Chapter 101
Chapter 101 The Car Door is Welded Shut
The two of them finally made it down to the fifteenth floor just before those robots caught up to them.
It was also because they were close to the fifteenth floor; otherwise, they wouldn’t have been able to make it so quickly. But even so, when they arrived at the fifteenth floor, the stairway from the fourteenth floor was already packed with robots.
However, it seemed like there was a barrier at the entrance to the stairway between the fourteenth and fifteenth floors; once the robots reached this point, they halted and didn’t advance a single step further, not even drawing their guns.
Ling Mo even went back to the edge of death to test things out, and even though he was just a few meters away from the robots, they showed no signs of wanting to attack.
“Is this really a safe zone?” Ling Mo furrowed his brows, a little surprised.
The setup was too obvious.
Xia Xinyan stood at the stairway entrance, glancing around the several corridors.
Her first impression was that it was very clean and spacious, completely different in style from the floor they had previously wandered through. The signs on the walls also indicated the purpose of this floor—[Testing Area No. 1], [Testing Area No. 2], and so forth.
It seemed that this floor was designated for testing experimental items.
Ling Mo ignored the robots remaining on the fourteenth floor, returned to Xia Xinyan’s side, and picked up his phone: “Let me contact the Fatty and the others.”
The Fatty seemed to have been online waiting for them, and upon seeing them log on, he immediately shouted, “Old Ling! Hurry to Testing Area No. 3! Holy crap, I’ve made a huge discovery! It’s all treasure!”
Ling Mo paused and asked, “Did Chengguang and the others check in yet?”
“No, maybe they got blocked,” the Fatty didn’t seem to care much. “But hey, isn’t that dude’s ability teleportation? Escaping should be easy for him, but that girl probably won’t get away.”
Ling Mo thought for a moment and decided not to worry: “Alright, we’ll come find you.”
After saying that, he put away his phone and told Xia Xinyan, “Let’s meet up with Zhang Daril and the others first and see what treasures they’ve found.”
Xia Xinyan nodded: “Mm.”
They probably would find similar items to those they found in the experimental item warehouse earlier; even if they discovered more, they wouldn’t be able to take much.
The energy recovery of the space watch wasn’t that fast.
However, Xia Xinyan didn’t mind much; she preferred to leave while the going was good. One shouldn’t be too greedy.
Testing Area No. 3 wasn’t far from where they were; they just had to turn down two corridors and walk to the end. Along the way, they found a floor plan of the underground research base, which was a nice surprise. Ling Mo took a photo with his phone for future reference, also really getting a grasp of the size of this research base.
According to the map, Testing Area No. 3 was about the size of a soccer field, but compared to the entire underground base, it was merely a palm print on half a chalkboard. Aside from a few large testing areas, the routes of this underground base really resembled a maze.
The only piece of good news was that the maze had more than one exit, at least giving them more escape options.
However, just as the two of them were about to reach Testing Area No. 3, they unexpectedly saw the Fatty and Bai Yu running towards them in a panic.
As the four of them came together, the Fatty was the first to panic and shouted, “I finally know why those robots didn’t come down—because this place is a BOSS room!! Run!!!”
No sooner had he spoken than a massive explosion erupted behind them, shaking the ground and causing both the Fatty and Bai Yu to stumble.
Given the scale of the explosion, the two of them clearly wouldn’t escape unscathed, but they were lucky that their shield bracelets hadn’t been used up until now, and the system classified this explosion as remote weapon damage. Thus, the shield absorbed the hit, and the only effect on them was a slight stagger.
But the commotion was indeed terrifying.
So Ling Mo and Xia Xinyan immediately turned to run.
Though they weren’t sure what terrifying presence the Fatty and the others had encountered, such an exaggerated explosion was definitely something they didn’t want to bear multiple times.
Compared to this level of attack, the robots on the fourteenth floor felt a little more familiar.
Unfortunately, ideals were beautiful, but reality gave them a heavy blow. Before they could run very far, a thick isolation door suddenly descended at the corridor they had come through, completely cutting off their retreat.
Ling Mo’s heart sank, and he immediately pointed to a corner ahead: “Let’s go this way!”
However, as they turned the corner, another isolation door dropped down at the end of the corridor. It did leave them with a fork, but the direction felt a bit off.
The Fatty was sweating cold bullets: “Damn it, why do I feel like this game is telling us not to think about leaving now that we’ve come?”
Ling Mo gritted his teeth: “Isn’t that the case; they’ve welded the car door shut!—By the way, what exactly did you offend?”
“Steel ○ Man! It’s Steel ○ Man!” The Fatty was already panting, “Damn it, I just found that iron battle armor, but I didn’t expect someone was inside; suddenly, it sat up and punched me, and it completely disoriented me.”
Ling Mo was dumbfounded: “Then why did you run? That’s our mission goal!”
“Am I supposed to wait to get blown up? That guy’s whole chest is filled with tracking missiles; once the lid pops open, my claustrophobia kicks in.” The Fatty looked extremely distressed, “I can’t understand who in the hell designed such battle armor with a bunch of expendable weapons; is it a fear of insufficient firepower? Once the missiles are used up, I bet he’ll be headbutting people!”
Ling Mo: “…”
He suddenly realized that what the Fatty said made a lot of sense.
The explosions behind them continued; if that guy had only expendable weapons, then as long as they waited for him to run out of ammo, wouldn’t they have a chance?
Xia Xinyan didn’t hold out much hope.
In this type of dungeon, following the usual game tropes, the final phase would definitely make them move around a bit. It seemed that regardless of the previous robots or the current explosions, they were playing the role of a monitoring team, forcing them to the battlefield, which meant they had to confront that final BOSS.
Perhaps from the moment they reached the fifteenth floor, they had no more way to retreat.
And indeed, as she had thought.
All the escape routes from the corridor were blocked off by isolation doors, only leaving them one path forward, like getting rats to run through a tunnel, being pushed forward by explosions. Even if they realized this, there was no way to resist.
Thus, after bursting through the last corridor, they unwittingly returned to Testing Area No. 3.
Then, the isolation door suddenly descended at the entrance of the corridor behind them, completely sealing off all their retreats.
The Fatty: “… Damn.”
