Chapter 425: Underground Level Three
"Are those... plants?" Wan Yunrong spoke uncertainly.
Just a few meters away from them stood a "mound," with tall and short stemmed plants arranged like trees. However, these "trees" were all white, and even their crowns were white. At first glance, they looked like mushrooms growing on top, but upon closer inspection, one could see that those "mushrooms" were overlapping, wrapped petal-like structures. As the "mound" breathed, white powder drifted down from the "mushrooms."
"Everyone, don't move!" Ge Pan said. "These must be the plants that sprayed the powder earlier!"
The players became more cautious in their movements, only daring to walk slowly along the edges of the "mounds." Mounds like these occupied almost the entire underground third level.
Xu Huo followed the plant stems to look at the "mound" below. After studying it for a moment, his expression changed slightly—these so-called "mounds" were actually filled with corpses!
Wearing gas masks, they couldn't smell the outside air, so it took a moment for someone to react. "If I'm not mistaken, that should be a human head."
As Chu Yuan spoke, he focused his light on the spot he mentioned. Everyone looked over and indeed saw a furry, round black object held by the roots of a plant on the outer edge. The black fur was clearly hair. Looking more closely, one could see the downward-facing, purplish, slightly withered face.
"These people haven't been dead long, and their flesh has been sucked dry quite a bit," Miao Yu said.
"Hey, it looks like there are corpses under all these plants!" Chu Yuan exclaimed in shock, pointing at the "mound."
Just from what they could see, there were seven or eight "mounds." Calculating roughly thirty corpses per mound, that was at least two hundred or more.
Even in a game where killing and being killed were frequent, seeing so many corpses piled up and decomposing sent chills down one's spine. The upper two levels were fine, but who would have thought the scene would change so drastically here, turning directly into a corpse storage!
"With so many corpses, could they be former staff?" Wan Yunrong asked.
"Not likely," Xu Huo crouched in front of one of the mounds to examine it. "Judging by their clothing and the degree of decomposition, they should be players."
"Players?!" The players' hearts skipped a beat.
"Who else would come here besides players?" Xu Huo countered.
That made sense. The dead players were being used as fertilizer here, and the upper two levels were abnormally clean. So who had moved the bodies here?
"Could there really be ghosts?" This time, it was Gan Qing who spoke.
"No wonder this instance has no guides online—it's because the players who came here never made it out alive," Mao Wei shook his head slightly.
"So, are we still going in?" Wan Yunrong asked.
Ahead were more clusters of "mounds," all made up of players. Everyone present felt a chill creeping up.
"I think we should still take a look," Xu Huo said. "The ones moving the bodies here definitely aren't players. It might be someone hiding in the instance."
This reasoning wasn't baseless. The instance was on an island, and the island wasn't completely sealed off. Anyone could come, and hiding in the woods would be hard to find. For safety, they'd better confirm whether someone was hiding on this level.
But Xu Huo wasn't after that goal.
The possibility of someone hiding here was very slim. He wanted to confirm whether this level also had sealed-off passages like the ones above.
As a side note, he released two small flying surveillance devices.
They carefully crossed the territory of the mutated plants with the others. When they reached the end, they found the corridor ahead completely blocked by corpses and mutated plants.
Xu Huo moved closer to observe the condition of those corpses. Unlike the area they had just passed, the corpses in those "mounds" spanned a wide time range, but the ones in this corridor were all relatively old.
From top to bottom, three levels—every single one of these positions was sealed off.
The pretentious warning texts on the metal walls of the upper two levels were insignificant, but because of this blockage, the Deep Blue Laboratory was split in half. That meant the players were only exploring one half of the lab.
The planning diagram showed that the other half had a similar layout, with another large door. These three doors of the lab were cut off from the outside, and now that the internal passages were blocked, the only way to reach the other side was to go around from the outside.
Xu Huo wasn't the only one who wanted to check out the other half of the lab. Qiu Xiangdong said, "We can now confirm that there's no one else on this side besides the players who entered this time. This instance isn't just for us—the person might be hiding next door. The so-called game is just messing with us. The instance requires participation in the game, but it doesn't require winning."
Setting that aside, the game changed from "kill the ghost" to "catch the ghost."
"He has a point," Ge Pan said. "Simply failing to catch the ghost only means failing the instance. But if we end up killing each other, not many will survive in the end."
"We'll set aside what the game says for now. Since we know there's someone other than players here, it's best to find that person first," Miao Yu agreed.
They withdrew from the underground third level. Once back up, Ge Pan conveyed everyone's thoughts to the other three. In the end, they decided to pause the game and head to the other half of the lab.
On the underground first level, Miao Yu, Ge Pan, and a few others took turns using items but couldn't break through the walls, floor, or ceiling. They also searched nearby for possible hidden mechanisms or secret passages. Finding nothing, they had to give up and take the elevator back to the surface, planning to go around from outside the lab.
However, the main door was blocked by an invisible force, making it impossible to get out.
Gan Qing punched the invisible wall. "Why can't we go in or out, but non-instance players can?"
"Not necessarily. They might just need to wait until the instance ends to come in and collect the bodies," Miao Yu shrugged.
That brought things back to square one. They had to continue playing the "human catches ghost" game.
"How about a gentleman's agreement?" Ge Pan proposed. "The game on the topic board is 'human catches ghost.' Winning as a human is one thing, but the instance task doesn't require that. Maybe we can ignore the outcome of this game and avoid fighting to the death."
"Your proposal is only useful if the ghost isn't a player," Mao Wei poured cold water.
The instance didn't require winning or losing. Since they were participating in the game, winning would normally be better—they might even get instance rewards.
"That's simple. We just need to catch the ghost," Wu Xiaonan said. "Catch one, and we'll see if it matches the instance requirements."
"We can try tonight," Miao Yu suggested. According to him, everyone could stay in one room tonight and test each other one by one.
After all, there were two ghosts. As long as the "ghost" wasn't completely killed, a new "ghost" would appear. This also eliminated the worry that once only one person cleared the instance, the "ghost" would disappear and no new "ghost" would emerge.
(Chapter End)