Chapter 349 - 171: Sand

Chapter 349: Chapter 171: Sand

After taking a detour around Jiangzhou City, Xu Mo noticed the air had become significantly drier.

It wasn’t just ordinary dryness; it was as if a pair of invisible, giant hands were wringing every last drop of moisture from the air.

Because he was taking a detour and avoiding the city center, the journey was relatively peaceful. The highway, though dilapidated, was still passable. The few wandering zombies he occasionally encountered were all run-of-the-mill, easily dispatched with a few thrusts of his Triangular Spike.

But after leaving the outskirts of Jiangzhou City behind, Xu Mo noticed another phenomenon: the wind seemed to have picked up.

He hadn’t felt much when he was near Jiangzhou City. There had been a breeze then, but it mostly just carried the dusty smell characteristic of urban ruins. However, as his vehicle left Jiangzhou City and entered the desolate, untrodden wilderness, the feeling began to change.

The wind began to carry sand—just a little at first. A bit of sand in a strong wind wasn’t exactly a noteworthy phenomenon, after all.

It wasn’t until he got out of the car to take care of some business that Xu Mo happened to glance at the SUV’s hood and realized something was amiss.

A fine layer of sand and dust had settled on the hood. It wasn’t much, just a thin coating, like the dust that accumulates on a car left parked outside for a few days.

The problem was, Xu Mo always checked the vehicle’s condition before setting off, and he hadn’t noticed any of this back then.

This layer of grit had settled in a single day. Xu Mo ran a finger across the hood. He felt the fine, granular texture at his fingertip and rubbed it, noticing its slightly coarse feel.

’It’s real sand!’

Xu Mo looked up at the sky. It was the hazy, gray color common in the apocalypse; nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

Xu Mo frowned but said nothing and continued driving.

But as his journey continued, Xu Mo was forced to take this phenomenon more seriously.

As he drove on, the sand and dust accumulating on the vehicle grew thicker. By evening, a noticeable layer of grime covered the SUV’s hood, thick enough that he could draw a clear line through it with his finger.

This layer wasn’t ordinary dust but actual fine, yellowish-brown sand.

Xu Mo stopped the car and walked a circle around it.

The fine sand was everywhere on the car’s body—the windshield, the roof, the trunk.

"This damned weather," Xu Mo muttered.

That night, Xu Mo had a simple meal and prepared to sleep.

The wind howled outside, and sand periodically pattered against the car’s body. The sound was like tiny insects striking the glass, and after a while, it became a strange sort of white noise that made him drowsy.

The next morning, the first thing Xu Mo saw upon waking was the strange state of his windshield.

The layer of sand was noticeably thicker. It was no longer a thin film of grit but a genuine accumulation of dust, like what you’d find in a room that hadn’t been cleaned in ages.

’How could so much sand appear overnight?’

Xu Mo’s gaze swept across his surroundings, and he spotted a small pile of windblown sand gathered in the corner of an abandoned hut.

Xu Mo looked up at the sky. It was still the same hazy gray, with no discernible change. The wind, however, was stronger than yesterday. Xu Mo squinted, peering into the distant wilderness. The blowing sand blurred his vision, allowing him to see only vague outlines.

"What in the world is going on?"

Xu Mo muttered to himself, but there was no one to answer him.

Back in the car, Xu Mo continued on his way.

By noon, the sun was high overhead, scorching the earth. It felt like being roasted in an oven.

The wind was still blowing, but it carried not a hint of moisture. Instead of bringing any relief, it felt like someone was blasting his face with a hairdryer on its highest heat setting.

’In this environment,’ Xu Mo thought, ’anyone without a steady supply of water would probably turn into a mummy in a few days.’

He glanced at the temperature gauge on the dashboard. The needle was pushed all the way to the right, meaning it had definitely surpassed 42 degrees Celsius. There was no way to know the exact temperature. Still, Xu Mo estimated it was at least forty-five degrees outside, maybe even higher.

A normal person couldn’t possibly survive long exposed to the outdoors in this heat.

Only because Xu Mo had reached the Iron Bone Realm was his constitution far beyond that of an ordinary person, allowing him to remain unaffected by the temperature. It was then that Xu Mo spotted something black on the road ahead.

The object lay motionless in the middle of the road. From a distance, it looked like a discarded rag or perhaps the carcass of some animal. Xu Mo slowed the car and approached cautiously. Only when he was right in front of it could he see clearly what it was.

It was a zombie. A desiccated zombie.

It lay on the road, its body twisted into a bizarre posture. Its limbs were stretched out stiffly, and its head was lolled to one side.

The zombie’s skin was completely shriveled and stretched taut over its bones, like a layer of brown leather. Its eye sockets were sunken and deep, with no trace of eyeballs—just two Black Holes.

The strangest part was that its body bore no wounds.

No bite marks, no scratches, no signs of a fight whatsoever. It just lay there, as if it had simply been walking, suddenly collapsed, and never got back up.

Xu Mo grabbed his Triangular Spike, got out of the car, and walked over to the desiccated corpse. He gave it a light tap with the Triangular Spike.