The flashing red light of the emergency lamp stretched the silhouettes of the two confronting figures, making them appear long and short erratically.
Yuan Mei’s question caused a subtle ripple on the woman’s stern face; her hand gripping the fire axe tightened, but she quickly reverted to her usual cold demeanor, keeping everyone at a distance.
“Let’s be frank, how about we cooperate?” the woman suggested after a moment of thought.
Yuan Mei detected the wariness in the woman’s tone and shrugged, saying, “Cooperation? You’ll have to show some sincerity, won’t you?”
His tone held a hint of probing; the woman before him possessed extraordinary combat abilities, and cooperating with her would indeed provide a safeguard.
“Shen Qingling.” The woman’s voice softened slightly as she lowered some of her guard and extended her hand.
Yuan Mei frowned slightly but ultimately chose to cooperate: “Yuan Mei.”
The two briefly shook hands, separating immediately. Shen Qingling subtly glanced at the long knife clutched in Yuan Mei’s right hand without speaking.
Yuan Mei had seemingly lowered his guard to shake her hand, but in reality, his right arm had quietly tensed, his long knife ready to strike at any moment.
However, she chose to see through it without mentioning it, clearly understanding the current situation.
Facing these highly regenerative Skeletal Plantoids alone, her stamina would eventually be depleted. The mysterious man before her possessed unfathomable strength, and joining forces with him was undoubtedly the best option at present.
A temporary alliance was thus formed between the two, though both knew deep down that this trust was as fragile as a cicada’s wing, liable to shatter at any moment due to conflicting interests.
The stairwell was a mess, its walls covered in dark green slime and clinging vines. Several disfigured corpses, gnawed beyond recognition, lay in the corners, new fungi already beginning to sprout from their bodies.
Yuan Mei walked ahead, his tactical long knife in hand, each step taken with extreme caution. Shen Qingling followed half a step behind him, fire axe in hand, vigilantly observing the rear and the ceiling.
As they stepped onto the second-floor landing, a fishy wind assaulted them.
“Roar!”
Two Skeletal Plantoids roared and charged out from the shadows of the corridor. Their speed was a few points faster than those encountered before, and one of them even had an arm mutated into two sharp bone spikes.
Yuan Mei’s eyes narrowed; instead of retreating, he advanced, instantly activating his power assist. He shot forward like an arrow from a bowstring, meeting the charge.
He chose not to engage in a head-on clash. Instead, at the moment of impending contact, he executed a nimble side-slide, his body almost scraping the ground to dodge the bone spike’s thrust, and his long knife swept upwards in a fluid motion.
“Swish!”
The blade flashed, and the Skeletal Plantoid’s legs were severed instantly.
Almost simultaneously, Shen Qingling moved. She seemed to have anticipated Yuan Mei’s actions, darting out from behind him. The heavy fire axe in her hand, whistling through the air, without any flourish, viciously cleaved towards the head of the other Skeletal Plantoid.
The axe blade sank deep into the skull, and green fluid burst forth.
The two exchanged a glance, tacitly working in tandem, back-to-back, to deal with the Skeletal Plantoids attacking from both sides.
Shen Qingling kicked off the wall, using the momentum to spin around. Her fire axe flew from her hand, arcing a deadly path through the air, accurately striking a Skeletal Plantoid’s neck.
The creature’s head was sent flying by the immense force, and its headless body crashed heavily to the ground.
Yuan Mei glanced at the fire axe still humming in the wall, then at the unflustered Shen Qingling, and his estimation of her rose a few more points.
This woman was not only skilled but also possessed top-tier combat awareness.
If someone were to say she was a prisoner, he would not believe it for a hundred reasons.
Shen Qingling walked forward, pulled out her axe, shook off the slime, and said coldly, “Let’s go.”
The higher they ascended, the more numerous and formidable the Skeletal Plantoids became.
The walls and ceiling were almost entirely covered by twisted plant roots, the entire building seemingly transforming into a giant, living nest. The foul stench in the air grew thicker, even starting to cause dizziness.
When the two, covered in green fluid, finally fought their way to the stairwell leading from the fourth to the fifth floor, they stopped.
The sight before them made even the somewhat accustomed pair gasp.
The entire stairwell was completely sealed by a gigantic cobweb woven from countless vines and sinews.
At the very center of the cobweb, a massive, heart-like fleshy tumor pulsated rhythmically. Each beat caused the entire web to tremble, emitting dull thudding sounds.
Dozens of Skeletal Plantoids, like loyal guards, were perched around the cobweb, their hollow eye sockets all staring at the stairwell, seemingly protecting something important.
“Skeletal Core,” Yuan Mei recalled in a deep voice, looking at the fleshy tumor before him.
The fifth floor only contained Greta’s Commander’s room.
The Skeletal Plantoids’ abnormal gathering here, even going so far as to construct a defensive line to protect it, brought the answer closer to his speculation.
The Prison Commander, Greta, whom he had shot dead, had probably mutated into the “mother” of this disaster.
“How do we get past?” Shen Qingling’s voice was still cold, but a hint of gravity had entered her tone.
Forcing their way through would be tantamount to suicide.
Yuan Mei narrowed his eyes, his brain working rapidly. He looked at the pulsating heart, then at the tangled vines.
“To catch a bandit, first catch his king,” he said slowly. “Destroy that fleshy tumor, and these monsters will collapse on their own.”
“I’ll distract them; you find an opportunity to act.” Shen Qingling didn’t hesitate, immediately suggesting.
Yuan Mei, however, shook his head. He raised his hand, the barrel of his P3 pistol aimed at the fleshy tumor heart.
“No need for such trouble.”
Shen Qingling was startled, frowning, “With the pistol’s power, it probably won’t penetrate the vines’ defense.”
“Who said I was going to shoot through it? If I remember correctly…” Yuan Mei clicked his tongue and pulled the trigger.
“Bang!”
The bullet did not fly towards the fleshy tumor but accurately struck a section of fire pipe on the ceiling above the tumor.
The pipe burst open, and murky water instantly gushed out, drenching the fleshy tumor heart.
“Hiss—”
The moment it made contact with the water, the fleshy tumor instantly began to squirm and grow. The originally tough vines also twisted wildly, creating a momentary gap in their defense.
Now!
Yuan Mei unhesitatingly emptied the remaining bullets from his magazine. Three bullets pierced through the gaps in the vines, accurately hitting the rapidly growing fleshy tumor heart.
In an instant, the fleshy tumor exploded, splattering dark green goo everywhere.
The Skeletal Plantoids gathered around let out a series of mournful wails. Along with the giant web sealing the stairs, they lost their vitality, rapidly withering and breaking apart.
“Let’s go.”
The two bypassed the corpses that had fallen back to the ground and arrived at the fifth-floor corridor.
Compared to the chaos downstairs, although the walls here were also covered in vines, they exhibited a withered, desolate gray color, as if all their vitality had been drained.
At the end of the corridor was Greta’s room.
The door was ajar, and a sweet, pungent smell, a hundred times stronger than downstairs, wafted out from the crack.
“Killing that fleshy tumor just now didn’t end it?” Shen Qingling took a deep breath, her guard up.
“Logically speaking, it should have ended.” Yuan Mei frowned deeply. This situation was not quite what he had anticipated.
Based on his experience, for Skeletal Plantoids in an area, as long as the Skeletal Core was found, their threat would dissipate on its own.
“We can only go forward and see.”
Following the vines spreading across the floor, the two arrived one after the other at the door of Greta’s room.
Shen Qingling kicked open the locked door, but the sight before her made her pupils contract.
