Hum!
The sensors triggered instantly, and an icy blue glow lit up the walls on either side.
Along this five-meter stretch of corridor, the walls were completely transparent, like reinforced glass. Behind the glass, densely packed red dots lit up one after another, their dim light flashing rapidly.
That deadly chill emanated from those red dots.
They locked onto one another, sweeping across each other's paths to weave an invisible net of death that completely sealed off the room at the end.
As for the steel door, only its upper half remained, hanging crookedly. The severed edge was smooth as a mirror, as though a diagonal slash had cleaved it apart.
Chen Xiao narrowed his eyes, staring into the darkness behind the door.
Behind him, the frail boy he had just rescued tugged at his clothes, his voice tight. "Big brother... don't go in... there's a devil inside."
"A devil?" Chen Xiao turned his head, raising an eyebrow slightly.
The boy's Adam's apple bobbed, his voice shaking uncontrollably. "I... I heard those bad people say... there's a 'man-eating demon' locked inside. Lots of guards have already died..."
Chen Xiao chuckled. "That's rather fitting."
"But if you ask me, what's locked inside is an extremely dangerous mutant who's very difficult to control."
Although he could not see the entire room, his keen senses had already picked up faint but steady breathing. The strong, rusty odor filling his nostrils confirmed something else: plenty of people had died, or the stench of blood would not have been so overpowering, so heavy.
What made him frown even more was the mental disturbance mingling rage, murderous intent, and madness, like a red-hot blade scraping across his nerves.
Dangerous? Certainly.
But so what? Since when had he, Chen Xiao, made his way through life by sticking to what was "safe"?
As the thought flashed through his mind, his lips curved upward. He motioned for the children to move farther back, then gathered strength in his right fist and smashed it into the edge of the glass wall on his left!
Boom!
The entire wall vibrated with a hum. Spiderweb cracks spread wildly before it shattered into fragments all over the floor.
His left fist immediately followed, and the glass wall on the other side collapsed, sending shards flying.
The truly lethal threat was actually the crisscrossing laser points flashing behind the glass. Anyone who stepped inside would be sliced into dozens of pieces in an instant.
The scene resembled the laser corridor in Resident Evil.
But Chen Xiao quickly realized that this defense was not meant to keep outsiders from entering, but to stop the thing inside from escaping.
It did not matter.
His eyes suddenly glowed scarlet, and two scorching beams roared out, sweeping precisely across every red dot,
Bang! Bang! Bang!
His ultrahigh-temperature heat rays erupted at full power, their temperature approaching fifteen hundred degrees Celsius. They swept through with a shock wave, bursting the red dots one after another as electrical sparks crackled everywhere.
The three children watched, dumbstruck, their little mouths hanging open and their eyes filled with astonishment and admiration.
The beams plowed through the laser arrays on both sides, crushing them and scorching the exposed wiring behind them until it smoked black. Only then did Chen Xiao cut off the light and look toward the ruined door at the end.
Inside, there was still not a sound.
He glanced back into the distance. Wolverine and the others were violently breaking down the remaining doors, making rapid progress.
After a moment's consideration, Chen Xiao blurred into motion and headed straight for the broken door.
As soon as he approached, a bone-piercing chill surged from beneath the door, freezing his eyebrows stiff, as though he had walked into the exhaust vent of a cold-storage unit.
He paused briefly, hooked both hands around the smooth, severed metal edge, and exerted his arms,
Boom!
The steel groaned and creaked as it bent upward. He forcibly pried the entire door open from the bottom in a display of sheer strength.
The instant the opening widened, Chen Xiao looked into the room.
His constitution of over a thousand points gave him eyesight far beyond an ordinary person's. Although he could not see at night as clearly as in daylight, the faint light at the entrance was enough to reveal the room clearly,
Body parts lay scattered around the doorway, limbs torn and incomplete. Blood had splashed across the floor and congealed into a dark red crust of ice. This was the source of that suffocatingly thick stench of blood.
A thin layer of frost covered every bloodstain and corpse. The cold came from a hissing ventilation outlet in the corner.
In the deepest part of the room, where the darkness was pitch-black, a figure stood motionless.
The figure held a saber in one hand, its blade giving off a muted sheen. Savage hostility surged all over her, and her crimson eyes locked firmly onto Chen Xiao at the entrance, her murderous intent almost tangible.
The entire room brimmed with uncontrollable killing intent, boiling bloodlust, and near-insane agitation.
But that degree of intimidation could not cow Chen Xiao.
He raised a hand, his tone as casual as if he were greeting a neighbor. "Hello. I'm here to take you out of here. Could you put the saber down first?"
Roar!!!
The answer was a frenzied howl that made the window frame hum and shake.
The next instant, the figure vanished.
Whoosh!
A piercing whistle tore through the air. In the blink of an eye, she swept up to the doorway like a phantom, trailing afterimages!
Twang!
But just two meters from the door, she abruptly stopped dead.
A thick, heavy chain ran around the back of her neck, pulled perfectly taut. One end was fastened tightly to the metal collar around her neck, while the other was embedded deep in the wall, pinning her firmly inside the room.
Given the speed at which this mutant had just charged, an ordinary person's neck would have been snapped clean by the chain suddenly pulling taut.
Even though her neck did not break, the wrenching force still caused unbearable pain, instantly driving her into an even greater frenzy. Beastlike growls rolled from her throat, nothing like any sound a human could make.
She tightened her grip on the long saber. Cold light flashed abruptly, and the blade cleaved straight toward Chen Xiao's face with a fierce rush of wind, its savagery bordering on self-destruction.
Swish!
The blade cut through the air with an ear-piercing shriek, as fast as lightning.
It was still half a step short of Chen Xiao, unable to reach him, yet his exposed skin instinctively tightened, his hair standing on end. His body darted aside before his conscious mind could react.
Sure enough, the instant he twisted aside, an invisible yet extraordinarily sharp wave of saber force burst from the edge and struck the wall hard.
Thwack!
A vicious gash half a meter long and ten centimeters deep split open in the concrete wall, sending debris pattering down.
Chen Xiao had already darted to the mutant's left. Clenching his right fist, he threw a ferocious punch!
The air before his fist was forcibly compressed until it burst, exploding into a ring of transparent pressure. Fierce winds howled up, whipping the mutant's hair wildly.
But she reacted extremely quickly,
Turning her wrist, she slashed diagonally upward with the long saber, its tip aimed straight at Chen Xiao's lower abdomen. She completely disregarded the fist about to strike her chest, willing to take the blow in exchange for severely wounding him.
Having witnessed the sharpness and ferocity of that saber strike, Chen Xiao naturally had no intention of gambling his life against hers. His eyes narrowed, and he pivoted, twisting at the waist to narrowly evade the blade.
Boom!
The floor trembled slightly as Chen Xiao burst into motion. Moving at two hundred meters per second, his afterimages stretched into a line. In the blink of an eye, he circled to the mutant's right and brought another heavy punch down toward her head!
The wind from his fist howled and tore like a dragon.
Swish!
The mutant remained utterly heedless, swinging her saber again.
This time, Chen Xiao neither retreated nor dodged. At the critical instant before his fist struck the blade, his five fingers suddenly spread, and the iron-hard edge of his palm slapped the saber's spine like lightning!
Thump!
Bang!
The long saber vibrated violently and flew out of her hand. The mutant's entire body lurched sideways, staggering.
Chen Xiao seized the opportunity to step forward, thrusting both arms out like iron pincers toward her shoulders, intending to pin her to the ground.
Yet at that very instant, the figure slid her foot, using the recoil from the saber being knocked away to twist around and snatch the airborne weapon backhanded,
Swish!
The blade forcibly tore through the air with a short, sharp whistle.
Ignoring the metal collar digging into her neck and drawing blood, she spun into a horizontal slash. The saber's light was as desolate as a ghost's wail as it swept straight for Chen Xiao's throat!
Her entire body was drawn taut as a bow, her gaze blood-red, her desperate ferocity suffocating.
If it landed, the blade's sharpness alone would have been enough to disembowel him, to say nothing of the invisible saber force that could split concrete. Even with his powerful physique, Chen Xiao could not be sure of escaping severe injury.
Left with no choice, he pulled back and hastily retreated, avoiding this desperate strike.
But this time, his brows lowered slightly and his gaze cooled as he stared at the mutant, his voice low. "Looks like you won't stop until I beat some obedience into you."
Roar!!
Her answer was an even more uncontrollable roar and a dense, impenetrable web of saber light.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Both fought at full strength, moving so quickly that only afterimages remained. Two dark blurs repeatedly crossed and collided in the cramped room, stirring fierce gusts that made the walls hum.
This mutant had clearly suffered inhuman torture. Her sanity had long since collapsed, and madness had sunk into her bones. Although Chen Xiao had no intention of killing her, he had no plans to hold back either.
After dodging dozens of successive strikes, he finally caught an opening and changed his attack again. Instead of slapping the blade, he reached out with all five fingers and precisely seized her saber-wielding wrist!
Although the mutant's saber was fast and her strikes fierce, her strength fell far short of Chen Xiao's. The instant he caught her wrist, the saber light filling the room receded like a tide.
Before she could struggle or exert any strength, a massive fist slammed heavily into the area just above her temple!
Thump!
Tremendous force hammered into her head, jolting her entire body rigid. Her skull rang incessantly, her consciousness instantly blurred, and her limbs went limp. The long saber fell to the floor with a clang.
To prevent any further trouble, Chen Xiao immediately twisted her arms behind her back, braced his knee against her lower back, and pinned her firmly to the wall.
Yes, her.
The moment he caught her wrist, Chen Xiao had confirmed it. The bones were slender, the skin delicate and warm, definitely not a man's;
Looking at the curves of her chest, they were full and firm, with clear contours, far more pronounced than most adult men's and even more prominent than many women's;
Even more conspicuous were the two five-centimeter horns protruding from her forehead, black and jagged, shaped like a demon's fangs. No wonder people called her a "devil."
As for her face, the room was dim and shadowy, making it impossible to see clearly for the moment.
Just then, the woman, whose head was still ringing from that punch, recovered slightly. Her bloodshot eyes remained full of savagery and confusion. A low, hoarse whimper escaped her throat as she was about to struggle free again,
Chen Xiao delivered another heavy punch squarely to the back of her head.
Thump!
Pain exploded in the back of her head, while the momentum slammed her forehead into the wall, making her scream in agony.
"Hello, are you lucid yet? I'm here to rescue you."
Thump!
"How about now? Can you understand what I'm saying?"
Thump!
"Can you speak yet?"
Thump! Thump!!
His words were perfectly polite, but his hands showed no hesitation. Every strike was a solid, heavy blow.
There was no helping it.
Although she was a woman, Chen Xiao had witnessed her crazed state firsthand. Until she regained her reason, he had no interest in showing any tender consideration for the fairer sex.