Wu Cheng raised his hand and pointed toward their original destination.
"Wait, didn't those two officers just say the Calamity Beast was in that building up ahead?"
"Have you forgotten my ability?" Shen Heng asked before explaining, "I didn't hear any sounds inside that building, so even if the Calamity Beast went there earlier, he isn't there now!"
"Are you sure?" Wang Hai looked at Shen Heng solemnly.
"Yes, I'm sure! Unless this Calamity Beast doesn't even need to breathe, I really didn't hear anything in that original building. On the other hand..."
Shen Heng nodded and pointed toward the building where he had heard the sound.
"There's an unusual sound in this building, somewhere between breathing and a low growl, like the unconscious rumbling a Calamity Beast makes in its sleep."
Wang Hai nodded thoughtfully.
"Captain, what should we do?" Han Ling turned toward Wang Hai, asking for his opinion.
Wang Hai considered it, then abruptly raised his head.
"Let's go to the place Shen Heng pointed out first. If there's nothing there, we'll come back and check this one."
Everyone nodded, changed direction, and headed toward the building Shen Heng had indicated.
A few minutes later, they stopped at the foot of the building.
"Can you hear exactly which floor the Calamity Beast is on?" Wang Hai asked.
Shen Heng listened carefully. "The twenty-third floor!"
"All right, good!"
Wang Hai nodded, then gave his instructions:
"We'll head up, then. Shen Heng, wait downstairs. If the Calamity Beast moves, keep us updated through your earpiece!"
Wang Hai raised his hand and tapped the earpiece on his left ear.
"I'm not going up with you?" Shen Heng asked.
"For you, providing support through your ability like this counts as completing your assignment. Fighting Calamity Beasts isn't your main job!" Wang Hai shook his head.
Shen Heng considered it, then nodded as well and stopped insisting.
Even if he went up now, he probably wouldn't be much help. Even if the Calamity Beast upstairs was only First Tier, with his scrawny arms and legs, he couldn't possibly fight it hand to hand. At most, he could help by firing a couple of shots.
But firing a couple of pistol shots could probably be considered essentially useless in this team. The gun was mostly just for Shen Heng to protect himself.
"All right, let's head up!" Wang Hai said.
As Wu Cheng followed Wang Hai, Han Ling, and Wei Leyang into the building, he said:
"Hey, leaving Shen Heng alone downstairs isn't very safe. What if we start fighting, and the Calamity Beast realizes it can't beat us and jumps down from upstairs? Wouldn't he be in danger? How about I stay here to protect him?"
Shen Heng hadn't thought of that, but hearing Wu Cheng say it made his heart tighten, and he couldn't help looking up at the building before him.
Damn, if the Calamity Beast really jumps down from this building, I might actually be done for!
Wang Hai said, "It's over twenty floors. Unless he's a Fourth Tier Calamity Beast, he'll be crippled even if the fall doesn't kill him. He won't pose much of a threat to Shen Heng. But if he's a Fourth Tier Calamity Beast, we'll be the ones figuring out how to escape!"
Hearing this, Shen Heng immediately sighed in relief, while Wu Cheng pursed his lips with some regret.
The group headed into the building and soon disappeared from Shen Heng's sight.
Shen Heng stood downstairs, waiting quietly and using the sounds coming from the building before him to roughly judge their positions.
The first floor, the third, the fifth, the eighth...
Inside the building, Wang Hai led Han Ling, Wu Cheng, and Wei Leyang upstairs, one step at a time.
When they reached the tenth floor, Wang Hai suddenly stopped and raised his right hand slightly to halt the others behind him, lowering his voice:
"Keep your footsteps light from here on. We don't want the Calamity Beast to notice us!"
The three nodded to show they understood.
Wang Hai remained where he was and continued in a low voice, "Shen Heng, if the Calamity Beast makes any movement, remember to let us know immediately!"
"Understood!"
Shen Heng's voice reached everyone's ears through their earpieces.
Wang Hai nodded slightly and began leading them upward again.
This time, they ascended at an even slower pace.
The twelfth floor, the fourteenth, the sixteenth...
Just as they thought they would approach the Calamity Beast without a sound, Shen Heng's voice suddenly rang out in their ears.
"Captain, the Calamity Beast moved!"
Everyone instantly stopped on the stairs between the eighteenth and nineteenth floors.
Han Ling, Wu Cheng, and Wei Leyang instinctively looked toward Wang Hai.
Wang Hai lowered his voice. "Which direction is the Calamity Beast moving now? Left? Right?"
"He's... above your heads. He's starting to come down!" Shen Heng replied through the earpieces.
Before Wang Hai could ask any further questions, Shen Heng's voice continued over the earpieces.
"He's coming down fast. Twenty-second floor, twenty-first, twentieth..."
Shen Heng's voice kept ringing through their earpieces, with barely a few seconds between each update, every one signaling that the Calamity Beast had reached another floor.
"Nineteenth floor!"
This time, Wang Hai didn't even dare ask a question in a lowered voice, because they were currently on the stairs leading from the eighteenth floor to the nineteenth.
If the Calamity Beast kept coming down, that meant it would appear right in front of them at any moment.
On the stairs, everyone retreated to the eighteenth floor and began preparing for battle without needing a reminder from Wang Hai.
Han Ling moved lightly away from the stairwell and set up her specially made sniper rifle twenty or thirty meters away.
Wu Cheng also backed away a little, holding a shield in his left hand while curling the fingers of his right around empty air, ready to conjure a fireball and hurl it into the Calamity Beast's face at any moment.
Wei Leyang kept stretching his fingers, faint threads flickering in and out of sight in his hands.
Wang Hai guarded the stairwell.
Everyone looked up in unspoken coordination, their gazes fixed firmly on the turn in the stairs between the eighteenth and nineteenth floors.
One second, two seconds, three seconds...
Yet the Calamity Beast never appeared, nor did they hear Shen Heng report that the Calamity Beast had reached the nineteenth floor.
Did it notice our movements, so now it's waiting upstairs to ambush us?
Wang Hai frowned slightly. He hadn't expected that, despite telling everyone in advance to make less noise as they moved, they would still end up being heard by the Calamity Beast.
Just as he was considering whether to charge straight up or split into several groups and surround it from other directions, Shen Heng's slightly startled voice abruptly sounded in his ear again.
"Captain, haven't you run into the Calamity Beast?"
Everyone on the eighteenth floor froze slightly at his words, momentarily unable to understand what he meant.
Wang Hai reacted quickly. No longer caring that speaking might let the Calamity Beast hear him, he immediately asked:
"What do you mean by that?"
There was a moment of hesitation over the earpieces before a slow reply came:
"The Calamity Beast... has gone downstairs now..."