Locked in the Laboratory Building

"That bastard! Does he think this will keep us trapped?"

Liu Feng cursed and summoned 100,000 Iron-toothed Insects to gnaw through the door in front of him. It looked as though it was made of an alloy, but his Lv10 Iron-toothed Insects should have been more than capable of tearing it apart.

Yet this time, the Iron-toothed Insects he took such pride in returned in defeat. The moment their sharp teeth struck the metal door, they were all knocked back, falling to the ground and dying outright.

Liu Feng rarely failed, especially when attacking with his Iron-toothed Insects, which won almost every battle. He wanted to summon more to strengthen the assault, only to discover that the system was on the verge of shutting down. The Iron-toothed Insects' cooldown had been extended, leaving him unable to use them again for another five minutes.

Liu Feng did not dare mention this bug, afraid Han Bing and the others would lose confidence, but Little Knife could tell from his expression that something was wrong.

"This door is made of a special material. We need to find another way. They couldn't have used such a tough composite throughout the entire building."

Little Knife pulled away the ragged cloth covering the surrounding walls. The bizarre scrawls on the fabric meant nothing, but the walls behind it were covered in strange claw marks that looked as though they had been scratched into them by Mutant Beasts.

These Mutant Beasts had extremely sharp claws. Each swipe had gouged two or three centimeters into the wall, scraping away most of the writing. They seemed to have deliberately destroyed certain things, unwilling to let anyone who came afterward see them.

"Feng! There's an instrument panel behind this!"

Feng Wen shouted and pointed at the reading on the panel. It was a thermometer, and the temperature had already reached 52 degrees and was still climbing.

"At this temperature, they're trying to give us a sauna. Iron-toothed Insects, come back."

Liu Feng looked up at the ragged strips of cloth inside the room and recalled his Iron-toothed Insects, having them tear all the fabric to shreds. Their sharp teeth could not chew through the alloy door, but dealing with these scraps of cloth was child's play.

Two minutes later, the Laboratory Building's true appearance was revealed. Its walls were covered in symbols, along with faint bloodstains and signs of fighting. It was hard to imagine what the people who had once been here had endured.

"There aren't just Mutant Beast claw marks here. There are human handprints too. But these bloodstains are so old. It's also possible the people here turned into zombies and were killed by the Mutant Beasts."

Little Knife tried to decipher the writing on the walls. She had also been born in a laboratory and possessed an instinctive sensitivity to this sort of data. Judging by the data and claw marks, Iron Cockroach Beasts had probably been kept here. These Mutant Beasts, transformed from cockroaches, could withstand both cold and heat. They were also the best suited to hard labor of all Mutant Beasts and were often used by laboratories for excavation work.

However, these were first-generation Mutant Beasts, the lowest of their kind, and normally did not know how to resist humans. The Iron Cockroach Beasts here had actually abandoned their assigned work and wreaked havoc throughout the laboratory. Some sort of stimulus had most likely triggered a second mutation.

"Feng Wen, Feng Wu, check the first floor for controls and any other instruments with readings. Han Bing, take the rest of the group and find an exit. Zerui must have left himself an escape route. This place can't be completely sealed."

Liu Feng assigned their tasks methodically, then examined the height of the floors. Each was at least six or seven meters high. It really would take a speed-type Gene Warrior to jump up there.

"Little Knife, can you get up that high?"

Liu Feng turned toward Little Knife, his gaze questioning.

"You're really underestimating me. But I can't take you along. You're too heavy."

The moment she finished speaking, Little Knife shot up to the second floor like a black shadow. With a light push from her toes, she leaped even higher. At this speed, she would need only two or three minutes to cover all eleven floors.

"Liu Feng, there's nothing up here. Every floor is empty."

Little Knife had already reached the fifth floor, but all she could see were more traces of attempts to smear things out. Apart from years of accumulated dust, there was not even a single piece of furniture on the floor. It looked as though no one had lived here in a long time.

Little Knife could not help feeling disappointed. She almost wished she could run into a Mutant Beast. Before dying of the heat, at least she could enjoy a good fight and a full meal.

"Feng, the controls aren't downstairs, but we found some important documents."

Feng Wen and Feng Wu held a dust-covered folder. The documents inside had yellowed, and some pages had been gnawed on, leaving enormous tooth marks that looked like the work of a Mutant Beast.

Liu Feng glanced through them and discovered that everything was written in English. Language proficiency was not among the system's upgrades. No matter how many times he transmigrated, his English would still be virtually nonexistent.

"What do they say? Just tell me."

Liu Feng glanced at the thermometer. It was already at 65 degrees. At this rate, they would not be taking a sauna—they would be boiled alive.

"Feng, it says this laboratory runs on energy from underground magma. Those scientists wanted to channel the magma into the Underground City, so they built an enormous magma storage reservoir beneath this laboratory. We're standing right on top of it. In other words, this place is basically a giant furnace."

Sweat streamed down Feng Wen's face, half of it from his shock at the laboratory's construction. According to the documents, problems had arisen after the magma was poured into the reservoir. The scientists discovered that it could not continue flowing downstream as expected. Instead, it produced a nuclear reaction inside the reservoir and would explode once the pressure reached a certain level.

They had built a temporary pressure-release device to delay the explosion, but they could not prevent the eventual outcome. Thus, they had installed a self-destruct mechanism in the laboratory, hoping to contain the explosion's destructive force within the smallest possible area.

"You mean this laboratory is indestructible because they wanted to destroy everything inside, including the experimental data."

Liu Feng quickly grasped the crucial point. If that was what those scientists had intended, then this building would have no exit.

"Little Knife, we need to find a pressure-release device now. As long as we find it, we'll be safe for the time being."

Liu Feng shouted up toward the upper floors. He had not paid attention to Little Knife's movements while listening to Feng Wen, and when he looked up again, she was gone.

Little Knife did not answer. Only Liu Feng's voice echoed through the building.

"Little Knife, what's wrong? Did something happen?"

Liu Feng had a bad feeling. Little Knife had most likely run into trouble. He brought up the system and discovered that the Iron-toothed Insects' cooldown had ended. He hurriedly summoned every one of them and had them form layer upon layer of armored platforms. Then he stepped onto them and raced toward Little Knife's floor as fast as he could.

(End of chapter)