Meng Chao knew that the building would completely collapse in three minutes.
However, he had yet to gather more than half of his energy to escape.
Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang's fatal Random Blade had to have been created with a unique biochemical material or smeared with the poison created by the Vortex on it. Perhaps when it pierced Meng Chao's heart, it activated its spirit energy magnetic field and destroyed the flesh near the blade.
Or perhaps all three.
In any case, no matter how much he used his spirit energy to stimulate the cells near his heart, the speed at which his wounds healed was very slow.
Furthermore, the cells that had just been regenerated instantly withered and decayed, turning into toxins that further corroded the vital organs, including the heart and lungs.
Meng Chao looked down with great difficulty.
The wound on his chest was surrounded by a ring of black fog, as if a plague was about to break out.
The power that he had gathered with great difficulty escaped from the black fog-shrouded hole again and again.
If he hadn't suppressed it with his spiritual energy, the poison would've spread out a long time ago and even corroded his heart into a pool of pus.
"Looks like I'll have to cast Healing Art another ten or twenty times to solve this problem."
He definitely did not have the time or the resources to treat the wound thoroughly and remove the poison.
Meng Chao injected gene medicine and high-calorie nutritional fluid into his chest and thigh.
Then, he used a freezing spray he obtained from Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang's corpse and sprayed it around his wound.
The Freezing Spray was completely used up.
A thin layer of frost formed on the wound.
Even the black mist was frozen.
Although breathing was a little difficult, and his heart was also affected to a certain extent.
At the very least, it could temporarily block the hole in his heart with ice, helping him accumulate some strength to escape at the last minute.
Right then, Meng Chao could not do anything.
He could only lie on the ground and watch the dozens of floors above him burn, explode, and collapse.
Tens of thousands of tons of reinforced concrete poured down, as if thousands of Tyrant Mammoths were trampling on the ground.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom boom boom!
When the floor above his head was completely penetrated, and the surrounding space was compressed and deformed, about to completely turn into ruins, he finally recovered one-tenth of his mobility.
"Now!"
Meng Chao sucked in a deep breath and used his hands and feet to shoot toward the escape tunnel in the corner.
At the moment he crawled into the escape tunnel, he heard a loud rumble, and the building behind him collapsed completely, swallowing Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang's corpse.
The dust and air wave gathered together to form a raging wave that chased after Meng Chao relentlessly and kicked his butt repeatedly.
Even the escape passage was collapsing piece by piece.
The thousands of tons of furiously burning debris seemed to have turned into an unparalleled ferocious beast lurking below the ground, opening its bloody mouth time and time again.
If Meng Chao had been slightly slower, he would have been completely devoured by the ruins and fallen into the deepest depths of hell with Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang.
Even if he ignored the excruciating pain all over his body, no matter how he sped up, he couldn't seem to keep up with the rhythm of the destructive tide.
The escape tunnel in front of him kept letting out creaking sounds of metal fatigue that made one's scalp numb.
At a speed visible to the naked eye, extremely exaggerated distortions appeared.
It was as if there was an invisible hand squeezing and kneading outside.
It wanted to compress him and the escape tunnel into a crystal the size of a can.
He could only dislocate his joints, contract his muscles, and twist his body into all sorts of strange shapes before he could crawl through the distorted cracks.
Even so, the rolling poisonous fog, heat waves, and destructive tide behind him soon caught up to him.
Meng Chao's consciousness was a little muddled, and he could not remember what happened next.
In his daze, he remembered crawling through poisonous fog that contained a lot of impurities from low-grade crystals and was hundreds of degrees hot.
It was as if he was struggling in a dark trench tens of thousands of meters deep under the sea.
Every time he sucked in a mouthful of poisonous fog, he felt as if a heavy cannon from a main battle tank had fired a shot at his heart and lungs.
He even felt that his organs had been burnt to a crisp, and only an empty shell was left. He was still struggling in vain under the push of the impact wave.
Suddenly, he remembered that everything around him had collapsed. Thousands of tons of reinforced concrete had sealed him inside, and he felt as if he had fallen into the deepest part of the trench.
Against his expectations, this feeling was not too bad. In fact, it was a little warm.
It was as if there was a very gentle voice whispering in his ears, "Sleep. You're too tired. Have a good sleep."
However, when he really fell asleep in the deepest part of the dark abyss, he would always see ten thousand suns descend on his head. They were like supernovas that exploded and shone with the most violent and dazzling light.
This light destroyed everything.
It also deeply burned his soul.
It made him gather all his courage and strength and struggle to jump out of the deepest part of the dark abyss. He struggled with everything he had to search for a hint of light that might not exist.
He did not know how much time had passed.
He finally rose to the surface of the dark abyss.
He seemed to be drifting in a foul-smelling sewer.
This was the drainage system shared by the underground shelters around him.
After the explosion, the dirty waste water was mixed with countless suspicious substances, including blood. It became as thick as a swamp, as hot as magma, and as acidic as a strong acid that corroded his flesh.
There were also countless deformed pests.
They were shiny, hideous, and fought to crawl toward him.
He held his breath and waited for the pests to walk into his trap.
So that he could stuff them into his mouth and replenish their precious protein and energy.
Unfortunately, the pests living in the underground of Leprosy Village were very agile and on guard.
At the last moment, they sensed his uncontrollable killing intent and screamed as they fled.
He grumbled in disappointment and fainted again.
This time, he seemed to have drifted in the sewer for a longer period of time. The sticky water brought him to a place far away from the collapsed building.
When he opened his eyes again, his surroundings had stabilized. He could no longer sense the shaking of the ground or the scorching poisonous fog.
Aside from the piercing wound at his heart, which was surrounded by black smoke, the other wounds on his body had started healing on their own. A thin layer of scab formed over them, which helped him retain some of his vitality.
He was at a bend in the sewer.
There was an incomplete metal fence in front of him. It blocked a lot of the trash that flowed down the sewer, so it piled up in front of the fence and formed a slowly spinning mountain of trash.
Meng Chao was lying on the mountain of trash.
There was even a rustling sound coming from his body, as if there was an extremely daring mouse groping his body.
No, it was not a rat. It was a person.
Meng Chao reacted instinctively. His killing intent turned into a sharp blade that seemed to have physical form, and he stabbed the person's eyeball.
The person shuddered and stopped groping. He looked around for a while before he cast Meng Chao a puzzled look.
It was a child.
Seven or eight years old. At most, he was around eleven or twelve years old. Since he was so thin that he looked like he was out of shape, Meng Chao could not be certain.
His hair was as messy as a bird's nest, and his scalp was covered in scabies. He had a protruding mouth and cheeks, and he looked even more pathetic than a rat.
His right eye was black, but his left eye was a faint gold that looked like a crystalline object. The light shining from it was so bright that it did not seem real.
If this eyeball was placed on a handsome face, it might add some color to the owner's face.
But when it was embedded on such a protruding mouth and monkey cheeks, it formed a sharp contrast, which made people pay more attention to the child's ugliness. They even had the absurd idea that "he stole someone's eyeball and installed it on his own face".
Of course, that was not true.
The child should be a descendant of the infectees in Leprosy Village. His crystalline, faint gold eyeball was the same as the fangs protruding out of the left corner of his mouth. They were the result of a mutation.
He also knew that his left eye and the fangs on the left corner of his mouth were very eye-catching.
Hence, he prepared a pair of black goggles and a black bandana with a skull printed on it to serve as a mask. He also put on a wide cloak to hide his face.
However, he was the only one in the small mountain of trash in the sewers. To make it easier for him to work, he lifted the goggles and removed his mask.
Indeed, he was "working."
Meng Chao secretly activated Walking Corpse to make sure that his body was cold. His breathing and heartbeat were close to zero. He narrowed his eyes and observed what the child was doing.
There was a bulge around his waist, and it pushed open a small gap in his cloak.
Through the gap, Meng Chao saw three wide monster belts tied around his waist. They were filled with "spoils of war" that made clanging sounds. There were synthetic food cans wrapped in nets, a few unsheathed daggers, two bloodstained pistols, a crossbow, and a motorized gauntlet with crystals embedded in it.
The motorized gauntlet was too big. It was clear that it did not belong to the child.
He looked around for a while, but he could not find the source of the murderous aura. He thought that it was just his imagination, so he grumbled under his breath and used a dagger to cut the tactical bag tied around Meng Chao's body.
Meng Chao understood it now. He was a thief.
They were here to take advantage of the situation and profit from the dead.
The huge building had collapsed, and countless Leprosy Village villagers had been buried under it. Even though they were poor people at the bottom of society, they still had a few nutritional fluids, canned food, and a few weapons on them.
This kid was after all targeting them.
Once Meng Chao figured out the boy's identity, he wanted to kill him.
But then, he suddenly thought of something.
'I paid a huge price to kill Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang. Right now, I'm heavily injured, and my fighting strength has plummeted. I can't even activate maglev, so it'll be difficult for me to leave the lair.
'Besides, I can't leave the lair. I have to stay here and fight against the Vortex.
'Then, I'll need resources and support.
'Also, I just woke up, and I'm in the dark. I know nothing about the outside world. I don't even know how much time has passed since the explosion. I have to get a spy to help me investigate the situation.
'And if I want to maintain order in Leprosy Village and the lair, I need a leader who can manage things. It's easy for the lair. I can just go to Golden Tooth, but in Leprosy Village, I don't know who the leader is, how I'm going to go to him, and whether he's been bewitched by the Vortex. The situation is really complicated!
'This thief is a local, so he's pretty useful.'
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