Chapter 94: As Simple as Going Home |
When Lucy transformed into a little Detective, a gray lightbulb appeared right beside her small head.
Her art style sharply contrasted with Mount Massive Asylum. If the asylum was the set of a horror movie, then she was a cartoon character straight out of a children's theater.
The lightbulb quickly lit up. Then, as if struck by inspiration, she scribbled on her drawing paper, marking down new key points.
[Lucy has discovered the power switch and the Life Support Pod switch.]
When she handed the drawing paper to Bai Mu, two specific switches glowed red in his vision amidst the darkness.
It was practically baby mode; Lucy was telling him directly where the problems lay.
He now had two paths to choose from, both roughly the same distance away.
"He is coming! Hurry!" Wernicke shouted over the loudspeakers.
The black phantom was giving chase. A mist-like shadow briefly flashed across the Camcorder lens before the spirit coalesced into a humanoid form, tearing through the corridor like a gust of wind and closing in rapidly.
By now, Bai Mu had already leapt down the stairs, parkouring effortlessly between the handrails and the iron steps. The bonus agility from the Dance of Elvis had reached three points. Even while plummeting through the stairwell, he spun like a blade, executing precise dance steps in midair.
The phantom's first pounce missed its mark, sending it crashing into the iron railing. The steel pipes instantly twisted and deformed, snapping right down the middle.
Feeling a little frightened, Lucy shrank into the crook of Bai Mu's arm. She clung to his shoulder, revealing only her eyes as she peeked outward.
Bai Mu danced through the air with her in tow. The combined buffs from his titles, equipment, and skills granted him physical abilities far beyond that of an ordinary person. He felt like a little bird, his body lighter than it had ever been before.
Holding the Camcorder in his left hand to track the phantom's movements, Bai Mu swung between the steel pipes with his right.
The phantom drifted to Bai Mu's left side and launched a second assault.
Bai Mu summoned a Charger to his left. The massive beast materialized in midair with a deafening roar.
The Charger foolishly sprinted forward as always, but unfortunately, there was no solid ground beneath its feet to push off from. Its rather short, stubby legs pedaled in the empty air a couple of times. Before it could plummet, the phantom lunged onto its back, subduing it completely.
The Charger did not die instantly. It held on for a few seconds, viciously slamming its grotesquely muscular arm forward twice. Regrettably, even a monster capable of smashing through walls could not break free from the phantom's supernatural grip.
A few seconds later, the Charger was hurled out the door, as though an invisible giant hand had tossed it away.
[The Charger has died.]
"Afraid the Charger might destroy your life support equipment, so you threw it out?"
Bai Mu glanced at the Life Support Pod beneath him. He was only one flight of stairs away from Billy.
"Still, treating an old geezer who studies you every day and subjects you to so-called near-death terror experiments as your own father, and refusing to kill him... You really are a pitiful and affection-starved child, just as he said."
Bai Mu checked the Cherry Bomb in his inventory. In truth, if he just tossed a Cherry Bomb right beneath him, he could send both Billy and the priest straight to the afterlife.
A single Cherry Bomb would be more than enough to blow Billy and the Life Support Pod into smithereens.
To be honest, the difficulty of this Script really wasn't that high. The main enemies were just Asylum Inmates. Chris Wolf was arguably the most troublesome one, but not a single one of them, Chris included, possessed a firearm. As long as Players had acquired some combat abilities in previous Scripts, they could basically steamroll their way through.
Even for Players lacking combat skills, the corpses of the Soldiers in the administration block served as a decent equipment supply point.
The sole difficulty in the Script lay in the Walrider's attack patterns. As long as one figured out its rules and didn't rashly leave the asylum grounds, the entire process was as simple as going home.
Stay long enough, and you would eventually figure out the location of the Underground Laboratory. The most dangerous part was undoubtedly this chase sequence. Fighting the black phantom directly was an unwinnable battle, and getting caught meant game over, but on the outside, Players still had Wernicke acting as off-site support.
Bai Mu felt that even if it wasn't him here, but rather the conservative Great Northern Wilderness or Nancheng Port, they would still be able to clear the Script without any real mishaps.
It was easy to deduce that turning off the Life Support Pod wasn't the only way to stop the black phantom.
The Main Quest was to escape Mount Massive Asylum, not to manually shut down the pod. All one had to do was find a way to destroy the supply systems. For instance, finding some gasoline to start a fire, or using explosives to blast the Life Support Pod into oblivion.
The moment Bai Mu arrived in this room, he had practically already beaten the level. He could have easily killed Billy with a Cherry Bomb from the stairs, yet he chose not to.
Grabbing the railing, he executed a backward spin and landed steadily on the ground.
The black phantom pursued Bai Mu relentlessly, yet it didn't display any frenzied aggression. The reason was obvious enough: if it caused too much destruction, it risked damaging the life support or power supply systems.
Even in this final battleground, the phantom was heavily restricted. To protect its fragile main body, it was forced to deliberately hold back its strength and speed. Honestly, if one were to just sprint down the stairs with their own two legs, there was a fair chance of outrunning it.
Of course, that was a moot point now.
Bai Mu had already arrived in front of the Life Support Pod. The phantom was still lingering by the second tier of the iron staircase; it would take at least two or three seconds for it to catch up.
It was too late. Before the entity could bridge the gap, Bai Mu yanked down the lever on the Life Support Pod.
The nutrient fluid inside the pod rapidly drained away. The translucent liquid spilled out onto the floor, and the wires connected to Billy's scalp were forcibly disconnected.
[You have deactivated the Morphogenic Engine.]
The black phantom ground to a halt. It hung suspended in midair, completely motionless.
The glass pod opened upward, revealing nothing more than a bruised, emaciated young man inside. His entire body was covered in needle marks and scars; it was hard to imagine the kind of agonizing torture he had endured in the past.
This scene played out on the monitor wall in the main control room. A smile broke across Wernicke's face as he praised Bai Mu with sheer excitement.
"Beautifully done!"
"Now you may leave, outsider. I have opened the safe passage. Just follow the—"
Before the sentence could be finished, the monitor screen dissolved into static white noise.
The security camera above the Life Support Pod had been destroyed. Bai Mu had hurled a small throwing knife, embedding it dead center into the spherical camera. The lens shattered, and sizzling electric sparks erupted from the severed wires.
Bai Mu pulled the curled-up Billy out of the pod. Billy was wearing nothing but a pair of blue briefs, his hair and eyebrows completely shaved off, but he was still alive. His breathing was faint but steady.
After destroying the camera, Bai Mu ripped out the main power breaker. The lights across the entire sector went dead, and then, carrying Billy on his back, he faded away into the darkness.
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