Chapter 539: A White Dress
Qi Xia was drenched in sweat, no longer able to recall how long he had been running. He only knew that he hadn't pushed his body to this point of exhaustion in many years.
He panted heavily, feeling like his mouth and tongue were coated in sand, so dry that he couldn't squeeze out a single drop of moisture.
Darkness kept flashing before his eyes, his heart pounding violently. All he could hope for now was that his breathing wouldn't become erratic. If he suffered an acute intercostal pain, he would have no choice but to stop in his tracks and wait for death.
Qi Xia only regretted never thinking to train his body, but then he reconsidered—a run of this duration was probably something only professional athletes could endure. Any ordinary person would have collapsed from exhaustion at some point. This wasn't something regular exercise could compensate for.
After this "Pegasus Moment," what would become of the "End Land"?
How many of the "paths" that everyone had laid down would be abandoned halfway, forcing them to start all over again?
Though this celestial-level game couldn't compare to the massive reshuffles initiated by the Celestial Dragon and the Azure Dragon, it was still enough to cripple all the "participants." Many would fail to obtain their "Echo" in time and would completely forget the experience they had accumulated.
Frowning again, Qi Xia turned his head to look behind him. The bizarre black thread maintained a steady, unhurried pace, yet it was still visibly closing in on him.
The stone Chen Junnan had thrown was effortlessly sliced apart by it. If something like that touched his body, death would be certain.
From what he could tell now, the black threads drifting down from the sun didn't move like snakes. Instead, they used the sun overhead as a pivot point, "extending infinitely" over the course of two hours.
Qi Xia knew he couldn't even pause to rest for a few minutes by quickly distancing himself from the black thread. Once he lost sight of it, he would have no idea from which direction it would approach him. A single moment of inattention could mean death.
"Not good..." Qi Xia gritted his teeth, thinking to himself. "At this rate, I won't be able to hold out... but my 'Echo'..."
Just as he felt the world spinning around him, he suddenly spotted a woman in a white dress turning a corner in the distance. After a brief flicker, her figure disappeared.
Qi Xia froze for a moment, momentarily unable to tell if he was still dreaming.
That white dress was far too familiar. As the figure vanished around the corner, Qi Xia felt as though something had been taken from his heart.
"An...?" He shook his head forcefully, confirming he was still lucid, then looked toward the direction the woman had disappeared. In the air, there was indeed a barely visible thread floating.
This meant that she wasn't an illusion at all, but a real person. She was a "participant," also being chased by the thread.
A participant... in a white dress... with hair reaching her waist?
In just a fleeting moment, the silhouette of that person had imprinted itself so deeply in Qi Xia's mind that he couldn't focus his thoughts.
"The deepest pain in my heart... my 'obsession'..."
Two paths lay before Qi Xia now. To his left was the open area he had planned to head toward; to his right was the labyrinthine alley where the white-clad girl had gone.
This was a gamble.
Without his "Echo," if he chose to enter the alley on the right, he would be walking a completely unknown path.
But in this vast "End Land," what were the odds of catching a glimpse of someone who looked exactly like Yu Nian'an?
His stamina was nearly spent. At this rate, he had a chance of dying in this "Pegasus Moment" no matter which path he chose.
"Since I can't obtain my 'Echo' no matter what..." Qi Xia bit his lip. "At least let me have no regrets..."
He took a deep breath, using the last of his remaining strength to sprint a few steps, widening the gap between himself and the black thread behind him. Then he picked up a few discarded cardboard sheets from the ground and grabbed a handful of fine sand.
With both items in hand, Qi Xia steadied his breathing, turned, and ran toward the alley on the right, plunging into the dimness.
This was an old, narrow alley, at most two meters wide, stretching straight ahead as if leading somewhere else.
The white-clad girl from before had already vanished, presumably having run deeper into the alley.
The sunlight here was already dim, and there were no working lights on the street. Though it was noon, the alley ahead looked as if it had sunk into twilight, making it extremely difficult to spot any threads.
If he couldn't determine whether the girl had been hugging the wall or moving through the center of the alley, every step Qi Xia took while running could mean death.
Fortunately, he had come prepared. He pulled out the cardboard sheet he had picked up from the roadside, held it upright, and threw it like a playing card.
The rapidly spinning cardboard curved through the alley, but even after flying the entire length of it, the board wasn't cut by anything.
Qi Xia glanced back nervously. His own black thread was now only seven or eight meters away.
Without time to think, he threw another piece of cardboard in a different direction. This time, when the board reached the middle of the alley, there was a faint muffled sound, and it fell to the ground in two pieces.
"I see..."
Qi Xia nodded. It seemed the girl had been moving along the left wall of the alley. Her black thread was also on the left side.
Having confirmed the position, he tossed the fine sand in his hand along the left side. No matter how sharp the black thread was, it couldn't cut through every grain of sand floating in the air. Some of the barely visible dust clung to the thread, outlining its general shape for Qi Xia.
After confirming that his path forward wouldn't collide with the thread, he hurriedly walked forward.
He had already tested with two pieces of cardboard. Apart from the black thread near the left wall, no other "participants" seemed to have passed through this alley, and no second thread hung in the air. For now, it was safe.
But once he entered the alley himself, there would be black threads on both the left and right sides. Anyone who came in after him would be out of luck.
A few steps later, Qi Xia reached the end of the alley. It opened into a T-junction, and the white-clad woman's black thread clearly turned left.
But the wall on the left was very high, blocking almost all the light. While it wasn't "pitch black," it was nearly devoid of illumination. Qi Xia couldn't see what lay ahead at all.
He found it a bit strange. When fleeing for your life... would a normal person choose a place where you couldn't even see?