Chapter 70: Exploration

Screams of agony, spurts of blood, the thud of severed limbs hitting the ground, the crash of breaking doors, the sound of running feet.

The commotion was the same as hours ago; the difference was that before, monsters slaughtered humans, now it was security guards slaughtering monsters.

Li Cheng stood by the window of the control room, watching it all.

A dazzling battle scene, tense and desperate chases and escapes, vivid bloody shots of flying limbs.

So brutally real, it could never be fabricated by a special effects studio's computer program—its sensory impact was stronger than any Hollywood movie.

If not for the occasional laser beams slicing through and melting steel walls, Li Cheng would have stepped out of the control room, pulled out a drone, clicked the left recording button, and filmed the entire scene.

In less than a minute, the security guards cleared the top floor of the theme park, including the lobby, ignored Li Cheng raising his two severed palms in a French military salute, and marched down the corridors deeper into the bunker, exterminating every monster they encountered.

They seemed able to distinguish players from monsters, ignoring the former and annihilating the latter without mercy.

After a moment's thought, Li Cheng pulled the control room key and followed behind the security guards, retracing their path.

Su Jie, still impaled on the wall with a large knife through his abdomen, had acquired more wounds; the two Pokémon at his feet were exhausted, and a pile of monster corpses lay heaped in the center of the intersection, their blood oozing freely.

Clearly, he had held off the monsters' first assault and survived until Li Cheng opened the gate and let the security guards in to clear the area.

"You didn't just teleport away?"

Li Cheng was slightly surprised—when players entered or returned from an alternate world to complete a script mission, the teleportation in the real world was instantaneous.

But for regular missions conducted between the real world and the killing ground, the time flow matched the displayed time.

As a medic of the Special Affairs Bureau, Su Jie must have reported his mission to the organization beforehand, ensuring a team of doctors and nurses waited at his teleportation point, ready to perform emergency resuscitation and specialist consultations the moment he returned.

He had no reason to risk staying here.

"I still need to fulfill Taylor's promise. Mr. Chu, could you lend a hand?"

Su Jie dropped his rifle, interlaced his fingers, and formed a gesture above his abdominal wound.

After preparing himself, he nodded to Li Cheng, who gripped the cleaver's hilt and yanked it out with force.

Zing—

The cleaver fell free; Su Jie immediately pressed both hands over his abdomen and unleashed his special skill at full power.

【Skill Name: Intermediate Restoration】

【Type: Spiritual Energy】

【Effect: Restorative Purification. Through contact, selectively remove three debuffs from a target, such as plague, slow, bleeding, blindness, or immobilization. Also heal minor injuries, eliminate fatigue, and increase resistance to exhaustion.】

【Cost: 300 Spiritual Energy Points】

【Cooldown: 20 minutes】

【Prerequisite: Lawful Good Alignment】

【Note: Cannot remove debuffs above the player's level.】

【Note: Restoration was developed and promoted by temple priests of the slave kingdom of Vokan. Ironically, this holy art was used most extensively not in the temple churches for saving lives, but in the bedrooms of city nobles and the silver mines.】

Under the skill's effect, Su Jie's abdominal wound stopped bleeding, his internal organs did not rupture, and the overall injury briefly stabilized.

Leaning against the wall, he downed several more bottles of medicine and cast healing skills on himself, barely keeping himself alive.

He let out a long breath, looked up, and saw Li Cheng holding the large cleaver, frowning in deep thought. He asked instinctively: "Mr. Chu, is there something wrong with this knife?"

"No problem. I was just wondering—if tetanus was untreatable in ancient times, why didn't ancient soldiers just let their weapons rust before using them?"

Li Cheng made up a random excuse; amid Su Jie's bewildered expression, he stowed the cleaver into his backpack slot and said casually: "Let's go. The driver should be done too."

The two passed through the labyrinthine corridors and returned to the command center. The blast door had been forcibly breached; piles of monster corpses littered both outside and inside the entrance, and the gun turrets' barrels were smoking.

Fortunately, the driver and Taylor and his daughter were still alive; the two Pokémon were gone, presumably retracted into their Poké Balls by the driver.

After some conversation, Su Jie asked, "So you two stayed in the command center the whole time, holding out until the security guards arrived? They were about to attack Mr. Taylor, but you intervened and made them leave?"

"I wouldn't call it intervention."

The driver scratched his head, equally confused. "I just waved my hand. The security guards seemed to understand my intent and spared Taylor, then went elsewhere."

He paused, puzzled: "So what's the deal with this killing ground? With the security guards' strength, they could've just dug a hole through the bunker's ceiling and cleared the monsters directly. Why make players go through the trouble of opening the gate?"

This question had no immediate answer—perhaps the killing ground simply had a cruel sense of humor, enjoying forcing players to struggle in death traps, or perhaps… the system that issued missions and the system controlling the security guards operated on entirely different frameworks.

Hence the need for players to open the gate and lure the external security guards into the bunker.

Li Cheng adjusted his glasses but said nothing. The driver didn't expect an answer; after a few more casual remarks, he logged off. Before leaving, he sent a friend request.

As for Su Jie, he glanced at Taylor, barely restored to human form, and the little girl who had awakened and was still processing the tragic reality. He cleared his throat and said: "Mr. Taylor, our previous agreement still stands. I'll take you and your daughter to a safe zone. But there, you may need to undergo some physiological modifications."

In a modern society without supernatural power, a creature capable of perfect infection, parasitism, and replacement of humans would indeed be a catastrophic threat to civilization.

But today's Earth, in a certain sense, has already reached the point where lice are too numerous to care and debts too heavy to fear—major guilds have hidden supernatural weapons comparable to nuclear arsenals, enough to destroy every major city multiple times over.

Not to mention those Level 40 gods. Each has unique strengths, each has their own secret techniques, their gear and skills are astonishing, and their hidden weapons bring unexpected surprises to Earth (i. e., apocalyptic crises).

A mere creature like this? What's the big deal? Can it fight off Black Light Virus, Flood, memetic contamination, or reality collapse? It's bottom-tier trash.

Later, have a high-level player from the Special Affairs Bureau perform a sterilization procedure on him—remove his infection and parasitism abilities—and let him live in the Slums, find a job at a Special Affairs Bureau-owned shop.

Also issue him an ID card, enroll him in five insurances and one fund, and give him a tax refund every March.

By the way, the Special Affairs Bureau applies the same policy to bosses, demons, and monsters brought back from script worlds by agents. Sometimes, during holidays, they even grant them permission to walk through the Flower World in human form.

After a few quick agreements, Su Jie led Taylor and his daughter out of the bunker. Before leaving, he reminded Li Cheng: "Mr. Chu. Myself and Taylor will take a vehicle to the nearest phone booth and teleport to the Slums to report the situation here."

Round trip will take about half an hour. By then, personnel from the Special Affairs Bureau and the Global Supernatural Alliance may arrive to seal off this bunker and prevent any monsters from escaping."

Seeing Li Cheng hadn't teleported away, he guessed the latter wasn't satisfied with merely completing the mission and wanted to investigate the bunker's remaining secrets.

Out of respect for organizational rules and personal moral principles, he specifically reminded Li Cheng of the time, urging him to leave before the Special Affairs Bureau and the Global Supernatural Alliance arrived.

"Understood."

Half an hour was more than enough. Li Cheng nodded, watched Su Jie and the others leave the bunker, then took the control room key and headed for the elevator marked in red on the map.

(The text description of Restoration was added later and does not count toward VIP word count.)

(End of Chapter)