"Why did you come here? You are only going to slow me down!" Alex scoffed at the sight of the man she hadn't expected to see at all.

In reality, she was just anxious and she was waiting for Lu Chen or the dog to show up. So since it was neither of them, she shouted at the poor guy who did come to help her.

Fang Yuan was speechless. Anyone else would have been pleased to see some backup, but this stupid girl was scolding him! Why am I even here?

"You are unbelievable!" He begrudgingly shouted back, while his hands simultaneously picked up the rifle, aiming for the beast she was currently fighting against.

Fang Yuan aimed for its eyes and sent out two bullets.

Bang. Bang.

The centipede roared in agony and Alex used this chance to finish it off completely as she had already injured the worm quite a bit. 

Kacha! Her dagger enshrouded in flames slashed at the beast's body and she cleanly severed its head into two halves which made the centipede finally stop moving.

This was the fourth one she took down and Alex quickly dug into the beast's flesh and absorbed the mana core. She felt the tiredness in her body reducing and her flames roared loudly again.

As she was about to move on to the next one, two centipedes had managed to reach her at the same time and she quickly jumped and dashed away.

However, in the rush, she tripped over a broken cement slab and fell flat on the ground because of the high momentum.

Using this chance, one of the centipedes spewed out a huge ball of acid at her while the other two ground their teeth and dived in to chew her.

"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck." Alex scrambled back up again, but one of the centipedes had already reached her and it was about to take a big bite out of her long legs.

"Fuck." She prepared for the worst and dashed forward again as fast as she could, but instead of the beast biting into her, only a clean slashing sound rang loudly.

"Who is dragging whom down?" Fang Yuan had struck the centipede with some sort of a metal rod. It was not enough to injure the beast properly but it managed to buy the 2 seconds which Alex needed.

She quickly regained her balance again and sent out another blast of fire towards the beasts coming for her.

"Watch it, woman! You are going to burn me down." Fang Yuan hurriedly moved and stood at a safe distance again, aiming for the weaker spots in the remaining three centipedes.

Their coordination helped Alex tremendously and she finished the beasts one by one at a much faster rate than before.

Soon, the previously dull and calm atmosphere returned to the hospital once again, with several centipede segments scattered at the entrance, floating in acidic puddles.

Alex collapsed on the ground tiredly, letting out a long sigh. A pair of footsteps sounded near her and she quickly turned her head in the other direction. 

"You should take the last mana core." She muttered inaudibly under her breath.

"Thanks." Fang Yuan smiled at her awkwardness and accepted the gesture without holding back. He hadn't really contributed much but only a fool would say no in this time and age when mana cores were everything.

Alex actually didn't expect the guy to be shameless and directly accept her offer. It made her a bit angry for some reason. 

Such a hateful guy! She chewed on her lips and turned away again making herself busy. She poked a chunk of centipede flesh lying near her and more acid oozed out.

Unlike the other beasts, the meat of these centipedes was clearly not edible as it was full of acidic juice. So even though there were several kilos of meat around them, it was still useless.

"Tch. Tch. Such a waste!" Alex kicked it away and stood up. She didn't know how the others were doing, so she couldn't afford to take a proper rest right now. She needed to keep moving.

"Heading back?" Fang Yuan asked and she nodded. He as well stood up and walked along with her.

Noticing this, Alex turned around and glared at him, so the man quickly explained. "Your friends should have reached our camp by now."

"Oh?" She couldn't help but worry about their condition.

"Don't worry. Like I have been telling you from the beginning, our camp is a legitimate one."

"I am just a random civilian but there are a lot of military trained guys in the group. They are very organized and they have been on top of everything."

"You don't have to still keep up your guard."

"And why the hell are you still treating me like an enemy? Didn't I just now help you?"

"Ya. We will see about that." Alex only answered indifferently and this made the poor guy flustered. Such a difficult person!

As the two of them walked away, they completely failed to notice a low tremor that swept past the site of the battle.

A few seconds later, loud rumbling noises echoed around them, and before either of them could react, the land cracked, and once again familiar ugly heads and segmented bodies rose up from the ground.

Alex and Fang Yuan both shot out like arrows and moved away from there but unfortunately, they were completely encircled. And this time, there were not just 8 but about two dozen worms surrounding them.

The two of them were utterly shocked and couldn't even comprehend what was happening. Just how many of these worms were there?

"RUN"

"RUN"

Both shouted at the same time and dashed out, breaking through the entrapment. Alex lobbed two big balls of fire at one of the centipedes and when it moved, both of them used that gap to run out.

"Fuck. We need to use the grenades! You have them right? Throw it! Throw it!"

"Stop rushing me! I am doing it! Alright! God!"

Alex shouted back in exasperation and took out a grenade from the pouch tied to her waist and threw it somewhere in between the centipedes.

BOOM!

The ground shook and the parts of the hospital building near them scattered into several big chunks, that side of the wall fully collapsing.

Rocks and chunks of meat flew everywhere, some even hitting them, but the two kept moving forward.

Alex didn't even have time to check if she had hit the target and injured them and continued to run forward as fast as she could. Fang Yuan did the same. 

Neither of them had any time to fight back as the circumference of the grenade explosion was nothing to joke about. They needed to get out of the area of impact as soon as possible.

But just as the two of them dashed forward, the ground in front of them cracked again. A bad premotion crept up inside Alex's heart.

And proving her right, the next second, more worms showed up in front of them.

"Fuck NO!!!!" She shouted out loud, not able to believe what she was seeing right now. 

She even turned around to see if these were the same worms that were behind them or new ones that had shown up out of nowhere!

And of course, they were new ones!

"I should have just run away with everyone else. Why the hell did I stay back? And why the hell are there so many fucking worms?"

"I was too stupid to think I could handle everything on my own. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck."

Even for a fierce person like her, this was too much to handle and she started rambling nonsense.

Fang Yuan grabbed her by her hand and shook her. "Get a grip, idiot. Don't lose it now."

"You! Who are you calling an idiot? Who is losing it?"

"This is not really the time to bicker you know!"

"You started it first!"

"This idiot!"

The two of them continued blabbering and yelling as they began to run around here and there. It was as if they were caught in a bed of worms with absolutely no reprieve.

"Little white, Lu Chen, damn it! Where are you guys?!" Alex was truly at the end of her wits. 

She tried her best and shot out fireballs here and there, but even with the grenade explosion boost, she was quickly running out of mana and the worms seemed never ending. 

They were not even making any progress in running away as all of their efforts were simply consumed in dodging the numerous worms coming at them at the same time.

Thankfully both of them had absorbed a significant amount of mana cores since the world turned to shit. Otherwise, they wouldn't even have been able to dodge anything in this madness.

Right, left, front, back… there were worms and only worms everywhere!

Caught in this complete and utter chaos, both Fang Yuan and Alex did not notice the black figure that blurred in the distance, along with the small feline beast sitting atop this figure.