Chapter 108: Xenomorph Tide Surge (Part 2)
The few people standing at the door were overjoyed. When the door rose to head height, Ke Liang first turned on his flashlight and crawled inside, then poked his head out. "There's a path in here."
Xu Huo and the others followed him in. Behind the door was a path as wide as the door itself, sealed off on both sides by iron fences. In the distance, a sky-colored exit was faintly visible, but it was still far away.
Xu Huo propped up his flashlight and looked behind the door, only then noticing that there was a pulley on each side of the lift door. When the chain was pulled, the door naturally rose.
Right next to the door was also a steel-framed drawbridge, parallel to the ground path, also sandwiched between the fences on both sides.
"What's on either side here?" Shen Xin walked to the edge and tried to look. The light illuminated empty grass, which grew thickly on both sides.
"Why is it blocked off?" Shen Yi asked curiously. "I thought opening the door would lead straight outside the town, but instead there's this wide corridor in between. After coming in, the game didn't notify us of clearance. Do we have to walk out for it to count?"
"Anyway, the door's open, so let's just walk out and see," Gu Yu said carelessly. After a pause, she added, "I'm more curious about what Lin Pei is thinking right now."
Shen Xin exchanged a glance with her and couldn't help but snicker. "If he finds out we left, he'll definitely regret it to death."
"Shh." Xu Huo interrupted them, walked a few steps to a corner of the fence, and brushed aside the flowers and grass poking through the gaps. Then his hand froze.
"Found something?" Gu Yu came over and saw behind the grass he had pushed aside a torn hole. The wire edge had been violently ripped open—not like human work, but more like a wild beast.
The two exchanged a look. Gu Yu immediately lowered her voice. "Go! Hurry up and go! There might be xenomorphs inside the door. Don't lead them over here!"
Shen Xin and the others tensed up immediately, stopped talking, and quickened their pace toward the front exit.
But just then, a faint sound of something cutting through the air came from behind, followed by a *ding*. A flying arrow lodged itself onto the drawbridge above, and a long rope trailing from the arrow's tail pulled a person along, who landed with a *thump* on the drawbridge!
The sound of a heavy object crashing onto the thin iron plate spread farther than expected in the narrow, confined space—like ripples splashing from a stone, sweeping outward layer by layer. But mixed into the returning echoes was a faint, rustling noise!
Without bothering to look at the person on the drawbridge, Xu Huo charged forward without looking back. "Run!"
The people on the ground bolted, running as they looked left and right. The once-empty grass suddenly filled with pairs of gleaming dots, densely packed everywhere!
"What is that!" Shen Xin, on Shen Yi's back, instinctively shone her flashlight over. But in just an instant, as if stimulated by the light, a xenomorph burst out from the grass and slammed into the fence!
The finely meshed iron fence was deformed by the impact. The xenomorph's eyeballs bulged as it frantically bit at the wire with its teeth, its tongue slithering out from its mouth full of jagged teeth, twisting and stretching forward, flinging foul-smelling saliva everywhere!
Even though they were several meters away, Shen Xin was so scared she screamed. She had thought the eyeless xenomorphs were horrifying enough, but the ones with eyes were even more terrifying!
"Don't look at them!" Shen Yi said in a deep voice. "Look ahead!"
Shen Xin mustered her courage to look forward, but by now, more and more xenomorphs were emerging. They piled on top of each other, quickly covering both fences. They roared, howled, shook and bit relentlessly, all their eyes fixed on the few people in the middle of the path!
"The iron fence won't hold much longer! Faster!" Xu Huo, who had already pulled far ahead, shouted back.
Gu Yu and the others behind were already running as fast as they could, but as more xenomorphs appeared, the iron fence was on the verge of collapse, while the exit ahead still seemed unreachable!
*Crunch!* A gap tore open in the front fence!
Xu Huo abruptly stopped, watching as three or four xenomorphs widened the hole with their tearing. He took two steps back and turned around. "Go back!"
Almost the moment he shouted, the fence just a few meters away from them was completely ripped open. The piled-up xenomorphs tumbled out, and before they could even get up, they scrambled to pounce at the players!
"Aaaaah!" Wang Chaoqing screamed. "We're dead, we're dead, we're definitely dead!"
"Fall back! Fall back first!" Gu Yu shouted loudly, but Shen Xin's trembling voice came from ahead. "They're coming out over here too!"
The group looked up and saw it was the hole Xu Huo had discovered earlier. Three xenomorphs were stuck inside, struggling to squeeze out. By the time they safely reached the door, the xenomorphs would likely swarm out again!
"Go up top!" Xu Huo, holding the "String That's Everywhere," lifted off the ground and grabbed Gu Yu, who was nearby.
The moment they were airborne, Wang Chaoqing lunged over and grabbed their legs. "Brother, take me with you!"
The string could only bear a limited weight. Xu Huo kicked him over to Ke Liang's side!
Ke Liang's trait was jumping ability—leaping onto the drawbridge seven or eight meters high was no problem. He had originally planned to take the injured Shen Xin, but with the urgent situation and Wang Chaoqing crashing into him, he had no choice but to hold him.
As the two jumped onto the drawbridge, Xu Huo and Gu Yu also landed steadily on it. Then Xu Huo manipulated the string to fly toward the Shen siblings. "Grab hold! I'll pull you up!"
Just as the Shen siblings left the ground, two xenomorphs lunged and bit Shen Yi's legs from both sides, dragging both of them downward!
"Pull them up quickly!" Gu Yu couldn't help shouting.
"I can only bear the weight of two people at once!" Xu Huo felt the string starting to lose control. He threw himself flat onto the drawbridge, whipped out a leather belt, and shouted, "Shen Xin!"
Shen Xin clamped her legs tightly around Shen Yi's waist, grabbed the belt with all her might, and looked up at the people on the drawbridge. "Save us!"
"Come help!" Gu Yu lay beside Xu Huo and grabbed the belt, but the strength of two people wasn't enough to pull both up. She couldn't help yelling at Ke Liang and Wang Chaoqing.
The two hurried over, one hugging the waist, the other grabbing the arm, pulling with all their strength.
Below, Shen Yi also tried his best to kick away the xenomorphs lunging at him, but every time he kicked one off, another would pounce, and even more xenomorphs would hang from those below, like a human pyramid on the iron fence. The xenomorphs formed a chain, and for a moment, the tug-of-war between top and bottom was deadlocked!
They were tied up here, but there was still one person on the drawbridge!
"Lin Pei, help quickly!" Ke Liang turned and shouted at the person watching the show not far away. "If we lose even one person, the risk increases for all of us!"
Lin Pei, who had made a "grand entrance," had wanted to flee back to the town as soon as the xenomorphs broke through. But from his vantage point, he could see more clearly than Xu Huo and the others trapped below. The xenomorphs in the enclosure were different from any he had seen before—they didn't have strong jumping ability and couldn't reach the drawbridge, so it was safe up here.
He coldly watched the life-and-death race unfolding before him and spoke. "Why not just give up on Shen Yi? He's been bitten by a xenomorph anyway—there's no way he'll survive."