Chapter 398: Brain-rotting Insect
“I hope so.” Meng Chao lowered the Golden Scythe mandible upside down and bent his back to move through the smoke and poisonous gas.
There were not many monsters left on the floor. A small number had made it out of the darkness, but the duo easily got rid of them.
Soon, they reached the stairs leading upstairs.
The staircase was not wide, but it was filled with human corpses and monster carca.s.ses.
A moment ago, a fierce and devastating fight had happened there.
Most of the dead bodies from the humans and monsters had either been punctured full of holes or were torn to shreds.
There were also some people who held the monsters while they stabbed deep into their sides at the same time as the monsters’ mouthpieces went through their hearts. They formed a tragic statue of silent death.
The sea of dead bodies stretched upwards.
Even if Meng Chao and Lu Siya were ruthless people who had gone through hundreds of battles, they found the scene terrifying.
A burning emotion started tumbling in their chests.
Meng Chao came to one of the dead who was dressed as a waiter.
With the dim light from the emergency light, Meng Chao could see his wide but l.u.s.terless eyes. It was clear that he was someone who was around the same age as he was.
Even though there was a see-through hole the size of a bowl on his chest and most of his organs were gone, his face was clean, and his courage was evident.
Meng Chao sighed gently, and knelt on one knee to shut the eyes of his peer.
Suddenly, alarm bells rang in his mind. The touch was off! He quickly pulled his hand back.
Suddenly, a few thin, red lines that looked like parasitic worms came out of the corner of the peer’s eyes, nostrils, and mouth. They squirmed toward Meng Chao’s palm.
“That’s...” Meng Chao felt his skin crawl. Then, cold sweat broke out on his skin. “Blood Flower!”
And his peer was not the only one affected.
Most of the ones who died and the monsters they killed had a lot of thin and long red lines coming out of them. They swayed, squirmed, and grew like aquatic plants.
Slurp... Slurp...
A bone-chilling sound came from all directions. Gradually, they gathered together to form a horrifying stream.
A number of the torn corpses were put together by the thin red lines binding them together. They created deformed and ugly zombies, but they were undead creatures that were even more monstrous than zombies.
A large number of monster carca.s.ses that did not belong together were bound, stuck, and gathered together by the red strings. They turned into monsters with three or more heads, eight mandibles, and dozens of eyes.
For the time being, the undead were still twitching around. It was as if they were evil spirits who had crawled out of the depths of h.e.l.l.
But before long, they would wake up and turn the entire building into a nightmare, a living h.e.l.l, and an apocalyptic world.
And Meng Chao as well as Lu Siya had used up all of their grenades, napalm bombs, and emptied their magazines.
Both of them looked at each other and rushed up the stairs leading to a higher floor.
Lu Siya knelt on one knee and pressed her hands on the stairs. She activated her spirit energy magnetic field and changed the molecular structure of the stairs.
She made the reinforced concrete a little more brittle. Then, with a growl, Meng Chao stomped on it.
Boom!
The entire flight of stairs fell down together with the zombies and the undead creatures.
The height between the floors in n.o.ble Descent Hotel was more than five meters.
Since the administrative corridor was below them, the height was even higher. Once the stairs collapsed, the creatures fell seven or eight meters. This would stop them from coming up for a short time.
But the new-type zombies had really terrifying mobility. The insect-type undead were also natural climbers.
The “short time” might be shorter than both of them hoped.
“The abnormal beasts do indeed have topnotch biochemical skills. They’ve fused the characteristics of Blood Flowers and the zombie virus together to create a virus that has an even shorter activation time but creates stronger zombies and undead!
“Before long, most of the monsters we killed just now will resurrect. Only the insects that we completely blasted or burnt to a crisp would not come back! We have to find our targets before then!”
Lu Siya was the first to calm down.
She sucked in a deep breath, and the tips of her ears and her nostrils flared. Her eyes burned with a lively spark, and five hoops that spun at high speed surrounded her pupils.
Clearly, she had decided to use all of her talent as a Spirit Sensor.
“Turn right at the end of this corridor. We’ll move through a buffet restaurant, then pa.s.s the corridor on the left! There’s gunshots over there!” she said with certainty.
They raced against the clock and ran at full speed.
On their way there, they did not run into any living monsters, but they did see more dead bodies.
All of them had thin and long red threads coming out of them. Clearly, they were infested with Blood Flowers and were turning into undead creatures.
The two ran with their feet never touching the ground. Before the countless red threads could surge at them, they charged past them.
Once they got out of the buffet restaurant, the gunshots ahead of them became clearer. They could also see dazzling sparks from guns in the dark.
But Meng Chao and Lu Siya could not see any monsters within their field of vision.
They did not know what the humans in the darkness ahead of them were firing at.
A thought popped up in Meng Chao’s mind, and he whispered it to Lu Siya. She frowned a little, then placed her hands on the wall again.
Whoosh!
She activated her mine explorer skills. The walls, ceiling, and wall around her grew small spikes.
Since she had to create many spikes within a short time, they could not be too long, thick, or sharp. At most, they were the length of a finger, and it was impossible for her to deal any fatal damage to monsters with them.
But Meng Chao kept his gaze fixed on the walls and ceiling in the area. He noticed that the spikes on the ceiling to his left seemed to have been obstructed by something and snapped in an instant.
Meng Chao did not hesitate. At lightning speed, he tossed five of the venomous spikes he extracted from scorpion tails.
The venomous spikes formed a plum blossom in the air and gave off a shriek as they sliced through the air. The sound was even more terrifying than when a bullet cut through the air.
Three of them missed, and with a thud, they sank deep into the ceiling.
The other two stabbed into some creature that seemed made of air. It levitated in a bizarre fashion, and a neon green liquid seeped out from where it was. .h.i.t.
“That’s it!”
Killing intention shone in Meng Chao’s eyes. He took a swift step forward and swung the Golden Scythe’s mandible upward, creating a nearly perfect arc. It drew a white glare in the darkness and charged to the location of the two venomous spikes that had hit their target.
There was a rip. Then, a large amount of neon green liquid exploded in the air.
Meng Chao and Lu Siya both heard a wail in their heads that sounded like a baby’s cry.
A creature that looked like the fusion of a slug, octopus, and brain showed up in the air. It was something... that could not be described with words.
Meng Chao and Lu Siya had seen countless monsters that were deformed and ugly to the point they would have nightmares about them for three days and nights.
But they had to admit that the thing in front of them was so ugly that even monsters would throw up their last night’s dinner after seeing it.
Besides, it seemed like it was born with a strange power that could stimulate the disgust and fear deep in the human genes. Even Meng Chao’s mental strength index started fluctuating madly.
“It’s the Brain-rotting Insect!” Meng Chao gasped for air. “Not only does it have the power of invisibility, it can create illusions and control minds. It’s ability to create illusions is three times stronger than that of the Illusion Wolves, the White Spirit’s original species!”
Their minds raced, and they immediately understood the monster’s scheme.
It hid in the dark corner and invaded human brains, creating illusions in their retinas and causing them to think that there were a large number of monsters attacking them.
The people affected did not understand what was going on, so they could only fight back with everything they had and try to seal off the tunnel.
In the end, not only did they waste a large amount of ammunition, they were also held back and wasted precious time.
Before long, the dead monsters would turn into the undead and come back. By then, the humans here might no longer have a single bullet left to fight back.
Fortunately, while Brain-rotting Insects had powerful mind control abilities, they were like Demonic Air Ripping Eyes and their melee power was incredibly weak. They did not have any sh.e.l.l and could only protect themselves with their invisibility.
Once its disguise was seen through by Meng Chao, it could only die.
The Brain-rotting Insect suffered a solid blow, and it was practically split in half. It fell off the ceiling with a screech and swung its thick and short tentacles to run while it released a piercing mental attack at Meng Chao.
Unfortunately, its target was a soul that had been baptized by the apocalypse.
Meng Chao snorted coldly and strode forward. He raised the Golden Scythe mandibles in both hands in a reverse grip and pinned the Brain-rotting Insect’s body to the floor.
At the same time, his spirit energy surged into his right leg like a tidal wave. His muscles swelled up once they received additional power from his spirit energy, and his right leg practically grew twice as large. Red light that looked like flames shone through his torn pants in profound and complicated runic symbols.
Meng Chao was executing the Demon Subduing Pole that Princ.i.p.al Sun had taught him by using the main meridians and eighteen branch meridians in his right leg.
With a roar, he viciously stomped down with his right leg, and it was as if there was a demon subduing pole that crushed the Brain-rotting Insect’s body with a force of ten thousand tons. In an instant, the monster was smashed to bits. Its juices spilled out everywhere, and it was reduced to a pulp.
Once it died, the illusions the humans saw disappeared.
Meng Chao’s deafening roar had also made the people shudder, and the frenzied gunshots came to a stop.
The people in the dark looked at each other without understanding what had happened. The corridor in front of them had clearly been filled with fierce monsters, so why was it that in the blink of an eye, all the monsters disappeared, and all that was left... was a person who looked like a warrior from heaven?
“You were under a mental attack. All you saw just now were illusions!” Meng Chao shouted and tossed the Brain-rotting Insect’s carca.s.s away before he strode toward them.
It was only then that he noticed that there was a small firearms garage at the end of the corridor.
It was a facility that many commercial buildings, hotels, and office buildings had. They were created so that when monsters rushed into a building, the humans would be able to arm themselves and fight floor to floor right away.
Usually, small firearms garages had really st.u.r.dy walls. They also had steel plates in the walls, which meant that they could serve as emergency shelters.
The survivors had already left a path of blood behind them. If they rushed into the firearms garage, all they needed to do was shut the door made of alloy and they would be safe for a very long time.
But once they were caught by the Brain-rotting Insect, they could not extract themselves from the illusion.
If Meng Chao and Lu Siya had not arrived on time, before long, they would have been overrun by zombies and undead creatures.
Once they realized this, the group was instantly filled with grat.i.tude toward Meng Chao, just like Xiao Fanghua and the others earlier.