Feng Chen ran with the black lion to the lowest floor of the Haiyun Tower.
This floor was huge, about half the size of a basketball court. As he stood in the centre of it all looking around dazedly, Chu Shi’s group caught up. They angrily panted by the staircase.
“Keep running, why don’t you. Laozi wants to see what other tricks you have up your sleeves.” A subordinate jabbed his finger at Feng Chen and cursed.
Chu Shi glared darkly at Feng Chen as he took off his animal pelts and worked out the kinks in his metal arm. He slowly walked towards the centre of the floor amidst a series of clicks.
The gray wolf materialized by his feet, staring at Feng Chen just as chillingly as the man himself.
A deep roar brimming with warning emerged from the black lion. Its body drew closer to the floor, ready to attack at any moment.
All the subordinates followed with their quantum beasts.
“Let me tell you something, kid. Ain’t no one else on Earth foolish enough to take Chu Shi for a fool.” Chu Shi waved two metal fingers through the air. “Twice at that.”
“I really didn’t think about killing you at first, but then you went and pissed me off real good.”Chu Shi shook his head. “Maybe I’ll be in a better mood if you hand over the cipher box already.”
Feng Chen watched them silently as he slowly backed away.
“Don’t waste words on this brat, Deacon. Let’s just grab him and kill him if he refuses to talk.” A subordinate stated fiercely. The weasel beside him was also barely able to hold back. A seemingly endless stream of saliva trickled down its chin.
For every step they took forward, Feng Chen moved back. Until his back was pressed up against the wall. There was nowhere left to go.
“Nowhere left to run. Hand it over.” Chu Shi slowly extended a hand to the pallid Feng Chen.
Yet the next moment, he saw the panicked teenager suddenly calm down and smirk faintly but provocatively.
A chill ran down Chu Shi’s spine. He just tensed when he saw the teen quickly press a button on the wall next to him.
“Run!”
His order was cut off by a rumbling underfoot. The entire floor split down the centre.
Everything happened too fast to react. The lowest floor of the Tower was too large for them to retreat to safety. A few steps was all they could take before they plunged into the water beneath.
Feng Chen grabbed a metal bar on the wall the instant he pressed the button. He was standing on the half-foot wide cement edge wrapping around the Tower walls.
The people who had fallen into the water all swam for the edge. Feng Chen launched attack after attack with his mental power to interfere as he pressed the button on the wall again, intending to trap them beneath the partition.
The panels started closing suddenly, already halfway there within the blink of an eye. Chu Shi realized how dire the situation was and immediately launched his metal arm like a claw at the cement edge in front.
The claw pierced into the cement and jammed the closing panels.
The black lion pounced on that spot, but Chu Shi’s gray wolf leapt high to intercept it. The two quantum beasts collided in the air, tearing at each other briefly before landing in the water separately and trying again.
Feng Chen continued to launch attacks at the surface of the water until he heard two gunshots.
His superhuman senses let him know the direction the bullets were coming from. His body immediately tilted back. Two bullets embedded themselves in the wall above his head with a burst of debris.
A-Dai emerged from the water surface, half her face wrapped in gauze. The single eye under her mask tracked Feng Chen as she continued to fire.
Feng Chen ducked and weaved on the narrow cement edge as he continued to launch attack after attack.
The subordinates in the water were swimming towards the edges while cursing up a storm.
“This son of a bitch thinks he can drown us like this? Laozi is going to teach him a lesson he never forgets once I get out.”
But at this moment, one of the subordinates suddenly screamed. “Fuck! What just bit my leg?! Motherfucker–”
The guy cut off abruptly as he was pulled under and never came back up. As soon as his comrades tried to go help him, the water surface started to churn. Something was coming out.
“Get out! Get out! There’s something in the water!” Chu Shi clearly saw many dark figures moving about down there, many missing at least one limb. “There’s zombies!”
With that, everyone desperately swam for safety. Their quantum beasts pushed them forward behind them.
Feng Chen dodged A-Dai’s shots as he stabbed at the people below with mental power and kept them away from the cement edge. Chu Shi could only form shields with his own mental power to protect them again and again.
Feng Chen ran into a zombie underwater the last time he went to the underground settlement to fetch limestone. It should’ve swam out from the emergency passage. He remembered Yu Yuan mentioning a climate control system inside the Tower, implying the water beneath wouldn’t freeze.
When they escaped into Haiyun Tower, Lin Fen closed the partition and locked thousands of zombies down there. Since zombies wouldn’t die and the water wouldn’t freeze over, he could simply lure Chu Shi’s group over here and find an opportunity to lock them beneath the Tower for the zombies to deal with.
The subordinates in the water cried out in panic.
“It’s no use! Mental power can only block mental power, not zombies!”
“Then kill them! Kill them using your mental power!!”
The subordinates launched attacks at the zombies swimming towards them from all sides. The first wave was quickly decimated.
Their quantum beasts also dived beneath the surface to cull the approaching zombies.
Feng Chen never stopped attacking. Mental power buffeted the people beneath like a hail of arrows. Chu Shi could only divert part of his attention to neutralizing those attacks.
The zombies just kept coming. Kill one and countless would take its place. The water seemed to boil over. Zombies kept surfacing and pouncing on them with a howl.
The subordinate at the forefront being pushed forward by his weasel was inches away from safety. He couldn’t care less about his comrades as he reached for the cement edge.
But just as his fingers were about to make contact, Feng Chen’s mental power stabbed through his wrist with a vengeance. His ankle was also suddenly grabbed. A zombie rushed out of the water and chomped down hard on his ear.
“AHHHH–” The weasel sentinel screeched at the top of his lungs. Half his face was instantly dyed red. He hastily used mental power to kill the zombie tearing into his ear, but more appeared around him in an instant, all lunging at him with gaping mouths to drag him beneath the surface.
Red waves ripped in the area as the weasel slowly faded away.
“Don’t rush to get out of the water!” Chu Shi shouted hastily, “Deal with the zombies around you first. I’ll block that brat’s attacks!”
But there were just too many zombies in the water. Although they continued to kill all the ones around them, wave after wave kept coming. They couldn’t fend off the ones beneath them as easily either. Two more subordinates were dragged away in the end.
Feng Chen kept attacking. Wherever those people went, his mental power descended like a swarm of locusts and sealed off all avenues of escape.
His mental power was unreservedly unleashed like the wrath of Heaven, trapping Chu Shi’s group down in the water.
“Kill the zombies first! You have to kill the zombies around you before you can go up!”
“There are too many! Go, we need to go this way!”
“Ack! That kid’s interfering again! We have to deal with him first!”
“I have my hands full with the zombies…”
Although Feng Chen successfully trapped the group in the water, his mental power was quickly being depleted. It was getting harder to breathe or keep his eyes open, but he didn’t dare to stop for a second under the current circumstances or conserve his mental power. He kept up a steady, fierce offensive.
These people could not be allowed to climb up to safety, no ifs or buts about it. Otherwise, he and Yan Bubu would never be able to go back to the Institute even if they managed to escape.
Leaving the Institute in this kind of weather was akin to death. Taking care of Chu Shi’s group here was the only way to survive.
Zombies were also surging in the water nearest him. Some attempted to grab his feet. Others lunged out of the water entirely to pounce on him.
In order to avoid being bitten, Feng Chen had no choice but to halt his attacks temporarily and draw his dagger.
With every strike, another zombie howled as it fell back into the water.
But his enemies took advantage of this to kill the zombies around them and venture significantly closer to the edges.
One of A-Dai’s eyes no longer worked thanks to Binunu. Her mental avatar was also severely wounded and she could not use mental power anymore. Thus, she fired relentlessly at Feng Chen.
Feng Chen was between a rock and a hard place. He had to defend himself against the zombies, avoid A-Dai’s bullets, and use his mental power to prevent the others from climbing out.
He could only watch them inch closer towards the edges as his drowsiness grew. The objects he saw became increasingly distorted, as if he was about to lose himself again.
He knew things could not be allowed to continue like this. He had to hurry and close the partition.
The black lion understood his intentions and pounced on the place where the partition was stuck. However, the gray wolf stuck to it like a leech and did everything in its power to make sure the black lion couldn’t close the distance.
The two quantum beasts were both radiating black smoke all over by now.
A quantum beast’s strength was related to their owner’s mental power. This meant the gray wolf should be stronger than the black lion, but the latter’s ferocity made up for the difference. It didn’t lose out in the slightest fighting with the gray wolf, but it couldn’t break the stalemate either.
Vrummm…
A familiar mental power suddenly entered Feng Chen’s sea of consciousness. So familiar in fact that his mental domain offered no resistance and let it enter freely.
His head instantly cleared as the visual disturbances vanished. The stuffy feeling in his chest was gone as well.
Feng Chen’s heart skipped a beat.
It was Yan Bubu!
Yan Bubu had come down here!
A-Dai pointed her gun right at Feng Chen and was about to pull the trigger when a dark shadow registered at the edge of her vision.
The familiar sight caused extreme terror to wash over her, but it all happened too quickly for her to react. Just like that, her world went completely dark.
Half her face was wrapped in gauze. The other half covered by the mask was also dripping fresh blood now.
Binunu chomped down viciously on her wrist too for good measure. Blood spurted out like a fountain at once. Her gun fell with a splash into the water as she let out a pitiful scream.
The zombies and the quantum beasts stirred up the water like no tomorrow. It was like a big cauldron boiling over. Mental power of all sorts hit the surface constantly, creating gigantic waves and splashes. Some zombies were thrown up into the air, their severed limbs flying everywhere.
Three zombies suddenly burst out of the water, rushing towards Feng Chen with tremendous speed.
The narrow cement edge left little room to maneuver, and he couldn’t take care of all three with one dagger. Feng Chen had no choice but to withdraw a portion of his mental power to deal with the zombies. He could only watch helplessly as Chu Shi swam closer to safety with his subordinates unimpeded.
However, Binunu struck at this time. It tore into them with claws and teeth. Two more subordinates soon howled wretchedly and clutched their eyes.
The group could only stop once more, their hands full dealing with both Binunu and the neverending zombies.
“Binunu, get rid of the metal claw stuck between the panels!”
Feng Chen grabbed one zombie by the neck with his left hand and decapitated another with the dagger in his right. His mental power cut several other zombies in the water near him to pieces at the same time.
However, more and more zombies clustered towards him, desperately trying to climb up.
Binunu wanted to get rid of the metal claw, but as soon as it stopped attacking, Chu Shi’s group would begin to swim to safety. It could only keep up the offensive pressure to hold them at bay.
Yan Bubu appeared at the foot of the staircase at this time. He trotted over on the cement edge.
He had been hiding behind the stairs just now to organize Feng Chen’s mental domain until now. Seeing as Binunu was busy, he simply ran out himself.
He saw the metal claw preventing one panel from fully closing and ran towards it before turning back a second to grab a rock the size of a steamed bun. Then he continued running over.
The water being splashed up hit his face, making it hard to see the way ahead. The cement edge also became somewhat slippery when wet. He almost slipped in a couple of times.
A zombie climbed up before him after just a few steps. The dark blue-skinned creature lunged for him with angrily bulging eyes and a gaping mouth.
Although Yan Bubu was prepared mentally, he still cried out in horror when it happened.
Swoosh!
The screen in his head lit up. He saw himself crouching down to dodge the zombie before charging forward.
He already knew how powerful this big screen could be thanks to the bear encounter. Thus, he crouched down without a second thought and prepared to charge.
Chu Shi also caught sight of Yan Bubu at this time. When a howling zombie jumped at him from underwater, he waved his metal arm without even looking and decapitated the creature. Its head fell back into the water with a splash.
Then he aimed a spike of mental power at Yan Bubu’s back.
Feng Chen noticed Yan Bubu as soon as the child rushed out from the staircase. His heart almost leapt out of his mouth in horror. When he saw Chu Shi targeting Yan Bubu, he swiftly conjured a shield to block the attack.
Binunu, who was tearing into the people in the water, also suddenly stopped. It used the zombie heads bobbing in the water as landing spots and quickly bounded onto the cement edge.
However, Yan Bubu squatted down and curled up into a tight ball by the wall then and there. The zombie lunging at him missed and kept going forward at just the right angle to be hit by Chu Shi’s mental power spike. The attack dissipated after piercing its head.
Binunu sharply braked from rushing towards Yan Bubu after seeing he was fine. Sparks actually appeared due to the frictions of its two little feet rubbing against the floor.
However, it immediately whirled around and dove into the water like a cannonball.
“Be careful, Binunu! Run if you can’t win…” Yan Bubu shouted as he continued running.
Binunu had already jumped onto the head of one unlucky subordinate and bit down on his ear. Yan Bubu’s words only infuriated it further. After tearing off the poor sod’s earlobe, it chomped down on another person’s nose.
Yan Bubu’s two little legs frantically carried him forward. He continued to dodge all the sharp claws swiping at him from beneath, his little body awkwardly jumping and ducking at just the right moment. It was terrifying to watch but he always made it out safe somehow.
Feng Chen continued to launch blasts of mental power at the people in the water and kill the zombies around him. He almost had a heart attack every time he glanced at Yan Bubu and almost got bit by a snapping zombie.
“Leave! Leave right this instant!” He shouted at Yan Bubu.
Yan Bubu responded loudly as he ran and dodged the zombies, “Don’t be scared… I have magic again! My magic is back… I can help you, Big Brother… This time, it’s a big magic TV…”
Yan Bubu finally rushed to the site of the blockage. He plopped down on his stomach and smashed the claw with the rock.
Bang! Bang!
Although the sharp steel claws were firmly embedded into the cement and Yan Bubu wasn’t that strong, the repeated impacts still sent little chips of nearby cement down into the water.
Chu Shi saw the situation taking a turn for the worse and immediately disregarded the zombies into the water to launch a barrage of mental power spikes at Yan Bubu. The gray wolf turned away from the black lion and lunged for the child as well.
Chu Shi’s mental power brimming with killing intent crashed down on Yan Bubu from all sides. He intended to finish the child in a single blow.
Feng Chen knew things weren’t good as soon as Chu Shi looked at Yan Bubu. He immediately poured all his mental power into a barrier around Yan Bubu’s body.
Chu Shi was indeed a Grade A sentinel. Feng Chen was already feeling an immense pressure to recall his mental power before the man’s attack had even made contact. He started shivering uncontrollably, wanting nothing more than to turn and run.
He knew this was the difference between sentinel grades. Not only was there a disparity in strength, there was also psychological suppression.
Feng Chen could only struggle to ignore his fear and layer more mental power on top of the barrier.
However, he immediately sensed Yan Bubu organizing his mental domain again, safely and gently sweeping away his fears and rekindling his courage manyfold.
From where he was laying on the floor, Yan Bubu could see zombies swimming over from the corners of his eye. Although he was so scared he was shrieking nonstop, he never stopped smashing the metal claw with the rock.
Bang!
The Tower itself shook as two mental powers collided. The mini shockwaves generated created huge waves radiating in all directions. Some zombies were thrown high into the air before crashing down with massive amounts of water.
Binunu was also thrown out. It waved its thin limbs vehemently in the air. The black lion jumped high and grabbed it.
Meanwhile, Yan Bubu actually wasn’t affected at all inside the barrier. However, he did see a zombie head flying towards him like a soccer ball and quickly moved out of the way.
The head slammed into the wall behind him before falling back into the water.
Feng Chen’s barrier blocked the blow, but not without suffering immense backlash. As the water crashed down, his body wavered as a stream of fresh blood trickled out of the corner of his mouth.
Yan Bubu was drenched from head to toe. His eyes stung too much to keep open.
He raised the rock high and smashed it down again and again, screaming with every blow, “Come on, little red flower! Come on!”
The metal claw was slowly knocked back. It dangled tremulously on the cement edge. As Yan Bubu raised the rock one last time, he finally shouted the spell he was once so proud of, the one that had disappointed him so greatly before.
“Awubengga Adawuxiya!!!”
With a crack, the metal claw followed the cement chunk it was attached to into the water. The partition panel sprang into motion again with a great rumble.
