Breakout

Before long, Long Ming and the others rushed onto the first floor of the laboratory building. "Sister Qi!" The surviving members of the Rat Legion surged forward in excitement. Long Ming swept his gaze over the crowd. Around fifty or so members of the Rat Legion had made it. "Everyone, hurry! Let's get out of here!" Xiao Qi called out. "Right!" The group nodded eagerly. Right at that moment, an ear-splitting screech drifted down from above. "Little darlings, here I come!" "Scatter!" Long Ming shouted, craning his neck up just in time to see a hulking silhouette plummeting straight down from the ceiling. Hearing his warning, everyone scattered in all directions. *Boom!* Lula slammed heavily onto the floor. The floor tiles shattered instantly, sending a plume of dust into the air. Long Ming and the others stared in shock as Lula, drenched in blood, slowly emerged from the dust, blocking the laboratory building's main exit. "What the hell is that?" Johnny asked, completely dumbfounded. "T-that's the monster! The guys chasing us were crushed to death between her pecs!" Yun Yu stammered, pointing a trembling finger at Lula. Hearing Yun Yu's words, Johnny and the others couldn't help glancing at the woman's massive pectoral muscles, and a collective shiver ran down their spines. Long Ming glanced down at his wristband. When he saw the prompt on the display, his heart sank to rock bottom. It was another evolved variant corpse monster. Just then, a Rat Legion member clutching a single-shot rifle decisively pulled the trigger. "Die!" *Bang!* The bullet struck Lula squarely in the face. Her cheek indented ever so slightly before the deformed bullet dropped harmlessly to the floor. "This..." Long Ming stood stunned. Was this thing even a carbon-based life form? A bullet couldn't even pierce its skin! The player who had fired was equally flabbergasted. "Little darling, what's the rush?" Lula charged forward in excitement, throwing her arms around the player to pull him into an embrace, burying his head deep between her massive pecs—and squeezed with brutal force! *Crack!* The man's head burst open. "Run! I'll hold her off!" Seeing this, Long Ming's eyes turned freezing cold. He tossed his backpack toward Johnny. Johnny was taken aback for a second before scrambling to catch it. Long Ming immediately raised his firearm and opened fire on Lula. He had already contracted the corpse poison and was doomed to die anyway. Rather than waiting around for death, he might as well buy time for Xiao Qi and the rest! *Bang! Bang!* Bullet after bullet struck Lula's body. "Ah, that feels so good!" Lula turned her head toward Long Ming in pure delight, then charged at him like a human truck. Unleashing every ounce of his strength, Long Ming leaped backward to dodge. Lula's lunge hit empty air, yet her bloated frame proved shockingly agile. With a tap of her toes against the floor, she instantly caught up to Long Ming and purred in amusement, "Think you can dodge?" Seeing Lula appear right in front of him in a flash, Long Ming's body shuddered violently, as if he had plunged into an icy abyss. Before he could react, Lula swung a fist in a brutal, sweeping strike. *Wham!* Long Ming was hurled backward like a cannonball, crashing hard into a wooden information counter. *Crash!* The entire counter shattered to pieces, burying him under the debris. "Long Ming!" Xiao Qi screamed, her face draining of color. "Run!" Johnny yelled as the others saw Long Ming taken down, and they sprinted desperately toward the exit. At that moment, however, Lula spun around and leaped toward the main doors. *Boom!* Before Xiao Qi and the survivors could reach the exit, Lula slammed down in front of the doorway and laughed gleefully, "Little darlings, where do you think you're going?" Johnny and the others recoiled in terror, their morale collapsing as they muttered in despair. "We're done for!" "We were so close... just inches away from escaping!" Seeing everyone on the verge of giving up, Xiao Qi gritted her teeth and shouted encouragement. "Everyone, we can't give up like this! I know Group Five of our Rat Legion is the bottom of the entire guild, and our earnings are always the worst. But I've seen every bit of hard work you've put in. Are you really content to just throw it all away now?" "No, I'm not!" Johnny was the first to shout back. "That's right, hell no!" "Why the hell should we always be at the bottom?!" One after another, the members chimed in. "Good! Then we don't quit until the very end! Everyone, split up and break out!" Xiao Qi waved her hand, her voice ringing with grim determination. "Charge!" The Rat Legion members scattered immediately. Some charged straight at Lula to draw her attention, while others circled around to the left or broke toward the right. "Trying to scatter and run? Now that's fun!" Lula lunged ecstatically at the players directly ahead, knocking them flying one after another with thunderous punches. The moment she dispatched all the players attacking her head-on, she stomped the ground and leaped toward the players flanking from the left, sending one flying with a vicious kick. Immediately after, she threw one brutal punch after another, taking down another player with each strike. Meanwhile, several players on the right flank had successfully reached the main doors. "Not a single one of you gets away!" Lula snapped her gaze toward the escaping players, raising a foot and stomping hard against the floor. *Crack!* A wide swath of stone tiles shattered and popped into the air. Lula kicked them forward like projectiles, one after another. "Aaargh!" In an instant, the fleeing players were impaled by flying shards of stone. Johnny and the others were scared out of their wits by the sight. This had completely surpassed any realm of common sense. Despair crept into Xiao Qi's heart as well; even this couldn't get them through. In the blink of an eye, the fifty-odd survivors had dwindled to barely thirty, with more than a dozen cut down in seconds. "Little darlings, here I come!" Lula pivoted and locked her eyes onto Xiao Qi and Yun Yu, barreling toward them like a savage beast. "Sister Qi, look out!" Johnny and the others screamed in terror. Staring at the oncoming Lula, Xiao Qi and Yun Yu felt utterly helpless. Just then, a terrifying silhouette streaked between Xiao Qi and Yun Yu at blinding speed, colliding head-on with Lula. *Boom!* A violent shockwave rippled outward. Xiao Qi and the others looked over, their faces instantly freezing in sheer disbelief. Long Ming's skin had turned fully keratinized, his eyes pitch-black and covered in dense dark veins. His corpsified left claw caught Lula's incoming fist, while his right claw clamped down hard on her shoulder, stubbornly holding her back. He was pushed backward all the way in front of Xiao Qi and the survivors before finally grinding to a halt. "Long Ming, you're alive?!" Xiao Qi blurted out, snapping out of her daze. "Get out!" Long Ming's voice was chilling and raspy, sounding nothing like a living human. "Retreat!" Hearing his command, Xiao Qi immediately turned and led the survivors in an all-out sprint. "None of you are leaving!" Seeing Xiao Qi's group trying to escape, Lula angrily grabbed Long Ming's arm and hurled him away. In raw strength, Long Ming was still clearly outmatched by Lula. Lula instantly spun around to charge after Xiao Qi and the fleeing members. Yet mid-flight, Long Ming twisted his body with remarkable agility, landed firmly on the floor, and stomped down hard, hurtling toward Lula once more. The moment Lula sensed the danger, Long Ming's right knee slammed squarely into the right side of her face. The impact sent her flying, crashing heavily onto the ground. "Beautiful!" Johnny cheered, glancing back over his shoulder. "Stop looking and keep running!" Xiao Qi led Johnny and the others, sprinting through the doors and out into the open.