One floor.

Two floors.

A mere two floors’ distance—so close, yet it became nearly unattainable as they carved out a path to survival from what seemed like a hopeless situation.

The brief respite bought by their future selves felt as fleeting as a single breath.

Time seemed to slow down. The reanimating horde of zombies, the gradually repairing structure, and the giant white-legged huntsman spiders descending on webs—all these changes around them were stretched into slow motion by their heightened senses and surging adrenaline.

Ji Yushi, with his purplish hand, gripped a railing, leapt after his teammate in front of him, and as his body soared through the air, he landed with a heavy thud!

“Bang!”

He landed on his feet, but immediately, seven or eight pale hands reached out from the side. He looked up to see several dull faces with gray eyes, their mouths twisted wide as they lunged at him.

“Bang, bang, bang—”

His teammates behind him unleashed a barrage of bullets, creating a sudden gap ahead.

“There’s a gate over here!!!” Tang Qi shouted, firing his gun fiercely as a giant spider, injured, staggered and knocked over a group of zombies!

“Hurry!”

Zhou Mingxuan cursed as he and Song Qinglan covered the rear.

The half-open gate allowed just enough space for them to duck under.

Once everyone had rushed through the gate, Duan Wen quickly pressed the hydraulic switch: “It’s broken! Damn it!”

The gate wouldn’t close, and the zombies were frantically trying to squeeze through.

Still, it was better than being out in the open with nowhere to hide. The team continued to shoot and retreat, aiming for the next level.

“Smack!!” The path ahead was suddenly blocked.

Something fell from above, obstructing their way.

It wasn’t a zombie or a white-legged huntsman spider. The sticky, slimy body was covered in mucus and curled up on the ground in pain—it looked like a person.

“Chun’er!!”

Duan Wen was the first to recognize him, rushing forward to help.

“How is he?!”

“Take him with us! We have to move!”

Zombies were pouring in through the malfunctioning gate, and new ones kept emerging from all directions on this level.

“Bang! Bang!” The gate groaned as the number of zombies briefly decreased—a giant spider was ramming the gate, causing cracks in the walls on either side, threatening to break through!

Ji Yushi and Duan Wen knelt down to help Li Chun.

Li Chun was covered in mucus, his mouth and nose obstructed, unable to breathe—showing signs of suffocation. The mucus was incredibly sticky and slippery, and Duan Wen, frustrated after several failed attempts to remove it, was nearly in tears: “What do we do?!”

Time was running out. Ji Yushi dropped his gun and used both hands to pry open Li Chun’s mouth: “Hold him steady!”

Duan Wen noticed Ji Yushi’s purplish hand and the bloodstains from his reopened wound on his waist, but in this moment, Ji Yushi was incredibly calm. He grabbed the membrane formed by the mucus, his veins bulging, and managed to open a small hole near Li Chun’s mouth!

Air suddenly rushed into his throat and then into his lungs, causing Li Chun’s entire body to stiffen before he started gasping for breath.

In just those few seconds, a deafening crash echoed as the giant spider broke through the gate, charging in with the horde of zombies!

Giant spider ahead, zombies on all sides.

It felt like they had reached a new level of despair.

Everyone froze for a moment.

Even with the existence of time anchors that allowed them to revive after death, they were still just flesh and blood. The heroic scenes of invincible warriors in movies weren’t happening here—they only had themselves.

The explosives the team carried were nearly exhausted, and the earlier assistance from “Squad 6” seemed to serve as a reminder of how desperately they needed more equipment.

But in the next second, Song Qinglan suddenly said, “Team B is here.”

Everyone heard their other selves’ voices over the public channel: “Hold on!!”

“Hang in there!!”

“Ten minutes, and I’ll be there!!”

“Boom—!!”

The sound of a spacecraft echoed through the communicator.

Team B was charging toward them, cutting through all obstacles!

Everyone’s spirits lifted: “Kill!!”

Their despair was burned away, and hope reignited in their hearts. Even on the brink of collapse, they were determined to fight their way out!

The giant spider reached them but was blasted to the ground by Song Qinglan’s energy cannon, its fluids splattering everywhere.

This shot was fired with full confidence—Song Qinglan had no more reservations: “Move!!”

More and more giant spiders appeared, of various sizes, as if a spider nest had been disturbed.

Song Qinglan heard Ji Yushi shout at him: “Below, at nine o’clock, the quickest way to the control center!!”

The base was too large, and the internal passages were labyrinthine.

The supposed “two floors down, then a half-circle” would have left most people disoriented in such intense combat and chaos, but not Ji Yushi.

Relying on his extraordinary sense of direction and memory, he perfectly identified the destination.

“Got it.” Song Qinglan, carrying Shenmian, fired a second energy cannon in the direction Ji Yushi indicated.

The floor shook violently.

This time, he blasted a large hole in the floor!!

An eagle claw hook shot out, and Tang Le and Tang Qi were the first to descend the rope, while Zhou Mingxuan covered their retreat by mowing down zombies. Ji Yushi and Duan Wen quickly secured Li Chun with the rope and followed closely behind.

The sound of the wind rushed past their ears.

As they descended at high speed, the relentless zombies tumbled through the hole, falling down below.

Apart from the mindless, frenzied zombies, the giant spiders stopped short at the edge of the hole, refraining from pursuing, as if the area below was forbidden territory.

The corridor below was brightly lit and eerily silent, devoid of anything.

The floor was high, with a crisscross of ventilation ducts above, integrated into the building’s ventilation system.

The team stopped on a large ventilation duct about ten meters from the previous floor, with another twenty or thirty meters to the floor below. Even if there were zombies, they couldn’t climb up.

They quickly unhooked themselves, each with an expression of relief at their narrow escape.

Song Qinglan’s eyes quickly scanned them to ensure everyone was still intact.

Tang Qi and Tang Le checked the surroundings, while Duan Wen and Zhou Mingxuan worked on cleaning the mucus off Li Chun.

Ji Yushi sat nearby, catching his breath.

His white t-shirt was so stained that its original color was unrecognizable, his face unnaturally flushed, and one arm was purplish-red, in stark contrast to the other.

After everything, Ji Yushi had ended up the most injured in the team.

Moreover, he already had injuries to begin with.

“How are you?!” Song Qinglan crouched down and asked.

Seeing the concern in his eyes, Ji Yushi didn’t hold back: “Help me get the painkillers out—the wound has reopened.”

Ji Yushi’s breath was uneven, his lips pale from the pain.

His tone and choice of words, however, were less formal than usual, as if this was the first time he allowed someone to get closer.

“Where are the meds?” Song Qinglan asked.

Ji Yushi gestured to his side: “In my pocket.”

His purplish arm was trembling, and the other hand was covering his abdomen—he really couldn’t manage it himself.

Following the indication, Song Qinglan reached into Ji Yushi’s black combat pants pocket.

In front of everyone, this slightly intimate gesture no longer seemed strange. No one had the energy to tease them now. Yet in this moment, when life and death hung in the balance, a surge of warmth welled up in Song Qinglan’s heart, something he couldn’t quite describe.

The small bottle of painkillers was retrieved.

Ji Yushi lifted his face: “Give it to me.”

It was clear Ji Yushi didn’t consider whether this request was appropriate—his hands were still covered in mucus from Li Chun, and it was already impressive that he hadn’t thrown up. There was no way he could use those hands to take out a pill and eat it.

Following his request, Song Qinglan took out a pill and placed it in his mouth.

Ji Yushi mumbled, “Thank you.”

Song Qinglan felt Ji Yushi’s burning lips and said, “You have a fever?”

As he spoke, he reached for Ji Yushi’s forehead.

It was hot to the touch—Ji Yushi indeed had a fever.

But Ji Yushi didn’t seem to care. Without any water, and perhaps to make the painkillers work faster, he chewed the bitter pill, frowning as he said, “It might be an infection—we’ll deal with it after we get out.”

Within less than a minute of their conversation, Li Chun had woken up.

Duan Wen called out: “Captain Song!!”

Li Chun was now able to sit up on his own, the mucus on his face cleared away, though his body was still wet. He was visibly shaken and couldn’t speak.

Everyone gathered around Li Chun.

“Chun’er, you’re amazing—after such a close call, you’re bound to have good fortune!”

“How did you fall again? Seeing you get dragged off, I almost held a memorial for you on the spot!”

“Tell us about your heroic deeds!”

Li Chun suddenly burst into tears, crying miserably: “I was eaten, and then… then I didn’t want to die, so I started stabbing everywhere with my knife… and I think I got spit out… waaaahhhh.”

So that mucus…

Everyone: “…”

Gross.

“It was big enough to eat you and then spit you out—what the hell was that thing?!”

Zhou Mingxuan looked up to see the giant spiders still hovering at the edge of the hole, seemingly reluctant to leave their prey, yet fearful of something.

At that moment, the duct they had been resting on began to shake violently.

Earlier, they had heard such sounds coming from the ventilation ducts—this meant that thing was coming!

“Lizards, rats, cockroaches, snakes,” Ji Yushi stood up, his face covered in cold sweat, his arm bruised and terrifying. “These creatures like to crawl through ventilation ducts. I just don’t know if it’s just one of them… or a mix.”

A mix?!

Everyone was shocked.

Did this mean that in this base, everything could mutate?!

Ji Yushi spoke quickly: “If I’m not mistaken, just below the control center is the energy extraction point for Golden Crow No. 2. The closer we get, the more anomalies we’ll see. Golden Crow No. 1 only provided basic energy, but after Golden Crow No. 2 went online, energy production doubled, as did consumption. They had to extract more energy from the void of space, so the radiation and mutations here far exceed anything before.”

Humans became flesh-and-blood zombies with no ability to think, driven only by the need to eat.

Animals and insects each mutated in their own ways.

This colony named PU-31 had completely collapsed.

The Sky Vault system of this era had no command center—it relied on a cold, calculated system to control a group of guardians. The core mission was now crystal clear to everyone.

Shut down an energy transmitter, and the energy would be released in an instant, pulling everything within its range into the void.

Shut down all the energy transmitters, and PU-31 would lose all its energy, be unable to sustain itself, and ultimately be sucked into the cosmic rift it was adjacent to, disappearing entirely.

The rift in the parallel universe created PU-31.

It was about to destroy PU-31 as well.

As Ji Yushi finished speaking, the duct shook again, the vibrations reaching their feet. Everyone’s expressions turned grim: “Move!”

“Bang!”

Not far away, a ventilation duct burst open, and a three-to-four-meter-long “tongue” shot out, dripping with mucus as it lashed toward them!!

Gunfire drove the “tongue” back.

The eagle claw hook rope was only twenty meters long, and there were still several meters to the ground—far from enough.

Song Qinglan scanned their surroundings: “There’s a maintenance ladder ahead!”

Sure enough, several dozen meters away, a maintenance ladder was visible on the curved wall of the base.

The duct shook violently, and the creature returned—the “tongue” shot out from a nearby point, attacking again! This time, everyone saw it clearly—the “tongue” was indeed difficult to classify, with suction cups on the back, a surface covered in tongue-like papillae, and a small forked tip, resembling both a lizard and a snake.

Everyone sprinted toward the maintenance ladder as fast as they could, sliding down as quickly as possible, ignoring the pain and blisters on their hands.

Perhaps it had been a long time since the creature had eaten fresh prey—after losing Li Chun, it was especially agitated, shaking the duct violently. With a thunderous crash, a duct thirty to forty meters long collapsed, crashing heavily to the ground.

Before climbing the maintenance ladder, Song Qinglan saw something fleshy and disgusting emerge from the broken duct on the ground.

After this loud crash, the zombies that had stopped falling from the hole above began dropping again.

These zombies, previously disoriented, were now drawn by the noise, tumbling down like dumplings from the broken hole in the ceiling.

The ground below became chaotic. The “tongue” lashed out, trying to clear the obstructing zombies. But the zombies, incapable of feeling pain or fear, swarmed over the creature. Some had survived the fall onto the duct, and even if they only had an upper body left, they still crawled toward the moving “tongue.”

The “tongue” was besieged—mindless zombies swarmed it, biting and tearing at it, forcing it to retreat back into the duct.

The giant white-legged huntsman spiders couldn’t wait any longer.

They crawled down the walls, eager to join the fray.

The spiders feared the “tongue,” the “tongue” feared the zombies, and now, with all three forces converging, they had no choice but to engage, regardless of natural predator-prey relationships.

For the living, this was hell!

“Ji Yushi!!”

Song Qinglan’s furious shout echoed from behind him, and when Ji Yushi turned around, he saw the massive maw of a spider descending from above, ready to swallow his head whole.

“Get out of the way!!”

On the spider’s back, another figure appeared—it was also Song Qinglan!!

That person’s face was stern, with an icy determination in his eyes. In that split second, he stuffed a bomb into the spider’s maw.

Instantly realizing what he was about to do, Ji Yushi rolled aside, and the other Song Qinglan slid down from the spider’s back.

The deafening explosion shattered the spider into pieces, with its body fluids splattering everywhere!

“Bang, bang, bang!!”

Gunfire, even more intense than before, erupted as familiar figures descended through the hole in the ceiling, taking up strategic positions mid-air, mowing down the zombies and spiders below.

A total of six people—it was Team B!

With double the firepower, the situation was instantly reversed!

The two Song Qinglans, identical in appearance, didn’t need to communicate. They turned simultaneously and shouted: “To the control station!!”

Ji Yushi started running toward the control station, firing his gun as he went, and caught sight of his other self.

They ran through the smoke and chaos.

It was like looking in a mirror.

Ji Yushi saw the other him’s expression change: “Behind you!!”

With that warning, the other Ji Yushi tossed his gun over!

The small, silver Diamond Bird traced a perfect arc through the air and landed in Ji Yushi’s hand.

Without thinking, Ji Yushi caught the gun with his left hand, turned, and saw the “tongue” split in two, snaking toward him from the duct!

Ji Yushi, dual-wielding Diamond Birds, acted instinctively—he was a perfect dual-gun user. Without blinking, he fired twice, severing both “tongues” in one swift motion.

Then, he continued running, tossing the gun back.

The other Ji Yushi, equally calm, caught the gun and kept moving.

One bent his knees and slid under a duct blocking the way.

The other leaped onto the duct, landing on a zombie’s shoulder, twisting his knees, and snapping the zombie’s neck with flawless technique.

No words were needed—the Ji Yushi in the black combat uniform and the one in the white t-shirt moved like twins.

In this moment, the thirteen-member Squad 7 of Sky Vault had reached the pinnacle of their combat effectiveness.