Chapter 66: Wreaking Havoc

In the corner, Liu San curled into a tight ball, trembling violently. Watching Mu Chen cut a bloody swath through the enemies, he felt as though his breathing had almost stopped.

The monsters were utterly devoid of fear; the moment one batch fell, more swarmed out from the stairwell. Their deafening roars echoed endlessly, and the killing simply never stopped!

"We can't keep going like this!" Mu Chen kicked away the headless corpse of a monster near his foot. The heavy body knocked over several more monsters behind it, and taking advantage of this fleeting gap, he swept his gaze across the battlefield.

Seven or eight monster carcasses were already piled by the doorway, and the foul, reeking black blood had nearly soaked the entire floor.

His gaze shifted and locked onto Xiao Mu, who was slumped like a pile of mud, a plan instantly taking shape in his mind.

"Xiao Mu!" Mu Chen's voice was intensely cold, completely devoid of inflection.

Startled by the voice, Xiao Mu shuddered and crawled on his hands and knees to Mu Chen's feet, crying out, "Master Mu! Master Mu! Please give your orders! As long as I can survive, I'll do anything! Anything at all!"

"Want to live?" Mu Chen looked down at him, his tone leaving no room for negotiation. "Then do a task for me."

"Speak! Just give your orders!" Xiao Mu babbled in response, his voice filled with the desperate yearning of someone snatching life from the jaws of death.

"Didn't you mention earlier that there's a fellow called 'Scarface Qiang' downstairs?" Mu Chen pointed downward with the tip of his blade, which was stained with black blood. "Go down right now and tell him that Mu Chen from Room 3001 on the 27th floor is very interested in the 'Immortal Water' he has, and wants to talk to him about a cooperation to get a slice of the pie. Tell him to bring enough 'sincerity' when he comes up. If his brain isn't working right and he doesn't know what's good for him..."

The blade's edge tapped lightly twice against Xiao Mu's ceaselessly shivering cheek, Mu Chen's voice dropping lower, growing even frostier, "Then I'll go down and 'invite' him up myself."

Xiao Mu's face drained entirely of color in an instant, his lips quivering. "M... Master Mu... Isn't... isn't this sending me to my death?! Scarface Qiang and his gang of beasts kill without blinking an eye! And downstairs... downstairs is still crawling with monsters! Going down there means certain death for me!"

"Sending you to your death?" Mu Chen the corners of his mouth twitched, the arc of his smile enough to chill one to the bone. "You only have two paths now. First, be torn to shreds by the monsters outside right this second. Second, go down and deliver the message to Scarface Qiang. If your luck holds, you might live. Weigh the options and choose for yourself."

Xiao Mu looked from the monsters still frantically battering the doorway to Mu Chen's expressionless face, his upper and lower teeth clattering uncontrollably.

He had no doubt that if he uttered a single word of refusal, he would be thrown out to feed the monsters the very next second.

"I... I choose the second path! I choose the second path! Master Mu, I'll go down! I'll go down right now!" Tears and snot streaming down his face, Xiao Mu practically wailed.

"Consider yourself smart." Mu Chen withdrew his blade. "Tell Scarface Qiang my exact words, word for word. Also, tell him my patience is limited, and I'll only give him half an hour. Half an hour from now, if I don't see him, or if I don't see enough 'sincerity' from him, he can bear the consequences himself."

Before Mu Chen's words had even faded, he struck without warning, delivering a kick straight to Xiao Mu's backside!

"Ah!" Not expecting Mu Chen to take action so abruptly, Xiao Mu let out a miserable scream as his body flew forward uncontrollably, crashing straight into the pack of roaring monsters at the entrance.

The monsters' assault paused momentarily, disrupted by this sudden "meat projectile."

"If you don't want to die, get the hell down there!" Mu Chen's voice was bone-chillingly cold, completely devoid of emotion.

The instinct for survival instantly shattered all of Xiao Mu's fear. Disregarding his injuries and the filth on his body, he scrambled with hands and feet, squeezing through the gaps between the monsters and charging like a madman toward the stairs, tumbling and crawling all the way.

The monsters were clearly stunned for a moment as well, before emitting even more frenzied roars. A portion of them turned to pursue Xiao Mu's retreating figure, while the rest continued their frantic assault on Room 3001.

"Brother Mu Chen, you're doing this to..." Chen Jiahe watched the pathetic figure of Xiao Mu vanishing into the stairwell, hesitating slightly.

"Instead of letting him die here and get in our way, it's better to squeeze out some residual value from him." Mu Chen wiped away a splatter of foul black blood from his face. "If that Scarface Qiang has any brains at all, he'll know what to do. If he's an idiot, it just saves us the trouble of going down."

Just as he finished speaking, a monster violently squeezed through the damaged part of the doorway, opening its blood-dripping maw to lunge at Mu Chen's shoulder.

"Watch out!" Xie Youyou screamed involuntarily.

Without turning his head, Mu Chen counterattacked with a backhand strike, his mountain-chopping saber thrusting precisely from bottom to top into the monster's gaping mouth, piercing straight through the back of its skull!

"Bang!" Mu Chen slammed the door shut and wedged a sofa firmly against it.

Outside the door, the sounds of the monsters battering and roaring never ceased for a single moment, as if they were determined to tear this thin wooden door to shreds.

"Doctor Li, can you analyze anything from the black liquid on Wang Ermazi's corpse, or the blood from these monsters?" Mu Chen turned around to look at Doctor Li.

Doctor Li's voice carried a heavy weight. "I need time, and more sophisticated equipment. But my preliminary judgment is that this mutation is irreversible and highly contagious. The radiation levels inside their bodies are also far higher than Wang Ermazi's."

"In other words, this 'Immortal Water' has a much more violent and uncontrollable catalytic effect than the ointment you concocted earlier?"

"You could put it that way." Doctor Li said with a heavy tone, "Pan Guang and this Scarface Qiang—they have no idea what kind of horrifying monster they've unleashed!"

Chen Si leaned against the wall, her voice weak. "Then... what do we do now? Are we waiting for that Scarface Qiang to come up?"

Mu Chen shook his head. "No, we'll prepare for both outcomes." His gaze drifted toward the window, where night had completely blanketed the outside.

"Boom—!"

The apartment building suddenly suffered another violent tremor, one that lasted longer and was wider in magnitude than any before it! Cracks spread across the ceiling with a hideous, snapping sound, and large chunks of concrete and wall plaster peeled away, clattering down onto the floor.

"What's happening?!" Xie Youyou clung desperately to the wall, barely managing to keep her balance.

Mu Chen instantly activated [Wall Penetration Vision], his pupils violently contracting!

"Not good! The building's main load-bearing structure... is undergoing massive crystallization!"

Within his field of vision, those glowing substances that had previously only clung to the steel reinforcement bars were now crazily eroding the concrete at a visible speed, pumped up like they were on steroids. A massive amount of black crystals "grew" outward from inside the load-bearing pillars and walls like popping beans, and the entire structure of the building groaned under the unbearable strain, as if it could fall apart at any second!

"Crack—Crash!"

The wall connecting the living room and the balcony suddenly split open down the middle with a massive breach, and a spray of pulverized stone and glass mixed together exploded inward!

A freezing night wind mixed with a sickeningly rich stench poured wildly back into the room.

Even more scalp-tingling was the sight through the fracture: in several windows of the building opposite, eerie black shadows flickered, and the signature, heart-palpitating roars drifted faintly across the distance!

"Th... this building is collapsing!" Liu San let out a desperate shriek, his voice completely warped.

Mu Chen's heart sank to the very bottom. Not only did they have to face the endless stream of monsters inside the building, but they also had to confront this "cage" that could disintegrate at any moment and bury them alive!