Chapter 55

"Is this some kind of divine plot twist?" Feng Buju said, "The doctor we're supposed to save is actually the villain?" He recalled the reasoning he had just done, combined it with the mission content, and further deduced. A few seconds later, his expression changed subtly: "Could it be that Ashford is the mastermind behind the murders and poisonings... Could it be that the plot's true ending is that he escaped from the lab and went to the top of the building to release a variant of the virus using some device? That's why the virus spread explosively throughout the city, and I haven't found a single survivor yet?" He couldn't help but curse: "This guy must be the Lizard Doctor!"

At this moment, he was alone, and there were no working surveillance cameras nearby, so the system did not intervene or censor his profanity.

"Wait a minute..." Feng Buju suddenly realized something: "Those two... Pan Feng and Hua Xiong, who are they? They went straight for the main mission as soon as they entered the building, as if they knew they didn't need to come to this underground lab to complete it." He pondered: "According to common sense, the plot should unfold like this... Players enter the building, go to the lab first, find the serum, defeat a small boss, then discover some clues that suggest Dr. Ashford is the villain, and then follow the clues and hints to go upstairs... But what are these two up to? Are they going straight up to expose the boss's identity and then use force to make it reveal its true form?"

Xiao Tan was still alive, and it was almost certain that he was acting with these two. However, he didn't like or excel at giving orders, and there was no reason for him to command them to go upstairs. Besides, they were extremely powerful players who were unlikely to follow his orders.

So... these two were acting on their own will, and they were completely correct...

The more Feng Buju thought about it, the more he felt something was wrong with the script. He focused his mind, calmed his slightly overexcited emotions, took out the Winchester, loaded it with bullets, and rushed out the door.

Although his previous exploration was rushed, he did it in an orderly manner, and he had memorized all the routes he had taken. Moreover, the bodies of the zombies served as landmarks, so Feng Buju quickly made his way back to the elevator.

Thanks to the running bonus from the Dance of Jazz, he moved quickly without expending much energy, reaching his destination at a speed that other players could only achieve by sprinting desperately.

Ten minutes later, Feng Buju returned to the elevator leading to the ground floor. When he left earlier, he had left the bodies piled up in front of the elevator, so the elevator door was still jammed. He spent about three minutes dragging the seven or eight bodies blocking the elevator into the corridor, then got on and returned to the first floor of the building, where he met Wang Tan.

"Hey! Xiao Tan!" Feng Buju called out.

Xiao Tan turned around: "Eh? Juege, how did you get behind me..."

"Cut the crap." Feng Buju interrupted him, walking forward and taking out an antitoxin serum from his backpack: "Drink this."

"What is this?" Xiao Tan asked, taking the serum and checking its properties: "How did you get this?"

"I just went to the underground lab." Feng Buju replied.

"Ah? What about the other two..." Before Xiao Tan could finish, Feng Buju knew what he was going to ask and answered directly: "They died elsewhere."

The two of them exchanged a few words and then set off for the top floor of the building. Along the way, they shared their experiences and the information they had gathered.

Xiao Tan's account confirmed Feng Buju's suspicions, making him even more suspicious of the two players, "Unrivaled General Pan Feng" and "Thousand Slashes Hua Xiong." For Feng Buju, their strength was within acceptable limits, but their actions were the issue. They went straight to the top floor without collecting any clues. This was either an incredible stroke of "luck" or they had some information that normal players couldn't obtain.

Feng Buju followed Xiao Tan all the way to the 51st floor. Before reaching the 47th floor, they followed the route that Xiao Tan and Pan Hua had taken. For the next four floors, Xiao Tan hadn't been there, but they could still track the footsteps of the previous players by the bodies of the monsters along the way.

As they approached the top floor, Feng Buju asked: "When you went up with them for the first time, did you take any detours or encounter any dead ends?"

"Hmm..." Xiao Tan recalled, "No, actually." He then said: "But the route we're taking now is already quite winding. We've changed elevators several times, and we've had to cross a few floors and use different staircases." He paused: "Wait a minute... How did they know which floor to change staircases on..."

"Even the route..." Feng Buju mused.

As they spoke, they arrived at the 52nd floor.

Entering from the stairs, they found themselves in a corridor. Every ten meters or so, there was a large flower pot. Directly ahead was a glass wall with the ELEB logo, through which they could see a vast office area that spanned the entire floor. The office area was divided into many cubicles, with ordinary office furniture, computers, water dispensers, and storage racks. At both ends of the area were several private offices.

This floor indeed looked like the "office area" described on the ground floor map, nothing more.

They walked down the corridor for a bit and passed through an automatic door into the vast office area. There were no signs of blood or zombie activity on this floor, which was not a good sign but rather an indication of the presence of a boss-level monster.

Feng Buju had just scanned the environment and was about to start investigating when he felt a tremor under his feet. A loud boom echoed in his ears, and the ceiling dozens of meters ahead burst open. A deformed humanoid monster broke through from the roof, and chunks of concrete rained down, immediately raising a cloud of dust where the ceiling had collapsed.

Two more figures then leaped down from the hole. They were, of course, Pan Feng and Hua Xiong.

Amidst the rolling dust, the three figures engaged in a fierce battle. Axes and guns clashed, and the sound of flesh being pierced could be heard from time to time. The floor gradually became covered in blood.

After about a minute of the pincer attack, the dust began to settle. The monster, finding itself hard-pressed, turned and charged towards the building's outer glass wall. Pan Hua knew it was trying to escape and were determined not to let it get away, as that would ruin their plan to end the script here.

Hua Xiong crouched and darted to the side of the monster, spinning and pushing, his gun's tip pointing directly at the monster's head, the gun's body moving like a blur. Pan Feng, with his heavier weapon, was slightly slower, but he advanced quickly, closing in on the target and bringing his long axe down vertically on the monster's back.

The two relentlessly pursued and pressed the monster, leaving it with no place to run. In a desperate attempt to escape, the monster endured the spear's thrust. The spearhead pierced through its left eye socket and emerged from the back of its head, spewing out a stream of foul liquid.

However, this injury was not enough to kill the monster. By curling its body forward, it managed to avoid Pan Feng's axe and reached the outer glass wall. It then used the saw-like bones on its elbows to smash the thick glass, creating a crack. The monster then curled into a ball and broke through the window, flying out of the building.

Pan Feng and Hua Xiong rushed to the edge of the outer wall and looked down at the rapidly descending monster. After it had fallen a certain distance, it used its suction cups and sticky substance to cling to the outer wall, then quickly made its way to the ground and escaped from their sight.

"Damn... it got away," Pan Feng said.

"Indeed... when we directly engage the boss without other players, its intelligence and reactions change," Hua Xiong replied.

"Two of you." Feng Buju's voice sounded behind them, startling them.

They turned around and saw Feng Buju with a hostile look and Wang Tan with a puzzled expression.

"Can you explain to me..." Feng Buju asked directly, "Who exactly are you?"