“Clang…”
The sound was quite faint, and coupled with the passage’s natural amplification effect, Ling Mo initially judged that the source was still some distance away from them…
As the two accelerated their crawl, the faint “clang clang” sound intermittently echoed twice more, as if someone were tapping on the pipes above.
“If someone is indeed knocking, it must be Xia Na…” Ling Mo thought to himself.
Both of them tacitly remained silent, fearing they might drown out the subtle sound.
This maze-like passage had numerous intersecting paths, some leading upwards, others downwards. A wrong turn could easily lead them astray, losing the sound source completely.
Moreover, judging by Li Yalin’s unwavering attitude, the direction of the sound was clearly aligned with Xia Na’s path, which led Ling Mo to his conclusion.
“Faster, faster…”
Ling Mo’s hands clawed forward relentlessly, his mind urging him on with anxious whispers.
Normally, with the condition of this Zombie Puppet’s body, he couldn’t crawl this fast… But now, under his full acceleration, the puppet seemed to have a hint of explosive energy…
“Huff…”
After a burst of about twenty seconds, Ling Mo halted at the edge of a suddenly appearing large hole.
He lay there, panting heavily, while below him came the soft landing sound of Li Yalin.
“Senior Sister, what do you see?” Ling Mo asked quietly.
“It’s huge down here,” Li Yalin responded in a low voice.
Despite her hushed tone, Ling Mo could sense a hint of emptiness. This confirmed that Senior Sister was right; the space below was indeed vast…
“Where is this place?” Ling Mo pondered, furrowing his brows.
Such a space shouldn’t exist within a normal building. But the Rosen Company’s interior concealed a warehouse, with a complex structure. Even so, such a space would typically be found at the top floor, or…
Ling Mo suddenly looked down and said, “This is the bottom of the building!”
“What?” Li Yalin seemed to be searching below, her voice becoming more distant, “The source of the sound has disappeared…”
Catching his breath, Ling Mo grabbed the edge and jumped down. Upon landing, he immediately felt he had entered a completely different place.
The ground… it felt somewhat soft…
“Indeed, it’s a mucus layer…” Ling Mo glanced down, thinking to himself.
The ground was covered with a reflective, gelatinous substance, littered with bones and scraps of clothing. With these things around, the smell was naturally unpleasant. Especially for Ling Mo, a “Low-Level Zombie,” it was overwhelming to the point of numbing his sense of smell… Ŗᴀ𝐍𝘖ᛒΕ𝐬
“Calling it a mucus layer isn’t entirely accurate; there’s a lot of rotting flesh here…” Ling Mo thought, suppressing his nausea.
“But this structure…” Ling Mo looked up, noticing numerous pipes again. The height here was only about half a meter, but it was certainly more convenient than the previous crawl space. However, that wasn’t the main point; the truly noteworthy aspect was the size of this area…
All around was pitch black, with no end in sight except where the pipes obstructed the view…
“Yes, we’ve reached the underground.” Ling Mo further confirmed, “Senior Sister, didn’t I mention before? The building where my main body resides, the monsters also emerged from underground. In my view, this building is indeed their initial lair, their hunting ground, but their true Headquarters is actually beneath the surface…”
“Hmm? Not necessarily…” Li Yalin replied, “Maybe they originated underground and dug their way up?”
Ling Mo approached Li Yalin’s direction, nodding thoughtfully, “That’s possible, but why did they dig towards the Rosen Company first?”
“This place attracts their kind,” Li Yalin answered without hesitation, “The sense of danger is brought by the creatures here. If we don’t count them, this place is a very tempting hunting ground.”
“Exactly! And thinking back, when they decided to dig, Fang Ying wasn’t even a Progenitor Zombie yet! A place that’s not too dangerous but has a large concentration of food! No wonder…” Ling Mo realized.
When it comes to understanding Zombies, Senior Sister, a true Zombie, indeed has more insight…
“Yes… and their behavior patterns are quite similar to Zombies.”
Li Yalin’s figure appeared in Ling Mo’s view, and she spoke without turning her head, “They didn’t wipe out everything.”
“Huh?”
“You know, Ling Mo,” Li Yalin said, “In our instincts, once survival needs are met, we don’t hunt deliberately anymore. Hunting Advanced peers is an exception, that’s for evolution. If I weren’t following you, maybe I’d be searching for Advanced peers worldwide… Oh, and even towards humans, we don’t have the intent to annihilate.”
“No matter how humans hide, Senior Zombies can actually find them, right? But no Senior Zombie would deliberately seek out humans, at least in my understanding, there’s no such habit. However, Advanced peers have developed their own personalities, so maybe there are some who only hunt humans.”
Li Yalin suddenly turned her head and said, “But this isn’t the human notion of kindness, it’s more like… breeding? Ah, no… hmm… renewable cyclic resource…”
“No matter how grand you make it sound, it doesn’t change the essence of breeding. And you subtly misspoke…” Ling Mo replied helplessly. But internally, he was shocked, realizing that the Rosen Company was Fang Ying’s Ranch, yet unexpectedly, including Fang Ying, the entire company, even the whole area, was the breeding ground for these underground monsters…
Li Yalin giggled and said, “Exactly, they’re breeding their kind within that company. And it seems they’re quite frugal… But didn’t we sense some changes before we entered?”
“Yes, indeed…”
The so-called change was the feeling this building gave, more dangerous…
“You’ve smashed their rice bowl,” Li Yalin said with a smile.
“Damn…”
That’s not something to be happy about!
Realizing this, Ling Mo suddenly felt a chill run through him.
“That… shadow…”
Li Yalin confidently said, “Yes, it must be to lure you, the culprit, down here. But for me and Xia Na, the outsiders, they certainly won’t be polite either…”
At that moment, a faint “clang” echoed again in the darkness.
As both of their gazes shifted, a pair of red eyes appeared instantly.
Following that, more red eyes emerged from the shadows…
“Ah, they’re ready to feast,” Li Yalin’s figure flickered, retreating to Ling Mo’s side.