Xu Mo initially wanted to see if he could hitch a ride by stopping a passing truck heading into the city. However, years of unexpected incidents had clearly made the truck drivers paranoid—none of them were willing to stop. One even came close to running him over.
People really have grown wary... Xu Mo understood that he couldn't entirely blame the drivers for this situation. After all, who could guarantee that he wasn't some kind of trap set by the authorities? Left with no other choice, he resigned himself to bad luck and started walking back along the roadside.
After nearly half an hour of walking, Xu Mo suddenly heard a strange rumbling sound in the night sky. He looked up in the direction of Shang Shan City and saw two dark silhouettes, flickering with lights, rapidly approaching!
Damn it! Those are armed helicopters!
Were they coming for him? But how did they know he was here?
Xu Mo swiftly leaped off the road embankment, hiding himself in the withered grass. His mind raced as he searched for any possible clue.
Suddenly, he recalled a detail and hastily rolled up his pant leg to check—sure enough, a golden five-pointed star insignia was firmly stuck to the inside of his pant cuff.
Damn it, I'm still too inexperienced... I let them plant a tracker on me so easily.
But regretting it now was pointless. The teleportation ability of his Falling Feather Raven wouldn't be available for another twenty-four hours, and there was no way the military would give him that much time.
Right now, his only choice was to rely on luck and intuition. Xu Mo yanked off the star insignia with the tracker, picked up a fist-sized rock, and stuck the insignia onto it. Carefully climbing back up the embankment, he suddenly hurled the rock onto a passing livestock truck carrying pigs.
"Attention! Attention! The target is accelerating suddenly! We suspect they've boarded a vehicle, but observers haven't confirmed visual contact..."
One of the armed helicopters immediately veered off to pursue the pig truck. The other, however, hovered over the area where Xu Mo had discarded the tracker. A dozen heavily armed special forces soldiers rappelled down from the chopper, quickly spreading out to meticulously search every inch of the ground.
"They really are elite soldiers... Not so easy to fool." Xu Mo muttered to himself as he lay hidden in the shadows of the grass.
If this were a cityscape with complex terrain, Xu Mo was confident that his current abilities would allow him to escape with relative ease. But right now, he was in an open wilderness. Forget counterattacking—if he so much as twitched, he'd be riddled with bullets in an instant.
Damn it... Is fighting my only option?
In truth, Xu Mo wasn't entirely powerless against these special forces soldiers. He still had one terrifying trump card—the Tyrant Queen. Even with her abilities reduced by two-thirds, her remaining defenses were still strong enough to completely withstand the bullets from their automatic rifles. If he wanted to, he could wipe out these soldiers without much trouble.
But these soldiers were innocent. Even though they were tasked with capturing him, Xu Mo didn't want to harm these loyal and honorable warriors unnecessarily... More importantly, he didn't want to escalate things to an all-out war with the powerful Chinese military.
Maybe... there's one last trick I can try.
A strange, bitter smile appeared on Xu Mo's face. He had always thought he'd never use this ability in his lifetime, but now, at a critical moment, it might just save his life.
He picked up a rock and hurled it into the distance. The sharp noise of it hitting the ground echoed through the silent wilderness.
"There's movement!"
All the soldiers instinctively turned toward the sound, their attention shifting along with the glare of their searchlights.
This is it!
A sharp-eyed alpaca suddenly emerged, accompanied by a flickering blue glow. Xu Mo wasted no time—he leaped onto its back, tightly wrapping his arms around its long neck and pressing his body against its soft, broad back.
"Damn it! It's a diversion!"
The soldiers, realizing their mistake, immediately turned back and opened fire. But the snow-white alpaca was like a phantom drifting through the night—moving at an unimaginable speed, weaving through the wilderness. In mere seconds, it had already covered a hundred meters.
Alpaca's Unique Ability—Divine Beast Mode!
"Attention! Attention! The target is escaping southeast along Route 102! Speed is extremely high! Requesting aerial support!"
With the situation escalating, the hovering helicopter abandoned its ground troops and pursued the rapidly moving white blur.
"Holy shit! Wake up! Something's happening!"
"What... What the hell is that? How can a horse run that fast? It could get a license plate and hit the highway!"
"What horse?! That's a divine beast! I need to go home and burn some incense after this... This is a sign of good fortune!"
With golden light shining from its eyes and misty, colorful vapors swirling around its hooves, the alpaca beneath Xu Mo galloped down the highway at over 200 kilometers per hour, leaving behind one astonished driver after another—along with their shattered worldviews.
This was the alpaca's exclusive skill—Divine Beast Mode!
It allowed the alpaca's speed and reaction time to increase by 500% for ten minutes. After the ability ended, the creature would become immobile for twenty-four hours.
Until now, Xu Mo had always thought of this skill as completely useless. Who in their right mind would ride such an overpowered alpaca through the streets? And as a travel skill, ten minutes was ridiculously short—on top of that, it left the creature utterly drained afterward.
But right now, as an escape tool, it was proving invaluable.
At full speed, the alpaca streaked down the highway, covering fifty kilometers before finally collapsing at a toll booth, completely spent.
The toll booth attendant, not looking up, impatiently slid open the window and said, "Sorry, motorcycles aren't allowed on the highway."
Xu Mo chuckled helplessly. "Have you ever seen a motorcycle with four legs?"
Then, as the alpaca raised its intense, piercing eyes, the toll booth attendant nearly had a heart attack, completely speechless.
"Attention! You are now locked in our sights! Surrender immediately or you will be shot on the spot! This is your final warning!"
Even at its incredible speed, Divine Beast Mode hadn't been enough to shake off the pursuing helicopter. Almost the moment the alpaca stopped, the chopper was already hovering above the toll station, its onboard weapons locked onto Xu Mo.
"Well... I've really screwed up this time."
He had a hostage right beside him, but Xu Mo wasn't willing to gamble on the military's level of commitment. If their orders were strict enough, they might not hesitate to fire a missile—and not even the Tyrant Queen's regenerative abilities could save him from that.
As he wrestled with the decision to surrender or keep fighting, a calm male voice suddenly spoke beside him.
"An armed helicopter? You must be quite the criminal to warrant this level of pursuit."
Xu Mo instinctively turned toward the voice and was shocked—
Hovering about four or five meters above him was a man in a white robe and a mask, looking down at him. Beneath the man's feet floated a massive one-meter-long greatsword.
A sword immortal?!
For a brief moment, Xu Mo was stunned. Then, he quickly realized—the man was just another Apocalyptic Shard Wielder like himself.
Seeing Xu Mo hesitate to respond, the white-robed man didn't press him. Instead, he slowly descended, sheathed his sword, and calmly asked,
"Need a hand?"