Chapter 69 - Advance and Retreat

To confirm his human identity, Taylor took out his employee badge and then showed the back of his neck, indicating there wasn’t a chip implanted, before asking with a slightly flickering gaze, “By the way, who exactly are you guys…?”

Since this wasn’t a script task, he could see the players’ true appearances and had noticed Li Cheng previously conjuring a shotgun out of thin air.

“You can think of us as some sort of rescue personnel.”

Li Cheng said, “We need to head to the Bunker Command Center to open the main gate.

Do you know the way?”

“The Command Center?

Both the doors and gate button require the Bunker Director’s personal key.”

Taylor said, “When the disaster had just started, the broadcast system here was still working.

It had transmitted the director’s voice, telling everyone to hide wherever possible and wait for rescue.

The broadcast system is in the Command Center, like the Command Center, it’s to the west.

I’ll take you there.”

As a survivor who had just narrowly escaped from the clutches of monsters, Taylor was perhaps a tad too eager.

The Driver tilted his head and asked, “You’re so eager to show us the way, could it be that your wife and child are also in that direction?”

“Uh…

yes.”

Having his thoughts exposed, Taylor showed a nervous expression and hastily said, “My wife is a high-ranking staff member of the park, with high-level access that can open many doors.

Plus, her hiding spot is on the way to the Command Center, so it won’t delay us.”

The Driver gave a noncommittal twist of his mouth, signaling Taylor to continue leading the way.

Although he didn’t see otherworldly humans merely as game NPCs, to be killed for fun without any psychological burden, like some players do, he wasn’t overly compassionate either.

Just save them if it’s convenient, nothing more.

As if to prove his worth, Taylor wracked his brain for information to share along the way, “The whole theme park is roughly divided into Ocean Horror, Kingdom of the Dead, Dark Cemetery, and Doomsday World.

These areas host different types of monsters for visitors to look at.

However, now that the park’s security system has shut down, the monsters run amok everywhere so the zone divisions don’t really matter.

On my way here, I even saw werewolves and vampires fighting each other.”

“Wait, the monsters attack each other too?” Su Jie was puzzled, “Earlier, we also saw zombies and mutant corpses eating dead bodies together.”

“The more similar the Attribute of the monsters, the more likely they are to attack each other.

Theoretically.”

Taylor said, “The zombies and corpse mutants getting along, maybe in the eyes of the zombies, the mutants aren’t worth eating?

Or maybe their Levels are just too low.”

Mutants that can’t be killed even if beheaded have low Levels?

Then what’s considered a high Level?

Su Jie’s question was immediately answered.

Just as they turned a corner, a square metal box quietly lay in the middle of the corridor floor.

“Shit!”

All three players exclaimed simultaneously and came to a halt.

The box was about fifteen centimeters on each side, black and gold, with complex and intricate patterns on its surface that resembled both text and images.

Li Cheng smacked his lips and told his two companions, “I’m offering two hundred Game Coins for anyone who dares to touch that box.”

“I’ll give four hundred gold bars,” the Driver said with a voice full of agony.

“I’ll bid six hundred Bitcoin,” Su Jie said with a grimace on his face.

The box in front, known as the Le Malchance Mysterious Box, also called Magic Cube, Mysterious Box, Mourning Box, is from the classic horror movie series Hellraiser.

Once opened correctly, it summons the messengers from Hell to chase after the one who opened the Mysterious Box, shredding their bodies into pieces and then taking their souls back to Hell for endless torment.

And the Hell’s Messenger, represented by the Pinhead, possesses Superpowers including but not limited to immortality, immunity to pain, Teleport, invisibility, phasing through walls, summoning Hook Claw, controlling gravity, warping space, etc.

Even among all horror movie monster ranks, Hell’s Messenger is considered one of the most twisted.

Its only two weaknesses are that it can only be summoned by opening the Magic Cube, and it will be sent back to Hell when the Magic Cube is restored.

“We’ll be fine if we don’t mess with the Magic Cube,” Li Cheng said seriously, “Let’s stick to the edges.”

Three players plus one native, the four of them, in a rather comical posture, collectively stuck to the wall edge, backs against the wall, slowly walked around the Magic Cube.

Then they broke into a run until they reached the next corner before they finally took a breath.

“That was really close,” Li Cheng remarked, “Last time it was this dangerous, it was during the Grudge task when I faced seven waves of grudge attacks.”

Hey hey hey, that’s the plot from Infinite Horror, right?

It seems you still remember your Chu Xuan character, huh?

Su Jie couldn’t hold back any longer, “I thought you weren’t afraid of anything.”

“Danger is an objective description of reality, while fear is a subjective emotion.

The two should not be confused.”

Li Cheng glanced at him, “Xiao Honglu, you need to be more rigorous to take over as the top strategist of the Central Plains team.

As a punishment, you will do five hundred math problems when you get back, no calculators allowed.”

…You’ve had enough.

Su Jie rubbed his temples and looked ahead.

It seemed they were approaching the Ocean Horror area that Taylor mentioned.

The terrain suddenly opened up with water park slides, wave-making equipment, lazy rivers, and a whole array of other facilities.

However, due to the pipe burst and the shutdown of the water filtration system, the originally clear water became murky, obscuring the bottom.

Li Cheng glanced at the map at the entrance of the water park, and indeed, as Taylor had said, they would have to cross this area to head towards the Command Center.

He rolled up his sleeves, dismantled the Protective Arm shaped like the Holographic Bone Corridor, returning it to the shape of a door frame, then entered, taking out an inflatable rubber boat from the inside.

Prepared even this, huh?

The Driver and Su Jie exchanged glances and tacitly refrained from asking any questions or making snide remarks.

It seemed they had been forced to get used to the bizarre aspects of “Chu Xuan,” feeling like this person could pull out anything, no matter how strange.

The group boarded the rubber boat and, following Taylor’s guidance, set out towards the place where his wife and daughter were hiding.

Buzz buzz——

The sound of the boat’s engine reverberated in the vast, silent space.

The tranquility of the water was disrupted, and from the murky depths slowly floated several incomplete human corpses, and…

a few large shark carcasses.

There were classic Great Whites as well as two-headed sharks from Double-Headed Shark Attack, three-headed sharks from Three-Headed Shark Attack, and the…

In short, a lot of cheesy sea monster movie stuff.

The one thing these sea monster bodies had in common was that their skin and flesh had been stripped away, revealing eerie white bones.

Because of the murky waters and for safety reasons, Su Jie took out and donned the Eyes Communication Headset.

In a suffocating silence, the kayak somehow safely crossed the water, coming to a stop on the shore.

Taylor was the first to jump out of the boat, hurrying to a utility closet door and anxiously asking in a low voice, “Regina, Carol, are you in there?”

“Daddy?”

A little girl’s tearful voice came from inside the wooden door, and as the door opened from the inside, a blonde, blue-eyed little girl threw herself into Taylor’s embrace.

Taylor held his daughter and asked gravely, “Regina, where’s your mom?”

The little girl sobbed and wiped away tears, raising her hand to point towards a corner of the utility room—beneath a pile of miscellaneous items, one could see the body of a woman, long lost of any color.

Evidently, she had been injured while taking her daughter to find a safe room.

Though sewn up crudely with needle and thread, she still died from blood loss.

There was no time for this father and daughter’s grief, as Li Cheng squinted and looked up at the ceiling, where it seemed something was rustling…

Clang clang——

The sound of something moving in the ventilation duct, coming closer from afar, within seconds arrived at the utility room, sending the vent cover flying with a bang.

That was a segment of a gray tentacle belonging to a soft-bodied creature, thick as a python, forked at the tip, with fearsome barbs and suckers on the inside.

It was an Ottowa-class creature from the movie Extreme Deep Cold, a gigantic vampire squid that lived in the depths of ten thousand meters, possessing innumerable tentacles, each with sensory organs and independent thought.

Capable of devouring all the thousands of passengers on a cruise ship overnight.

“Get out of here!”

Without needing Su Jie’s loud warning, Taylor rushed out of the utility room with his daughter in his arms.

However, in the corridor outside the utility room, vent covers installed at intervals had all been blown off, and dozens of vampiric tentacles slithered and crawled in their direction.

At this life-or-death moment, the players no longer held back.

The Driver threw three Spirit Balls onto the ground.

Besides the previously seen Monkey Monster, there appeared Pichu and Flamemouse.

Su Jie also used some summoning Skill, creating seven Crystal Guards, which fired laser beams at the tentacles.

Dual-wielding machine guns, Li Cheng and the three players alternated covering fire, shattering a large number of tentacles, but the tentacles seemed endless, pouring out from the ventilation ducts non-stop.

Just as they retreated while fighting, all the tentacles suddenly froze, suspended in the air as if sensing something.

A strong sense of foreboding engulfed their hearts, and the three players turned to see at the end of the corridor behind them, a figure of a disheveled, barefoot little girl in a red dress had appeared at some unknown time.

There were many horror characters with this image, but the most famous was only one—Alma Wade, from the video game series F.E.A.R.

The storyline of this game is rather complex, but to put it simply, Alma is a powerful Spiritual Ability User who has suffered both physical and mental torment and harbors overwhelming hatred for the world.

Even in death, her soul can continue to exist as a Spiritual Resentful Ghost.

Monsters in front and Spiritual Resentful Ghost in the rear, facing an inescapable situation, Alma made the choice for the players.

She took a step forward, and with a bang, the tentacles closest to the front inexplicably exploded.

The Driver, merely because he was positioned at the front, also had an arm weirdly blown off, the shoulder’s breakpoint a blur of flesh and blood.

Without hesitation, Li Cheng took out a Single Soldier Rocket Launcher plastered with Talismans from the Backpack, aiming at the little girl in red and pulling the trigger.

Whooosh——

The rocket accelerated swiftly, reaching within five meters in front of Alma in an instant, the tail continuously jetting flame for propulsion, yet no matter what, it could not advance any further.

Seeing this, Li Cheng aimed the machine guns at the suspended warhead in mid-air and fired precise shots.

Boom!

The rocket warhead was detonated manually, the explosion deafening.

However, there seemed to be an indestructible, invisible barrier in front of Alma, isolating the flames, the shockwave, and even the attached Evil Exorcism Power.

“Sorry to have bothered you, I’ll be taking my leave.”

Li Cheng chuckled dryly, tucked away the rocket launcher, and without hesitation bolted in the opposite direction, shouting to his teammates, “Run!”