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Chapter 402 The Endless Staircase, the Monster Appears
hum-

A deep, resonant sound echoed through the hall before quickly dissipating.

Cheng Jiashu, along with the two people he was with, vanished without a trace in that distorted vortex.

It was as if it had been completely swallowed up by the pervasive gray fog, leaving not a trace.

Luo Lie stared at the empty hall, his sharp gaze quickly sweeping across the surroundings.

The corridor, the passageway, the reception desk, and those few tightly closed elevator doors.

The view here is expansive, and apart from the corpses scattered on the ground and the gradually cooling pools of blood, there is not a single living person in sight.

According to Jasanyi, the distance of such a spatial jump should be very short.

Moreover, the opponent had just used similar teleportation abilities several times in succession, which must have caused them to expend a great deal of mental energy.

It's absolutely impossible for them to escape the range of their own telekinetic perception so easily.

Where did they go?

Luo Lie's eyes flickered slightly, and then he made a call through the mental link.

"Jasang, immediately report the target's location."

A dead silence.

"Jasang!"

There was no response after several attempts to call out.

Only chaotic noises and some eerie whispers echoed in my mind.

Luo Lie's brows furrowed tightly.

Since leading the team into the experimental zone tonight, all the unexpected events we've encountered have been bizarre and strange.

At this moment, he understood exactly what was going on in his current unusual situation.

This cold, viscous fog not only distorted the light but also blocked out sound.

It's more like an invisible cage, cutting off all connections between this place and the outside world.

"Boom! Boom!"

A series of heavy, continuous impacts came faintly from the depths of the passage behind Exit 3.

The sound was as if someone was violently ramming their body against the high-pressure metal airtight door, desperately trying to escape this cage.

Luo Lie's eyes narrowed, and he quickly strode towards the entrance of the passage.

Boom!

Just as he took a few steps, a deafening roar came from inside the passage.

The entire floor slab trembled violently.

The heavy, airtight door seemed to have been forcefully pushed open.

Thick gray fog surged out like a tidal wave bursting its banks.

Accompanied by heavy footsteps and the scraping sound of some rough object being dragged on the ground.

Luo Lie stopped in his tracks, his gaze piercing through the thick fog like a sharp arrow.

In the mist, menacing silhouettes appeared and disappeared, rapidly approaching this direction.

Terrifying roars echoed one after another, as if the gates of hell had been opened.

"Roar!"

A monster roared and charged out of the passage first.

It spotted Luo Lie standing in the hall at a glance, his densely packed red compound eyes filled with boundless hatred and a bloodlust.

This monster was over two and a half meters tall, with its muscles bulging out like tumors, and even growing some kind of carapace-like substance.

Apart from the still recognizable head and limbs, it is almost impossible to discern any human features.

Only the faint tattoo number remaining on its neck can barely prove its identity.

This is an experimental subject that escaped from a laboratory petri dish. It seems to have undergone some kind of special mutation, which is why it has become such a terrifying creature.

The monster's enormous body, like a heavy truck bursting from its gates, rammed into Luo Lie, bringing with it a foul stench.

Luo Lie remained expressionless, not even lifting his eyelids.

He simply raised his right hand slowly, spread his five fingers, and gently clenched them in the air towards the rushing experimental subject.

hum-

An invisible force instantly enveloped the monster.

The experimental subject, in its frantic run, seemed to have crashed into an invisible wall.

The massive body came to an abrupt halt less than five meters from Luo Lie, frozen in mid-air.

"Uh……"

The monster let out a painful roar, its limbs struggling wildly, but it could not move an inch.

An irresistible and terrifying force was pressing down on its body from all directions, and every bone in its body was groaning under the unbearable pressure.

Luo Lie suddenly raised his hand upwards.

boom!
Its massive, heavy body was suddenly lifted up as if by an invisible giant hand and slammed hard against the ceiling.

The solid reinforced concrete ceiling was instantly dented, cracks spreading out like a spider web, and rubble and dust fell down.

Before it could fall, Luo Lie flipped his wrist again.

boom!
The monster was slammed hard against the side wall again.

The thick steel wall was dented inward by the impact, producing a deafening roar.

Luo Lie remained expressionless, as if he were toying with a rag doll, manipulating the monster's body to slam it back and forth in the passageway.

Each impact sent the entire building trembling.

Finally, he loosened his grip.

The test subject's bones were completely shattered, and he fell heavily to the ground like a lump of mud, only able to breathe weakly.

Luo Lie stood there quietly, his eyes showing no emotion whatsoever.

It was as if the raging monster before them was nothing more than an insignificant ant.

More monsters emerged from the gray fog.

Among them were mutated experimental subjects with similarly bulky muscles and enormous body size.

There were also deformed monsters wearing tattered uniforms, seemingly mutated from guards.

Their eyes were filled with fear, and they growled threateningly.

But seemingly driven by some deeper desire, they still rushed out of the passage in a frenzy.

Luo Lie raised his eyebrows slightly, then simply raised his hands, preparing to clean up all the unsightly trash.

Ta-ta-ta-ta!

Suddenly, a burst of gunfire erupted like firecrackers.

"Crossfire, suppress the exit!"

"Bullshot! Conserve ammunition!"

With a series of hurried footsteps, his pursuing squad finally arrived.

The team members quickly took up advantageous positions, their automatic rifles spitting out deadly flames.

The dense barrage of bullets instantly tore through the fog, accurately striking the monster horde.

A piercing roar instantly echoed throughout the hall.

Luo Lie stood in the center of the battlefield, letting the spent cartridges clang around him.

The flashes of gunfire illuminated his cold mask and his unmoving figure.

Looking at the chaotic scene before him, he suddenly let out a cold laugh, his eyes flashing with a fierce light.

"None of you will escape."

....................................

The emergency exit was pitch black.

Only the emergency lights cast a pale green glow, illuminating the walls covered in frost.

Thump, thump, thump—

The sound of hurried footsteps echoed in the narrow stairwell.

Four figures, guns in hand, were advancing rapidly downhill in standard tactical formation.

Sweat streamed down their faces, but no one had time to wipe it away.

They just wanted to get out of this awful place as soon as possible.

"Giggle...giggle..."

An eerie laugh came from above the stairs once again.

It seemed to be ringing right behind my ears, haunting me and sending chills down my spine.

"Damn it, hurry up!"

At the rear of the column, Ali, who was holding the rear with his gun, couldn't help but let out a low roar and quickened his pace.

Zhou Liang, who was in charge, didn't say anything, but simply gestured for the other team members to speed up.

The group rushed down countless more floors, when a blinding, ghastly green light appeared before them once more.

We've reached the emergency exit.

Zhou Liang kicked open the fire door, and the four men filed out, quickly taking up advantageous positions, their guns pointed at the darkness on both sides.

But when they saw what was in front of them, everyone was stunned.

They were extremely familiar with this relatively isolated space.

The damaged door, the tilted fire hydrant box on the wall, and...

Two building security guards lay unconscious in the corner.

This is the fire anteroom on the 84th floor, where they previously built a temporary defense line.

Beyond that anteroom door lies Noah Pharmaceuticals' office area.

They're back again.

"Damn it!" Ali retreated behind the door unwillingly and took a closer look at the floor markings.

He then slammed his fist hard against the wall, making a dull thud.

"How many times the hell is this?"

No one answered him.

Zhou Liang frowned as he looked at the two security guards lying on the ground.

They were left here before.

This was both to save effort and to confirm whether he and other team members had gotten lost due to a difference in perception.

Now it seems that it wasn't just a simple matter of getting lost, but rather a vicious cycle.

"It seems we really have encountered a ghost wall..."

Xiao Jie, a young team member who joined the team last year, looked a little pale, and his hand holding the gun was trembling slightly.

The most experienced veteran, Ah Yang, plopped down, let out a long breath, and said:
"Don't waste your energy. Whether you go up or down, the result will be the same."

Zhou Liang squatted down to check on the two security guards, and only stood up after confirming that they were just unconscious.

He frowned, his gaze sweeping over his surroundings.

The gray fog had somehow become even thicker.

As if they were alive, they seeped in through the cracks in the door, gathering into a thin layer of mist on the floor.

A biting chill permeated the air, and a layer of white frost had already formed on the walls.

The temperature here is dropping rapidly; it's turning into an icebox.

The only good thing is that the faint sounds of crying and laughing have finally disappeared.

Zhou Liang raised his hand and pressed the earpiece, but all he could hear was a noisy static.

Occasionally, a few indistinct whispers would be mixed in with the noise.

It sounded like a dream, and you couldn't understand what they were saying at all, but it sent chills down your spine.

"Rest where you are."

Zhou Liang took a deep breath and gave the instruction in a slightly hoarse voice:

"If we keep running like this, we'll just run out of energy."

The four of them then sat down on the steps at the top of the stairs.

Silence and darkness enveloped their figures.

"Could it be some kind of high-tech psychedelic device?"

Xiao Jie couldn't help but speak up, trying to explain everything before him with science.

"It can cover the entire building and even create the illusion of forced physical teleportation?"

Ayang glanced at him and smirked, "Do you think the Noah Organization is aliens?"

"Then what do we do?"

Ali scratched his hair in frustration:

"We can't just stay trapped here forever. How about we go through the corridor and try the A-zone passage on the other side?"

The B-zone safety passage where they are now is separated from the A-zone safety passage on the other side of the building by an entire open office floor.

"Forget it."

Zhou Liang shook his head: "You saw what was happening over there."

They had tried this method just minutes ago.

But when they pushed open the door to the front room leading to the office area, the sight they saw still chills them to this day.

The fog inside had become noticeably thicker, almost completely obscuring the view.

In the corridor shrouded in gray fog, many distorted figures appeared and disappeared, accompanied by inhuman roars and chewing sounds.

The four special search team members were forced back by the terrifying aura as soon as they opened the door a crack.

If you choose to cross the floors, who knows what dangers you might encounter along the way.

No one wants to set foot in that area again unless absolutely necessary.

"Then... break the window and climb down?"

Xiao Jie then made another suggestion.

Ali looked at him like he was an idiot:
"Dude, this is over 80 floors, and it's raining heavily at night. Do you think you're Spider-Man? If you were to fall to your death, you could probably do it in one go."

"Stop arguing."

Zhou Liang interrupted their argument and made a decision in a deep voice:

"At the very least, we should try to contact Captain Gao first."

As he spoke, he looked up at the narrow ventilation window above the stairwell.

"Break the window, write the situation on your clothes in blood, and throw it downstairs. Captain Gao will definitely be able to observe the anomaly and get information."

"At worst, if a passerby finds it and reports it to the police, they will quickly find out what's going on here."

This seemingly primitive method received unanimous approval from everyone.

Soon, a white T-shirt with blood-written words was tightly bound to a shard of glass used as a counterweight.

Ali, having taken off his clothes, walked to the window, raised his arm, and precisely threw it through the hole into the dark, rainy night outside.

After successfully sending out the distress signal, everyone breathed a sigh of relief, and their tense minds and bodies relaxed a little.

However, the relaxed atmosphere lasted only a few seconds.

pat!

Something suddenly fell from the top of the stairs above them.

It landed right on the steps in front of them, splashing up a cloud of shards that stung their skin.

Everyone was startled, and when they saw what had fallen, their faces showed astonishment.

It was that blood-stained shirt with the glass strapped to it!
It has also returned to the 84th floor...

"Cough...cough..."

Just then, a cough broke the silence.

The two security guards who had been unconscious suddenly woke up.

"Are you guys okay?"

Suppressing his inner turmoil, Zhou Liangqiang immediately stepped forward and explained the current situation.

They then inquired about their past experiences, hoping to glean some clues.

The two security guards looked bewildered, their eyes filled with terror as they listened to Zhou Liang's words.

One of them shook his head, his voice weak:

"I...we don't know. I only remember seeing a gray mist spreading over when we went to patrol the building. We thought there was a gas leak somewhere...and then we don't know anything else."

Upon hearing this, Zhou Liang and the other team members all remained silent.

The stairwell fell silent again.

"actually……"

Ayang, who was sitting on the ground, suddenly spoke up: "I've experienced something similar before."

Everyone's eyes were on him.

Ayang pondered for a moment, his gaze lingering intently on the darkness shrouded in thick fog ahead:
"That was during a mission to Southeast Asia. We were chasing a cult priest, but he trapped us in a small town."

“The town was shrouded in thick fog, and there were all sorts of eerie figures. We walked for three whole days, but no matter which way we went, we couldn’t get out of the town. We always ended up back where we started.”

Ah Yang's voice was low and deep, as if he were recalling something he didn't want to remember.

"We later discovered that we weren't trapped in the town at all, but that he had used some kind of magic to pull us into an 'inner world'."

"The Other World?"

Xiao Jie exclaimed, "What is that?"

"An alternate dimension that is detached from reality, yet still dependent on it."

Ah Yang explained in a deep voice:
"It is usually an independent space created by the spiritual power of a powerful being or by some special energy field that distorts reality."

"Its laws are similar to, yet different from, those of the real world; time, space, and even the laws of physics can be distorted."

As he spoke, Ah Yang pointed to the top of his head:

"Like that piece of clothing that was clearly thrown outside the building, but then reappeared inside."

"Then how can we get out?"

Ali immediately asked the important question.

"To go out into the world, we must first understand how this world was formed, find its core, or..."

Ah Yang stopped abruptly halfway through his sentence.

He suddenly raised his head and stared intently at the area above the stairs shrouded in thick fog and darkness.

His pupils contracted, as if he had seen something extremely terrifying.

Everyone's hearts tightened, and they followed his gaze.

In the darkness, something seemed to be moving.

"Cuckoo..."

That eerie laughter rang out again.

This time, however, it was truly within reach.

A white silhouette slowly emerged from the gray fog.

It was a woman's face, deathly pale, devoid of any color.

She was facing the crowd, giving them a strange smile, as if she were greeting them.

The face then slowly moved downwards.

It has no neck below.

Instead, it was a long, bloody, and constantly writhing body.

(End of this chapter)