“What kind of development is this?” Feng Bujue said. “So, the professor we need to rescue is actually the antagonist?”
His earlier analysis flashed across his mind. Combining it with the quest details, several seconds later, his expression shifted slightly. “Could this Ashford be the culprit that spread the virus? Did he go to the top floor and use some kind of device to release the virus into the city after escaping from the lab? Is that why the city was ravaged by the virus outbreak and there are no survivors?
“This f*cker is Professor Lizard, isn’t he!”
Since he was alone and not near any working surveillance devices, the system did not censor this curse word.
“Wait a minute…” Feng Bujue suddenly realized something. “Those two… Just who are Pan Feng and Hwa Xiong? They rushed toward the main quest once they entered the building like they knew they could clear the quest without going to the underground lab.
“Based on common logic, the progress of the quest should be… After the players enters the building, they go to the lab, find the serum, defeat a mini boss, and then find the clues that point out Professor Ashford as the villain. Then, based on these clues and hints, they rush upstairs… But that’s not what those two did. They rushed upstairs directly to expose the boss and used physical threats to expose its identity?
“Xiao Tan is still alive, so basically, I can confirm that he’s travelling with the two of them, but he is not a leader-type of player, and he has no reason to tell them to move upstairs. Furthermore, the two are super professional players and wouldn’t deign to listen to his opinion anyway.
“So… the two were acting according to their own instincts, and they’ve been completely right…”
The more Feng Bujue thought about it, the more unsettled he felt. He tried to focus and slowed down his agitated emotions. He took out the Winchester, loaded it, and exited the door.
Even though he was in a hurry during the earlier exploration, it had been ordered chaos, and he had memorized the route that he had taken. Furthermore, he had the dead zombies as road markers, so it did not take long for Feng Bujue to get back to the elevator.
With the added running speed from the Jazz Shoes, he reached a sprinting speed that would have caused other players to lose some Stamina Points easily.
Ten minutes later, Feng Bujue returned to elevator. When he left this place earlier, he did not have the time to clear away the dead bodies, so when he arrived, the elevator doors were not closed as they were stuck by the dead bodies. He used about three minutes to drag the bodies that blocked the elevator out into the corridor and then took it to return to the first floor. He happened to run into Wang Tanzhi in the lobby.
“Hey! Xiao Tan!” Feng Bujue called after him.
Xiao Tan turned around. “Eh? Brother Jue, why are you coming from behind me?”
“Don’t waste time.” Feng Bujue interrupted him. As he walked forward, he took out a test tube of serum from his backpack and handed it to Xiao Tan. “Drink it.”
“What’s this?” Xiao Tan asked as he accepted the serum. He looked at its attributes. “Where did you get this?”
“I just came from the underground lab,” Feng Bujue replied.
“Huh? But the other two players…”
Before Xiao Tan finished, Feng Bujue knew what he wanted to ask, so he answered, “They died somewhere else.”
They communicated for a while before heading up the building. Along the way, they tried to fill the other in on what had happened.
Xiao Tan’s description supported Feng Bujue’s analysis, increasing his suspicion of Pan Feng and Hwa Xiong. For Feng Bujue, those two’s power level was still within the acceptable range, but the problem was their actions. Without collecting any clues and information, they knew to rush to the top floor to face off against Professor Ashford. Either this was some superhuman luck or they had access to information that was not given to normal players.
Feng Bujue followed Xiao Tan all the way up to the 51st floor. Before the 47th floor, they were retracing the trail that Xiao Tan had taken with Pan Feng and Hwa Xiong. Beyond that, Xiao Tan had not been with the duo anymore, but based on the dead bodies on the road, they could still follow their footsteps easily.
When they were close to the top floor, Feng Bujue asked, “When you followed them, did you run into any dead end?”
“Hmm…” Xiao Tan tried to remember. “Now that you mention it, that really didn’t happen. But the route we’ve been taking is quite complicated already. We switched between multiple elevator shafts and stopped at different floors to take the stairs when the elevator couldn’t go up anymore.
“Huh? That’s not right though… How did they know which floor we needed to stop to take the stairs?”
“So, they even knew the route,” Feng Bujue mumbled.
As they conversed, they soon reached the 52nd floor. Walking in from the stairs, it was a corridor that welcomed them. There was a large flower vase every ten meters, and at the end of the corridor was a glass wall. Through the transparent wall that had the logo of Allerbmu, one could discern a large office area. The walls for the whole floor were broken down, but there were cubicles with normal office furniture like an office table, computer, water machine, shelves, and so on. Bookending the area were several isolated offices. From the looks of it, this floor was as indicated by the building layout—an office area.
They moved down the corridor and walked into this spacious office through the automatic door. There was no sign of blood or zombies yet on this floor, but that was not a good omen. In fact, it spelled the advent of the boss.
Feng Bujue scanned the environment once. Before he could start investigating, he felt a shake under his feet and heard a loud boom. Then, the ceiling of the space about ten meters in front of him suddenly cracked, and a strange creature in the rough shape of a human fell through the hole. The pieces of cement landed on the ground, and a curtain of dust fell following the commotion.
Then, two more human shadows leaped down from the hole. They were none other than Pan Feng and Hwa Xiong.
In the rolling dust, one could see three individuals fighting it out. Shadows of weapons flashed through the layer of dust, overlapping each other. Occasionally, there were squishy sounds of blades cutting through flesh, and soon, a pool of blood stained the ground.
This kind of assault continued for about a minute before the dust slowly dissipated. The monster knew that it was cornered and chose to jump out the window. The duo saw through its plan. Naturally, they would not allow it to escape, or their plan to end the scenario right then would fail.
Hwa Xiong leaped forward to block the monster’s path. He turned, and the spearhead aimed at the monster’s head, shooting forward like an arrow. Since Pan Feng’s weapon was heavier, his speed was slower. He charged forward to get close to the target and raised the axe to hit at the monster’s back.
The quick follow-up by the duo drove Ashford’s mutant into a dire corner. For the sake of escape, it decided to suffer the hit to the head. The spearhead pierced through the monster’s left eye socket and poked out through the back of its head, carrying a spray of dirty liquid out with it.
However, that level of injury was not enough to cause direct death. By taking that blow, it successfully evaded the axe slash from Pan Feng and reached the glass wall. Then it used the saw-like bone that protruded out of its shoulder to ram against at the thick wall. After it formed a crack, it curled its body into a ball and rolled out the window, flying into the city.
Pan Feng and Hwa Xiong rushed to the edge and lowered their heads as they watched the mutant escape. After the latter had been falling for a while, it used the slime and suckers on its body to adhere itself to the outer wall of the building and glided down to the ground. Then, it escaped from their sight.
“Tsk… it still got away,” Pan Feng said.
“That’s to be expected. If we fight the boss without the accompaniment of the other players, we will cause a change to the boss’ intelligence and reaction,” Hwa Xiong said.
“Gentlemen.” Feng Bujue’s voice echoed behind them, causing the two to startle.
They turned around to meet Feng Bujue, who was eyeing them suspiciously, and Wang Tanzhi, who looked confused.
“Do you mind telling me,” Feng Bujue asked directly, “who exactly are you?”