Players, Please Board the Train

The few people standing before the door beamed with joy. Once the door had risen to human height, Ke Liang was the first to switch on his flashlight and slip inside, then poked his head back out. ”There’s a path in here.”

Xu Huo and the others followed him in. Behind the door was a pathway as wide as the door itself, sealed off on both sides by iron grilles. In the distance, they could vaguely make out an exit the color of the sky, but it was still far away.

Xu Huo propped up his flashlight to examine behind the door and noticed there was a pulley on each side of the lift door. When the chain was pulled, the door naturally rose upward.

Right next to the door was also a steel suspension bridge, running parallel to the ground path and similarly sandwiched between grilles on both sides.

”What’s next to this anyway?” Shen Xin walked to the edge and strained to see. The light revealed unoccupied grassy areas on both sides, completely overgrown.

”Why is it barricaded like this?” Shen Yi said curiously. ”I thought once the door opened, we’d be outside the town. Instead, there’s such a wide passageway in between. The game didn’t notify us about clearing the stage after entering—do we have to walk out to count?”

”Since the door’s already open anyway, let’s just go out and take a look,” Gu Yu said carelessly, then paused before adding, ”Though I’m more curious about what Lin Pei is thinking right now.”

Shen Xin exchanged a glance with her and burst out laughing. ”If he finds out we left, he’ll be absolutely sick with regret.”

”Shh.” Xu Huo interrupted them, walking quickly to a corner of the grille. He pushed aside the flowers and grass protruding through the gaps, then suddenly froze.

”Find something?” Gu Yu moved closer just in time to see a torn hole behind the grass he had parted. The edges of the wire had been violently ripped apart, not like human work but more akin to a wild beast.The two exchanged a look, and Gu Yu immediately lowered her voice. ”Go! Hurry! There might be Mutants inside the gate. We mustn’t lure them over!”

Shen Xin and the others immediately grew tense, falling silent as they quickened their pace toward the front exit.

However, right at that moment, faint whistling sounds suddenly came from behind, followed by a sharp clang. A flying arrow lodged into the suspension bridge above them, its tail trailing a long rope that pulled a person along, who landed on the bridge with a heavy thud!

The soundwave from the heavy impact on the thin, brittle iron plates traveled much farther than expected in the narrow, enclosed space, like ripples spreading out layer by layer. But within the returning echoes, there was an added rustling commotion!

Without bothering to look at the person on the suspension bridge, Xu Huo charged forward without turning back. ”Run!”

The people on the ground broke into a sprint, glancing to both sides as they ran. The previously empty grassy areas suddenly sprouted pairs of reflective glowing dots, densely packed everywhere!

”What are those things!” Shen Xin, on Shen Yi’s back, instinctively shone her flashlight over, but to her shock, in just an instant, the Mutants—as if stimulated by the light—suddenly lunged from the grass, crashing against the grilles!

The finely woven iron grilles deformed under the impact. The Mutants’ eyes bulged violently as their teeth desperately gnawed at the wires. Their tongues slithered out from mouths filled with sharp teeth, twisting and stretching forward, flinging foul-smelling saliva everywhere!

Even though they were several meters away, Shen Xin was still terrified into screaming. She had thought the eyeless Mutants were horrifying enough, but she never imagined the ones with eyes would be even more terrifying!

”Don’t look at them!” Shen Yi said gravely. ”Look ahead!”

Shen Xin mustered her courage to look forward, but by now, more and more Mutants were emerging. They piled on top of each other, swarming over the grilles on both sides in the blink of an eye. They roared, howled, constantly shaking and tearing at the bars, all their eyes fixed on the few people in the center of the path!

”The iron grilles won’t hold much longer. Faster!” Xu Huo, who had already pulled far ahead of them, shouted back.

The others behind—Gu Yu and the rest—were already running for their lives, but as more and more Mutants appeared, the iron grilles began teetering on the brink of collapse, while the exit ahead still seemed impossibly distant!

”Rip!” A tear opened in the iron grille ahead!

Xu Huo abruptly halted, watching as the tear gradually widened under the pulling of three or four Mutants. He took two steps back and turned around. ”Go back!”

Almost the instant he shouted, the section of grille merely meters away from them was completely torn open. The piled-up Mutants spilled out, scrambling over each other to lunge toward the players before even fully getting up!

”Ahhhh!” Wang Chaoqing screamed. ”We’re dead, dead, dead! We’re done for!”

”Fall back, fall back first!” Gu Yu shouted loudly, but then Shen Xin’s trembling voice came from ahead. ”They’re out over here too!”

The group looked up and saw it was exactly the torn hole Xu Huo had discovered earlier. Three Mutants were stuck in it, straining to break free. Before they could safely reach the door, the Mutants would likely swarm out again!

”Go up top!” Xu Huo, gripping the ”Omnipresent String,” lifted off the ground, casually scooping up the nearby Gu Yu as he rose.

The moment the two were airborne, Wang Chaoqing lunged over and grabbed their legs. ”Bro, take me with you!”

The string had a limited weight capacity. Xu Huo kicked him toward Ke Liang!

Ke Liang’s trait was his jumping ability—leaping onto a seven or eight-meter-high suspension bridge wasn’t a problem for him. He had originally planned to help the injured Shen Xin, but the situation was critical. With Wang Chaoqing crashing into him, he had no choice but to catch him.

As those two jumped onto the suspension bridge, Xu Huo and Gu Yu also landed steadily on it. Then Xu Huo manipulated the string to fly toward the Shen siblings. ”Grab on! I’ll pull you up!”

The instant the Shen siblings left the ground, two Mutants lunged and bit Shen Yi’s legs from left and right, dragging both of them downward!

”Pull them up quickly!” Gu Yu couldn’t help but shout.

”It can only handle two people’s weight at a time!” Xu Huo felt the string nearing its limit. He lay flat on the suspension bridge, tossing a leather belt down toward them.

Shen Xin clamped her legs tightly around Shen Yi’s waist, desperately grabbing the belt, and looked up at the people on the bridge. ”Save us!”

”Come help!” Gu Yu lay beside Xu Huo, grabbing the belt, but the strength of two people wasn’t enough to pull both up. She couldn’t help but yell at Ke Liang and Wang Chaoqing.

The two hurried over, one wrapping arms around waists, the other pulling hands, putting all their strength into dragging them backward.

Below, Shen Yi also struggled to kick away the Mutants lunging at him, but each time he kicked one off, another would take its place. Even Mutants below began latching onto others, forming chains like human pyramids on the grilles. For a moment, a tug-of-war ensued between above and below!

Lin Pei, who had deliberately made a ”grand entrance,” had wanted to flee back to the town the moment the Mutants broke through the enclosure. However, from his elevated position, he had a clearer view than the trapped Xu Huo and the others. The Mutants inside the walls were different from any they’d seen before—they lacked strong jumping ability and couldn’t reach the suspension bridge at all, making it safe to stay up there.

He coldly watched the life-and-death struggle unfolding before him and spoke. ”Why not just abandon Shen Yi? He’s been bitten by Mutants anyway—he can’t possibly survive.”