Chapter 52

At around three o'clock, in the Ailebu company building, Pan Feng and Hua Xiong were leading Xiao Tan up to the top floor.

Inside the building, the elevator that went directly from the ground floor to the fifty-second floor had already broken down, and the entrance to the fire stairs on the ground floor had been blown up. However, a few elevators to other floors were still operational.

They changed elevators several times, going from the first floor to the seventh floor, then climbing three more floors via the stairs to the tenth floor, and then transferring to another elevator. After several twists and turns, they finally made it to the forty-second floor.

Along the way, they encountered two small boss-level monsters, but in the face of Pan Feng and Hua Xiong's combat prowess, the bosses could only defend themselves and had no chance to counterattack, being defeated within two or three minutes. As for the ordinary blood wolf zombies, they were dispatched as easily as slicing through melons and vegetables.

Xiao Tan, following behind them, was truly amazed and in awe. He had no chance to participate in the fighting, feeling like he was being escorted by a gang leader and two top-notch bodyguards, with only the role of a spectator.

"Big brothers..." Xiao Tan finally couldn't help but ask on the stairs between the forty-second and forty-third floors: "Are you planning to fight your way from the ground floor to the top floor and then back down again?"

"Not at all," Hua Xiong replied. "We are going to save Dr. Ashford."

Xiao Tan was taken aback by this: "Uh... I don't know if it's too late to say this, but when I was on the first floor, I glanced at the building's layout. The research lab is built underground, not upstairs..."

Logically, after fighting their way to this floor, hearing this belated information, the other party should have responded with, "Why didn't you say so earlier?"

But to his surprise, the two remained calm, and Hua Xiong just smiled and said, "Ha ha, little brother, we know the lab is underground, but the doctor might not be there."

Xiao Tan thought to himself: If the doctor isn't in the lab, where could he be? He can't be hiding in the toilet, right? According to the conventions of sci-fi movies, after a virus outbreak, researchers like this would generally find a relatively safe isolation facility to protect themselves, then try to find a way to control the virus or call for help. The top floor of this building is only marked as an "office area" on the layout. If Dr. Ashford were really there, he would probably have been eaten long ago.

Although he had doubts, Xiao Tan didn't say anything. After all, he didn't need to fight the monsters; he just needed to follow them. Even if it turned out to be a detour, he could just follow these two uncles as they fought their way down again.

...

A few minutes earlier, Feng Jue had also successfully entered the building. By observing the wounds on the corpses and the footprints in the blood, he had basically deduced that there were two people with Xiao Tan, one using a heavy bladed weapon and the other using something like a long spear. Moreover, their combat abilities were extremely strong, and they could kill the small monsters with a single strike.

Due to the strong performance of the three people leading the way, Feng Jue's journey was much easier, and he encountered very few monsters inside the building. He glanced at the building's layout and then headed for the underground lab. He didn't realize that the three were heading to the top floor, assuming that his teammates had gone underground.

Thus, Feng Jue found an elevator leading to the lower floors in a corridor and took it.

The elevator was quite spacious, somewhat resembling the login space, but without the mirror wall at the back or the touch screen. There were some bloodstains inside, but no corpses or body parts. Since it only operated between the ground floor and the underground lab, the control panel had only five or six buttons. Feng Jue pressed the button for the underground floor and the door close button, and the elevator soon started.

Based on the "achievements" he had seen earlier, he thought that in a closed environment, blood wolf zombies would find it hard to escape from Pan Feng and Hua Xiong's clutches. However, he still held a pipe wrench, ready to defend against any stragglers that might attack when the elevator doors opened, although the possibility was very small...

Just as the elevator doors were about to open, a zombie's cry suddenly rang out, catching Feng Jue off guard. An arm reached in from outside, followed by another...

Before the doors were fully open, three or four zombies had already rushed in, and looking further out, the corridor outside was crowded with about twenty to thirty monsters. Most of them were wearing white lab coats and security uniforms, drooling and moaning, with the stench of decaying corpses.

Although caught off guard, Feng Jue's response was still calm and correct. He bit into a garlic clove he had been holding in his mouth, drew a kitchen knife, and, using it in conjunction with the pipe wrench in his other hand, aimed for the head of the nearest monster.

After quickly dispatching a few monsters, he noticed something very alarming: the monsters attacking him were just ordinary zombies. Their faces were not noticeably pale, they had no fangs, and they had no werewolf fur.

The most critical point was... they were not afraid of garlic!

This unexpected situation put Feng Jue at a significant disadvantage. He had thought there wouldn't be many monsters, but now he was facing so many, and he was trapped in the confined space of the elevator. Worse still, the garlic had lost its deterrent effect, and these ordinary zombies moved much faster than the blood wolf zombies on the ground, with strength and speed similar to normal humans.

Feng Jue no longer had the "Slow Sand" item, which he had used in the previous script to fend off a large number of telekinetic objects from Rodrick Usher's ghost. So, at this moment, he was basically out of options.

If an ordinary person were trapped in an elevator with over twenty zombies, the best outcome for them would probably be... to commit suicide by shooting themselves if the conditions allowed.

Feng Jue didn't even have time to draw his gun. He swung his weapons with both hands, relying on the passive effect of "Concussion" to barely hold the situation. However, the monsters' outstretched arms and the limited space in the elevator made it difficult for him to hit their heads every time.

Sure enough, it wasn't long before he was bitten, and not just in one place. The pain wasn't intense, but he knew he might have been infected.

By the time he had cleared the zombies in front of him, Feng Jue was already in the corridor, with over twenty dead bodies piled up behind him, and blood flowing everywhere. He looked at his wounds... two on his arms and two on his legs, a total of four.

Except for some sensitive areas and the clothing around them, a player's other clothing could be damaged. As long as the total damaged area was less than 10% of the entire outfit, the system would not correct or delay the correction. Thus, Feng Jue's sleeves and the pants on his calves were now exposed, showing the wounds from the zombie bites.

The status next to his health bar was now marked as "Disease," directly proving that he had been infected.

Feng Jue sighed, took out the Winchester from his backpack, loaded it with bullets, and continued forward. He didn't know why there were ordinary zombies in the lab, but he knew that the infection required time to mutate. Before he felt symptoms like a high fever, he still had some time to use.

He wanted to search the lab for any serum and to check if Xiao Tan and the other two were there. If they weren't, it meant the three had inexplicably gone to the upper floors of the building; if they were, there must have been a reason for the scene at the elevator entrance.

...

At the same time, at the entrance of the gun shop.

Young Master Atobe and Xiao Ming had simply moved a large sofa to the middle of the road, sat on it, and used the slowly approaching blood wolf zombies as targets for target practice.

Of course, while they were playing, they still maintained a degree of caution. Given their marksmanship, hitting the head from a distance was very difficult. So, after each zombie was shot in the legs or knocked down, they would go over to check if it was dead. If not, they would finish it off with a headshot.

Most of the guns in the gun shop could be used by anyone, with even lower equipment requirements than the M1911A1 that Feng Jue had found when he was level 5. Clearly, in scripts of this level, the restrictions on using firearms were relaxed, giving players who hadn't yet unlocked the shooting specialization more opportunities to do so.

"Hey, look at that," Xiao Ming suddenly noticed an unusual figure in the distance.

Young Master Atobe was on guard in another direction and turned his head to look: "Is that... a player?"

The figure's movements were clearly not those of a zombie, which was why it caught Xiao Ming's attention. As it approached, they gradually saw more clearly.

It was a young woman, with a graceful figure, long hair, and a beautiful, pure oval face. Her skin was smooth and white, her eyes like autumn waves, and her nose and mouth were delicate. She was wearing a tight black tuxedo, which accentuated her slender and frail figure, contrasting sharply with her full and prominent chest.

"Her outfit definitely isn't the default system clothing," Xiao Ming said.

"Yeah... that makes sense, and I don't think someone with her appearance would be named Pan Feng or Hua Xiong," Atobe said. "Feng Jue told us that Wang Tan is his friend and a male player, so there shouldn't be any female players in this script..."

"She doesn't look like a monster either, is she an NPC?" Xiao Ming added.

"Let's try to communicate with her," Atobe raised the TMP in his hand and shouted at the woman: "Stop! Who are you?"

She didn't answer, just smiled. A few seconds later, the smile quickly turned into a sneer, and her sharp fangs were revealed...