Players, Please Board the Train

The sky brightened quickly. After an hour of rest, the group began their second round of luring the monster.

This time, they placed the sound item on the eighth floor. Peng Fengnian and Lin Zhenhuai each took one end—one observing the surrounding rooms from the end of the hallway, the other waiting by the stairwell.

The others scattered and hid in different rooms, with two more stationed on the tenth and sixth floors respectively.

The moment Miss Gao activated her item, rhythmic ”thump thump” pounding echoed through the corridor. Within seconds, a beastly roar erupted from below!

”How is that possible!”

The faces of those present changed color slightly. The monster had disappeared on the eighth floor before. If there was a passage on the eighth floor or nearby, it should have appeared in this vicinity. How could it be below? Based on the sound, it seemed to be between the third and fourth floors!

Xu Huo was the first to react. Grabbing the piano wire, he jumped straight down, flipped through a window on the fifth floor, and rushed out of the room—only to catch a glimpse of a shadow darting through the stairwell. But that single instant was enough for him to see the monster’s condition: the burned fur seemed to have regrown, the electrocuted skin had fully recovered, and the external injuries were completely gone.

He didn’t chase the monster up. Instead, he went down to the fourth floor and opened his Mental World to search for any spatial passage that might have appeared. But before he could get halfway through his search, Lin Zhenhuai also came down from above, holding the item that could detect spatial fluctuations.

Based on the traces left on the ground, Xu Huo had already inspected the most likely spot where the monster had emerged. He closed his Mental World just before Lin Zhenhuai arrived.

Lin Zhenhuai found him and frowned. ”Strange. The space seemed to tremble just now.””Where?” Xu Huo asked.

”Right around here.” Lin Zhenhuai adjusted the direction of his item, which looked like a metal detector. ”Now it’s disappeared again.”

Xu Huo’s heart sank. He hadn’t found anything when he came down, so the item had likely detected his mental space instead. That meant even if a real spatial passage existed, the monster’s emergence was only a split-second event—not enough time for them to react.

Lin Zhenhuai searched fruitlessly, then looked at him. ”Let’s go back up and help.”

Xu Huo nodded, and the two returned to the eighth floor.

The monster had already torn apart several rooms. Yu Guangnan and Gao Xiaoyue were lightly injured. Xiao Ling’s toy car had been crushed flat underfoot, nearly costing her life, and she’d only survived because Sun Bo grabbed her and pulled her out of the way.

But after its short rest, the monster seemed to have made a full recovery. Its fighting style was even more brutal than before—whatever was in front of it, whether walls, doors, or anything else in the rooms, it destroyed them without a second thought!

”The difference between our one-hour rest and its one-hour rest is way too huge!” Peng Fengnian shouted.

”This isn’t the same monster at all!” Xu Huo tossed aside the remote in his hand, looped the ”Hurt Others, Not Yourself” around the doorframe, then nodded at Lin Zhenhuai.

Lin Zhenhuai understood immediately. He threw a heavy punch from afar at the monster’s side, then turned and ran in Xu Huo’s direction.

The monster, which had just been chasing Xiao Ling and Sun Bo, whipped around and charged. Lin Zhenhuai rushed toward Xu Huo, then performed a backward slide, slipping underneath the ”Hurt Others, Not Yourself” wire. At the same time, Xu Huo stepped back. With a slight flick of his fingers, the thread-like item instantly turned into a razor-sharp blade—he didn’t need to exert any force. If the monster put enough power into its charge, it would cut itself in half!

Just as everyone prepared to watch it get decapitated, the rampaging monster suddenly slammed on the brakes right before the blade. Its eyes darted to the side, and it ripped apart the wall. The taut wire went slack in an instant. The monster seized the opportunity and lunged straight at Xu Huo!

”Ding!” The sound of the Lighter rang out again. As Xu Huo retreated, flames erupted across the monster’s body. Then, an electric net dropped over it, and several syringes pierced through the gaps in the net and struck its body.

Whether it was immune to poison or anesthetic or not, the monster’s rear was nearly turned into a pincushion. Still, it struggled violently inside the electric net. It staggered into a nearby room, charged headfirst into the bathroom, and a sound of running water followed—it had torn apart the bathroom’s water pipe!

A torrent of water gushed from the bathroom into the room. The monster, having freed itself from the electric net and extinguished the flames, emerged from behind the door, staring savagely at all the players gathered outside the room!

”No good... run!” Before Lin Zhenhuai even finished speaking, the monster punched through the wall beside it. The shattered brick fragments flew out like bullets in every direction, with some pieces large enough to blast straight through another wall!

”Get into a room!” Peng Fengnian opened the nearest intact door. But before his foot could cross the threshold, the monster crashed through the side wall, covered in dust and debris, and lunged at him!

A thin wire stabbed into his back and yanked him away from the doorway!

Turning to see the wire in Xu Huo’s hand, Peng Fengnian quickly thanked him. Xu Huo dashed ahead and set him down in front of the others. ”Didn’t you see that thing’s hungry? Worry about surviving first!”

As soon as he finished speaking, he had already jumped out the window. Suspended in midair, he called to the others, ”If you can make it out, meet at the usual spot!”

Then he disappeared from the window. The other players, however, didn’t have it so easy. D-level players weren’t slow, but the monster was even faster—and that wasn’t even mentioning how it destroyed entire walls every time it moved. Everyone dodged and scrambled, barely managing to escape.

”The hell are you running over here for!” Xiao Ling had already retreated into a room, only to turn around and find Gao Xiaoyue leading the monster straight toward her!

”Don’t blame me—I had nowhere else to go!” Gao Xiaoyue sprang up from the center of the room, inverted herself on the ceiling for an instant, then assumed a diving pose and flew straight out the window, leaving Xiao Ling alone to face the monster.

Even if she jumped out now, she’d become the monster’s primary target. Going one-on-one in an open space with no cover offered even less chance of survival. Xiao Ling swept her gaze around, then hurled her climbing rope straight toward Sun Bo, who was just about to jump out another room’s window!

Sun Bo had one foot on the windowsill when the rope yanked him back. The rope’s central mechanism engaged, pulling both ends inward automatically. That meant he and Xiao Ling were getting closer to each other—and naturally, closer to the monster.

”Attention-Grabbing Flying Knife!” Peng Fengnian charged up behind Xiao Ling and hurled a finger-sized knife at the monster. He’d just tried it on a whim, but surprisingly, the monster’s attention actually shifted. He quickly turned to shout at Sun Bo and Xiao Ling. ”Move fast...”

But before he could finish, a blast of foul wind descended on his head. At such close range, Peng Fengnian had no time to escape. Fortunately, Lin Zhenhuai acted in time—a flying shield firmly blocked the monster’s claw in front of him, and after absorbing the force, it rebounded, slamming the monster back into the room it had just come from!

Take the chance now!