"Heh heh, that Russian porker weighs at least 240 pounds, one of him is worth two of anyone else, should keep those zombies busy!"

From the opposite team, two inmates cautiously observed Quentin and moved to handle Chekhov's corpse. Dragging a leg each, they tossed him to the corridor's turn, where a horde of zombies was already converging on the three federal soldiers' bodies.

With Chekhov added, the four bodies just managed to block the seven-meter-wide corridor entrance, keeping the horde at bay. Seeing the mass of zombies beyond the entrance, the inmates wasted no time. Splitting into two groups, they began to force the steel doors of the base's exit open.

Aside from Quentin, whose lower leg injury prevented him from applying force, even Lincoln and Lily joined the door-pushing effort, fighting for their survival.

"Squeak!" The door's rollers screeched with metallic friction, and the heavy steel doors finally began to inch open, sliding apart.

"We did it, it's open!" The inmates shouted with excitement, their cheers filled with the joy of narrowly escaping death.

"What... what is this place?" But when they saw what lay beyond the steel doors, their smiles froze on their faces, their eyes reflecting an uncontrollable shock!

Outside the base's steel doors wasn't the vibrant primeval forest of the Greater Khingan Range. Instead, they were met with a desolate Gobi desert, bizarre rock formations like monstrous silhouettes sprawled across this uninhabited expanse, reminiscent of the old American West's deserts.

In the new century's Earth, with scientific advancements, environments like deserts and wastelands had been transformed to accommodate the growing population, save for a few primeval forests and polar ice caps. Such desolate Gobi wastelands were sights people could only encounter in ancient photographs.

Yet, even this wasn't the most astonishing aspect. Several kilometers away, the entire continent was split by a fault line. Beyond the fault lay a vast and serene cosmos, sprinkled with stars that flickered on and off.

Upon closer inspection, these weren't massive stars but floating landmasses of varying sizes, each shrouded in an orange-yellow protective dome.

The distant floating landmasses were tiny as fireflies, while the closer ones were as large as millstones, their landscapes distinctly visible.

Their base's exit turned out to be suspended in mid-air, at least thirty meters above the ground. It seemed the underground structure of Sector 91 had risen to the surface of the Gobi, lifting the corridor exit into the air.

No wonder the dead had turned into zombies! No wonder the federal soldiers' particle guns had failed! No wonder all modern equipment in the base was inoperable! They weren't on Earth at all; even the scientific laws seemed different here!

The inmates quickly realized that the Gobi desert where Sector 91 Federal Base was located was probably a floating landmass. A few of them connected this to the spherical space-time field above the base, their current predicament undoubtedly related to the space-time transmission. They just didn't know where the entire base had been transported.

"This isn't Earth; where are we?" An inmate exclaimed, coming to a realization.

"The four bodies are almost devoured, and the safety corridor's exit is blocked; what do we do?"

"Climb down! That's the only way to survive!"

The inmates realized they couldn't just stand there and wait for death, and several impulsive ones immediately started climbing down the exterior of the base's exit, toward the ground.

Fortunately, the underground structure of the base seemed to have risen with the surrounding rock and soil, forming a steep mound with enough footholds for descent.

Lincoln, armed with an IV stand, led the way down the steep "slope," with Lily supporting the injured Quentin close behind. The "mound" formed by the base's core and attached rock wasn't natural, and many areas were loose and soft.

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The thirty-meter height wasn't insurmountable, but a misstep could mean a fatal fall. They didn't want to escape the zombies' gaping maws only to die on the desolate Gobi plain.

With the zombie threat gone, the temporary group of inmates disbanded. Including Quentin's trio, twelve survivors remained.

These twelve, centered around the five top-tier murderers—Quentin, "The Dissector," Hanso, "The Shepherd," Hill, "Fireworks" Rand, and "The Clown" Grant—formed small groups of two or three.

It wasn't that the inmates were unwilling to unite in this strange world, but trust was hard to come by. The murderers, each with their psychological issues, were unpredictable and hardly normal. Even the other inmates who reluctantly allied with them preferred to keep their distance.

After about twenty minutes, with Lily's assistance, Quentin finally reached the ground. The warmth from the Gobi's sand and gravel rose through his shoes. As far as the eye could see, there were reddish-brown rock cliffs, and apart from the occasional howling wind through the peaks, the Gobi was deathly silent, devoid of any sign of life.

Although there was no sun overhead, the orange-yellow dome enveloping the floating landmass emitted intense light and heat, lulling the survivors into drowsiness. Quentin's trio found a large boulder below the base and leaned against its sheltered side for a respite.

"Will we ever be able to go back?" Lily hugged her knees, her head hung low as she sobbed.

Lincoln remained silent, his face forlorn as he looked up, engulfed in despair. He had confirmed a terrible piece of news from the inmates: his father was dead. In the base's control center, the inmates had seen a general's uniformed zombie, and there was only one general in the base—his father.

Quentin breathed in the warm, dry air greedily, eyes closed. To him, freedom was all that mattered, whether on Earth or in this strange world. His only concern was his sister, from whom he'd been separated in childhood.

Since "that" incident, he had been without news of his sister for over a decade. Perhaps keeping her away, bearing the burden of happiness for both of them, was the best choice. As for himself, burdened with the lives of dozens, whether the truth of "that" incident was clear or not, he had embarked on the path of a murderer, with no return.

Lost in thought, Quentin felt a stirring within and opened his right hand to examine the black egg-shaped pattern in his palm. Ever since he had killed Chekhov and absorbed that cool sensation, the pattern had been pulsing regularly. It felt as if the cool breath, originating from the pattern, circulated through his body like blood, each cycle diminishing its strength, now barely perceptible. Yet, with each diminishment, his fatigue and pain dissipated a little more, his body seemed to gain new strength, and even the wounds on his legs appeared to be healing rapidly. It was as if this cool sensation was beneficial to him, slowly enhancing his physique.

Curious, Quentin extended his left thumb to stroke the egg-shaped pattern, wanting to feel the rhythmic pulse. But his eyes widened in astonishment, and his heart skipped a beat as a black tablet computer appeared in the depths of his consciousness, identical to the "Necro Noticee" that stored his data.

With the reappearance of the "Necro Noticee," the pattern in Quentin's palm changed, forming a small skull with faintly glowing crimson eyes in its hollow sockets.

"What's that over there?" Just as Quentin was about to probe the "Necro Noticee" with his consciousness, a shout from a distant inmate caught his attention.

Distracted, the "Necro Noticee" in his mind vanished without a trace. Shaking his head, he stood and looked into the distance.

There, in the depths of the Gobi, far from the base, a black line had appeared. In just a few minutes, the line had become a dust dragon made of sand and soil, rolling towards them.

"It's the creatures native to this world!" Hanso's face changed as he shouted to the inmates, recognizing the phenomenon as not natural but caused by numerous fast-moving entities, such as a herd of galloping horses or a convoy of mechanical vehicles.

The inmates quickly ran to the center, uniting against the unknown fate that awaited them, regardless of their willingness.

As the inmates regrouped, the dust dragon seemed to notice them, curving through the Gobi and heading straight for them.

"Is that... motorcycles?" As the rolling dust dragon approached, the inmates were stunned to find it was a convoy of various motorcycles, causing a stir.

The bikes varied greatly, with no uniform model. Some resembled Earth's old two-wheeled motorcycles, others were advanced single-wheel roller vehicles. There were also tracked motorcycles, and at the end of the convoy, there were even spider-like giant multi-wheeled vans.

If there were motorcycles, then were they intelligent beings? The inmates gathered closer, their alertness at its peak.

"Zzt!" A four-wheeled bike broke away from the convoy, stopping before the inmates. A humanoid creature dismounted, striding towards them with an air of unchallenged dominance.

It was cloaked in a hooded cape, and thick motorbike goggles nearly covered its entire face. A horn-like massive gun was strapped to its back, and bullet belts crisscrossed over its shoulders. It swaggered with an air that screamed, 'I'm the boss here.'

But, but... why was its chin barely reaching the inmates' knees?

Faced with this imposing, pint-sized biker boss, all the inmates couldn't help but feel a sense of absurd comedy.