Chapter 113: The Perfect Evolution Begins
"Impossible!" Lin Pei shouted.
"Why is it impossible?" Ke Liang retorted. "This door has to move inward for the grooves on both sides to catch the pulley axles and lift them up. Once the chains break, the door snaps back into the wall. With no foothold above, it's nearly impossible to open from the inside."
"I don't believe it!" Lin Pei furiously grabbed Shen Xin, lifting her up and pressing his sword against her neck as he pushed her forward. "You go first. I want to see it with my own eyes!"
Ke Liang was about to say something more, but Gu Yu suddenly grabbed his arm and asked Lin Pei, "Is the door on the town side also closed?"
"What did you say?!" Ke Liang and Wang Chaoqing exclaimed in unison.
"No wonder!" Gu Yu laughed. "I thought it was strange earlier. When Xu Huo opened the door, we could still see outside from this side. How come after we came through, the door was closed and the chains were broken? So it was because of you."
"Xu Huo went back to the town. You didn't want him to have a chance to come out again, so you destroyed the door, didn't you?"
"Haha! What a self-inflicted disaster!"
"Shut up!" Lin Pei roared. "There must be another way to open the door. Did Xu Huo give you the key? Hand it over!"
Gu Yu sneered, "Do you think we opened the door with your so-called damn key?"
"You thought you had the only clue, but there was never a key."
"No key?" Lin Pei was stunned. "Then how did you open the door?"
"With our brains," Gu Yu paused, then added, "Now it's done. Both doors are closed. We'll all wait to die here."
She then sat down and tore at her clothes to bandage her wounds.
Ke Liang did the same.
Seeing this, panic rose in Lin Pei's heart. He hadn't gone through all this trouble just to wait to die here!
Waving his sword, he shouted, "Everyone move forward. Whoever doesn't move, I'll cut off their hand!"
Gu Yu and the others glared at him darkly, then glanced at Shen Xin, and had no choice but to comply.
The five of them returned to the front door. As they had said, the chain was broken, and the door had retracted into the wall.
Lin Pei shoved Shen Xin aside and tried to open the door himself.
Only one of the two chains was broken. The pulley axle on the other side had been stuck in the door earlier, but after Gu Yu and the others tried to lift the door with the remaining chain, it slowly slid out and was now completely back into the wall.
Lin Pei fumbled around the wall for a while, then slashed at the door more than a dozen times with his sword before finally having to face reality.
Gu Yu and Shen Xin supported each other, watching his actions coldly and taunting, "If Xu Huo were here, he might have come up with a way. He was the one who figured out how to open the door. Too bad you killed him."
These words touched a nerve in Lin Pei. He suddenly turned back, grabbed Wang Chaoqing, and pushed him to the edge of the drawbridge. His face twisted as he looked at the other three. "Tell me how to open the door now, or I'll have to use someone as a sacrifice first."
"Ahhh! I don't want to die!" Wang Chaoqing waved his hands frantically, staring at the mutants leaping up from below, tears and snot streaming down his face. He screamed, "I'll talk! I know too! I'll tell you!"
Lin Pei pulled him back and rested his sword on his shoulder. "Speak!"
Wang Chaoqing tremblingly revealed the method of opening the door. Lin Pei looked utterly incredulous. "It was that simple?"
"What? You don't believe it now that I've told you?" Gu Yu mentioned Xu Huo, her voice dropping slightly. "It was that simple, but not everyone could figure it out."
Lin Pei snatched the flashlight from Ke Liang and shone it into the fence. After searching for a moment, he suddenly pointed at one wall. "There's a maintenance scaffold over there. It should lead to the west gate."
"The entire wall enclosure is a circle. You can also reach the west gate from inside."
He then tied a grappling rope to the top corner of the fence. "Come help."
"You're going to tear down the fence?" Ke Liang exclaimed in shock. "It's full of mutants in there!"
"So what?" Lin Pei said without looking back. "The mutants can't climb that high."
"What's the point of going to the west gate? The door can't be opened from the inside," Gu Yu said.
"We'll find out when we get there!" Lin Pei turned and roared. "Even if we have to pry it open, we'll get that door out!"
Gu Yu and the others exchanged glances and chose to help, as it was their only chance to escape.
After tearing open the iron fence, Lin Pei made Wang Chaoqing go first. "Scout ahead."
Wang Chaoqing's legs went weak. "Brother, I dare not. I don't have the skill..."
Lin Pei was about to raise his sword again, but Ke Liang stepped forward. "I'll go first."
He was the first onto the scaffold, followed by Wang Chaoqing and Shen Xin. Just as Gu Yu was about to go, Lin Pei stopped her and went up himself, then warned, "Don't try any tricks, or I'll push Shen Xin down to feed the mutants first. Keep your distance."
Gu Yu followed behind him with a dark face, staring at his back, couldn't help but think, he was actually quite clever, so why was he so different from Xu Huo?
And Xu Huo... was he still alive?
*
The sky gradually brightened, and sunlight once again shone on the silent town. Dolls everywhere, clocks scattered all around, high walls reflecting the sunlight—aside from the wreckage of battles and explosions, everything in this town looked no different from yesterday.
"Snap!"
A piece of rubble fell from the ruins, the sound echoing in all directions, but no mutants appeared. Not even an extra noise could be heard. The two mutants seemed to be completely isolated by the metal door, unable to hear anything outside.
But that wasn't the case, because they were frantically pounding on the iron window protecting the high-frequency instrument. They weren't trying to destroy the instrument, but to get at the person in the room behind it.
Xu Huo, who had been lying on the ground for an entire night, woke up. The moment he opened his eyes, his pupils contracted into thin slits, but quickly returned to normal.
Pushing himself up from the ground, his hand accidentally touched something beside him. With a clatter, the mutants outside intensified their pounding.
His consciousness quickly returned. He scanned the entire room. Unlike before he passed out, his eyes now seemed to be equipped with night vision, allowing him to see clearly even in the dark—the overturned table, the suitcase, the scattered syringes and notes, and the empty needle tubes.
He was still alive, still rational, which meant the injection had been used correctly.
Picking up the syringe beside him, he found the label on the end. Both were P0S.
The open notebook beside him clearly read: "The P0S injection is the completed version of the P0 agent, with more comprehensive defect-suppression effects. It must be used at the very beginning of evolution."
"If the P1 evolution agent or other advanced versions are taken, once the second stage of evolution begins, the process becomes irreversible. Genetic defects will persist throughout the entire evolution. Stopping midway or switching to the S-version agent cannot prevent abnormalities or death. The S-version agent will become completely ineffective."
"Before using the P1 agent, the evolver's dependence on the agent is relatively low. At this point, using the S-version agent can interrupt the defective evolution process and initiate a complete, perfect evolution."
"Perfect Evolution" was underlined.
"Looks like I got lucky." The S-version agent had precisely interrupted the mutation process, smoothly transitioning him into perfect evolution.
Xu Huo chuckled softly, picked up the items from the floor, and began packing them into the suitcase. The moment his hand touched the suitcase, the game interface popped up:
[Congratulations, player Passerby A, for finding an ownerless item.]