Chapter 254: Red

"But what kind of thing would need to lurk for over ten years?" After a moment of thought, Zhang Wenda stopped his wild guessing. He decided to go back and ask in person to get a clear answer.

"Maomao, open the door, quick. We need to leave the Network Tide now."

The whole situation was a confusing mess, but he had to get to the bottom of it. Otherwise, he might accidentally fall into this guy's trap and get sold out without even realizing it.

In any case, he had successfully completed both tasks—seducing Qianxi and killing Tang Xingxiong. There was no reason he couldn't leave now.

"Why aren't you opening the door?" Hu Maomao asked, pulling out a flashlight and starting to draw a door on the ground.

"I never learned how. Besides, I'm out of red."

"Jianguo! Stop playing around! Time to go!" Zhang Wenda shouted at Song Jianguo, who was in the distance, transformed into a Black Cat Godzilla and roaring at the sky.

Just as Zhang Wenda saw Hu Maomao finish drawing the exit door and was about to step through, he suddenly froze, slowly raising the scythe in his hand.

His eyes hardened, and the nerves that had just begun to relax tensed up once more.

"You and Jianguo go through. Quick!" Zhang Wenda urged in a low voice, his eyes fixed on a figure gradually approaching through the distant ruins.

Seeing that there was a situation, Hu Maomao immediately made a lifting motion with his empty hands, sucking the approaching Song Jianguo straight into the door. "Hurry, get in. I'll close it behind you."

This time, however, Zhang Wenda didn't move. He remained rooted to the spot.

"What are you doing? Get in here, hurry," Hu Maomao urged in a hushed voice, his body half inside the portal and half out.

Zhang Wenda still didn't move, standing there silently and staring at the distant figure.

When the figure was finally close enough, Zhang Wenda could see what it was.

It was a red, scythe-wielding monster, over three meters tall and covered in black holes. Upon seeing it, Zhang Wenda finally understood: this was the Red Trial that had come for him.

'Does it have to be now, of all times?' Zhang Wenda's brow furrowed at the sight.

The Network Tide wasn't safe right now. For all he knew, Qianxi and the Big Circle Leopard were tearing the world apart somewhere in a cataclysmic battle.

After a moment of rational thought, Zhang Wenda took a step back toward the portal. But just as his digitigrade leg was halfway through, he stopped.

'Wait. Is the choice to retreat or not part of the Red Trial? If I leave, does that mean I fail?'

Based on his last experience, the trials themselves weren't what mattered. The key was the choice they forced him to make.

"Hurry up, Haozi! What are you dawdling for?" Song Jianguo said, tossing Tang Xingxiong's moon in his hand like a cat toy for the Black Cats to chase.

After a few seconds of deep thought, his brow furrowed, Zhang Wenda yelled to the others, "You guys go on ahead! I have something to take care of here!"

Only when Zhang Wenda got closer did he finally see the creature's true form.

Zhang Wenda was in his own monstrous form at the moment. He was already nearly two meters tall, but he was clearly a head shorter than this thing. It had to be at least two and a half meters tall.

More importantly, Zhang Wenda's body wasn't red, while his opponent's was a terrifying crimson. Zhang Wenda could even smell the faint, metallic scent of blood in the air.

"What do you want me to do?" Zhang Wenda spoke first, testing the waters.

The red monster before him, however, remained silent. It then raised its right scythe-hand, crooked a finger at Zhang Wenda, and turned to walk silently into the distance.

Holding his breath, Zhang Wenda followed it out of the ruins, waiting for the Red Trial to issue its new test.

After walking for about ten minutes, Zhang Wenda looked back and could no longer even see the ruins of the collapsed Zhihu Building.

He couldn't see the building, but he did see two figures—one tall, one short—accompanied by a group of Black Cats.

Seeing Zhang Wenda's strange appearance, a worried Hu Maomao and Song Jianguo had ended up following him after all.

"What is it now! We've been running around all day, can't a guy get a break? I'm dead tired," Song Jianguo grumbled, his face a mask of impatience.

Hu Maomao, who was standing beside him, clearly knew more. He glanced in the direction Zhang Wenda was staring and said, "Whatever it is you're seeing, I should remind you that we can't see a thing."

"It's normal that you can't. This thing is probably a part of my inner self," Zhang Wenda said, his eyes fixed on the red figure's back.

Hu Maomao frowned. "The one from Number 2?"

"Yeah." Hearing this, Hu Maomao said no more. He just followed silently, ready to provide a portal for Zhang Wenda at a moment's notice and maintain instant communication with the Bureau.

Zhang Wenda had been to Network Tide 13 many times before, but as they walked onward, he gradually sensed that something was off. He even saw creatures by the roadside that should have only existed in the dark web.

A giraffe-like doppelgänger with a human face brazenly walked along a nearby progress bar, moving at high speed.

Recalling the strange phenomena in the sky from before, Zhang Wenda wasn't sure if this anomaly was caused by the fight between the Big Circle Leopard and Qianxi, but he felt this Tide was growing stranger and became extra cautious.

"Maomao, can you confirm something for me? The fight between Qianxi and the Big Circle Leopard isn't happening around here, is it?" the uneasy Zhang Wenda asked again.

Hu Maomao tilted his head slightly, waited a few seconds, then answered, "They're not. Currently, none of the eyes within Tide 13 can find any trace of them. It's highly likely they've gone to another Tide."

"Good. Maintain contact with them. If things go south, we're pulling out immediately." Even with the Red Trial right in front of him, he would rather abandon it than get caught in the crossfire of their battle.

He wanted to kill Qianxi, but he wasn't so arrogant as to think this was the perfect opportunity.

As they continued walking, a metal wall appeared before them, formed from all sorts of iron pipes and machinery. It was so vast they could see neither its beginning nor its end.

Watching the creature slip through a gap, Zhang Wenda, on high alert, followed it right in.

It looked crowded from the outside, but the inside was exceptionally spacious, as if they were in a massive factory that had been shut down for a long time.

But this factory was strange. In its various nooks and crannies were red stains and a certain foul odor.

Song Jianguo tilted his head back, sniffed the air lightly, and said, "It's the smell of blood and sweat."

'Blood and sweat... a sweatshop? Is this the testing ground for the Red Trial? What's my next move?'

The instant that thought crossed Zhang Wenda's mind, white steam suddenly erupted from the surrounding metal pipes, blanketing the area in a thick, white fog.

"Everyone, be careful! Something's happening!" Zhang Wenda had just started to warn the other two when, with a SQUELCH, he felt a sharp pain in his abdomen.