Chapter 17 - 15: I Have Experience

Chapter 17: Chapter 15: I Have Experience

[Repaying a Saved Life with a Blocked Blow]

[Gray Card event ’Setting a Death Flag Assures Death’ completed. Obtained one-time Item ’Life-Saving Grace’, 300 words.]

[Effect: When you fall into a situation of certain death, a person you have saved will block one attack for you (We are a serious game and will not harm an innocent Alei. Blocking a blow only consumes this Item).]

[Note: Alei must be alive to block a blow for you. If Alei dies, this Item becomes invalid.]

The system’s voice slowly roused Yin Zhen. Total darkness surrounded her. From a distance came the DRIP DROP of water and some kind of low, guttural roaring.

The hovercar had crashed through the ground. Its wreckage burned not far away, the firelight stretching the cat’s shadow long across the floor. The feline body was light enough, and combined with her Luck bonus, she had survived the plunge, losing only 15% of her Life Value.

Super Sensing spread out silently. Yin Zhen detected movement dozens of meters away. Things were moving. There were many of them, and they were fast—but it wasn’t Angie and the others.

[Gray Card event triggered: The First to Fall Behind]

[Novel Law: In horror novels, whoever leaves the group dies first—unless you are the protagonist.]

[Event Requirement: Do not die. Return to the team alive.]

Yin Zhen crouched in place, her amber cat eyes staring into the depths of the darkness.

Her tail flicked once. Then again.

"Meow..."

The kitty sighed, tucked her head down, and sprinted away.

The darkness in the sewer seemed endless. Yin Zhen ran in her cat Transformation for twenty minutes, fast as a grayish-black shadow, but she still couldn’t shake off the horde behind her. Her Super Sensing picked up more and more movement. The Fallen Species lurking underground were closing in from all directions.

Yin Zhen squeezed deep into a crevice only twenty centimeters wide. The Fallen Species couldn’t fit inside, finally allowing her to catch her breath. She found it rather fascinating that her Transformation in the Red Corpse World was a black cat, whereas in her own world, she turned into a tabby.

The commotion outside grew louder. Their thirst for living prey drove the Fallen Species to scratch frantically at the edges of the crevice, desperately trying to squeeze their way in.

"Meow..." Yin Miaomiao continued to crawl forward.

The end of the pipe led out to an abandoned building. She popped half her head out of the sewer, her little ears twitching as she looked and listened in every direction. Building debris filled her sight, but she caught the scent of living creatures. Following the smell, Yin Zhen found a group of Dusk People.

There were seven or eight of them crammed into an abandoned room. The door was barricaded with sheet metal and wooden boards. A scrawny teenage boy crawled out from some unknown crack, clutching half a filthy bag of artificial blood plasma.

"I found some! I found some!"

The others immediately swarmed him. A man snatched the plasma bag, took one look, and his face fell.

"It’s been expired for over a year..."

"We can drink it even if it’s expired!" a woman cried, reaching out to grab it. "I’m starving to death!"

"No! Expired plasma has contaminants. It’ll turn us into the Fallen Species!"

"If I don’t drink it, I’ll turn into one right now!"

In the struggle, the plasma bag dropped to the ground. The meager remaining liquid seeped into the cracks in the floor.

The group froze. The boy who had found the plasma stared at the stain, suddenly dropped to his knees, and began licking it with his tongue. The others exchanged glances, and several of them also dropped to the floor, licking the bloodstains.

Perched on a crossbeam, Yin Zhen observed that the skin of these Blood Clan members was turning gray. Their hair was sparse, their nails were unnaturally long, and their backs were slightly hunched. They were practically half Fallen Species already.

Yin Zhen remained crouched in place without moving. This was the heavy reality behind the title "Dusk People."

The Blood Plague twenty years ago had struck far too swiftly and fiercely. Most of the population had been reduced to Dusk People like these, leaving them with an extreme shortage of food sources. The upper-class Blood Clan couldn’t care less whether they lived or died. Most jobs in this world had already been replaced by AI, mechanical constructs, and androids. The elites would even deliberately corral them on the outskirts of the cities, leaving them to turn into the Fallen Species. This formed a natural defensive line to fend off the Rebel Army and the Deep Sea Mutants.

BANG!

A gunshot rang out, exceptionally clear in the darkness.

Yin Zhen immediately sprinted in the direction of the sound. Mid-run, she underwent a Transformation into a Raven, flapping her wings to gain altitude and peering down from above.

In an empty, abandoned plaza, at least twenty Fallen Species were chasing after a sprinting figure. The dense swarm of grayish-black silhouettes surged forward like a tide. And just ahead of that tide was Erin.

She was incredibly fast. Even while fleeing, she remained perfectly composed.

One of the Fallen Species lunged from her left. Erin sidestepped. The creature’s claws grazed the hem of her clothes before it crashed into the ground, sending gravel flying. Another launched a sneak attack from behind. Without even looking back, Erin simply ducked slightly, allowing the creature to fly right over her head and slam into a pillar.

She wielded two custom handguns—one an electromagnetic pulse pistol with high-speed, armor-piercing lethality, and the other a kinetic pistol loaded with high-explosive rounds. The muzzles continuously spat fire in the darkness.

The high-speed armor-piercing rounds shattered the knees of the Fallen Species, causing them to lose balance, crash into their companions, and trip up an entire swath of the horde. Then, the explosive rounds blasted outward in a cone-shaped kill zone, heavily crippling the Fallen Species.

More than twenty Fallen Species chased and snapped at her frantically, yet they couldn’t even touch the edge of her clothes. During the few rare moments they managed to close in perilously tight, she raised her hand and fired two shots to instantly defuse the danger.

Watching from high above, Yin Zhen thought of a single word: "Pureblood!"

Only a pureblood could possess such speed and reflexes, along with firearms that vastly outclassed standard-issue gear. She had suspected it before, but now she could practically confirm it. Erin’s attribute stats were definitely a huge cut above hers, too.

[Silver Card event triggered: God-Tier Teammate or Dead Weight]

[Novel Law: In a team, there is always one person who seems unreliable but is actually hiding profound strength.]

[Event Requirement: Choose to help, or pretend you didn’t see anything.]

[Special Hint: This event has no rewards or penalties, but it will affect interpersonal relationships.]

Yin Zhen froze.

"A Silver Card event?

"Is Erin a ’major supporting character’ in the Red Corpse World?"

A dead end lay just ahead of Erin. Yin Zhen wanted to retreat, but a Raven’s eyesight was excellent—good enough to clearly see the brief glance Erin cast up at the sky in between firing her guns. More accurately, she was looking right at her.

That look clearly said, "I know you’re up there. So, are you coming down to help, or are you just going to keep enjoying the show?"

Yin Zhen didn’t dare entertain any other ideas. She decisively dove downward.

The instant before she hit the ground, she reverted to human form. She planted both feet squarely on the back of a Fallen Species, using the momentum to spring away while drawing her sidearm.

BANG! BANG!

Two shots hit a Fallen Species in the shoulder, but it only swayed slightly before lunging forward again. Her gun wasn’t strong enough, and her bullets were only standard rounds. Although these Fallen Species were much weaker than the one in the laboratory, there were simply too many of them, and the battlefield was utter chaos.

Yin Zhen gritted her teeth, raised her gun, and quickly fired again.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

It took three consecutive shots to the exact same spot before the creature finally went down.

Three more surrounded her. Yin Zhen’s evasive maneuvers were nowhere near as graceful as Erin’s. She dodged by a hair’s breadth, her back slamming into a pile of rubble, which forced her firing rhythm to break.

Erin kept up her suppression fire with both guns, still looking completely at ease. She even found a spare moment to shoot Yin Zhen a glance, her lips curving upward. The smile held no malice, but it infuriated Yin Zhen. Not only was her gear sub-par, but she also lacked a high-offense Extraordinary Ability.

Yin Zhen took a deep breath, her face flushing red as she shouted at the top of her lungs, "I have experience!"

Hearing this, Erin paused in confusion. "Huh?"

[Title: I have experience (Activated)]

[When facing a monster type that almost killed you but was ultimately counter-killed by you, shouting "I have experience" grants All Attributes +10% for 3 minutes.]

The moment the words left her mouth, a warm current surged from her spine out to her limbs. Yin Zhen’s Strength, speed, and reflexes all spiked.

Yin Zhen ducked under a pouncing Fallen Species and fired a backhanded shot, hitting another squarely between the eyes. When a third rushed her, she simply raised her leg and kicked it in the chest, using the recoil to execute a backflip. By the time she landed, she had already swapped her magazine.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Firing three times in rapid succession at point-blank range, another Fallen Species dropped. Every single bullet had drilled into the exact same spot right between its eyes.

Erin raised an eyebrow. "You really do have a lot of experience. Catch."

Erin tossed the silver electromagnetic pulse pistol to Yin Zhen. Yin Zhen snatched it out of the air, and the two opened fire simultaneously.

BANG! BANG!

Erin shot at their legs, tripping them up in droves, while Yin Zhen followed up with headshots, dropping them one by one. The Fallen Species died one after another. The two coordinated so flawlessly it was as if they had practiced this hundreds of times, even though they had only just met.

Three minutes later, every moving Fallen Species in the vicinity had been eradicated, leaving the ground completely littered with contorted corpses.