Reborn As A Doomsday Villainess-Chapter 178: He can’t save everyone

The buses had long since disappeared over the horizon, their engines still echoing in the distance, leaving only the stifling silence behind.

The crowd that had been left behind remained rooted to the spot, eyes wide and faces filled with disbelief.

The air, once breathable, had started to turn thick and oppressive, an unnatural heat settling over them, making the world feel like it was closing in.

The sun above beat down relentlessly, and with it came a suffocating warmth that had nothing to do with the time of day.

It was the kind of heat that left sweat pooling in the small of your back and burned your skin if you were unfortunate enough to be exposed too long.

The heat grew heavier by the minute, and even the strongest among them could feel the weight of it crushing down on them.

Some dropped to their knees, their bodies too exhausted from the desperate push for survival.

Their clothes stuck to their skin, damp with sweat and the bitter tang of fear.

And then, the crying started.

It wasn’t just one or two voices. It was a chorus of anguish, rising like a collective scream into the burning air. The women, the children, the elderly everyone who had been left behind began to wail in despair.

Their cries split the air like the crack of a whip, sharp and mournful.

"Please, someone!" A woman’s voice rose above the others, cracked and desperate. "Please! Take us with you! Don’t leave us here!"

But no one could hear her, no one could help her.

A man, his clothes torn and streaked with blood, staggered forward, his face a mask of raw emotion.

His eyes were bloodshot, and his mouth moved silently as he dropped to the dirt, falling to his knees and pressing his hands together. "Please, God... Please, save us," he choked out, his voice breaking. "Have mercy on us, don’t let us die here like this. Don’t let this be our end."

His words dissolved into sobs, but no divine response came.

The air grew even hotter, suffocating, and the ground beneath them felt like it was turning into a furnace.

The cries intensified, swirling together into a chorus of hopelessness.

A woman beside him, her face streaked with tears, pressed her palms to the sky, as though hoping to catch something..anything..from above.

"Please, please!" she begged. "We’re not ready to die! We don’t deserve this! Not like this! Not alone!"

The desperation in her voice was unbearable. It was a sound that pierced through the thick heat, through the trembling ground.

And still, nothing came. The world continued to bake in the oppressive heat, the air thick with the stench of sweat and decay.

Nearby, a group of children huddled together, clutching each other for comfort as the world seemed to close in on them.

Their faces were pale, their eyes wide with fear. The eldest, a girl no older than ten, held her younger brother tightly. "Don’t be scared, alright?" she whispered, her voice wavering. "We’re gonna be okay. We have to be okay." But even she knew her words were hollow.

She didn’t believe them herself.

Around her, the others cried out in fear and despair.

Parents screamed for their children, children called for their parents.

The heat pressed down harder, almost suffocating, as though the very air was punishing them for something they couldn’t understand.

The crowd’s frantic cries filled the space between them, an unbearable, unrelenting noise that seemed to stretch on forever.

"Please, we don’t want to die like this! We want to live! I want to live..please" another voice cried, a man who had been dragging his wife along in the hope that she might make it.

But the woman, barely conscious, had already lost all strength, and now he was left with nothing but his own frailty and the growing hopelessness around them.

His arms trembled as he fought to hold her, but it was clear there was no strength left.

Someone else, a girl no older than twelve, screamed as she looked up at the sky, her voice high-pitched and frenzied. "Someone! Anyone! Please save us!" Her words tumbled out, each one breaking with the weight of her fear.

"We don’t want to die! We don’t want to die here!"

But the only response was the blistering heat and the sound of her own voice echoing in the growing silence that stretched on forever.

The earth felt as though it were closing in on them, the heat squeezing tighter, until it became a blur of aching, unbearable suffocation.

In the distance, the faint outlines of the buses were long gone.

The reality that they were now utterly alone was sinking in, each passing second bringing them further into despair.

They were left with nothing but the raw, guttural cries of their own fear.

There were no answers, no salvation, no way out. Only the unbearable, crushing heat that threatened to consume them all, piece by piece, until they, too, were nothing more than ashes in the wind.

"Please," someone whispered. "Please... end this nightmare. Please, I can’t take it anymore."

But the nightmare had only just begun.

A girl in the crowd sighed, standing up from her position, she found a rock to stand on.

Humans seemed to lose their minds when they panicked.

"Everyone! Since you’re too stupid to take a hint. We’re all going to die if we stay here and cry. Feng Yizhou had to take the ones he could save, were just too many, he’s no god...he can’t save everyone. But if we divide ourselves just like he advised. Maybe just maybe.. we can all live to see the other side of this nightmare."

The crowd slowly calmed down, she had successfully gotten their attention.

"Now we don’t have much time. There’s still 307 of us left, if we share our self into----"

She paused, scanning the shell-shocked faces staring back at her. The words caught in her throat for a heartbeat, then she straightened her spine and raised her voice.

"Into seven groups. Six groups with forty-five people, and one with thirty-seven. I have nothing else to say to you. Try and save yourselves, I’ll join the group of 37, the rest share yourselves. "