The wolf alpha was rescued from near-fatal blood loss. Bai Chunian exhaled in relief, handing him the only fast-acting recovery syringe they had grabbed from the fixed ammo box. “Take this. You need it more than we do. Protect yourself.”
The fast recovery syringe was a rare item, essentially a single-use revival. If injected within ten seconds of hitting zero health, the user wouldn’t be eliminated and would regain half their health bar.
“Stay away… I’m not doing A,” He Suowei groaned, leaning on the stair railing to rest. The death simulations in the ATWL exam were unbearably realistic. Having just teetered on the edge of death, He Suowei was still somewhat dazed.
Concerned the blood scent might attract monsters, the others quickly retreated to their original positions. Lan Bo perched on a steel light fixture in the ceiling, using a high-voltage net to isolate the third-floor corridor of Building A where they were.
Through the comms, the remaining two squad members’ anxious voices came through: “Brother! Brother? Are you still there? We’ve made it to the eighth floor!”
He Suowei replied briefly.
Du Mo, originally hiding at the back, had moved next to the wolf alpha without realizing it. He focused and asked, “Did you see them? What do they look like? What weapons do they have?”
Bai Chunian’s gaze lingered on Du Mo’s face for a moment before turning back, intrigued, to hear He Suowei’s account.
“I don’t know… I didn’t see anything,” He Suowei said, sitting on the steps, drenched in blood yet seemingly unaware. “We just came in from Building C’s main entrance. The elevator doors opened, Wenyi went inside with a gun, checked around—nothing. I was worried about traps, so I led them up the stairs. But when we reached the third floor, something invisible attacked us. Wenyi died instantly. I felt a stiffness and suffocating pain all over, blood pooled on the floor, and I couldn’t even tell where the wounds were.”
“If this were real combat, we’d probably already be wiped out.” He Suowei closed his eyes in self-reproach, the kind of guilt and lingering fear that belonged to a young soldier written plainly across his face.
“Relax.” Bai Chunian leaned casually against the windowsill, swinging his legs as he straightened the sticky bombs and ammunition belts and fastened them onto himself. “So the only one who went into the elevator was the kid who died?”
“Right. There weren’t any lights in the elevator. I handed Wen Yi a flashlight.”
“Now that’s interesting.” Bai Chunian shifted into a more comfortable position, crossed his legs, and propped his left cheek in his palm. “We’ve got plenty of useful intel. If you want in, bring your information and trade.”
He Suowei had long been prepared for Bai Chunian’s invitation to team up. He was not surprised. Instead, he instinctively began bargaining, as he always did with Bai Chunian. “You’re putting me in a pretty passive position.”
“Not at all.” Bai Chunian laughed softly. “All the remaining teams are converging on the research institute. You’ve already started losing people. There’s no point in going solo anymore. And you’ve seen it—we’re not interested in first place. We’re no threat to you.”
In truth, the Ghost-Hunting Squad had already decided to team up with Bai Chunian before coming to the research institute. Since he had raised it first, He Suowei simply went along with it, agreeing while putting on a reluctant front to maintain a psychological edge.
Bai Chunian was thinking as well. This North American Gray Wolf squad was clearly a support team for the assessment, yet they had stolen all the spotlight without the slightest concern about attracting the examiners’ attention. The force backing them must be formidable. Even if he could not uncover their boss anytime soon, at least he would not recklessly offend anyone and cause himself trouble.
He Suowei used the communicator to call the other two teammates back to assemble and unfolded the mission booklet to exchange information.
The four members of the Ghost-Hunting Squad had been assigned the most difficult three-star missions. Each person had only one objective:
- Find the aelerant hallucinogen (completed).
- Browse File D inside the safe in the archives on the fourteenth floor of the research institute.
- Inject the ac hallucinogen into the nuchal gland of Experimental Subject 1513.
- Kill Experimental Subject 1513.
“Ouch. That’s some rotten luck.” Bai Chunian clicked his tongue. “Looks like you won a ‘buy one, get one free’ on a drink and used up the rest of your life’s luck.”
“Cut the nonsense.”
“Out of the four missions, only one mentions a location. So we start there.” Bai Chunian spread out his own team’s mission booklet. “One of our tasks is to read a chip in the public server room on the tenth floor of the research institute. That’s our only way to obtain unknown intel.”
Hurried footsteps echoed from the end of Corridor C. The remaining two members of the Ghost-Hunting Squad had received He Suowei’s message and rushed back.
“When we were heading downstairs, we heard people shouting and fighting inside Building B.”
“Captain, are you okay? We’re comrades—at a critical moment you still pushed us away.”
“Did you want to stay and get wiped out together?”
“…Oh.”
Bai Chunian considered for a moment and noticed Lu Yan crouching by the elevator in a daze. “Maybe the backup power voltage is unstable. The elevator’s working on and off.”
“It’s not broken.” Lu Yan stared at the floor indicator above the button. “Look—it just moved again. It’s already up to the sixth floor.”
“Use Burrow of the Cunning Rabbit and slip inside to take a look.”
Lu Yan’s J1 differentiation ability, Burrow of the Cunning Rabbit, was comparable to a portal. It allowed him to pass through barriers between two adjacent spaces—an extremely practical skill.
“No way… what if there’s a monster inside? I’m not afraid of going head-to-head in a firefight… I’m just scared of monsters.” Lu Yan instinctively took two steps back, his rabbit ears trembling.
Suddenly, the floor display began descending from six.
Five.
Four.
Three.
They expected it to continue downward, but the elevator slowed and stopped at their floor with a soft ding.
A cold electronic voice announced, “Third floor.”
Everyone held their breath, waiting for the doors to open. The sharp clicks of bolts being pulled back, magazines inserted, and rounds chambered sounded one after another as every muzzle aimed squarely at the small elevator.
Bai Chunian waited patiently for a moment, then walked over and cautiously pressed the open-door button. The elevator did not respond.
Just as the group stood in tense silence, each harboring their own thoughts, hysterical screams and chaotic gunfire erupted from the upper floors of the adjacent Building B. Bullets shattered the glass; large shards rained down from above, scattering across the ground.
Soon, they heard the kill announcement again.
Experimental Subject 1513 has eliminated four members of Team Imperial Awakening.
Team Imperial Awakening has been fully eliminated.
At the same time, the elevator doors before them slid open with a swish.
Bai Chunian switched on his flashlight and shone it inside. The elevator was empty—nothing at all, aside from advertisements for educational institutions plastered on the walls. He angled the beam at the polished steel wall and checked his reflection, adjusted his hair, and, satisfied that he still looked handsome, relaxed.
Du Mo seemed to wake from a dream and rubbed his aching temples. “Sorry. I was just predicting our own situation.”
The Raven omega’s J1 differentiation ability, Death Forewarning, allowed him to predict the survival status of selected targets within the next hour. However, the number of targets was limited—only four people per use—and the ability had a one-hour cooldown before it could be used again.
“I checked four people.” Du Mo took a deep breath and said gravely, “Bai Chunian—safe.”
“He Suowei—safe.”
“As for the braided brother from the Ghost-Hunting Squad—I don’t know your name.” Du Mo looked toward He Wenxiao. “In fifty-three minutes, you will die.”
“In ten minutes, I will die.” Du Mo said it lightly, as though it were nothing. “I’ve already calculated every possibility—running, going upstairs, going downstairs. None of them changed the outcome.”
“Then make yourself useful before you die. That skill of yours is too practical.” Bai Chunian grabbed Du Mo by the arm and dragged him along, then called back over his shoulder, “Lan Bo, come with me to the tenth floor. Arrow Poison Tree and Rabbit, stay here and watch the elevator. Ghost-Hunting Squad, head to Building C. Contact through the communicator if anything happens. I wrote the channel password in the window dust.”
Lan Bo sat sideways on the stair railing, gliding down effortlessly with electromagnetic levitation. Bai Chunian dragged the raven omega up the stairs. Just as the mission booklet had indicated, they found a computer equipped with a chip reader in the tenth-floor lobby.
Du Mo and Lu Yan had each obtained a chip from the library archivist. Bai Chunian inserted the one Du Mo handed over first. A gray progress bar appeared on the monitor, rapidly reading the chip’s contents.
When the reading was complete, the screen automatically switched to a pitch-black page. There was only a single line on it—letters and numbers arranged like a formula:
a1-b1
“That’s it? That’s all?” Bai Chunian tapped the Enter key a few times, then lifted the computer and gave it a shake. “Did it freeze?”
Lan Bo clearly considered this method of repair too primitive. With visible disdain, he shoved Bai Chunian aside, took the seat at the computer, and touched the keyboard.
Then he released a surge of high-voltage electricity, frying the computer into a white screen before rebooting it.
Bai Chunian stared. “That’s hilarious. The tower’s smoking.”
Du Mo covered his eyes.
“Oh…” Bai Chunian suddenly slapped his palm in realization. “Oh. Oh, I get it.”
“The research institute has three buildings—A, B, and C. Each building has two elevators. The two in Building A can be labeled a1 and a2. The other four would be b1 and b2, c1 and c2.”
“To us, it looked like the elevator was moving around uncontrollably. But in reality, the button we pressed wasn’t controlling our elevator at all.”
“So a1-b1 probably means the elevator button we pressed earlier was actually controlling the elevator in Building B.”
He gave an awkward yet polite smile. “Which means… the four members of Team Imperial Awakening were probably being chased by Snake Woman Mu and finally got a chance to hide in an elevator. And then I casually pressed the open-door button…”