Chapter 222 : Chapter 222 Deviation
The familiar taste spread across her taste buds.
The young girl didn't realize that Qi Zhimu had quietly added a medicinal component to the candy.
It was harmless and would allow her to sleep peacefully.
Within two minutes, the girl's breathing became faint and rhythmic.
"Sorry, Little Ta..."
"Your body is too weak right now; this is the only way to reduce your energy consumption."
"I will take you out of this world as quickly as possible and find a place where you can temporarily recuperate."
Qi Zhimu tore his shirt into strips and tied Herta firmly to his back.
"It won't be long. I've finished watching Life-taking Mirror Shadow and know how to survive until the end and leave."
His fingertips brushed against the weary little face resting on his shoulder. Qi Zhimu's gaze was firm as he continued forward without hesitation.
It was the same old story.
Knowing the conditions for survival didn't mean that in his current poor state, he could easily deal with various crises.
After passing the fourth stage, the skin on Qi Zhimu's ankles had been sliced off, leaving broken bones exposed.
The thick scent of blood reached the sleeping girl's dreams, and she struggled to open her eyes.
She saw the process of Qi Zhimu using Abundance Power to heal his injuries.
Due to the medicine still taking effect, she couldn't speak at all.
She woke for less than ten seconds before falling back into a deep sleep, leaving only a single clear tear overflowing from the corner of her eye.
She understood what her Brother Zhimu was doing.
There was no more danger after passing the fourth stage. Qi Zhimu did not enter the doorway; he spent a full hour before the faint fluorescence glowing in his palm finally extinguished.
It wasn't that his injuries were completely healed, but... he was almost completely exhausted.
"Having just stepped onto the Abundance Path not long ago, the power I can control is still too little..."
Leaving behind a helpless sigh, Qi Zhimu set off again, his footsteps slightly unnatural as he stepped into the doorway to the final stage.
Unlike his experience as a Magician, after arriving at the office building, Qi Zhimu ignored the startled gazes of the NPCs and headed straight for the location of the combinable Art Mirrors.
In fact, the condition for the Mirror Ghost to gradually lift its restrictions was to find several mirror pieces, not to kill 108 NPCs.
Some Art Mirrors were quite large and had to be carried by hand.
This was why he had to tie Herta to his body.
The pursuit arrived early.
Qi Zhimu didn't know magic, so the intensity of the Mirror Ghost's pursuit wasn't that high.
But—the injuries he sustained weren't much different.
By the time he returned to the starting floor, his left arm had been brutally torn off by the Mirror Ghost, left forever in front of the entrance to the starting floor.
No one knew Herta's current feelings when she saw Qi Zhimu urgently treating the wound to stop the bleeding and then immediately gritting his teeth to start assembling the Art Mirrors, while his past self had been unharmed.
The Magician Qi Zhimu could lose both arms and sew them back to wait for healing, and he wasn't afraid of fighting the Mirror Ghost.
The Original Human Qi Zhimu could not; he really was just an ordinary human.
Heavily injured, once he stepped out of the starting floor, the Mirror Ghost with all its restrictions lifted would surely kill him.
Once the entrance where the Mirror Ghost's true form resided was assembled, entering and killing it would result in being teleported away.
Thus, he was destined to be unable to retrieve his severed arm.
The Mirror Ghost's true form could not move and had no combat capability; Qi Zhimu soon appeared in Grizzly City.
Unlike the Magician Qi Zhimu's experience, the timeline of the Original Human Qi Zhimu entering Grizzly City was one minute before the Zombie Virus outbreak.
He was near the Protagonist of Disorder, not on that abandoned highway.
After the virus broke out, Qi Zhimu helped him solve his troubles, and they went to the Hospital together.
The male lead wanted to find his daughter, while he wanted to find medicine to treat his injuries.
The road conditions were difficult, and they frequently collided with zombies and vehicles blocking the way; Herta woke up hazily once more.
But before she could fully wake up, she was shaken into unconsciousness by the violent jolting, only managing to hear a few keywords Qi Zhimu said to the driver.
Grizzly City, zombies, Hospital, Racing Driver, and so on...
She recognized this as part of a movie she had once watched with Qi Zhimu, disorder.
But it was limited to just that.
Besides being a doctor, the Protagonist of Disorder was also a Racing Driver in private with a hobby for modifying cars, having installed a reinforced Bull Bar on his SUV.
Otherwise, after crashing through so much for so long, the car would have long since fallen apart and been scrapped.
With Qi Zhimu's prophetic guidance, the Protagonist of Disorder quickly found his daughter and helped Qi Zhimu treat his injuries.
To survive, he couldn't possibly abandon this mysterious one-armed man who had suddenly appeared.
Furthermore, he felt a sense of shared fate with Qi Zhimu because they had both lost family members.
To save their remaining family, they were willing to risk everything.
The Protagonist of Disorder didn't understand the true relationship between Qi Zhimu and Herta, nor did he need to.
He only knew that Qi Zhimu had even predicted that the military would contact him.
For this reason, he demanded that the military prepare two more evacuation spots; otherwise, he would rather not go.
The Protagonist of Disorder was no fool; he knew that following the military, who knew nothing of the future, was less likely to lead to survival than following someone with the ability to foresee the future.
He had to keep the Qi Zhimu siblings tied to his side.
The military was easy to talk to, claiming they would send multiple helicopters to rendezvous; forget two spots, twenty would be fine.
However, the military also had difficulties; clearing internal chaos and preparing forces took time, and it was estimated that planes could only be dispatched a few days later.
"Helicopter... not a boat?!" Herta looked surprised.
But thinking that she hadn't finished the movie and knew nothing of the sequel, she felt relieved and continued to follow and observe.
When the Protagonist of Disorder was treating Qi Zhimu's severed arm, the shock of the bloody scene made her bite her lip until it bled without realizing it.
"Why is your sister unconscious?"
After treating Qi Zhimu's injuries, the Protagonist of Disorder couldn't help but ask.
"...Her injuries are not shallow; I must find the corresponding medicine to inject her with," Qi Zhimu said in a deep voice.
"Okay, I'll help you! What do you need?"
"Glucose, and..."
Next, the two men, each carrying the girl they cared about, struggled to survive in the zombie-infested Hospital.
The newly turned zombies weren't fast and could only barely trail behind them, tirelessly pursuing.
After finding the necessary medicine, the Protagonist of Disorder and Qi Zhimu arrived at the Hospital's Staff Apartment.
After setting up defensive facilities in the corridor and clearing the zombies on their floor, they finally breathed a sigh of relief.
They just had to wait at this temporary base for the helicopter sent by the military.
But bad news came the next day; the military claimed that too many helicopters had been destroyed in the chaos and could only send a boat instead, requiring them to go to a designated port.
Qi Zhimu: "It's fine. I can predict a route with relatively low risk."
Hearing this, the Protagonist of Disorder felt slightly at ease.
The supplies in the apartment were enough to sustain them for a few days.
Not long after, Herta, who had slept for a long time, finally woke up, meeting the familiar face and hearing his voice.
"Little Ta, how do you feel?"
"...I'm fine..."
The future Herta fell into a state of confusion.
The events experienced by Magician Qi Zhimu and Original Human Qi Zhimu so far had almost identical results.
However, there was a significant deviation in the course of action and timeline in Grizzly City.
"What on earth is the reason..."