Chapter 8: Fighting the Experimental Subject
Chapter 8: Facing the Experimental subject
The forest was silent, with occasional bird calls.
Besides that, only the sound of the wind remained.
Zhou Ming and the other two walked through the woods, with dappled light and shadows cast down from the canopies, mixed with motes of dust swaying gently in the air. Everything around them was quiet and peaceful, even giving him the illusion that he was out for a picnic, which eased his tense mood considerably.
But at the entrance of the air-raid shelter, the atmosphere changed. As the smell of blood and decay gradually intensified, they passed through the last patch of bushes and arrived at the gravel ground in front of the air-raid shelter's entrance.
Patches of red bloodstains were scattered around the entrance, emitting a foul, rotten odor. The soldiers' bodies had been removed, but the cleanup of the scene was clearly not thorough enough; some fragmented pieces of flesh lay scattered on the ground, being bitten by flies, and the ground at the entrance was stained red.
Zhou Ming looked up at the gloomy entrance, and a cold, bloody wind blowing from inside the cave made him shiver.
"Let's go, let's go in," Zhou Ming said in as calm a tone as possible.
He gripped his flashlight and led the way into the cave, the straight beam of light piercing into the distant darkness.
As the three delved deeper, the sounds of the forest faded, and everything around them fell silent, save for the continuous, incessant dripping of water from an unknown source.
A faint, almost imperceptible wind blew from the end of the passage, carrying a nauseating, foul odor… as if this was some kind of animal's lair.
Zhou Ming told Huang Tao and Zhang Qian to hold their weapons ready to deal with any sudden enemies.
After that, no one spoke. The air was eerily quiet.
After walking about two hundred meters inward, forks in the path began to appear, and square openings appeared on the walls. Some of these openings contained leftover living facilities, while others were empty.
Suddenly, urgent footsteps came from ahead.
"Attention!"
Zhou Ming's nerves instantly tensed, and he assumed a combat stance.
Huang Tao and Zhang Qian also immediately entered combat mode, looking nervously ahead.
Zhou Ming held a knife in his right hand and illuminated the path with his flashlight in his left.
The hurried footsteps gradually approached, and a figure suddenly darted out from a fork in the path at the end, exposed in the flashlight's beam!
The opponent was unclothed, with mottled bloodstains on its pale skin, and a bald head devoid of any hair.
It moved very quickly, its two legs moving alternately, attacking them like an upright running lizard! Like a rapidly approaching ghost in a horror movie!
At this moment, Huang Tao and Zhang Qian felt a pressure they had never experienced before.
Although they had received professional training in school and had seen many pictures and videos of monsters far more disgusting and terrifying than the strange creature before them, actually facing a monster was completely different from facing one through a screen or a cage.
Zhou Ming had read the files and already knew what the monster looked like, but upon seeing it with his own eyes, he still felt a sense of repulsion and disgust from deep within his genes.
"Yi ya ya ya—!!!"
The Experimental subject suddenly let out a shrill, hoarse scream, opening its mouth to reveal a bloody oral cavity as it charged towards them.
The high-decibel scream became especially piercing in the enclosed passage, as if someone had turned up the volume of a horror movie speaker to maximum and placed it next to their ears.
Nothing could be heard in the passage except for the continuous screaming.
In the blink of an eye, the Experimental subject was only twenty meters away, and its appearance became even clearer.
Its face had no eyelids, and its round eyeballs were set on it like glass marbles. Both its upper and lower lips had been gnawed away, exposing its bright red gums and crooked teeth to the air without any covering.
Its upper and lower jaws were wide open at an obtuse angle, and its cheeks were torn from the corners of its mouth to the position of its wisdom teeth.
The moment Zhou Ming clearly saw that face, the Experimental subject also looked at him, and their gazes met in the air.
Although its appearance was enough to cause fear, what truly startled Zhou Ming was its eyes… an expression of extreme clarity, yet also extreme excitement!
Seeing those eyes, Zhou Ming's head buzzed, and he lost focus for a moment.
This was nothing like something a human could turn into… human imagination truly was astonishing.
Compared to Huang Tao and Zhang Qian, Zhou Ming actually lacked experience; he had no experience at all. The most thrilling adventure he had experienced before transmigrating was going to a haunted house, and he had even been scared there.
And now, he was not facing haunted house staff, but a genuine, incredibly fast, and immensely strong monster!
But it was strange… he knew what he had to do.
One by one, the pieces of information from the archives suddenly surfaced in Zhou Ming's mind.
The archives recorded that these Experimental subjects were covered in self-inflicted wounds, like living corpses, with only their hearts, lungs, and diaphragm remaining, all other organs missing…
They were immensely strong, incredibly fast, remained excited, and craved toxic gas…
These monsters had no pain receptors and were unaffected by fatal injuries; even without their organs, they could maintain considerable combat effectiveness.
Therefore, simply attacking the heart and other parts might not instantly eliminate the opponent's combat effectiveness, while the opponent's counterattack was incredibly powerful.
So, should they decapitate it?
The difficulty might be too high, but it would be fine if they cooperated well.
"You two are responsible for cutting off its left and right arms, and I will cut off its head," Zhou Ming said coldly.
"Understood!" Huang Tao and Zhang Qian said in unison.
The charging humanoid was now close, and two figures swiftly moved past Zhou Ming from his left and right, while Zhou Ming's eyes locked onto the opponent's eyes.
He wanted to discern the opponent's attack intention, then kill it!
The Experimental subject's eyeballs shifted, looking at Huang Tao on the right, and its arm, like a thin bamboo pole, reached straight for Huang Tao.
The long blade imbued with Curse Power struck the opponent's arm, instantly severing the Experimental subject's arm.
On the other side, Zhang Qian swung her blade, but her progress was not particularly smooth. Perhaps due to the angle of the strike, the blade cut into the Experimental subject's arm muscle but failed to smoothly sever the arm.
"What's going on? It's like jerky!" Zhang Qian exclaimed in surprise.
The Experimental subject screamed and threw a punch with incredible speed, leaving no room for evasion. Zhang Qian was sent flying back three meters, as if struck by a meteor hammer.
Her weapon clattered to the ground, sparking in the darkness, and her flashlight slipped from her grasp, its beam circling on the ground before twisting to shine on Zhang Qian's face.
Her face was pale, and the blinding light made her unable to see. From the darkness behind the white light came the Experimental subject's screams, the source constantly shifting, as if it was already very close to her.
No! No!
Senior and Huang Tao are still blocking in front, it can't just come over like this!
Zhang Qian's mind went blank, and her rapidly beating heart in her chest made her feel breathless.
At this moment, all the combat knowledge she had learned over the years was completely forgotten.
Finally, she stumbled and picked up her flashlight, frantically searching for her lost weapon, while Huang Tao's curses came from ahead… She dared not imagine what had happened.
"Yi ya ya ya ya—!!" The Experimental subject roared at Huang Tao, swinging its other arm at him.
"Damn it!"
Huang Tao had intended to parry with his blade, but after a brief calculation of distance and angle, he ultimately gave up parrying and chose to dodge instead.
The arm, reeking of blood and a foul odor, swept past Huang Tao's head. Relying on his powerful reflexes, he dodged the bullet-like sweep, and the fist slammed into the tunnel wall, shaking down years of accumulated dust from above.
The Experimental subject opened its mouth and roared at Zhou Ming and Huang Tao, a bloody, putrid breath assailing them.
An instinct from deep within his body made Huang Tao's muscles tense, and his movements became somewhat sluggish.
This is the lowest difficulty of strangeness? The oppressive feeling is too outrageous!
"Step back!"
The voice came from behind, like a basin of cold water, waking Huang Tao up.
Huang Tao's body regained its agility. He adjusted the direction of his leg thrust and pushed off forcefully, retreating backward.
At the same time, a cold blade swept past three centimeters from his left ear, sending a cold shiver down his spine.
It was the cleanest, most decisive slash he had ever seen. The trajectory of the swing was as straight as if measured with a ruler, almost invisible in its speed. Only a dry, short sound was heard, and the blade had already cut along the gaps between the Experimental subject's ribs, like a leather knife slicing through a dry piece of cowhide, not even drawing a single drop of blood.
Zhou Ming frowned slightly, feeling the sensation of that last strike.
The opponent's body was truly like jerky, feeling completely devoid of moisture inside.
With the second swing, the curved white light bent slightly, like a whip lashing diagonally across the opponent's throat, and at its very tip, it formed a sharp, acute angle, striking down at the Experimental subject's neck. With just one strike, it severed the opponent's head!
The piercing scream abruptly ceased, and the headless body collapsed to the ground.
Zhang Qian had just found her weapon and awkwardly scrambled to her feet, taking deep breaths to calm her racing heart.
"Sorry, the an-angle was a bit off," she said, looking at the corpse on the ground with lingering fear.
"It's okay, no big deal. Be more careful next time," Zhou Ming comforted, as if he were truly an experienced captain.
Huang Tao let out a long breath, flicked the blood from his blade, and pretended to say in a cheerful tone, "It doesn't seem too difficult after all. If we cooperate well next time, we should be able to deal with it directly. Just can't get hit by it, its strength is too great."
In reality, Huang Tao's hand gripping the hilt was still trembling slightly from overly tense muscles.
"Yes, I also need to stay calm and composed. I won't make a mistake next time," Zhang Qian also said, as if making a promise, and also as if emphasizing it to herself.
Zhou Ming didn't speak, but he inwardly agreed with their statements.
Although the enemy seemed dangerous, for the original Zhou Ming, this was indeed a trivial task.
Even a fake like him could easily resolve it. If it were the original owner, he would probably be even more professional and swift.
Very good, let's maintain this steady state and continue forward. As long as we don't encounter multiple Experimental subjects, this mission should go smoothly. According to intelligence, there are only five of these monsters. Now that one has been dealt with, that means only four remain.
Zhou Ming used his foot to flip the dead monster over and saw a large chunk of muscle missing from the back of its thigh, guessing it had been gnawed off by other Experimental subjects.
Under normal circumstances, a thigh with such muscle loss would be impossible to run at that speed, yet it did.
The strange truly cannot be judged by common sense.
"Let's keep going."
Zhou Ming led his people onward, turning into a passage that led deeper.
The passage became quiet again, but the mood of the three could no longer return to its previous composure. The few seconds of combat had made them realize that the difference between training and actual combat was enormous, almost unimaginably so.
The passage they were currently in had more square openings than any previous path, so the inspection had to be even more meticulous.
Passing one of the square holes, Zhou Ming smelled a faint scent of blood from inside. Although the smell was extremely faint, they all detected it.
"Senior, it might be in here," Huang Tao whispered.
Zhou Ming led the way into the room, sweeping his flashlight around.
Suddenly, a sound of dragging chains came from a corner. All three flashlights simultaneously shone in the direction of the sound, and a disheveled, blood-stained humanoid creature lunged at Zhou Ming!
With a "clang," the chain reached its end, and the creature's body was violently yanked, stopping just half a meter from Zhou Ming, stumbling and almost falling!
Huang Tao behind him unhesitatingly raised his blade and struck down at the person's body. Zhang Qian, in perfect coordination, thrust at the enemy from another direction.
Zhou Ming, quick-handed, flicked his wrist and held his blade horizontally, blocking Huang Tao's vertical chop, and then naturally grabbed Zhang Qian's wrist with his left hand, stopping both their counterattacks.
"Senior?"
"Don't move, look carefully before you act," Zhou Ming said coldly.