Chapter 51: Black Tower Labyrinth

"Whoosh!"

A crossbow bolt sliced through the air and pierced the head of a walking corpse.

The dim-witted walking corpse didn't even notice where the attack had come from before it died.

"Nice shot, Jiang Xian."

A broad, stocky youth gave the thin youth beside him a heavy slap on the shoulder.

"Ouch! Fatty Zhang, can you go easy? My shoulder is about to be smashed to pieces by you."

Jiang Xian rubbed his own shoulder as he spoke helplessly.

Zhang Di—Fatty Zhang—grinned: "That's because you're the skilled one. The bolts you made yourself pack that much punch."

"You can hit a target twenty meters away. If we just had more bolts, we'd have wiped out the walking corpses long ago."

Jiang Xian sighed: "Walking corpses and the like are still manageable. The real killers are those beautiful big birds."

"Their reactions are too fast, they're too agile. My crossbow's firing rate is too low—I can't hit them at all."

Zhang Di didn't care in the slightest: "What's there to fear? Once my level goes up and I dump everything into defense, you just hide behind me and fire away."

Zhang Di's face was all smiles, showing not a trace of the misery of living in the apocalypse.

Jiang Xian mocked him mercilessly: "Heh, you? As fat as you are, you'd make a fine meat shield, but I'm afraid the ranged attackers would drop you before you even reached the front line."

Zhang Di's face reddened as he snapped: "What do you know? Is this fat? This is solid muscle!"

"You know those ancient generals? Every single one of them had a big belly—only people built like that have real strength."

Saying so, Zhang Di lifted his belly to reveal his unified, seamless abs, slapping them twice with a thump.

"I've class-changed into Warrior. With my current strength, in ancient times I'd absolutely be a champion who could take on ten thousand."

Jiang Xian's face was full of disdain: "Keep bragging. You've got a whole ten points of strength, and you call yourself a ten-thousand-man general?"

"Honestly, I seriously doubt you could even take down one walking corpse."

Zhang Di's face flushed crimson: "Who says I can't? I'll go find one right now and beat it in front of you."

"Oh? You're not going to ask me to lend you my crossbow, are you?"

"Fine, don't lend it then. You think just because you class-changed into Ranger you can be invincible? Us Warriors can fight our way in and out of Sabak seven times."

As he spoke, Zhang Di even swung a kitchen knife he'd gotten from god-knows-where, muttering memes Jiang Xian didn't understand.

"Alright, Fatty Zhang, we've still got real business to attend to…"

"Rumble rumble rumble!"

The ground shook violently. Zhang Di lost his footing, and the kitchen knife flew from his hand, nearly hitting Jiang Xian.

If Jiang Xian hadn't been skilled at handcrafting molds in his daily life, giving him decent Agility, and hadn't caught the knife with quick reflexes, he would surely have been injured.

"Sorry, sorry…"

Zhang Di was still apologizing to Jiang Xian when he noticed Jiang Xian wasn't reacting at all, his eyes staring blankly out the window.

He hurriedly turned his head toward the window as well, only to see a black tower that had somehow risen from the ground.

It had appeared right where Jiang Xian had just killed the walking corpse.

The black tower had no door—or rather, its entrance stood wide open, as if welcoming anyone to visit.

……

Walking through the empty, silent streets, Fang Shi didn't bother specifically killing walking corpses, simply running and leaping across wrecked cars.

The aura of death from the Fire-Winged Birds clung to him heavily.

Apart from a few that had come to bother him at the very start,

no more Fire-Winged Birds came to throw their lives away afterward.

And because of his swaggering gait, a large horde of walking corpses trailed behind him, which also drew the attention of survivors.

"Hero, please save me." someone pleaded through a window.

Fang Shi was currently dressed all in black training clothes, a longsword in hand, leaping across cars—truly looking the part of a hero from a period drama.

"I've left some materials at the bottom of this building. Come get them yourself."

Fang Shi didn't possess anything like internal force; a flimsy piece of paper couldn't be flicked up to the fifth floor.

As for those who didn't dare come get it,

then they'd best pretend Fang Shi had never said anything.

He had already slipped the paper through the door crack. If they still didn't dare come down even after that, they were beyond saving.

Those who would not save themselves, no one would save.

In an environment like the apocalypse, relying on others to survive was the most inadvisable choice.

Lean on a mountain, the mountain may crumble; lean on a person, the person may run. Only yourself can be truly relied upon.

Had he not relied on himself, the Fang Shi of his previous life would have died long ago when the human settlement was breached.

Nor would he have struggled for so long afterward before being reborn.

Moreover, along the way Fang Shi had come, it wasn't as if he hadn't seen traces of survivors saving themselves.

Though tragedies were unavoidable, there were certainly those who had succeeded.

People like Zhao Wenjun had never been the only ones; humanity was not a timid, cowardly species.

In times of disaster, there would always be someone who stepped forward to hold up the sky.

……

"Fatty Zhang, it's all because of your rotten ideas. Coming in here with you is practically a death sentence for me."

Jiang Xian fumed. Zhang Di now had bandages wrapped around his waist, with traces of blood still seeping through.

"Hehe, Jiang Xian, you don't want to come? If I hadn't taken that hit for you, you'd have dropped dead long ago, damn it."

"That's exactly why you're injured!"

At this moment, Jiang Xian was filled with regret; trapped in one place after the apocalypse, he had long since worn out the youths' patience.

Moreover, the young were bold and full of curiosity toward this newly emerged Black Tower.

They simply could not bear the boredom.

After discussing with each other, they seized an opportunity to sneak toward the Black Tower.

Fortunately, it was not far from the entrance, only about ten meters.

The two ran into the Black Tower before the Fire-Winged Bird high above could react.

Then, it became the situation they were in now.

After entering the high tower, they found themselves in a maze; turning left and right, they had long lost their way and could not even return.

Most critically, there were monsters within the maze.

The monsters ranged from weak to strong; the weak ones Zhang Di and Jiang Xian could kill at will.

The strong ones were like the Goat-Man ahead of them.

Had Zhang Di and Jiang Xian not run fast, they would have been instantly chopped to death by an axe.

Fortunately, these monsters possessed territorial awareness.

As long as they escaped a certain range and did not appear before the monsters' eyes, the monsters would not continue the pursuit.

Zhang Di and Jiang Xian had run to a corner and hidden, thereby avoiding the Goat-Man's pursuit.

"This won't work; we must figure out how to escape this maze."

Jiang Xian gritted his teeth and spoke; although they were relatively safe now, no one knew what would happen next.

Moreover, most importantly, if they could not leave the maze, their food and water would run out.

By then, even without monsters, with nothing to eat or drink, they would face death.

"I once read online that if you walk along one wall of a maze, you can reach the exit; should we try it?"

Jiang Xian snapped, "Fatty Zhang, I told you you were stupid and you didn't believe me; how do you deal with the monsters along the way? If the path is blocked, it's GG immediately."

"Besides, this method only works for a single maze; it is useless against a complex maze."

Zhang Di scratched his head: "We have to try, right? As for the monsters, I will draw them away."

"Anyway, these monsters are stupid; as long as you run fast, they will return to their original positions."

"If the two of us draw aggro from each other, we can pass through the blocked paths."

Jiang Xian's eyes lit up; after thinking carefully, he found this method was indeed feasible.

"Your idea is good, but it still needs some improvement."

"This maze does not consist entirely of walls; there are also some gravel, and I even saw flowers."

"We can use stones to draw the monsters; in that case, perhaps even one person operating alone could make it work."

"Fatty, next I will throw a stone at that Goat-Man; you find an opportunity to run past."

Zhang Di nodded, and so the two began their escape journey through the maze.

PS: Thanks to Kuangbao Zhanlong for the 555100-point donation.