Chapter 2764

(Wait a minute) "If I ever have that day, I won’t die so undignified," Chai Sheng suddenly said.

"Look on the bright side, you might not live to see the day of degeneration," Xu Huo comforted him.

"Haha, makes sense." Chai Sheng forcefully ran his left hand, clad in metal gloves, along the blade, sharpening it with a piercing screech. The long blade gleamed more ominously as he swung it with force and strode forward, "Let me send them off on their last journey!"

The two made their way through, dispatching over twenty aliens before finally reaching an empty room. This should be the staff’s resting area, devoid of important documents but containing numbered attendance records.

"Do no evil, fear no knock on the door," Chai Sheng tapped the notebook, "Look, working in this job, they don’t even dare to connect to the terminal, and everyone’s names are replaced by numbers."

Xu Huo glanced at him, turned to head to the next room, but just as he stepped out, the doors closed rapidly behind him, once more triggering the mechanism which caused the corridor to sink below.

"Sh*t..." Chai Sheng’s voice sank into the crack of the closing wall.

Xu Huo merely lifted his gaze briefly before shifting it away, letting it glide past the surveillance device embedded in the front wall.

Here is the second level underground, darker and fewer lit compared to above, seemingly adjusted to accommodate something specific.

"Tap, tap, tap..." Xu Huo’s footsteps echoed in the spacious area, stopping at a heavy metal door after a short walk.

There was an irregular breathing sound from behind the door.

The person behind probably sensed someone outside the door, thus the breathing intensified—though players shouldn’t make such a novice mistake, the speeding rhythm made the sound all the more obvious.

After about half a minute, the metal door was abruptly flung open, and the curly-haired female player earlier taken away dashed out, launching a frenzied attack at Xu Huo. Fear outweighed her intent to kill!

The "Time Ring" couldn’t manifest under Punishment City’s interference, but it didn’t stop Xu Huo from using it to conceal and activate the Time Force, immobilizing her before using the Space Cutting Line to bleed both her arms, locking her up again before releasing the time control.

The pain sobered the curly-haired woman a bit; her eyeballs shook, taking several seconds to see Xu Huo clearly, reacting with some fatigue, "Was it you outside the door just now?"

"Who else?" Xu Huo retorted.

The curly-haired woman injected herself with Antitoxin, then donned a spiritual interference device before saying, "I think I hallucinated, mistaking the intruder for an alien... a very powerful alien."

"Indeed, no alien could be that powerful."

"How did you get down?"

She motioned Xu Huo to release her.

Xu Huo however didn’t lift the space lock, instead saying, "Let’s wait a while, this place is filled with psychic power, I’m unsure if you’re truly clear-headed."

The curly-haired woman thought it reasonable and didn’t insist, only preparing props just in case.

She began relating her experience.

After being taken by staff, she was sent directly to one of the underground rooms. Unable to break through with her props, she wandered around below. Initially encountering some ordinary aliens, the horror didn’t bemuse her much, only annoyed her slightly.

However, upon entering a room infused with multiple aliens, the scenario shifted. Several aliens broke through walls, chasing her into a room smeared with black paint. Passing through that room, she met a peculiar alien that appeared and disappeared mysteriously. Many of her props were ineffective against it; though she managed to defend herself, she couldn’t match its speed nor trace its whereabouts, cautious as she tread through the corridor.

*

"What if someone told you that consuming this person’s flesh and blood might grant you immortality?" Xu Huo asked again.

"That’s impossible!" Chai Sheng was incredulous.

"It’s indeed impossible, yet some do exactly that," Xu Huo said, unfazed, "Let alone eating flesh or drinking blood, they’d even boil bones and nails into soup."

"That’s disgusting," Chai Sheng expressed abhorrence.

"It really is repulsive." Xu Huo reached out under the bandaged person’s nose, the man who appeared inert like a mass of rotten flesh suddenly exploded in action, jaws wide, lunging for his throat!

But Xu Huo was prepared. The instant the person rose, he countered by grabbing his face and slamming it hard onto the bed frame, creating a dent in the metal sickbed, where the bandaged man wedged in, wild limbs tearing at restraints!

Chai Sheng hastily used a prop to restrain him again, stepping back as the sickbed shifted continuously, "What strength!"

Xu Huo remotely sliced away the bandages from the man’s face and body, revealing his missing eyes and flayed skin. Part of his ribs had been removed, causing his chest to cave in, with wounds on the abdomen poorly stitched, threads slack, showing a blood-red gap within.

"He can still live like this?" Chai Sheng was amazed, "I’m starting to doubt if he’s human."

"Even if no longer human now, he once was." Xu Huo’s gaze fell on the bandaged man’s hand, the original skin already covered by thick brown patches, nails showing signs of animal-like transformation.

"Alien." Chai Sheng inspected closely, "Aliens often evolve from those unable to adapt to evolution, hardly qualifying as humans anymore. Once genes are altered, they’re beyond correction, lacking research value."

"Not necessarily," Xu Huo remarked, "Have you heard of wise variants?"

"Wise variants? Combining those words sounds absurd," Chai Sheng chuckled.

"They indeed exist—not necessarily wise—but there are people researching aliens within the game, perhaps trying to create stronger creatures." Xu Huo finished off the bandaged man before glancing at the room’s opposing door, "I wonder how many aliens remain here."

Chai Sheng gripped the long blade tightly, "When you encounter them, kill them. Killing aliens bears no psychological burden for me."

Sure enough, successive rooms ahead contained aliens. Though combat weak post-surgery, their physical abilities far exceeded the first, coordinated in their movements, indistinguishable from animals.

However, once their bandages were removed, it was found their bodies resembled normal humans, some merely having traces of animals on their skin—clearly players experiencing degeneration.

There are only two ends for players facing degeneration: one is gradually developing animal features, with mutated genes causing them to resemble animals and lose sanity over time; the other is weakening bodily functions, either through sudden organ aging or appearing severely ill, weakening until death.

Some special evolved players carry signs of the former, but Xu Huo hadn’t encountered any true cases of degeneration leading to such evolution, whereas the latter was common.

Seems this Punishment City somehow gathered numerous degenerate players.