Chapter 69: Clearing the Area

"Driver,"

Li Cheng stared fixedly at the triangular-headed monster radiating fierce malevolence ahead, speaking into the radio: "Is there another way?"

"None left—the only escape route is occupied. They likely smelled the blood on the triangular head and are heading your way. Estimated arrival: two minutes!"

Two minutes?

"Prepare to abandon the vehicle," Li Cheng told Su Jie, gripped the handlebars, and twisted the throttle hard.

The tires spun violently on the ground, spewing smoke, as the roaring vehicle shot forward with the two riders.

The triangular head stood motionless, knife raised, until the instant the vehicle passed beside it—then it twisted sideways with an agility utterly incongruous with its massive frame, slashing horizontally.

The blade was swift and sharp; the speeding motorcycle had no time to turn before it was cleaved in two. Parts flew, gasoline spilled.

The two riders had anticipated this: Su Jie leapt upward, drawing his gun midair and spraying bullets at the triangular head, while the two Pokémon pinned to his clothing each unleashed their skills.

Li Cheng likewise kicked off the wall, extending his mantis-arm bone-blade to pierce the triangular head's wrist, attempting to sever its right hand holding the knife.

Bullets pierced skin, lightning struck the skull, the blade sank into the wrist bone. Yet the creature ignored the spurting blood, its left hand snapping out with brutal speed to clamp Su Jie's throat, while its right hand resisted the mantis-arm blade and swung the knife toward Li Cheng's neck.

In this moment of life or death, Li Cheng—whose multi-threaded brain domain method was active—remained utterly calm: he summoned his black beetle's horns and carapace to enhance his physical attributes, then raised his left arm, armored in the White Bone Corridor bracer, to block the blow.

Clang!

The cleaver scraped along the white bone bracer, its immense force nearly shattering the arm's bones.

Li Cheng's face showed no expression; with his right hand, he coordinated with his numb, motionless left arm to lock the triangular head's wrist, while his legs kicked the wall with full force.

The jumping power granted by the cricket gene, combined with his entire body weight, surged forward, forcing the triangular head's knife-wielding hand to swing backward—the massive cleaver plunged into his left arm, severing seventy percent of it.

Even with its monstrous physiology, the triangular head could not defy physical laws. Its left tendon snapped, its grip weakened involuntarily, and Su Jie, nearly suffocated, gasped back to consciousness, pulled out an anti-materiel sniper rifle, pressed it against the monster's armpit, and fired.

Boom!

A bowl-sized wound exploded in the triangular head's armpit; through it, the robust heart—thrumming violently and wrapped in dense iron wire—was clearly visible.

"Walkers, use Sunbeam!" came the driver's voice over the radio.

The Walker obeyed, leaning forward as a white beam erupted from its head, piercing straight through the armpit wound and the heart.

Li Cheng sidestepped the residual light, circled behind the triangular head, leapt upward, and positioned his mantis-arm bone-blade parallel to the ground, facing inward to form a guillotine, loosely encircling the monster's neck.

Then he kicked hard against its spine.

With a grating, teeth-chilling sound of bone scraping, Li Cheng wrenched off the triangular head's entire metallic skull—it clattered to the floor, shattering several tiles.

Su Jie landed, his neck bearing dark, bruise-like finger marks; the wooden bead bracelet on his wrist—designed to passively absorb one fatal strike—was now completely cracked. Without it, his injury would not have been limited to fractured larynx cartilage—he would have had his neck snapped outright.

Good, still alive—

His thoughts abruptly cut off: the headless, heartless torso of the triangular head suddenly seized the cleaver and stabbed upward with lightning speed into Su Jie's abdomen.

Just as the torso was about to split Su Jie from bottom to top, Li Cheng slashed off its wrist with his left hand, plunged his right into the neck stump, gripped the spine, and yanked backward, tearing out the white bone.

The torso swayed twice in place, then collapsed. Li Cheng leaned down and delivered several finishing strikes, then looked up at Su Jie.

The wide, narrow-bladed cleaver had pierced Su Jie's abdomen, pinning him to the wall.

"Su Jie? Su Jie, are you still alive?!"

The radio crackled with the driver's frantic cries—he genuinely cared for his savior.

Su Jie, pain threatening to overwhelm him, fumbled for painkillers from his inventory and jammed them into his body without restraint, while his right hand unleashed a faint glow to envelop the abdominal wound, using medical skills to halt bleeding and internal hemorrhage.

"Don't pull the blade—if you do, I'll die instantly."

He stopped Li Cheng, sweat pouring down his face: "Right now, I might still live."

"The monsters behind us are almost here."

Li Cheng glanced down the corridor behind him—footsteps and monster roars were already faintly echoing.

"I know. So you must hurry to the main control room and activate the gate. The moment the mission is complete, players teleport back to the real world."

Su Jie lit the candle with difficulty, then pulled the last automatic machine gun turret from his inventory and dropped it in the center of the intersection: "I'll hold them off here. Go—this is up to you."

Players living in constant peril, with no safety ever guaranteed, were long accustomed to parting ways. Li Cheng said no more—he left the Walker and Pichu to protect Su Jie, then sprinted down the corridor at full speed.

"."

Su Jie slowly released his grip on the cleaver, his youthful face etched with exhaustion.

He was only twelve years old—his peers were just entering middle school, thinking only of studies, games, and phones—while he fought for his life in a monster-infested underground world.

"Teacher... I'm really... so tired."

A sigh. The bitterness, sorrow, and fatigue in his eyes vanished instantly, replaced by unyielding resolve.

He raised his rifle with both hands, pre-aiming at the increasingly noisy corridor corner ahead.

Thud!

Several werewolves tumbled out of the corner, snarling as they charged toward him, followed by a horde of other monsters.

————

Left, left, right, left.

Maintaining his parallel-thinking state, Li Cheng visualized the bunker's layout in his mind, darting swiftly through the labyrinthine corridors.

Along the way, he either outpaced the monsters, decapitated them with his blade, or dodged them entirely.

In a blur of speed, he finally reached the main control room door at the bunker's summit, inserted the key, and pushed the door open.

Lights automatically activated; through the front glass window, the vastest hall of the theme park—the Grand Reception Hall—was clearly visible.

Corpses littered the ground; a hundred ghosts walked at night. Colossal monsters, towering like skyscrapers and drawn from films like *Cloverfield* and *The Mist*, wandered the hall, occasionally bending down like cattle grazing to devour human corpses.

A familiar red figure floated upward. The spirit Alma, over a hundred meters away, locked eyes with Li Cheng—her face still bore the deep scars left by the Hell Monks.

Li Cheng silently inserted the key into the main control room console. The console resembled a missile launch control room, with two palm-shaped buttons spaced three meters apart—both had to be pressed simultaneously to activate.

This design was likely due to the theme park's sealed environment; balancing internal and external air pressure required extreme caution every time the main gate opened or closed.

Li Cheng's mind was calm as still water. He removed the severed hands from both sides of his bulletproof vest, took out electrical tape, and stuck them onto the right button.

Outside the window, Alma—the spirit brimming with hatred for all the living—flashed toward him, while the other colossal beasts also noticed the sudden illumination, shaking their heads and charging toward the control room.

At the critical moment, Li Sheng's heavy burden slammed down on the left button, opening the gate.

【Routine Quest "Out-of-Control Specimen" has been completed. The teleportation return function is now available.】

The system's prompt tone rang out at just the right time, but he did not choose to teleport away; instead, he risked it and waited for something.

At the entrance of the reception hall, an extremely heavy alloy gate slowly rose under the action of hydraulic structures, and a ray of strong light shone in.

Hundreds and thousands of security guards surged into the bunker through the gap and began an efficient slaughter.

Lasers, lightning, flames, freezing, gravity manipulation, psychokinesis.

Constructs of different shapes, wielding entirely different abilities, slaughtered the monsters in the hall.

Among them, a certain blue-and-white security guard even summoned a tiny black hole out of thin air, absorbing and swallowing an alien creature from "Cloverfield" that was over seventy meters tall and weighed more than five thousand tons.

The wraith Alma sensed the danger descending, and rapidly ascended, but still failed to escape — caught by a gravity beam released by a security guard, her form continuously shrinking, until finally the security guard locked her into a glass container on its arm.

(End of this chapter)