William Clark endured the intense pain, constantly glancing around, carefully observing everything in his surroundings.

He now understood—why was he following those two idiots... no, that black man and that white man?

What he needed to do was find a narrow and hidden space to hide in, and survive the last few hours required for the crossing.

Although the addict he had possessed was already dead, and his soul had fallen into the world of the dead, whether he could return to his original body was still uncertain. But betting on the possibility of returning was far more promising than trying to survive while being chased by more than a dozen monsters.

Of course, if he could search for a hiding spot while running, that would be even better. But now that his leg was broken, it was impossible to leave the top floor. Finding a nearby hiding place was already a last resort.

Very soon, William Clark found several hiding spots, but most were piles of garbage or corners of broken walls. Such hiding places left his fate entirely up to luck—if the monsters didn’t find him, fine; if they did, they could easily kill him.

William Clark really had no other choice but to drag his broken leg and crawl along the ground. Even crawling caused him excruciating pain with every slight movement, but he couldn’t care about that now. He let out occasional cries of agony as he dragged his broken leg forward, trying to find a barely adequate hiding spot.

Just then, William Clark heard a rustling sound from the broken wall above his head, and it seemed something was moving overhead. This made his hair stand on end—there was no doubt that the monsters had already climbed from the ground up to the rooftop and were now quickly closing in.

“Hurry, hurry...!”

William Clark growled in a low voice, crawling desperately along the ground. He pushed himself so hard that his fingernails bent backward. At that moment, his eyes lit up, and he immediately crawled toward a nearby room.

Inside the room, there were also broken walls and protruding steel bars everywhere. In one corner, several broken walls happened to form a small, doghole-like recess. It was tiny, with a narrow entrance and some upright steel bars, but by the looks of it, William Clark could just barely squeeze inside. By now, he could already hear the monsters running behind him, so he couldn’t care about anything else and dove straight into the recess.

William Clark squeezed his upper body in, and the steel bars and jagged edges of the broken wall left many cuts on his torso and arms, but he ignored them and kept wriggling inside. The recess was very shallow—just enough for his upper and lower body to fit. If he curled his legs, his feet would be about eighty or ninety centimeters from the entrance.

But William Clark’s left leg was broken. He tried to curl it inward, but any movement sent waves of agony through him, and even if he forced himself to endure the pain, he simply couldn’t bend it. The joint had been bent backward by that black homeless man’s club.

In other words...

His left leg was sticking straight out of the entrance to the recess!!

Chapter 4: Return to the Original Body

(PS: During the new book period, Little William (forever 18 years old) asks for your support—please bookmark, click, recommend, and reward.)

I’m doomed, I’m doomed!

William Clark was painfully aware that as long as his broken leg couldn’t be curled up inside the recess, the monsters would drag him out and tear him to pieces without a second thought.

At the same time, William Clark could hear the sounds outside—the monsters had already come down from the rooftop. There was absolutely no way he could hide; he could only cling to life in this shallow recess. He was truly at a dead end,

and could only hope that the weight and thickness of these broken walls would be enough to block the monsters.

And he had to hope that these monsters didn’t have any supernatural powers.

As the sound of the monsters crawling grew closer, William Clark began to tremble uncontrollably. He looked at his broken left leg, his hands groping around aimlessly. Suddenly, he felt a broken piece of stone—a fragment from the collapsed wall. A thought surged into William Clark’s mind. At this life-or-death moment, William Clark summoned his last ounce of courage, grabbed the stone, and began smashing it against his twisted left leg.

With a dull crack, William Clark let out a muffled groan. The pain sent him into indescribable convulsions, but whether it was because he had already died once, or because he was now some kind of soul, he didn’t lose consciousness—he simply experienced the pain in its entirety. Meanwhile, the crawling sounds outside grew louder and more urgent, mixed with chaotic banging. William Clark clenched his teeth, and the stone in his hand smashed down on his left leg again and again.

His entire left leg was soon covered in blood. When the black homeless man had struck his knee earlier, his leg had already been bent backward at the joint. Now, as William Clark desperately smashed at it, the bone at his knee was exposed, and the joint was on the verge of shattering.

At that moment, several dark figures lunged in through the doorway, crowding and attacking each other, all trying to reach the recess where William Clark was hiding. Dust and debris flew everywhere. William Clark was now terrified to the extreme, and the stone in his hand continued to smash down on his left leg with all his might.