Chapter 219: Chapter 219: God’s Angel

She helped Betty, Layla, Fay, and Wade, while Richard and Quinn supported each other. Among them, Fay, Betty, Richard, and Quinn showed remarkable mental strength, packing quickly even without much assistance.

Lana exhaled shakily, then frowned at Layla and Wade. They looked sluggish, eyes heavy, bodies swaying.

’They can’t fall asleep.’

“Keep hurting yourselves if you have to,” Lana ordered harshly. “Do whatever it takes.”

Her words sounded almost maniacal, but they worked.

Soon, all of them stood outside the farmhouse, the structure looming behind them like a silent predator. Lana turned to face them, her expression grim.

“We leave now,” she said. “I don’t care about time paradoxes anymore. If we stay… we die.”

As they hurried down the narrow road, their footsteps crunching softly against gravel damp with night dew, the silhouette of a bus slowly emerged from the darkness.

Its headlights were dim, casting long, distorted shadows that stretched across the ground.

Without wasting a second, they climbed inside, the stale scent of dust and old leather filling their noses the moment the doors closed behind them.

Lana frowned, unease still coiled tightly in her chest. ’Why would a bus be stationed here at this hour?’ The thought lingered, sharp and uncomfortable.

Quinn, as if sensing both her anxiety and her suspicion, spoke up without hesitation.

“It’s an emergency bus,” he said firmly. “I arranged it in advance, just in case something went wrong.”

Those words loosened the tight knot in Lana’s chest. Her shoulders finally dropped a fraction, and she released a slow, controlled breath.

As the bus rumbled to life and began moving, she stared out the window, watching the farmhouse shrink into the distance.

The dark structure soon dissolved into the night, swallowed by mist and shadows.

Time passed quietly, broken only by the low hum of the engine and the occasional creak of the bus’s aging frame. Gradually, Lana felt her thoughts growing clearer, the fog in her mind lifting little by little.

She straightened and carefully observed her surroundings, searching for any distortion, any sign that a time paradox had been triggered.

Nothing.

The road remained the same. The night sky was unchanged. Even the people around her felt… normal.

Lana froze slightly as the realization settled in. ’Nothing changed at all.’

Her brows knitted together, confusion replacing panic. If that was the case, then what had she altered? Slowly, an uneasy thought surfaced. Layla had warned her, and yet the world remained intact.

Lana’s fingers tightened against the seat. ’So the danger… hasn’t completely passed.’

This thought prevailed until Lana returned to Xila City.

Lana’s heart skipped a beat. Logically speaking, a time paradox should have formed. If going by logic, no one should have warned the past Lana, resulting in Layla being in danger.

Layla herself had warned Lana not to take action since that would change everything. After all, if Lana had warned others, they all would have been on guard, meaning Layla wouldn’t be in danger, and hence she wouldn’t have contacted Lana’s past self.

On reaching the familiar bus stop, Lana narrowed her eyes. The dots she wasn’t able to connect previously became obvious.

However, her face remained neutral as she turned toward her classmates who wanted to question her.

“I will leave now.”

With that, she walked away.

“What the heck happened, juts now?” Fay couldn’t help but mutter under her breath.

“This is seriously messed up,” she whispered, rubbing her temples.

Honestly, she was still in shock. Lana banging on their door in the middle of the night, panic written all over her face, had jolted her awake so abruptly that her heart had nearly leapt out of her chest.

As the journey dragged on, an uncomfortable realization crept in.

Her mind had been so scrambled earlier that she hadn’t even been capable of thinking about basic survival.

’How did I get that numb?’ she wondered bitterly. She still couldn’t understand why Lana had reacted with such extreme fear.

Turning toward Wade, she muttered, “Don’t you think it’s strange? Lana was acting way too weird. Why was she that scared?”

Even now, her thoughts felt heavy and sluggish, as though they were wrapped in cotton.

“It feels more likely that some illusion ghost showed up,” she added quietly. “Otherwise, why would she overreact like that?”

Betty frowned at Fay’s words, unease flickering across her face.

“You might think that,” she replied slowly, “but something really was wrong.”

Her voice dropped instinctively. “Back in the mansion… I remember being trapped in a nightmare. I couldn’t wake up. If Lana hadn’t kept knocking on the door, I don’t think I would have broken out of it.”

Layla nodded immediately, her fingers tightening around the strap of her bag. “Same here. Something felt off. Very off.”

Before anyone else could speak, a cool, familiar voice echoed around them, calm yet chilling. “You were moments away from stepping into a ghost portal.”

The words sent a shiver through the group. Cold crept up their spines, and even the air inside the bus seemed to drop a few degrees.

Wade laughed nervously, disbelief etched all over his face. “No way. A ghost portal? How could something like that just open suddenly?”

He shook his head. “And even if it did, how would Lana know?”

Fay’s expression darkened. “There’s a chance,” she said slowly, “that Lana used some kind of artifact.” She hesitated, then added, “Or… she might be connected to some evil force.”

The atmosphere instantly turned icy.

Everyone knew the rumors. Apart from ordinary humans struggling to survive, there existed a twisted faction that called themselves God’s Angels… people who worshipped demonic entities.

They were rumored to possess knowledge about ghost portals, even methods to control them. If a member of God’s Angels was captured, countless secrets about ghost portals could be extracted.

Given that, Fay’s suspicion didn’t come out of nowhere. Lana’s actions had been far too abrupt.

Quinn’s voice cut through the tension, cold and sharp. “If you think that, then you’re all fools.”

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