Rescue

"So, this is what they call a 'Dangerous Object'?"

Yu Jing looked at the bloodstained hand axe he had chosen and seemed to realize something. Not daring to linger, he swiftly felt his way forward along the path ahead.

The environment resembled the underground production floor of some meat-processing plant. Whenever Yu Jing came across a fork, he headed in the exact opposite direction from the cabin's original location, completely avoiding the passage between the slaughterhouse and the cabin.

Only after estimating that he had strayed far enough from the main route did Yu Jing relax slightly and slow down.

"Maybe I should hide here for a while?"

At the corner in front of Yu Jing stood an unlocked iron door. Only after confirming that the room had a ventilation shaft did he decide to stop there and regroup.

If the room had only an iron door as its entrance and exit, there would be no room to escape if he were discovered by a Dangerous Object. Compared with the massive footprints he had seen earlier, escaping through the ventilation ducts was clearly the best choice. Given its size, Yu Jing did not believe the other party could crawl into the ducts.

"Why does this room's style not fit with the rest of this place?"

The room Yu Jing was currently in had cement walls, neat cabinets, and armchairs, resembling a lounge. It was completely different from the metal-sheet factory outside.

After searching around, Yu Jing found a small white spray bottle labeled "emergency" and a military knife in one of the cabinets. Both small items fit perfectly into his pockets. There was also an outfit resembling a technician's uniform in the cabinet, but it was of little use to Yu Jing.

"Could this be a 'rest room' designed by the research institute? Or maybe a 'buffer room'?"

As Yu Jing examined the ventilation opening in the corner of the room, doubt appeared on his face. "Shouldn't it lead upward?"

The passage before him extended straight ahead, and there was no telling where it led. To confirm whether the ventilation shaft was passable, Yu Jing chose to crawl inside and investigate. The pitch-black duct felt somewhat similar to when he had first entered the Testing Area.

After crawling for roughly fifty meters, Yu Jing finally spotted a ventilation exit.

However, he did not rush to kick open the iron grille. Instead, he curled up inside and observed the situation outside.

The room beyond the ventilation duct was even more different from the ones Yu Jing had seen before. It was illuminated by soft yellow light and decorated elegantly, with an antique royal style. Even the carpet was made from high-grade wool.

"Tap, tap, tap!"

Suddenly, hurried footsteps sounded from outside. Yu Jing immediately moved back, keeping about a meter away from the exit.

"Click!" The door opened.

Accompanied by ragged breathing, a familiar figure came into view.

"Jiang Tian!?" The beautiful woman before Yu Jing was someone he had encountered before.

Jiang Tian, who had entered the room, had heartfelt terror in her eyes. Her movements were frantic, and she was curled up beneath an ebony desk directly opposite the ventilation exit, trembling uncontrollably.

Since he had seen Jiang Tian here, Yu Jing immediately understood that he was currently in the Interactive Area mentioned in the notice.

However, as Yu Jing looked at Jiang Tian's appearance, Cold Sweat seeped down the back of his neck. Jiang Tian had originally been wearing a white turtleneck sweater and makeup, but now her white sweater was completely stained red with blood, while her heavy makeup had been smeared beyond recognition, making her look horrifying.

"Why? Why did this happen!"

Jiang Tian stared at the Blood Crystal Ring on her left middle finger. No matter how hard she tried, she could not remove it.

At that moment, Yu Jing glanced toward the gap beneath the door Jiang Tian had locked from the inside. Strands of bright red blood were continuously seeping into the room...

The blood Yu Jing saw kept seeping into the room, dyeing nearly the entire carpet red before slowly gathering in the center, as though some living thing was about to be born.

"How can there be so much blood? Is this the Dangerous Object from Jiang Tian's area?!"

Seeing this, Yu Jing clamped both hands over his mouth, trying his best not to make a sound and alert the blood.

Jiang Tian, hiding beneath the desk in the outer room, shook uncontrollably when she saw the blood invade the room. She kept shaking her head, her eyes filled with a desperate longing to live and terror of death.

"Bang!" Yu Jing kicked open the iron grille over the ventilation duct.

"Jiang Tian! Get over here!"

Although Yu Jing felt some aversion toward this woman, looking at the scene before him, someone might truly die here. Yu Jing could not stand by and watch someone die right in front of him. An inexplicable force drove him to kick open the sealed grille and shout Jiang Tian's name.

"You... Yu Jing..."

Jiang Tian looked at the blood gathering before her, then at Yu Jing waving to her. As though clutching at her final lifeline, she abandoned all concern for her appearance and scrambled around the blood toward the ventilation opening where Yu Jing was.

"Get in here. Once we pass through the ventilation duct, we'll be in my Testing Area. The Dangerous Object chasing you probably won't be able to come over."

As Yu Jing grabbed Jiang Tian's outstretched hand and pulled her into the ventilation duct, he caught sight of the blood in the room gathering into a humanoid life-form.

Jiang Tian had difficulty squeezing her body into the ventilation duct, which slowed her down. With Yu Jing's help, she finally managed to force herself into the opening.

But at that moment, Jiang Tian's expression suddenly froze.

"Pfft!" A mouthful of blood sprayed directly across Yu Jing's face.

The sudden shock left Yu Jing frozen. After a brief moment, he came back to his senses and looked up slightly. Jiang Tian had spat blood because her entire exposed left calf had been forcibly bitten off by the sharp maw of the Blood Creature. Perhaps due to the blood creature's nature, it continued destroying Jiang Tian's body from the wound, causing an astonishing amount of bleeding.

Not only that, an arm was tightly gripping the severed end of Jiang Tian's calf, its nails already buried in her flesh.

"Ah!"

There was still a gap at the ventilation opening. Pressing close against Jiang Tian's body, Yu Jing raised the axe in his hand and swung it down at the arm with all his strength.

"Crack!"

The arm made of blood had no bones at all. Yu Jing easily chopped it off with one swing, and the hand gripping Jiang Tian's calf dissolved into blood and flowed onto the ground.

The blood man outside showed no sign of entering the ventilation duct. It merely turned its horrifying face toward Yu Jing, who had severed its arm, its gaze full of hatred.

"Is this my luck? These Dangerous Objects can't leave their own Testing Areas... But what kind of experimental test is this? She's lost an entire calf. With that much blood loss, she'll die!"