"This staircase is really tall..."
"Huff... huff... I'm exhausted."
The chubby guy from the Zhongzhou Team kept leaning against the handrail, panting heavily. What had been a fleeting shot in the movie had nearly made him unable to keep going in reality.
Even the mercenaries needed ten minutes to descend at marching speed. Even at half that pace, twenty straight minutes of going downstairs was a severe test for someone like him.
The others in the mercenary squad could only shake their heads at the sight. With stamina like that, how could he be security for The Hive? It was becoming increasingly suspicious.
But the records could not be faked.
After a brief rest, the Black Skin Captain ordered everyone to continue onward. He also had Zhang Jie, who appeared to be in good physical condition, walk together with them.
The Zhongzhou Team was subtly split apart. Zhang Jie had earned the mercenaries' recognition through his strength and could be considered a companion, but the others were nothing but dead weight.
Emergency lights flickered in the laboratory passageway, casting the area in dim shadows. Their footsteps echoed down the corridor. On both sides were laboratories separated by transparent glass walls.
Through the glass, they could see that the rooms were filled with water. Researchers' corpses floated within alongside various debris.
For the moment, The Hive was still safe. Both the Lickers and the zombies were being suppressed by the Red Queen through various mechanisms.
"Sure enough, the worst possible thing has happened."
The moment they entered the passageway, while both the mercenaries and the Reincarnators were studying the aquarium-like laboratories around them, Xu Yue tapped the glass walls with his fingers and spoke.
The instant he opened his mouth, he drew everyone's attention, including that of the Zhongzhou Team's Reincarnators.