“Don’t look… at what?”

Amid the heavy stench of blood, Ji Yushi had his eyes covered and couldn’t see anything, but his brain, as if out of control, started replaying the scenes he had just witnessed.

He had only taken a glance.

Yet his brain had involuntarily recorded every detail.

The floor was similar to the marble floor outside, white and smooth, but blood covered most of the visible area, mixed with an unidentifiable white mucus. In the blood pool to the far left, a flesh-colored thin slice was soaking—it was a human right ear. Moving his gaze further, he saw pale skin with muscle textures—whose thigh was that? Then there was a mass of blood-soaked entrails, a few teeth fallen nearby, and just beyond that was a leg wearing a black short boot.

Ji Yushi felt a strong urge to vomit.

He couldn’t be mistaken.

That was his own leg.

And the pieces of ear and flesh in the blood belonged to his teammates, who were still standing alive beside him.

In other words, he almost witnessed the complete annihilation of Squad 5.

“Ho ho!!”

Ji Yushi heard a sound—the noise of a zombie rushing from the end of the corridor. Before it could reach them, there was a “bang!” as it was shot down.

The gunshot was so close; it was Song Qinglan behind him, covering his eyes, who fired the shot with one hand.

Everyone around seemed uncomfortable and quickly spread out.

“What was that?!”

“An insect’s leg?”

“Sticky, damn it, like a spider web!”

Ji Yushi walked a few steps with Song Qinglan before the hand in front of his eyes was removed.

Everyone in the squad had pale faces, each looking more distressed than the last.

Even though they knew that their future selves would continuously pave the way for their present selves, witnessing how this path was created exceeded their comprehension.

“I was late in warning you,” Song Qinglan suddenly spoke. “Next time, I’ll try to be earlier.”

Ji Yushi was momentarily stunned, only then realizing that Song Qinglan was speaking to him.

The other’s stern face, under the bright lights, showed sincere concern—a captain’s concern for his teammate, though with an emotion that Ji Yushi couldn’t quite decipher. It was something he had seen in his teacher’s eyes when he was young, making him feel a bit surprised.

“Thank you,” he said.

Song Qinglan: “Squad 5 split up; half are at the Golden Crow Base No. 1. Don’t overthink it, ‘you’ are not in there.”

This time Ji Yushi was genuinely surprised.

But Song Qinglan, as if it were nothing unusual, continued, “So just pretend you didn’t see anything.”

Duan Wen was still standing at the door of the large room, seemingly handling the situation well. He suddenly shouted, “Captain Song! Old Zhou seems to still be alive!”

Song Qinglan: “If he survived until now, he definitely has something to say. I’ll go check.”

With that, he walked into the room, seemingly unaffected.

Left behind, one teammate couldn’t hold it anymore and ran off to vomit—this time, it wasn’t Li Chun but Zhou Mingxuan.

No one could remain completely calm after seeing the scene of their own gruesome death.

Ji Yushi was thinking, what exactly happened here?

Why could Song Qinglan, despite having seen it all, control his emotions so well? Was it to comfort him, afraid that he wouldn’t be able to complete the next mission?

One or two minutes later, Song Qinglan quickly came out of the room reeking of fresh blood, leaving a trail of bloody footprints on the floor.

His voice was urgent and icy: “Quick! Keep moving forward! Close the corridor gate immediately!”

As soon as his words fell, everyone heard a series of rapid sounds coming from the direction they had come from. It didn’t sound like zombies, nor was it the sound of human footsteps!

At the end of the corridor, a car-sized shadow appeared.

That thing was injured, covered in brown-black stripes and fur, with three of its eight legs broken. Facing the squad, it opened its enormous maw, as if in defiance.

“Damn! It’s a spider!”

Everyone felt a chill down their spines, and amidst the chaos, someone shouted and turned to run in the direction Song Qinglan had indicated!

The corridor gate was about ten meters away. This short distance seemed endless at that moment!

Though injured, the spider, relying on its innate abilities, ignored the walls and floor, rushing towards them with unimaginable speed!

“Bang, bang, bang!”

The squad unleashed all their firepower, but the giant spider’s abdomen and back were covered with hard armor, making the bullets difficult to penetrate.

The giant spider landed, the ground bloodied, and with five legs, it struggled to balance, slipping momentarily. Taking advantage of this, Tang Qi was the first to reach the gate, pressing the hydraulic switch!

“Quick!!”

“Captain Song!”

Just as the last teammate rolled through the gate, the giant spider crashed into the gate.

The gate blocked all air and sound, but everyone still seemed to hear a “smack!” They could see the giant spider hitting the thick glass window, its maw spreading open, with white mucus sliding down the glass.

Li Chun cursed, “What the hell is this thing?! Another scientific experiment here?!”

“It’s a white-legged huntsman spider,” Ji Yushi said. “A common indoor spider, carnivorous, usually hiding in dark places or crevices, coming out at night to catch cockroaches, mosquitoes, and flies.”

“How could something this big hide in a crevice?” Tang Le said. “I almost got bitten to death by it!”

Ji Yushi seemed to know everything, and his teammates were no longer surprised by his occasional explanations.

Simply put, this spider had mutated for some reason.

Hearing Tang Le mention getting bitten to death, everyone thought of their future selves—the tragedy of Squad 5—and simultaneously considered the possibility that Squad 5 was wiped out by this spider?!

“Clang! Clang!”

The giant spider got up from the ground, climbing up the gate with its five legs. Its abdomen pressed against the glass, revealing a row of white spherical eggs, tightly wrapped in spider silk, sliding past them, making their skin crawl as they quickly realized these were its unhatched eggs.

“There’s more than just this one,” Song Qinglan said in a deep voice. “Keep moving forward.”

“Captain Song!” Ji Yushi’s eyes were still fixed outside.

He shouted but didn’t continue.

Song Qinglan turned back, also stunned.

Everyone saw an unbelievable scene.

Outside the corridor gate, everything in their sight was changing.

The chaotic bloody footprints on the floor vanished, the zombie remains piled up in the corridor, the decaying flesh on the ground—all disappeared. Everything as far as the eye could see was restored to its original pristine condition, with a dozen zombies in white hazmat suits wandering aimlessly in the corridor, and even the giant spider outside the glass was gone.

Time seemed to have rewound in an instant.

All the traces left by Squad 5 during this time period disappeared.

Just as Ji Yushi had analyzed earlier, once a paradox is created, the points on the circle that have already occurred or have yet to occur will be covered by this “extended” timeline, and Squad 5’s cycle will cease to exist, as if it had never happened.

And those who had successfully made it through the gate, all survived.

This was the significance of them and the several future versions of themselves charging forward.

But Song Qinglan said, there’s more than one giant spider.

That must be a clue left by Zhou Mingxuan from Squad 5.

Everyone was filled with uncertainty, barely having time to mourn for their future selves, when they saw at the far end of the corridor, on the ceiling, three more giant white-legged huntsman spiders appeared. They ignored the zombies, scurrying around in different corners, moving so quickly with their intact eight legs that they soon disappeared into the darkness.

Ji Yushi knew that the white-legged huntsman spiders were silently lying in wait, using the hairs on their legs to sense every vibration nearby. As soon as any living thing approached, they would suddenly emerge and tear the incoming prey to pieces.

In the silence, Song Qinglan said, “Let’s go.”

They had already passed through the corridor and entered another open space.

The circular dome was over a hundred meters high. The base was too large, making it difficult to immediately find the control center.

At that moment, a green dot lit up on Song Qinglan’s spare communicator.

Duan Wen had at some point disabled the communication silence.

Immediately, everyone heard Ji Yushi’s voice over the public channel, including Ji Yushi himself.

“Captain Song.”

For the first time, a cold voice spoke alone on the public channel.

It was Ji Yushi from Team B.

Perhaps because it would be strange to call out his own name, Team B’s Ji Yushi chose to speak to Song Qinglan: “After entering the corridor gate, go through the first new gate on the left front, descend two levels, and then circle halfway around. You’ll be able to see the control center.”

Based on the real-time holographic model of PU-31 they had just seen, Team B had already found the control center first and shut down the first energy transmitter.

The layouts of the two bases were mirrored, and since Team B’s Ji Yushi was as meticulous as Team A’s, he immediately thought of passing this information to them.

Everyone was amazed.

This experience was too strange. Although Ji Yushi was standing right in front of them, not speaking, they heard his familiar voice over the public channel, with the exact same tone and inflection.

Song Qinglan also found this experience fascinating.

He glanced at Ji Yushi, whose dark eyes quietly watched him, as if waiting for him to finish “talking” to “someone else.”

“How are things on your side?” Song Qinglan asked.

“Everything is going smoothly.”

Another familiar voice appeared.

Song Qinglan was stunned, almost thinking he was listening to a recording of his own conversation.

It was another Song Qinglan.

His tone was casual but commanding, sounding a bit cocky: “Except for the abundance of zombies and the fact that half of Squad 5’s members vanished into thin air, there’s no problem. We’re waiting for Consultant Ji to finish calculating the sequence of shutting down the energy transmitters. We wouldn’t want to accidentally shut them all down and end up erasing ourselves, would we? Then how could we come to help you?”

Everyone: “…”

Hearing the silence, the other Song Qinglan said, “Is your situation over there tough? I heard that Base 2 is full of mutated species, with SSS-level difficulty.”

Everyone: “…”

It seemed that no matter which Captain Song it was, he could easily ignite the atmosphere.

Gunshots rang out, followed by the sound of a zombie collapsing to the ground, with Team B’s Li Chun cursing in the background.

Team B’s Ji Yushi reminded, “Captain Song, fourth row, sixth from the left.”

Team B’s Song Qinglan: “Got it, I’m on it.”

The communication was then cut off.

Somehow, Song Qinglan felt that everyone was looking at him a bit oddly.

Ji Yushi also withdrew his gaze, seemingly uncomfortable with the way Team B interacted.

Song Qinglan’s lips curved slightly: “Let’s go, our side is at SSS-level difficulty.”