Chapter 181 Escape

Chapter 181 Escape

In the thick white smoke, Lu Cheng ran forward at full speed!

The pendant he had pulled from the neck of Researcher Edward's corpse was wrapped by Lu Cheng's vines, swinging in the air as he ran. Cen San Ya kept his eyes tightly shut, but it was as if he had a built-in locator on his eyelids. He reached out and accurately grasped the pendant.

Xingzhou and his group came to their senses amidst the smoke bombs, revealing furious expressions: "Stop right there!!"

Only fools would stop!

The four members of Black Feather ran faster than rabbits. Cen San Ya, due to his lagging speed, was supported by Ning Yu and Qi Su as they sprinted.

Researcher Edward was dead and wouldn't be reviving anytime soon. The players ignored the stomping sounds in the ventilation ducts and pushed forward with all their might.

Qin Fei constantly monitored the situation on both sides.

In Xiao Xiao's timeline, although the players had moved their camp to the entrance of the abandoned Research Institute, the pollution concentration hadn't decreased much. Three players sat dejectedly on the waterlogged ground.

Beside Qin Fei, Xuanhui looked grave, while Rodney couldn't sit still and kept pacing around the hall.

Until the footsteps in the phone finally gave way to a voice.

"…Basement level two! What you're looking for is hidden in the basement level two of the Research Institute!"

It was Lu Cheng's voice. Using his vines to navigate, he had managed to shake off the pursuers slightly. As he ran, he dismantled the pendant in his hand.

Sure enough, when he split the circular pendant in half, a folded piece of paper slipped out from the middle. Lu Cheng unfolded the map at breakneck speed and relayed the information.

"Basement level two?" Xuanhui stood up in disbelief. "There's a basement level two here?"

"Yes," Lu Cheng's innate skill proved extremely practical at this moment. It was as if he had extra eyes, allowing him to run while focusing on the map. "The entrance to basement level two is hidden in the laboratory on the first basement level."

The pursuers caught up, and Xingzhou's side, believing that Black Feather had new leads, split their forces to continue the chase.

Unfortunately, despite Cen San Ya's lack of combat prowess, he had an abundance of gadgets. With sparks and lightning, he managed to blast Xingzhou's people back a bit.

Lu Cheng made another discovery: "Edward marked the specific location to go down to the second level… There's a circle in the middle of the laboratory on the first basement level. What is that?"

Xuanhui murmured, "Isn't that… the container holding Experiment B-6312?"

In another timeline, Xiao Xiao, Zhu Yan, and Zhang Yue were gritting their teeth and holding on.

The remaining amount of pollution cleansers was running low. To ensure maximum efficiency, the three had to endure the physical effects of intense mental fluctuations. Their vision blurred, like a TV losing signal, filled with static.

Until black thorny vines suddenly rose from the ground, lifting them and swiftly throwing them into the basement!

"Holy shit!" Zhang Yue screamed. "What the hell is this?!"

In the live stream, viewers watched the screen with bated breath.

Qin Fei's fans hoped the instance would end immediately so their favorite streamer could get the MVP, while Xingzhou's side cursed and hoped Qin Fei would fail.

Xiao Xiao and his team were brought into the underground laboratory by Qin Fei, who quickly explained the situation. The three circled the containment vessel.

"This thing can't be destroyed by force," Zhu Yan concluded quickly.

As the containment vessel once used for B-6312, even the thorny vines couldn't penetrate it.

Xiao Xiao frowned. "There must be a mechanism."

"The circle is aligned with the stairs, at the topmost position!" Lu Cheng's distorted voice came through the phone.

At different times and places, these moments strangely converged. Zhu Yan bent down to act as a human ladder, lifting Zhang Yue, the lightest among them.

Zhang Yue felt around the seam between the ceiling and the containment vessel. "Found it, found it!! There's a button here!"

He shouted as he fumbled, weakened by the high concentration of mental pollution.

Xiao Xiao, standing below, stared straight ahead and splashed a bottle of cleanser onto Zhang Yue's face: "Then press it quickly!"

"Boom—"

A loud noise shook the ceiling.

Under the watchful eyes of the three players and countless viewers behind the screen, the edge of the transparent cylinder slowly descended.

In the year 55 of the Calamity, Xuanhui also heard the sound.

They rushed to the basement, where the transparent cylinder that had been standing in the center of the laboratory had vanished, leaving only a large circular pit.

"It worked, it really worked!" Xuanhui's eyes turned red with excitement.

This researcher, who claimed to be a descendant of the Wanderers, wasn't lying to them.

They had truly changed history!!

Xiao Xiao and his team jumped into the cylinder, turned on their flashlights, and began exploring the corners.

Meanwhile, Qin Fei encountered some new trouble.

"What's that sound?" Mi Yang suddenly turned, sensing something. Without time to think, his body instinctively shifted into combat mode.

In the next instant, accompanied by a loud crash, a massive creature over two meters tall appeared at the entrance of the Research Institute!

The NPCs and players, who had just reached the first floor, were stunned by the sight. Rodney's eyes widened in disbelief: "What's going on? How did a monster get into the Research Institute?"

At the same time, Qin Fei's phone picked up Lu Cheng's panicked shout:

"Damn it, the monsters in the Research Institute have all gone crazy!"

Just after he synchronized the location of the special metal with Qin Fei, Lu Cheng heard countless screams through the pipe beneath him.

Several players exchanged glances and, taking advantage of the pursuers not having caught up yet, they crawled out at the nearest vent.

The scene that greeted them nearly made their eyes pop out.

They emerged in the same place where Lu Cheng and Qin Fei had arrived after escaping from the water prison on their first day—the research hall filled with scientific equipment and monsters.

At this moment, the hall was no longer peaceful. The NPC researchers were rushing around and shouting loudly, and every sealed container held monsters that had opened their eyes.

All the previously sleeping monsters were now frantically slamming against their containers.

"The monsters can't break the containers," Cen San Ya said, lifting his eyelids slightly, his tone heavy. "But if these creatures don't care about their lives, who knows what might happen."

Lu Cheng's temples throbbed: "The radiation has also increased."

"The monsters in the timeline of Calamity Year 55 have rebelled."

Monsters at two different locations simultaneously showed abnormal behavior, and Qin Fei quickly grasped the significance.

At the entrance of the abandoned Research Institute, a massive soft creature was squeezing its slime-covered tentacles inside. Mi Yang and Rodney rushed forward to block the monster from entering.

"There are many more coming!" Rodney gritted his teeth. The monsters, which had previously kept their distance from the abandoned Research Institute, were now surging towards it as if there was something extremely attractive inside.

"The course of history has changed."

The voice of the Contamination Source suddenly appeared in Qin Fei's ear.

"The structure of the scenario is unstable, hence the monsters' abnormal behavior."

The black crystal ring on his finger radiated heat.

Qin Fei pressed the edge of the ring and gently rotated its surface: "What should we do?"

"There's nothing we can do," the Contamination Source replied with an unpleasant answer. "The only thing we can do is find the target object and destroy it, ending the scenario."

Until then, they could only endure.

The ground trembled slightly, causing the entire building to shake as if it might collapse at any moment. The accumulated water on the road flooded into the abandoned Research Institute.

As Rodney had said, more and more monsters were rushing towards the abandoned Research Institute, pressing against the windows and walls, which creaked under the strain.

"So exciting! So exciting!" The spirit audience surged towards the light screen, their perspectives switching between Xiao Xiao, Qin Fei, and the Underground Research Institute.

Lu Cheng and Cen San Ya's group had been cornered by the monsters.

As Cen San Ya had predicted, once the experimental subjects in the Research Institute went berserk, the containment vessels couldn't hold them back. Throughout the vast building, the sounds of players and NPCs fleeing in panic could be heard everywhere.

In the surface Research Institute, rubble fell from above Qin Fei's head, and the beams above the hall seemed ready to collapse. Suddenly, the thorns of B-6312 burst out from the ground, wrapping around the beams and supporting them back into place.

Walls collapsed, stone pillars broke, and thorns rose like dense forests, becoming the only remaining skeleton within the ruined building.

Every minute felt unbearably long. Victory seemed within reach, but death lurked nearby, watching closely.

"We found it! We found it!!"

The excited shouts crossed the trajectory of time, reaching everyone's ears.

In the Research Institute, Qin Fei had already merged with the thorns.

The young man was wrapped in rose vines, resembling the sleeping deity he had seen at the bottom of the sea. Upon hearing Xiao Xiao's words, he abruptly opened his eyes.

The phone still carried the sounds of Lu Cheng and Cen San Ya's escape. Xiao Xiao, holding the metal box they had dug out together, stumbled to Qin Fei, ignoring the blood on his fingers, and asked urgently: "How do we destroy this?"

"No need to destroy it."

Although the building was surrounded by monsters, Qin Fei's amber eyes remained calm.

His figure, spanning fifty years, seemed somewhat illusory, as if it might shatter like a soap bubble at any moment.

"Give it to me."

Standing before Xiao Xiao, Qin Fei's figure flickered in and out of focus.

His slightly pale arm reached through the flower vines, palm up, extending towards Xiao Xiao.

Without hesitation, Xiao Xiao handed over the artifact they had risked their lives to find.

"Stop using your ability," Qin Fei mentally told B-6312.

Under the watchful gaze of the three players, the young man's figure gradually blurred, carrying the palm-sized metal box, disappearing into the air.

Xiao Xiao leaned against the wall, panting heavily. Zhu Yan frowned, looking at the empty bottles scattered on the ground.

The mental cleansing agents were all used up.

In the hall of the Research Center, separated by several walls, Cen San Ya stood alone facing a crowd of monsters, creating the last sliver of survival space for his three teammates behind him.

In the distance, various corpses lay strewn across the floor—monsters', NPCs', and players'.

Lu Cheng, Ning Yu, and Qi Su all had varying degrees of injuries.

In the Underground Research Institute, Researcher Edward's body was slowly regenerating.

He seemed to sense something; half of his head still hung loosely, yet he struggled to stand up.

Black thorn vines suddenly burst out from a nearby container, splashing glass shards onto Researcher Edward's face. The NPC was heavily coiled and thrown down by the vines.

"Hisss—"

On the other side of the light screen, the audience collectively drew in a sharp breath.

"How can this boss still be smiling even with his head severed?!"

In the live broadcast, Researcher Edward's neck was finally severed by the vines, and his round head rolled onto the ground. His handsome face, stained with blood, still bore an eerie smile.

Above and below the ground, centered around Qin Fei and B-6312, dense vines grew at a dizzying speed, resembling a primitive jungle.

The sky collapsed, the sea flowed backward, and everything in the live broadcast twisted and spun.

Only the thorny flower vines and the roses blooming everywhere swallowed mountains, seas, lands, and all the monsters on the surface and in the Underground Research Institute.

Researcher Edward's head stared blankly at the container holding B-6312. The metal vessel was already shattered beyond recognition, but a towering plant stood there, overshadowing everything.

The underground vines penetrated the surface, while the surface vines rooted deeply underground. The world that should have crumbled instantly was held together by the vines, and countless roses blosed in every corner of the instance.

Until every light screen in the live broadcast hall was covered with black vines, leaving no trace of any color other than black. Then, a line of large text suddenly appeared on the screen.

"Live Broadcast Ended"

The live broadcast hall fell into complete silence.

The audience, with their eyes wide open, remained stunned until a sigh broke the silence. The spirits then woke up from their trance and erupted into loud cheers.

...

Qin Fei left the settlement space as quickly as possible.

The decisive victory in this instance mainly relied on catching the system off guard.

The system and Researcher Edward were certain that after the instance world collapsed, all the monsters on the surface and underground would surge out along with the players.

However, they did not expect that due to the pollution source accompanying Qin Fei into the instance, it completed its fusion with B-6312 just before the instance ended.

With a significant portion of the soul fragment returned, B-6312's power surged, absorbing all the monsters that had once escaped during the experiments back into his body.

Qin Fei gently caressed the black crystal ring on his finger, now filled with countless monsters. The pollution source needed some time to extract the power that belonged to It from those monsters.

This battle was a resounding victory for Qin Fei and the pollution source, but every action has its downside. The downside was that the relationship between Qin Fei and the pollution source was now fully exposed to the system.

The intimate entanglement between the youth and the rose vines was clearly displayed to every spirit watching the live broadcast, and it did not escape the system's notice.

Before the instance ended, Qin Fei even faintly heard an angry roar from an unknown source.

That was why he did not dare stay in the settlement space for even a second longer.

The settlement space was also under the system's control. Qin Fei was somewhat worried that in such a secluded place where only he and the system existed, the system might directly reach out and crush him like an ant without a sound.

Unlike previous times, Qin Fei did not rush out of the transition area this time but waited in the A-level player rest area until Cen San Ya and Mi Yang appeared one after the other.

"...Xiao Qin?" Mi Yang recognized Qin Fei from afar, "You haven't left yet?"

Qin Fei, with his hands in his pockets, smiled lightly and walked forward briskly. "No, I'm waiting for someone."

Mommy Yang was taken aback by these words. He automatically interpreted them more deeply and scratched the back of his head embarrassedly. "Ah, you were waiting for me? How long have you been waiting? This time, the system took longer to settle. If I knew you were waiting outside, I would have come out sooner..."

"I wasn't waiting for you." The rebellious son smiled and interrupted Mi Yang, turning to Cen San Ya. "There's something I want to discuss with you. Do you have time?"

...

Fifteen minutes later.

Mi Yang sat in the ferry car sent by Black Feather to pick people up.

Black Feather, Star Day, and Dark Fire, as the winners of the previous year's Guild League, enjoyed many privileges within the rule worlds. High-ranking members of the guild could ride guild-marked ferries instead of ordinary ones back to the rest area, which was one of these privileges.

"The Butterfly people must be waiting at the entrance."

Mi Yang, disinterested, rested his chin on his hand, looking out the window at the scenery passing by, recalling Qin Fei's confident words.

Qin Fei hadn't seen Butterfly in this season's showcase match.

Not only was Butterfly himself absent, but none of his puppets showed up either, indicating they didn't participate at all.

"Regardless of whether my absence is because of me, today is a perfect opportunity to catch me," the youth said calmly, as if discussing something unrelated to himself. "Butterfly will never let this chance slip away."

At this point, "catching Xiao Qin" was no longer about personal grudges between Qin Fei and Butterfly. The matter had become so big that everyone in Central City knew about it.

Mi Yang pursed his lips and turned to look beside him.

The slender youth in a black hoodie leaned against the wall of the carriage, his head tilted as if asleep. The shadow cast by the hoodie obscured his features.

The ferry marked with Black Feather's logo stood out among the dull gray ferries, drawing attention as it traveled through Central City. Players along the route pointed and whispered as they passed by.

Mi Yang clicked his tongue, pouting and pulling his gaze away, staring straight at the driver's back.

How much longer until we reach the A-level living area?

The closer they got to the A-level living area, the more players lined the streets.

Qin Fei's prediction came true again; the Butterfly people were indeed waiting at the entrance to the A-level living area. Although Butterfly himself was not present, the area was crowded with players eager for a spectacle.

The sense of being watched grew stronger.

As expected, when the ferry moved forward a bit, a group surrounded it, forcing it to stop.

"Stop driving!"

A man stepped out of the crowd and clapped his hands loudly.

The ferry driver was the first to jump down from the cab. The player did not even glance at the driver but walked straight toward the rear of the vehicle.

The man, Mi Yang, looked very familiar; he was a member of the Butterfly Guild.

"I'm sorry for stopping Black Feather's vehicle, Mr. Mi Yang and Mr. Cen San Ya. Please believe that our Butterfly Guild harbors no ill will towards you two."

The player was a bit overweight, and the fat on his face formed an oily smile.

"However—"

He shifted his tone.

"There is an important wanted criminal on this vehicle. This criminal is not a member of Black Feather. I hope you two can do us a favor and let us take that person away."

The player spoke politely, bowing slightly and showing great respect, yet his eyes were filled with aggression, showing no sign of backing down.

More players gathered on both sides of the road. These solo travelers dared not offend either Black Feather or the Butterfly Guild, but their curiosity remained undiminished. Mi Yang's gaze was like a razor blade, slicing through the air and landing on the faces of the players. Some players nervously avoided eye contact, while others had a look of persistent mischief.

"May we take the person on the vehicle now?"

The fat member of the Butterfly Guild was relentless.

He peered over Mi Yang's shoulder and through the wide window of the ferry, staring intently at the silhouette of the only person left inside.

A slender, frail young man who seemed injured sat weakly half-leaning in the seat.

As long as he could bring him back to the guild...

The fat man's gaze was intense, as if he saw his future wealth and glory.

"Suit yourself." Cen San Ya's words matched his character of being indifferent to everyone.

Mi Yang looked indignant but ultimately stepped aside.

The fat man took a deep breath, rubbed his hands, and stepped into the vehicle step by step.

Closer... Even closer!!

The young man in black on the vehicle remained motionless throughout. The fat man never imagined that this capture mission would be so simple. He reached out and placed his hand on the young man's shoulder, trembling slightly.

"Stop pretending to sleep; come with me."

After uttering those words, the fat man finally sensed something was wrong.

The vehicle was too quiet, without even the sound of breathing.

Moreover, the touch under his hand felt strange, soft and boneless.

Startled, the fat man quickly pulled off the person's hat. A cotton-sewn head faced him, the featureless face seeming to mock him.

The players on both sides of the road indeed burst into laughter.

In the distance, a figure unlike Qin Fei had already blended into the crowd and disappeared into the residential area.