Stone Statue Shen Feng

Warhorses whinnied as Shen Feng and Kuafu charged wildly through the city ruins. Behind them, a group of ape cavalry pursued them on horseback.

"Rat-a-tat-tat..." Gunfire erupted, and a stream of bullets whizzed past them.

The pursuers had cast aside all restraint and begun firing directly from horseback.

Fortunately, the horses' backs were too unsteady, and the bullets had completely lost their accuracy.

Still, Shen Feng and Kuafu exchanged a glance, and both saw anxiety in the other's eyes.

In that brief time, they had only widened the gap by a hundred meters. There were simply too many pursuers, and the bullets would not keep missing forever!

"Head east!" Kuafu gritted out.

Man and ape galloped onward, quickly crossing two blocks. A clamor of apes came from ahead, and Shen Feng's eyes widened sharply.

The buildings on both sides of the street ahead were packed with apes!

These apes wore no clothes, and their movements and behavior were entirely animalistic. Only a few clothed female apes watched over them, seemingly serving as guardians.

At the sight of Kuafu, the apes in the surrounding buildings and streets let out a chorus of roars, seemingly welcoming their king, and surged toward them.

This was where the Ape Clan raised its offspring!

Their descendants were all ordinary chimpanzees, without the slightest trace of intelligence!

"Don't stop!" Kuafu roared, urging his horse alongside Shen Feng as they charged through the block.

The pursuers arrived as well, only to have their path blocked by the low-intelligence chimpanzees spilling into the street.

Stone Eye's face darkened. With a wave of his hand, dozens of warhorses did not slow in the slightest, charging straight through and trampling many young chimpanzees to death.

Clearly, he did not regard these ordinary chimpanzees as his kin at all!

The chimpanzees' screams rang out behind them. Kuafu's face showed pain, but he did not stop.

Shen Feng glanced at him, his expression exceedingly complicated.

They had reached a street corner. Man and ape reined in their horses and turned at once, and a massive office building suddenly appeared before them.

The office building stood more than fifty stories tall, enough to accommodate tens of thousands of people. It was the headquarters of the National Academy of Sciences and the Capital Epidemic Prevention Center!

The Skinners inside had long since been cleared out by the Ape Clan, so neither man nor ape encountered any obstruction.

They spurred their horses forward together and charged toward the office building.

With a deafening crash, they smashed straight through an old glass window on the first floor!

The exhausted horses collapsed. Shen Feng and Kuafu scrambled up and vanished into the office building's corridors.

The moment they left, the place where they had just been was riddled with bullets. The two horses were shot full of holes and died completely.

Though delayed for a while, the pursuers still arrived.

Stone Eye and the ape cavalry reined in their horses before the office building, their expressions growing even darker.

Kuafu and that human had actually escaped into the building. Now they could no longer be surrounded and intercepted.

Still, this would only delay their deaths a little. In a building like this, they had instead become turtles in a jar, with no possibility of escape left!

Staring at the shattered window, Stone Eye said coldly, "Bring the wolf pack! The rest of you, go in and hunt them down! Kill without mercy!"

Dozens of ape cavalrymen dismounted at once. After a few shouted commands, they entered the office building with guns in hand, while others climbed directly up the outside of the structure, beginning their search for Shen Feng and Kuafu.

By then, Shen Feng and Kuafu had reached a room on the third floor. Seeing that Kuafu's hands were still tied, Shen Feng's eyes narrowed. He drew his dagger, cut the ropes for him, then handed him the shotgun.

Kuafu did not hesitate. He took the shotgun, checked its condition, and said solemnly, "Stone Eye's squad is made up of elites. With just the two of us, we can't face them head-on. I suggest we keep heading upward, use the building's size to split up the pursuers, and take them out one by one."

Shen Feng picked up a submachine gun and said, "Good. We'll go to the top floor first, then use the emergency route to return to the ground floor and hit them from behind!"

Neither man nor ape mentioned waiting for reinforcements. No one knew when Kuafu's other subordinates would return, and they absolutely could not place their hopes on that.

Shen Feng took a grenade and a length of thin wire from his backpack, intending to set a tripwire grenade at the stairwell.

Kuafu quickly said, "Apes rarely use stairs. They climb directly through the gaps in the building instead. Set the trap on the railings!"

Shen Feng nodded and immediately set the tripwire grenade between the gaps of the staircases above and below, then continued up the stairs.

Although the Capital Epidemic Prevention Center building also used a solar power system, this was the epicenter of the Stone Statue Disease outbreak. The panic during the epidemic had led to several rounds of looting here, and the building was simply too enormous. The solar power system could no longer support the elevators.

They could only rely on their own limbs!

"Crack... crack..." Soft sounds came from Shen Feng's body. After twenty days of dormancy, the Stone Statue Virus in his body had reached the brink of erupting.

He could feel his skin gradually losing its elasticity, becoming hard and stiff, as if a layer of callus had formed over it.

His speed had dropped considerably as well.

Kuafu watched the human boy beside him with a grave expression. He understood that this boy was exceptionally intelligent and a powerful asset to their side. He absolutely could not be left to fight alone.

"Get on my back!" Kuafu dropped onto all fours and said to Shen Feng.

Shen Feng did not refuse. He climbed directly onto Kuafu's back and used his tactical belt to secure himself tightly.

"Hold on!" Kuafu growled. All four limbs pushed off at once, and he leaped straight onto the stairs of the next floor. Then he bounded upward again and again, carrying Shen Feng higher.

As leader of the Ape Clan, he was not only extraordinarily intelligent, but also far larger and stronger than an ordinary chimpanzee.

Before long, they had reached the thirteenth floor.

Boom! A grenade exploded below them. Clearly, one of the pursuers had triggered the tripwire grenade Shen Feng had left behind.

At the same time, a Brain Ape suddenly smashed through a window in the outer wall and pounced in from outside.

Shen Feng immediately swung his gun around and fired half a magazine, knocking the Brain Ape to the ground.

With another crash, a second Brain Ape entered through a nearby window and raised its gun to fire.

Kuafu snatched up the shotgun hanging from his chest with lightning speed and fired, blasting the Brain Ape backward through the air.

Shen Feng aimed downward and fired the remaining half magazine, immediately shooting down two Brain Apes that were climbing up.

"Roar! They're here!" A shout came from the corridor to the side. The pursuers had found them completely.

"Keep moving!" Shen Feng barked. He tossed aside the submachine gun and pulled out his last grenade, throwing it toward the source of the voice.

The thunderous boom of the grenade and the apes' screams rang out. Kuafu did not look back, continuing to climb upward with Shen Feng until they reached the thirty-fifth floor. Only then did he stop in exhaustion, panting heavily.

Shen Feng untied the rope from Kuafu's body. Man and ape quickly moved through the building, reached its middle section, then ran down two floors by the stairs before finding an inconspicuous room to hide in.

There were countless human stone statues in the building. They hid in a conference room, where stone statues sat around the conference table, clearly having been in a meeting before they petrified.

Each floor of the building had over a hundred rooms. It would not be easy for several dozen Brain Apes to locate them precisely.

Shen Feng took the contents of his backpack out. Aside from daily necessities, there were two pistols and four or five magazines.

Together with the shotgun in Kuafu's hands and a dozen or so shells, that was all the firepower they had.

It was only barely enough.

Sitting against the wall, Shen Feng raised a hand and poked the back of it, unable to stop himself from frowning.

The situation seemed to be deteriorating rapidly. It took roughly ten minutes for his skin to sink in and then fully spring back!

The Stone Statue Virus in his body seemed to be on the verge of a full outbreak!

But how much time did he have left?

An hour? Twenty minutes?

Man and ape looked at each other. Shen Feng handed Kuafu a pistol and two magazines, saying, "The Stone Statue Virus is about to erupt. I have to go to the research lab on the top floor to find the last Stone Statue Disease vaccine and muscle activation agent. But since this building has already been cleared out by the Ape Clan, you should have taken the medicine away already... And why haven't the human stone statues here been cleared away?"

Kuafu wiped at his waist, and his hand immediately came away bright red. He had been grazed by shrapnel. Taking the pistol, he said grimly, "I've seen what humans looked like before they petrified. The Stone Statue Disease in your body may erupt in ten minutes at most... If you mean the classified research lab on the top floor, I've never entered it either. This was humanity's foremost base for researching Stone Statue Disease. No one knew what terrifying mutations those viruses might undergo, so I prohibited all apes from entering the virus research lab on the top floor. As for the stone statues in this building... this is where ape civilization began, and it is also our holy land. The researchers here could be called our creators, so they were preserved intact."

Shen Feng nodded. The intelligent apes' feelings toward humanity were extremely complicated, and this was evidence enough.

Knowing that the final medicine was upstairs put him at ease.

What he had feared most was that the vaccine and medicine would be destroyed, making the mission impossible to complete.

Kuafu continued regretfully, "Your appearance has made me understand that perhaps the inheritance of human civilization should be met with a different kind of gratitude... Don't worry. After you petrify, if I survive, I will lead my people in worshipping the old humans and their civilization, waiting for the next you to arrive. Or perhaps we will die here together..."

Without Shen Feng as an ally, it would be difficult for him to fight against several dozen well-trained, fully armed apes. He would likely die here completely and fulfill Stone Eye's ambitions.

Shen Feng looked deeply at Kuafu and said, "No. You still have to keep your promise and make your people submit to me!"

As he spoke, he pulled out an injection from inside his clothes. With his not-so-flexible right hand, he viciously drove it into his arm and injected its contents into his body!

A label on the injection faintly read, "Stone Statue Disease Type 1."

Skinning Agent!

Just then, a burst of barking came from outside. The pursuers had found them!