Chapter 197: Return to the 12th Floor

Xu Huo had already pried open the elevator door with his sword. Gripping the lower edge of the door with one hand, he turned and hacked apart the Man-eating Flower lunging at him before shouting to Da Zhi and the other person, "Go up!"The black panther formed from the card agilely leaped back and forth across the four walls of the elevator shaft, occasionally using attacks from the Man-eating Flowers to maintain its position and avoid falling. Upon hearing Xu Huo's command, Da Zhi quickly pushed aside the Man-eating Flower in front of him and directed the black panther to ascend to the twelfth floor.

As soon as Da Zhi and Jiang Yihua reached the twelfth floor, the black panther reverted to its card form. The two of them reached down, pulled Xu Huo up, and the three of them huddled by the elevator door, freezing their movements. After Xu Huo used the Ox Shield to block two attacks from the Man-eating Flowers, the flower blossoms, having lost their target, slowly retracted back down the elevator shaft.

Jiang Yihua looked at Xu Huo, but Xu Huo was staring at several pipes running along the wall beside the elevator door.

Jiang Yihua was worried that staying too long would attract more Mutants, but she didn't dare speak, instead frantically trying to signal him with her eyes.

After just a few seconds, Xu Huo withdrew his gaze, turned to look at the twelfth floor filled with its putrid stench, and took the first step out.

"Be careful," he mouthed to the two people beside him.

Jiang Yihua and Da Zhi nodded as if facing a formidable enemy, vigilantly watching different directions.

After confirming there was no immediate danger, Xu Huo walked over to where he had left the spider and phone earlier. The spider, still sealed with tape, was struggling and jumping around vigorously. He then checked the phone, confirming that within the two hours after everyone had descended from the twelfth floor, nothing had happened on this level.

"What does this mean?" Jiang Yihua asked in a hushed voice.

"A sealed floor can present two types of dangers," Xu Huo explained. "First, the floor might fill with poisonous gas that kills indiscriminately. Second, Mutants might appear through channels we aren't aware of."

"So this spider not being dead means there's no poisonous gas on the twelfth floor," Jiang Yihua said, suddenly understanding.

This was just a backup method. The main reason was that Xu Huo hadn't found any hidden door mechanisms around the windows, and he couldn't gauge the technological level within this dungeon, so he had no choice but to risk using this approach.

"The traces on the twelfth floor were probably made by Mutated Animals, right?" Da Zhi added. "But there are no ventilation shafts here, so the Mutated Animals must have come in from outside the windows."

"Not necessarily." The moment Xu Huo finished speaking, an elevator door ahead suddenly slid open. Before the three of them could react, a shadow flashed out from the elevator shaft and appeared right in front of them in the blink of an eye!

Xu Huo instinctively raised his shield in front of him, but was struck by a strange, powerful force that sent him flying back several meters. Before he could even steady himself, he saw a cold glint of light in the air—it seemed to be a long blade!

"Watch out!" Da Zhi's roar echoed, followed by the black panther pouncing from the side, biting onto the thing directly in front of Xu Huo and tackling it to the ground!

Only after being tripped up could Xu Huo clearly see that his attacker was a gray mantis half the height of a person. Its pair of sickle-shaped raptorial forelegs had a metallic sheen and could easily leave marks on the ground, seemingly having already completed their evolution into sharp weapons!

"Bang!" It drove one foreleg into the ground, kicked away the black panther pinning it down, then charged forward and delivered two slashes, directly cutting the black panther into three pieces!

The black panther reverted to its card form, but the large mantis didn't stop its attack. It shook its body, spread the wings on its back, and launched itself in a flying pounce toward Da Zhi!

Xu Huo flung his shield, knocking the mantis aside, then followed up with his sword. However, the large mantis was incredibly fast. Not only did his sword strike miss, but the mantis closed in on him!

Jiang Yihua, who had picked up the Ox Shield nearby, saw the situation and threw it toward Xu Huo, adding, "We should go back to the eleventh floor!"

Xu Huo raised his sword to block the two large sickles, barely managing to push the large mantis back, then stopped the two who were about to climb out the window to descend to the eleventh floor. "Don't go that way..."

"Bang!" The large mantis delivered a kick!

Xu Huo flew backward with the momentum, catching up to Jiang Yihua and the other person. He bumped into them from both sides, pushing them away from the window, and said, "The only way down is the elevator!"

Jiang Yihua didn't understand his reasoning, but having missed this opportunity, the large mantis was already upon them. Her physical stamina was far inferior to the other two present. Almost instinctively, she materialized a flower, opened her mouth, and said, "Sir, would you like to buy a flower?"

Surprisingly, the mantis's sickle-limb poised to strike her actually stopped!

Jiang Yihua didn't dare look at the blade-like object hovering at her waist. She swallowed hard and said, "Sir, would you like to buy a flower..."

However, the large mantis, which had tilted its head to look at her, only paused for a moment before its sickle-limb began moving again. But in that brief instant, Xu Huo appeared at Jiang Yihua's side. With a sweep of his long sword, he cut the large mantis in half at the waist!

Dark brown bodily fluids splattered out. The large mantis fell to the ground but wasn't dead yet. Its two sickle-limbs clawed at the ground as it slowly dragged itself toward Jiang Yihua.

Jiang Yihua gasped sharply, picked up a nearby chair, and proceeded to smash it repeatedly against the mantis's head until it was completely pulverized!

Only when the upper half of the large mantis was unrecognizable did she stop, asking uncertainly, "It won't move anymore, right?"

"It won't." Xu Huo glanced at her, then proceeded to cut off the two sickle-limbs. He handed one to her first. "This thing is more useful than an item."

Jiang Yihua, still shaken, took it. Watching him squat down and pull out a plastic bag from who-knows-where to collect the mantis's corpse, she couldn't help but turn her head away and ask, "By the way, why didn't you let us go down from the window earlier..."

Before she could finish her sentence, a series of banging sounds suddenly erupted from one of the elevator shafts!

"Go!" Xu Huo grabbed the items and sprinted toward the elevator shaft they had come from.

Da Zhi, following closely behind, helped him pull open the elevator door they had left slightly ajar. Once Xu Huo was inside, he thrust his crimson sword into the wall. The three of them, holding onto each other, dropped down into the elevator shaft. Hearing the tremendous noise coming from the corner of the twelfth floor, Xu Huo hurriedly pulled the elevator door shut!

The elevator door greatly muffled the sounds from the twelfth floor, but hearing the commotion inside, Jiang Yihua's voice trembled slightly. "It seems we really can only follow the elevator. Otherwise, we'd end up as food for the Mutated Animals!"

"Why are the Man-eating Flowers below so quiet?" Da Zhi, who was at the bottom, was more afraid of the Man-eating Flowers below suddenly jumping up than the Mutants on the twelfth floor.

"They're probably dead." Xu Huo had checked when he entered the elevator shaft. The flower pots of the Man-eating Flowers he had cut in half were split open, and the roots and stems inside had gone soft, lacking the sufficient spring force to reach the height above the tenth floor.

He lifted Jiang Yihua up a bit with one hand and said to her, "Head up to the thirteenth floor."

Jiang Yihua looked at him as if he were insane. "The twelfth floor is so dangerous; we should hurry back instead!"

"The twelfth floor has Mutated Animals, but the thirteenth floor is different from the other floors. If there's a place in this building where we can hide, the thirteenth floor is probably the most suitable."