Chapter 73 - Clearing the Field

73 -76 Clearing the Field

“Driver,”

Li Cheng stared intently at the towering three-headed figure exuding ferocious malice and spoke into the walkie-talkie, “Is there any other way out?”

“No, the only escape route is also occupied by the monsters.

They must have smelled the blood on the three-head and are heading your way.

Estimated to arrive in two minutes!”

Two minutes, huh…

“Prepare to abandon the motorcycle,” Li Cheng instructed Su Jie tersely, then gripped the handlebars and twisted the throttle forcefully.

The tires spun rapidly on the ground, billowing smoke as the roaring vehicle charged forward with both men aboard.

The three-headed figure stood motionless, maintaining its sword-raising stance, until the very moment the motorcycle passed by, then it suddenly turned and, with agility that defied its massive build, swung its sword horizontally.

Swift and fierce, the strike was too fast for the speeding motorcycle to evade, cleaving it in two.

Parts flew, gasoline splashed.

Both passengers were prepared; Su Jie leapt up, guns drawn mid-air blasting towards the three-head, including the two pocket monsters tucked inside his clothing, which released their abilities.

Li Cheng, too, pushed off the wall, popped out the Mantis Arm Bone Blade, and stabbed into the three-head’s wrist, attempting to dismember its sword-holding right hand.

Bullets pierced the skin, thunder struck the skull, and bone blades buried into wrist bones.

Despite the carnage, the creature completely ignored the blossoming blood and fiercely grasped Su Jie’s neck with its left hand; its right hand withstood the Mantis Arm Bone Blade, sweeping its sword toward Li Cheng’s neck.

At this life-or-death moment, Li Cheng, who had activated the Multi-threaded Brain Domain Method, remained utterly calm.

He first summoned black beetles’ horns and carapace, enhancing his physical attributes, and then raised his left arm, equipped with the White Bone Corridor Guard Arm, to shield himself.

Clang!

The cleaver scraped along the White Bone Armor, its immense force nearly shattering the arm bones.

Expressionless, Li Cheng secured the three-head’s wrist with his right hand and immobile left arm, while forcefully kicking off the wall with both legs.

The jumping power of the cricket genes, combined with his whole body weight, pressed down relentlessly, causing the hand holding the sword to swing backward, driving the large cleaver deep into the left arm, nearly severing it 70%.

Even with its monstrous constitution, the three-head could not completely defy the laws of physics.

Its left hand’s tendons snapped, its grip weakened, and Su Jie, who had been nearly choked to death, regained strength, drew out an anti-material sniper rifle, and pulled the trigger right under the creature’s armpit.

Boom!

A bowl-sized wound exploded under the three-head’s armpit, through which one could clearly see the robust heart, wrapped in dense iron wires, pulsating inside the chest cavity.

“Walking Grass, use the Sunlight Beam!” the Driver’s voice sounded through the walkie-talkie.

Following the command, Walking Grass bent forward and fired a white beam from its head, piercing through the heart from the wound under the three-head’s armpit.

Li Cheng dodged the residual effects of the beam and moved to the three-head’s back.

As he jumped up, the Mantis Arm Bone Blade, held in parallel with the ground, formed a guillotine around the three-head’s neck.

He then fiercely kicked the creature’s back.

Accompanied by the bone-grinding noise that made one’s teeth sour, the entire metal head of the three-head was forcibly removed by Li Cheng and crashed to the ground, smashing several tiles.

Su Jie, with blue pinch marks on his neck, landed on the ground; the wooden bracelets on his wrist, designed to passively ward off a fatal blow, were all cracked apart.

If it weren’t for them, his injuries wouldn’t be just a cracked hyoid bone—he would’ve likely had his neck snapped.

Thank goodness he was alive…

His thoughts were abruptly interrupted as the headless, heart-shattered carcass of the three-head suddenly grabbed its cleaver and stabbed Su Jie in the abdomen with lightning speed.

Just as the three-head’s carcass was about to bisect Su Jie from below, Li Cheng, with a slash of his left hand, cut off its wrist; with his right hand, he plunged into the cut neck, grabbing the spine and yanked the white bones out forcefully.

The three-head’s carcass wobbled in place for a moment before finally collapsing, never to rise again.

Li Cheng crouched down to deliver a few more cuts, then looked up at Su Jie.

The wide rear and narrow front blade had penetrated Su Jie’s abdomen, nailing him against the wall.

“Su Jie?

Su Jie, are you still alive?!”

The Driver’s anxious calls came through the walkie-talkie, genuinely concerned for his lifesaver.

Pain almost knocked Su Jie unconscious; his left hand whipped out painkillers and jabbed them into his body as if they cost nothing, while his right hand desperately emitted a faint glow, enveloping his abdomen to stop the bleeding from the wound and internal organs with Medical Skill.

“Don’t remove the blade; if you do, I’ll die immediately.”

He stopped Li Cheng, his head drenched with sweat, and said, “If we do this, maybe we can survive.”

“The monsters from behind are coming fast.”

Li Cheng glanced behind at the corridor, where the sounds of galloping and monstrous shrieks were already faintly audible.

“I know, so you need to make it to the control room quickly and open the gates.

The moment the mission is completed, players can be teleported back to the real world.”

Su Jie struggled to light the candle and took out the last automatic machine gun turret from his Backpack, tossing it into the middle of the crossroads, “I’ll buy you time here, hurry, it’s all on you now.”

Players who were accustomed to life-and-death farewells in a world where the morning might not come and safety was never guaranteed, Li Cheng didn’t engage in excess talk.

He left Walking Grass and Pichu behind to protect Su Jie, and himself sprinted along the corridor at breakneck speed.

Su Jie slowly relaxed the hand clutching the machete, his youthful face filled with exhaustion.

He was only twelve years old.

While his peers were just starting middle school, concerned with studying, games, and mobile phones, he had to fight for his life in an underground world surrounded by monsters.

“Teacher, I really am so tired…”

With a sigh, the bitterness, sadness, and fatigue in his eyes quickly dissipated, replaced by resolute determination.

He held the gun steadily in both hands, aiming in advance at the increasingly noisy corridor corner behind him.

Thud!

Several werewolves tumbled out of the corner, howling and roaring as they charged at him, followed by a large group of monsters.

Left, left, right, left…

Li Cheng, maintaining a state of parallel thinking with the Multi-threaded Brain Domain Method, visualized the bunker’s structural diagram in his mind, racing speedily through the intricate corridors.

He either bypassed the numerous monsters encountered en route with his speed advantage, decapitated them with his Bone Blade, or dodged to evade them.

Like lightning, he finally arrived at the control room door at the top of the bunker, inserted the key, and pushed the door open.

The lights turned on automatically.

Through the glass window in front, one could clearly see the scene of the welcome hall, the largest area in the theme park.

Bodies strewn everywhere, a parade of ghosts.

Ultimate monsters, with sizes comparable to skyscrapers from movies like Cloverfield and the Mist, wandered around the hall, occasionally bending down like cattle grazing to nibble on human corpses.

A familiar red figure floated up.

The Resentful Spirit Alma, over a hundred meters away, locked eyes with Li Cheng, its face still bearing the deep scars inflicted by the Hell Monk.

Li Cheng silently inserted the key into the control panel of the control room.

The console here resembled an intercontinental missile launch room, with two palm-shaped buttons three meters apart from each other, which required two people to press simultaneously to be effective.

This design was probably due to the theme park being sealed internally; balancing the internal and external air pressure had to be taken with extreme caution whenever opening or closing the main gates.

Li Cheng’s mind was calm as he took the cut-off hands from the sides of his Bulletproof Vest, brought out electrical tape and stuck it on the right button.

Outside the window, the Resentful Spirit Alma, harboring intense hatred for all the living, flickered towards him, and the other behemoths also noticed the suddenly lit lights, shaking their heads and ramming into the control room.

In the nick of time, Li Cheng forcefully slammed the left button, opening the gates.

The system’s notification sounded timely, but he didn’t choose to teleport away.

Instead, he took the risk to wait for something.

At the entrance of the welcome hall, the extremely hefty alloy gates slowly lifted under hydraulic action, a beam of strong light shone through.

Hundreds of Security Guards rushed into the bunker through the gap, beginning an efficient slaughter.

Lasers, thunder, flames, ice, gravity manipulation, telekinesis…

Different forms of Gouzhuang, utilizing wholly distinct abilities, slaughtered the monsters in the hall.

Among them, one blue and white Security Guard even conjured a tiny black hole out of thin air, absorbing and swallowing an alien creature from Cloverfield that was over seventy meters tall and weighed more than five thousand tons.

The Resentful Spirit Alma realized the danger was imminent and quickly rose but still didn’t escape – hit by a gravitational beam released by a Security Guard, its form kept shrinking until the Security Guard secured Alma into a glass container in its arm.