“I’ve seen quite a number of disgusting things in my life, but this…” Flashes of Sword commented. “I didn’t even wish to touch it with my sword.”
“Is this some sort of larvae?” Feng Bujue pondered. “And what about those stripes on its body?”
What appeared before them was an insect the size of a baby. It looked just like a worm that could be found feeding through the insides of vegetables and fruits. It had a long, oval body that was segmented.
The worm was not the normal milky white or faded yellow color. Its body was covered with the pictures of various countries’ currency. Patterns, numbers, and even human faces were printed on the body.
Where the segments were connected was filled with something looked like lines. The lines were sticky with black liquid. It appeared that these lines had connected this bug to the ball of metallic objects that covered it earlier.
“Before it was exposed, it hid inside groaning and growling, making it seem a bigger threat than it actually is. But once we split it open, it became so quiet,” Feng Bujue mocked.
“But you have to admit that it was not easy splitting its shell,” Flashes of Sword added.
“In any case, you should give it the final blow.” Feng Bujue used his weapon to move aside a piece of metal.
“Didn’t I say earlier that I didn’t want to touch it with my sword?” Flashes of Sword replied and cut down a rusted water pipe on the side.
“From the fattiness of this thing, a slash… it will explode like a juicy melon,” Feng Bujue said. “You know, I just bought this sword.”
“You can throw it back into the inventory after you do the deed,” Flashes of Sword suggested.
“Then you should do it!” Feng Bujue argued. “Didn’t that narrator say that your slashes are as fast as the wind? Quickly end this. I’ll stand behind here to give you emotional support.”
Flashes of Sword sighed. “Fine… I didn’t want to waste this here, but if that’s the case…”
He took out a grenade from his inventory.
“Hey… if you have that, why didn’t you take it out earlier? If you’d said so, you could have thrown it inside the door once I opened it! That would have settled everything, yes?”
“I already said that I didn’t want to waste it… After all, I only have two grenades on me,” Flashes of Sword replied.
Feng Bujue stopped interacting with him. After he kicked down a piece of metal, he turned to retreat behind the cover of the corridor.
When everything was in place, Flashes of Sword pulled out the safety pin and tossed it right at the fat bug. The threads that extended out from the bug unsurprisingly adhered to the grenade.
Under normal circumstance, Flashes of Sword moved faster than Feng Bujue, and he had a more efficient way of movement. With a few leaps and shimmies, he swiftly escaped from the giant monster and reached Feng Bujue’s side.
Several seconds later, an explosion erupted behind them. The giant bug was blown into pieces, and the rotten metal rained on the ground. The layer of skin also disintegrated into pus.
…
“Did you hear that?” Final Assault asked.
“Of course I did,” Doomsday Assault replied. “It sounds like an explosion but not from a powerful explosion. And it was quite… far away from us. Hard to tell which direction.”
“Could it be the work of Flashes of Sword’s team?” Final Assault asked before moving his gaze to the floor before him. “Or was it the work of these people?”
A human body was placed on the ground. He was a Caucasian male. He wore an orange suit that looked like an astronaut’s protective gear, one that connected him from head to toe. However, his outfit looked more comfortable and advanced than the spacesuits of the twenty-first century. It looked quite light as well. He wore a helmet, and the front of the helmet was transparent like it was made from glass. However, it was actually not glass but a more advanced material. The helmet was joined to the rest of the suit, so one could assume that it was airtight. However, the suit was not attached with an oxygen tank, so the suit itself could possess some kind of future-tech that could recycle air to produce oxygen.
The body’s helmet had a large hole, and his face was mangled beyond recognition. It was probably the members of Zombie Blade who dealt the killing blow, but it was unclear whether his cause of death was the injury to his face or the air that he took in after the helmet shattered…
“This scenario is more complicated than we assumed. Other than opposing teams, there are monsters and these strange people,” Doomsday Assault said. “Us, Flashes of Sword’s team, the monsters, and these people… that’s four different forces already. The more people who are alive, the more disadvantaged we are because it muddles our sight and hides our real target from us.”
Final Assault observed the status from the menu. “Currently, what we can tell is that the two from the other party are still alive and their Life Points… should be around the same status as us. Not counting battle injuries, they should have lost thirty-two percent already.
“In any case, since we have fifteen large health potions each, even though repeated usage might lower their efficacy, it should be enough to last us for a long time. Temporarily, we don’t need to worry.”
“Hmm… you have a point. Since we cannot determine if it was them who created the explosion, we should stick to our original plan and finish exploring this part of the lab first.”
…
Flashes of Sword held a flashlight, squatting before a safe, and called out, “Brother Feng, come and look at this.”
Feng Bujue was inspecting the cages that were used to lock up the monsters, but he did not come up with anything useful. He heard the call and walked over. Using his flashlight to shine at the object, he said, “Obviously, this is a treasure chest created by the system.”
“I know that. This chest looks brand new. It doesn’t appear like it has been sitting here for 455 years, and…” Flashes of Sword pointed at the lock. “Come and see. What does this mean? What kind of lock is this?”
Feng Bujue leaned closer to the chest, and suddenly, a window appeared before his eyes. The window showed nine square boxes arranged close together like one side of a Rubik’s Cube, albeit one devoid of color. The hint was “Please fill in the appropriate content.”
“Isn’t this a Lo Shu Square?” Feng Bujue commented. “The Lo Shu Square or the Nine Halls Diagram is the unique normal magic square of order three. The Lo Shu is part of the legacy of ancient Chinese mathematical and divinatory traditions, and it is an important emblem in Feng Shui, the art of geomancy concerned with the placement of objects in relation to the flow of qi. Haven’t you played with this when you’re a child?”
“Now that you mention it… of course I did,” Flashes of Sword mumbled. “The system should have given a hint mentioning numbers, then I would have gotten it.”
“It’s open now.” While Feng Bujue chatted with the man, he had already started unlocking the chest. The chest clicked open, but it turned out to be empty. There was no Skill Card, no item, and no equipment.
At that moment, Feng Bujue had a feeling that it was his improbable bad luck that earned him an empty box… but thankfully, the system vanquished that thought from his mind.
“Side quest triggered. Capture it, kill it!”
The quest detail was short, strange, and confusing…
But Feng Bujue noticed something instantly. He leaped toward the empty chest that was one meter away and grabbed madly inside the chest. Then, like a madman, he charged to the metallic door and slammed it shut.
“What’s up with you?” Flashes of Sword asked.
“There was something inside the box,” Feng Bujue replied.
When Flashes of Sword saw Feng Bujue open the chest, he was certain that it was empty. There was no light in the room, and their flashlights were the only source of light. In this environment, with the strange proclamation from Feng Bujue, it caused goosebumps to crawl all over Flashes of Sword.
“It’s escaped!” Feng Bujue exclaimed.
Flashes of Sword stood up and regarded Feng Bujue with caution. He suspected that his teammate was under some kind of psychological influence. He asked probingly, “Brother Feng… what did you see?”
“I didn’t see anything,” Feng Bujue replied. “The thing is invisible!”
When Flashes of Sword heard that, he immediately vetoed his earlier thought as the reality dawned on him. So that was what the quest meant.
“Where is it?” Flashes of Sword waved the flashlight around to search for the target.
“Why are you asking me?”
“Don’t the glasses that you’re wearing provide you with some buff to your sight?” Flashes of Sword did not know about Eye of Hostility’s attributes. He had seen Feng Bujue put the goggles on before dealing with the monsters, so he assumed its effect.
“This is used to check the monster’s hostile target,” Feng Bujue explained. “But I have to be able to ’see’ the monster first. Without seeing the monster, I can’t put it into use.”
He then removed the Eye of Hostility and shoved it back into his backpack. “Speaking of which, I was unable to determine the target of the bug creature from earlier as well. It seemed to attack anything that wandered too close to it indiscriminately.”
Flashes of Sword moved carefully as he studied his surroundings. “There is no sound at all… Are you sure the monster didn’t escape before you closed the door?”
“If it managed to move to the exit faster than I did, then it would have made some noise. But if it wished to stay quiet, then it couldn’t have been faster than I was,” Feng Bujue explained.
“How do you know that? What if it’s fast and quiet?” Flashes of Sword countered.
“That’s a given… Then the quest wouldn’t ask us to capture it. If it’s an invisible creature that’s both fast and soundless, it could have danced circles around us,” Feng Bujue argued. “Would the system ask us to capture a target that is impossible to capture?”
“Then what should we do now? It’s currently inside this room, so do you think it can understand our conversation?” His face was nervous. “If it decides to ambush us…”
Feng Bujue interrupted him. “An invisible creature trapped inside a chest would weigh around the weight of a high-schooler. If it dares to come for us…”
Suddenly, a groan came from behind Feng Bujue. The next second, he felt something land on his shoulders. Then, two bony claws squeezed around his throat. Without a doubt, the monster was trying to strangle him.
Feng Bujue was a man without fear. This ambush not only failed to surprise him, it heightened the sharpness of his senses. Before his brain came up with the appropriate response, his body moved out of instinct. Feng Bujue raised his arms to grab the monster on his shoulder. His fingers poked deep into the monster’s exposed shoulders. As the monster felt pain, the vise around Feng Bujue’s throat had to release.
The sudden influx of fresh air revitalized Feng Bujue, and an extremely dangerous battle that looked so confusingly strange continued…
From Flashes of Sword’s perspective, Feng Bujue barely completed his sentence when he proceeded to perform a modern dance. He started a dance that looked like the one from Michael Jackson’s Thriller, and in the heat of his performance, the flashlight flew away. Then he fell to the floor with a clownish maneuver before gyrating madly like a dog in heat.
Feng Bujue was unable to speak. He had to train his focus on the claws that would reach for his throat whenever the monster saw an opening. At every second, he was in a fight with the monster. The invisible monster’s body was slippery, but it was not the slimy type that would disgust him. It was simply because it was naked. Like Feng Bujue predicted, the monster was like a dwarfed version of a human being with supernatural strength, almost as powerful as Feng Bujue.
“Brother Feng… What are you…” Flashes of Sword rushed over with his flashlight and shone the light on Feng Bujue, who was rolling on the ground.
“I… caught…” Feng Bujue’s face was red. “… it…”
The one minute that was source of great confusion for Flashes of Sword was a tiring and silent death match for Feng Bujue. Thankfully, in the end, he appeared victorious.
Feng Bujue used his knees to press against the monster’s chest and used his hands to strangle its neck. Feng Bujue’s advantage in size lent him the ability to detain the monster. He could clearly feel that something was grasping for air in the dark like him, and its heart was pounding heavily. This showed that the monster was as exhausted as he was.
“This is…” Flashes of Sword tried to touch with his hands, and he felt the monster. “It’s really invisible…”
“Stop wasting time, get to it,” Feng Bujue ordered. He was certain that after a few seconds of rest, the monster would start to struggle again. Its claws were on Feng Bujue’s shoulders. If not for the suffocation from both its throat and chest decreasing its strength, Feng Bujue would not have been able to hold it down.
“Don’t use your bare hands. It has sharp teeth. Use your sword to chop its head off,” Feng Bujue warned.
“Er… where is the head?”
“My right hand is holding its neck, above that is the head.”
“Understood,” Flashes of Sword answered. He aimed and dropped the sword.
Something was split open. Feng Bujue felt the claws on his shoulder tighten before releasing. He understood that the creature had departed.