Everything fell into silence.
The objects from the overturned truck's cargo bed hung scattered in the air, the driver's expression panicked, Mother Kasugano's eyes shut, Sora screaming as she clung tight—
this moment had frozen into a silent eternity.
Lin Ye sprang into action at once.
Time was limited.
The first thing he did was throw open the car's rear door and drag the silver-haired girl out of the vehicle, away from the truck.
At this point Lin Ye had no time to mind how rough he was being—even if he hurt Sora, he didn't have a single spare moment to treat the girl gently.
The Time Stop's duration was steadily draining away.
Lin Ye sped to the front passenger seat and hauled out Mother Kasugano, that mature beauty.
'Tick-tock, tick…'
He could clearly see the despairing light in Mother's eyes.
Last was Father Kasugano.
Unbuckling the seatbelt and dragging him from the driver's seat, the next moment Father Kasugano too was hauled away from the sedan.
The Time Stop ended.
"Craaash…"
Lin Ye shielded Sora while doing his best to also protect Mother Kasugano, the few of them carried forward by the vehicle's last bit of forward momentum.
Had he not slowed it down beforehand,
at that speed, Sora and the other two would have suffered tremendous injury.
And Lin Ye was certain that this body of Haruka Kasugano's that he was currently using wouldn't have fared much better either.
"Boom…"
A thunderous crash, the screeching shriek of violent braking, tires skidding against the ground over and over, the truck toppling, its cargo sliding off and slamming heavily onto the road.
In an instant the small car was buried under solid wooden crates, followed by the impact of the overturned truck.
Sparks burst out.
The small car held out for only a short while before being crushed and slammed against the guardrail at the edge.
And Lin Ye, shielding the few of them, finally came to a stop with great difficulty outside the guardrail.
Father Kasugano, Mother, and Sora—whom Lin Ye had so carefully protected—were all completely bewildered about what had happened.
Why had they left the car in the blink of an eye?
What had happened?
"Big Brother…"
"Big Brother…"
Sora's voice was timid and confused, her eyes flickering with bewilderment, while the stinging pain coming from her body and arms made her realize she'd been injured—it hurt somewhat, but it was still bearable.
Father and Mother also came to their senses one after another, propping themselves up to rise.
"What… happened?"
Father gripped the railing and looked toward the small car ahead, collapsed, crushed by the big truck and submerged beneath the cargo's solid wooden crates.
"It really… was an accident."
If—if he hadn't slowed down and pulled over, they wouldn't have run into the accident, would they?
But Father Kasugano immediately negated that thought.
He stared in astonishment at his son with that fresh, tender young face—just what had happened to this son of his, that he could predict this accident in advance?
He helped his wife up; the scrapes and trickling bloodstains on her face and hands pained his heart, but compared to taking a direct, severe hit inside the car, this was already so very much better.
Then another question arose in him.
How had their whole family gotten out of the car?
He couldn't make sense of it.
"Like this… it should be fine."
Lin Ye let out a breath of relief. He had just raised a hand to wipe the sweat from his brow when, the next second, the sound of emergency braking came again.
Several small cars' tires shrieked violently with friction, hurtling at high speed toward where Lin Ye was.
That skewed, careening shape immediately made Lin Ye realize this matter was far from over.
"Danger—run, now!"
Lin Ye shouted, and with one hand he immediately dragged Sora along, running toward where Father and Mother Kasugano were.
Closer.
Closer still.
At this moment Lin Ye was certain that, given the current situation, Father and Mother Kasugano had no way to escape—if not dead, they would certainly be gravely wounded.
And according to the way this instance had consistently developed, based on the conditions of the original accident, once gravely wounded, it could basically be called death.
And the content of this Strange Mission was 'to survive.'
Lin Ye's first instinct was to think he just needed to keep himself alive, to ensure he lasted until the end.
But after combining it with the instance's content, he realized that merely keeping himself alive was absolutely not enough.
The contact point through which this Strange instance had appeared was that black rabbit doll—Sora's doll—so the core of this Strange Mission event had to be Sora.
Sora absolutely had to survive, and as for himself, that went without saying.
The remaining ones who needed to survive were naturally Father and Mother Kasugano.
Therefore,
going all out to keep the entire family of four alive was the key to clearing this instance.
Time Stop—activated.
Lin Ye used Time Stop once more.
This was the third Time Stop.
Before the cooldown period ended, he could only use Time Stop one more time.
Should some mishap occur again and exhaust his remaining usable Time Stops, then if he ran into another mishap afterward, he could only endure it by force.
Under the Time Stop skill, the accident scene all went still.
Lin Ye could even see the terrified expressions of the drivers in the careening, out-of-control small cars.
"I have to get away from this dangerous place."
Otherwise,
there was absolutely no chance of surviving.
Lin Ye felt the sense of Death drawing near.
Merely dodging one or two accidents truly gave no chance of survival.
Twenty seconds later,
time began to flow.
Two small cars hurtled into a collision, charging straight ahead, but the several figures in that direction had long since vanished.
They appeared in another spot, twenty meters away.
"Hurry, leave the expressway."
As Lin Ye shouted, he immediately dragged Sora and broke into a run.
The Time Stop's duration was limited—three people; he alone truly couldn't carry them all.
If he gave up on Father and Mother Kasugano and only protected Sora's survival, the pressure would be much lighter.
But, in order to achieve the most perfect ending,
Lin Ye resolved to take a gamble, to throw everything in, to do his utmost and create the best possible result.
When would the next accident be?
Lin Ye didn't know, but there would absolutely be a next time—this was inevitable.
This instance could not possibly be cleared so easily.
'Whoosh!'
'Screeeech…' More and more emergency-braking sounds erupted.
'Thud, thud, thud…' Vehicle after vehicle crashed in succession.
'BOOM…' came an explosion, fragments flying, flames soaring to the sky, scorching heat surging into their faces and forming a powerful shockwave.
Lin Ye seized Sora tightly and threw himself to the ground, shielding the girl.
And not far away, Father Kasugano too instinctively shielded his wife at once, firmly using his body to protect her.
A moment later,
Lin Ye shook his head.
That had to have been a tanker truck exploding!
Otherwise, how could a simple vehicle explosion possibly have such force?
"Sora… are you all right?!"
Lin Ye rose and helped the girl up.
"I'm… I'm fine."
Sora shook her head.
But the girl's face was pale right now; the underage girl was still in a flustered, at-a-loss state.
For her, the impact of the car accident and explosion was hard to digest in such a short time, and it was all too easy to fall into lingering dread and shadow.
Lin Ye patted Sora's back, helping to ease the fear and terror in her heart.
"Dear…"
"Dear,"
"You—you mustn't scare me!"
A grief-stricken voice rang out. The silver-long-haired Mother Kasugano was gazing at the man lying on the ground, his back soaked in a stretch of red blood, tears streaming down uncontrollably.
He was injured.
"Don't… don't scare me."
In a mournful tone, with sobbing sounds, Mother Kasugano reached out trying to do something, yet didn't know what she could even do.
Lin Ye immediately ran over.
'Riiip!'
Without the slightest hesitation, he tore open the clothing at once.
In an instant, the wound came into view—a metal fragment from the explosion had, by terrible coincidence, lodged itself in Father Kasugano's back.
"Don't give up."
Lin Ye saw the man tilt his head to look over, his pale lips moving faintly; he wanted to say something, seemingly wanting to leave some final words.
He hesitated no longer and immediately used Hypnosis.
"Don't give up. You can survive. You will definitely survive."
The will to live.
Lin Ye kept amplifying Father Kasugano's intense will to live.
At a time like this, if the injured man himself, Father Kasugano, abandoned that strong desire and will to live, he would absolutely not be able to hold on for long.
After using the Hypnosis superpower, Lin Ye immediately began emergency first aid.
Stop the bleeding—stopping the bleeding was key.
But he did not immediately pull out the metal fragment; once pulled out, it could very likely cause massive hemorrhaging, instead inflicting further harm.
How should it be properly handled?
Lin Ye realized he lacked surgical skills.
"Papa…"
"Papa, Papa…"
A slender figure had already come to his side. She stared blankly at her father's figure lying on the ground—that back soaked in red bloodstains, the blood flowing out ceaselessly—making this girl's body tremble without stop.
Sora, her eyes red and swollen, reached out, but her slender, fair arm kept quivering.
She watched her father's eyes slowly close, and in that instant her head spun, tears welling in her eyes.
"Papa, Papa… don't, don't die."
"Don't die!"
The sound of mournful sobbing emerged and lingered.
Lin Ye still intended to try to do something—only, at this moment his body would not obey.
No matter how he commanded his body to move, it had lost control, falling into a stiff rigidity.
This… how could it be?
For the first time, he had encountered the situation of being 'Time Stopped' himself.
In his ears there was only the faint sound of sobbing; Lin Ye found that his vision had changed too, unable to see clearly what lay ahead.
A grey blur, finally turning into pitch-black darkness.
He didn't know whether one second had passed, or an hour.
Lin Ye's consciousness gradually recovered. He slowly opened his eyes, and the scenery in his field of vision gradually went from blurry to clear.
The back of a car seat,
the scent inside the cabin was very familiar, mingled with a faint feminine fragrance—the perfume of a mature woman, and also a girl's distinctive youthful aroma.
Lin Ye saw the shifting scenery moving outside the window, and saw Sora, eyes closed, nestled against his side.
"Hm?"
Lin Ye slowly put forth a question mark.
He was back?
Was that scene in his memory an image of foreseeing the future?
No—that wasn't right.
Lin Ye abruptly confirmed that the scene just now was absolutely not an image of foreseeing the future,
because
he had only one Time Stop use remaining—only one use left within the cooldown period.
This indicated that what he had experienced in his memory had absolutely, truly happened.
Everything had reset.
It had started over again.
Lin Ye gained a further understanding of this instance's mode.
If he didn't clear it, it would keep resetting and starting over.
But there definitely had to be a limit on the number of times, otherwise the difficulty of clearing it would amount to nothing.
Next, he would make the correct choices based on the situation from the first round, avoiding being swept into the chain of accidents once more.
"Father,"
The instant Lin Ye spoke, he immediately felt a wringing pain coming from his chest; his right hand instinctively clutched his chest.
At this moment, beneath the stabbing pain in his chest, he realized that his body had already suffered Strange erosion.
Of Strange erosion to this degree, he had not the slightest memory.
The only possibility was that the erosion had occurred during that span of time when his consciousness went from blurry to clear.
Lin Ye judged it was due to the reset.
"So this is the limit on the number of resets."
Once the Strange aura's erosion of his body reached a certain degree, there would be no more resets, and his run through this instance would meet utter failure as well.
Compared to the realistic Strange instance challenges he had experienced before, this one was just that little bit more difficult.
In past Strange instance challenges, he himself had never been deeply mired in absolute danger.
But this time, if he couldn't save this family of four, then under repeated rounds of Strange erosion he would become an utter mission failure, and he himself would become a Strange monster.
Judging by the final memory of the first round, the instant Sora became aware of her father's death, everything would reset and return to the starting point of this moment of driving.
Lin Ye's heart grew lively, grew expectant.
"What's wrong? Haruka?"
"Haruka, are you all right?!"
Lin Ye's abnormal reaction instantly drew the concern of both parents, which also led his Sister Sora to be full of concern. "Big Brother, are you feeling unwell?"
She looked at Lin Ye's hand clutching his chest.
"It's nothing, I'm fine."
"Father, accelerate and leave this area immediately."
"Hm?"
His puzzled eyes glanced over, and Lin Ye immediately seized that instant. "Listen to me—accelerate and leave this area at once."
The superpower Hypnosis took effect directly.
Since the choice of slowing down, pulling over, and getting people off the expressway had led to a failed ending, Lin Ye chose a cruder, more straightforward method: leaving at the fastest possible speed.
Of course, Lin Ye also knew the chance of success was slim, but he'd try it first.
Test the methods, search for a way out.
The next moment,
Father Kasugano stomped down on the gas pedal.
The steadily-driving car suddenly accelerated, the immense thrust instantly making the several passengers feel a tremendous push against their backs.
"De-Dear, what are you… doing?!"
Mother Kasugano in the passenger seat immediately cried out in a panic.
She couldn't understand how her husband had just listened to that son of theirs and really accelerated forward outright.
'Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh…'
The increasingly violent howling sound made Mother Kasugano's heart all the more anxious.
The speed was too fast.
Her heart was in turmoil.
And Sora fared no better; the sudden change left her heart hanging in the air, completely at a loss what to do, able only to grit her teeth and face it all.
Meanwhile Lin Ye kept observing the surroundings the entire time—the crisis would surely come from the surroundings.
...
...
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