
The Spatha short sword had already pierced the Tyrant's head by at least ten centimeters. A little more, and it would reach the deepest part of her brain. Xu Mo was determined not to fail now. He roared in frustration, and the attack speed of the "Zero Eruption" once again accelerated by half despite already being pushed to its limit.
"Xu... Mo, remember... after you get out... help me... take care of... Zhizhang... don't let him... mess around with women..."
With those almost final words, Chang Zitong managed to force a faint smile on her face, her strained face turning a purple-blue color. With a sudden, frantic scream, she squeezed even more force into her grip, locking the Female Tyrant's claws once more.
"Bastard! Die already!"
Xu Mo held back tears as he ignored Chang Zitong's face, which was already oozing blood from her orifices. He slammed the hilt of the sword embedded in the Tyrant's eye with all his might. The repeated high-impact strikes caused cracks to appear in the armor of his "Demon's Hand." Blood began to spill from the cracks, but Xu Mo paid no attention, his gaze fixed solely on the Spatha short sword, which was the only hope left for their survival.
With one final burst of energy from his "Zero Eruption," the Female Tyrant screamed in agony. Her body shot up, throwing Xu Mo into the air. Her claws tore free, ripping Chang Zitong's arms off at the shoulders, and blood sprayed in all directions, as if giant blood wings were sprouting from her sides.
Despite the Spatha short sword being deeply embedded in her eye socket, the Tyrant swung her claws in a frenzied rage, destroying everything around her. But this brief flare of life lasted only a few seconds. Her claws fell limp, and she staggered toward Xu Mo. The once indestructible body of the Female Tyrant finally crumpled to the ground, kneeling before him.
This terrifying Female Tyrant had finally died.
Not far away, Chang Zitong, who had lost both her arms and was lying in a pool of blood, seemed to still have a faint breath. Xu Mo struggled to rise, wanting to pick up her severed arms and reattach them, but the sudden wave of exhaustion overwhelmed him, and he fell back multiple times. Thankfully, at that moment, Du Zhizhang had fully recovered. Seeing the situation, he immediately rushed over to pick up Chang Zitong's arms and began to treat her wounds with the Apocalypse shard.
A blue light floated from the Tyrant's corpse, transforming into an Apocalypse shard that rolled to Xu Mo's side. He immediately grabbed it.
Looks like this really is a Level 2 shard…
Xu Mo stared at the shard, which was visibly larger than any Apocalypse shard he had seen before, its jewel-blue color glowing. As he reflected on the brutal battle that had kept him teetering on the edge of life and death, he couldn't help but feel a sense of relief. At least he had stumbled into a Level 1 Mirage. If it had been a higher-level one, just imagining the Tyrant-level monsters in that place made his scalp tingle—he felt like it would have been better to die than to face them.
His body regained a little strength, and Xu Mo stood up, preparing to check on Chang Zitong's condition. But suddenly, the sound of a phone alarm rang in his ears. The next thing he knew, the world around him turned dark. When his vision cleared again, he found himself in a dimly lit room.
"Space reset... Has it finally been born?"
Xu Mo froze instinctively, then listened carefully to the distant sounds of bustling people. A sense of relief washed over him.
Looking around, Xu Mo realized he was in a small, unrenovated apartment. There were piles of various sized cardboard boxes around, suggesting that it was being used as a storage area.
The boxes were filled with seasonal men's and women's casual clothing. Covered in blood, Xu Mo reluctantly played the part of a thief, taking a few men's outfits that looked decent. He washed the blood off his face and hands in the bathroom, packed his bloody clothes, and sneaked out of the apartment.
When Xu Mo exited the building, he realized he wasn't near Liangyuan Cinema, but rather in an old residential neighborhood not far from a pedestrian street. The cinema was at least three kilometers away, meaning the space reset had not returned him to his original location.
Though he was unsure of how the resetting mechanism worked, Xu Mo was still grateful for this outcome. Even if he hadn't witnessed it with his own eyes, he could guess that the Liangyuan Cinema had probably been cordoned off by the military again. After all, thousands of people disappearing without a trace would be a monumental event anywhere.
But all of that was no longer his concern. What weighed heavily on his mind now was how to explain his disappearance to his family.
As he pondered excuses, Xu Mo walked toward the entrance of the neighborhood. When passing by the public reading area, he was suddenly drawn to a date on the early morning newspaper pinned to the board.
February 5th.
That was strange! The day he entered the Apocalypse Mirage was also February 5th. Could it be that the public reading area hadn't updated the paper for several days?
"Hey, kid, let me borrow that for a second!"
Just as Xu Mo was wondering, an elderly man in a black winter coat approached, opened the glass window of the reading board, and took out a freshly printed newspaper. He slid it into the small metal clip on the board.
February 6th! Xu Mo quickly noticed the prominent date next to the headline and hurriedly asked the elderly man, "Is this today's paper?"
"Take a look, it just came in!" The old man smiled and tapped the paper, which made a crisp sound.
Xu Mo could hardly believe it. He took out his phone and checked the date—it was February 8th!
Comparing the two, there could only be one explanation: the time in the Apocalypse Mirage was not synchronized with the real world!
At that moment, Xu Mo finally understood why he had been waiting so long for the space reset to occur. The time flow in this "biological hazard" Mirage was five times faster than the real world! Twelve hours in the real world equaled sixty hours, or two days and three nights, in the Mirage!
The Apocalypse Mirage was truly a strange place...