Finally, People

Tu Ran ran as fast as she could, but she still couldn't dodge the chunks of flesh and gore that rained down on her from head to toe.

"Ugh—"

She couldn't stop dry heaving. There wasn't a clean spot left on her. Sticky meat and blood reeked of rot, mixed with the pungent smell of the bomb.

She had zero desire to look back now. She just wanted to get as far away from this place as possible.

The ground was slick, and she walked with extreme caution, but she still accidentally stepped on something like a glass marble and slipped flat on her back.

Flat on the ground, staring up at the sky.

Tu Ran lay there, utterly defeated. Why was she so unlucky?

Struggling to sit up, she turned her gaze to the culprit.

A bead the size of a fingernail was wrapped in flesh and blood. Thanks to her scuffling, it revealed a silvery-white gleam, which was how she spotted it at a glance.

She picked it up and wiped it clean with her sleeve, revealing the bead's true appearance—lustrous like a pearl, but emanating a silvery-white glow from within.

"Could that chicken spirit have grown a stone too?"

No one answered her question. Tu Ran sighed and tossed the unknown bead into her pants pocket.

She'd keep it. Just in case it might be useful.

Though she tried to convince herself that everything before her was just a dream, the extremely real pain, smell, touch, and sight reminded her that this was no simple dream. A magical and bizarre scene, like something out of a game, had appeared in the real world.

Or rather, she had transmigrated into a non-real magical world.

Hard as it was to accept, Tu Ran quickly calmed herself down.

She needed to leave this place fast. The stench of blood here was too strong. If any other monsters with a taste for blood followed the scent, she'd be in trouble.

Standing up, suppressing the urge to vomit, she quickly scraped the filth off her face.

When she looked up, she suddenly found herself locking eyes with a tall, well-built man.

Ignoring the naked disgust and aversion in that man's eyes, Tu Ran was still excited.

A person! She'd actually seen a person!

So this world wasn't all monsters!

She hurried toward him, and as she got closer, she noticed the name tag on his left arm: Xie Xu.

His name was Xie Xu.

He took a step back and raised an arm, stopping her from advancing any further.

Tu Ran stopped in her tracks, knowing full well how pathetic she must look right now—tattered clothes, reeking from head to toe. She was definitely not the most pleasant sight.

She tried to put on a friendly expression, about to greet him and say hello, when Xie Xu cut her off.

"You made too much noise back there."

His voice was steady, completely devoid of emotion.

But judging from how he phrased it, he seemed to know her.

Tu Ran felt a flicker of joy. She was about to ask where they were, but he had already turned and walked away.

So aloof, she thought to herself.

Well, whatever. She could ask later. What mattered now was following him out of here.

Tu Ran trailed a short distance behind Xie Xu, openly sizing him up.

Gotta say, this guy's gear was seriously cool.

He looked like a protagonist straight out of a sci-fi game, decked out in exoskeleton armor—helmet, mechanical arms, night-vision goggles, and various other equipment, some she recognized and some she didn't.

Looking at him, then down at herself, Tu Ran inexplicably felt that the scraps of fabric she had left might have once looked just like Xie Xu's.

Take the iron ring on her wrist, for example—it fit her perfectly. Let's call it an iron ring for now, since she couldn't identify what material it actually was. It was cool to the touch, seamless all the way around, and shimmered with a watery luster.