Chapter Sixty-Two: The Corpse Bat

Tap, tap, tap.

The three walked shoulder to shoulder, their steps in unison, descending slowly into the deserted underground laboratory. The deeper they went, the darker it became, as if the light itself had been frightened away by something more terrifying than darkness, unwilling to enter this uncanny place.

“Do you feel like it’s getting more empty down here?” Ye Bai surveyed the surroundings through his night-vision goggles. All he could see were a few concrete pillars supporting the basement; the edge of the laboratory was lost in the distance. When they first entered, he could make out the boundaries, but now he could only silently count the echoes of their footsteps.

“Yes, it’s true, this basement is definitely getting larger,” Cao Xiaosen replied, following the stride of Yao Ling. The specialized anti-radiation boots made a steady tapping sound.

At first, their steps were sharp and crisp—the walls were close, and the sound bounced back quickly, with no secondary echo. But in this vast emptiness things changed; each step was duller, and after the initial sound, Cao Xiaosen could clearly hear a delayed echo. He judged the size of the basement by the sharpness of their footsteps and the presence of an echo.

“What’s that?” Yao Ling, who walked between Ye Bai and Cao Xiaosen, suddenly turned and strode toward another direction, pulse gun leveled at the spot she’d just seen.

Ye Bai’s left hand, free of his blade, summoned a fire element, illuminating the basement. At the corner, a wall bore a smear of green—some unknown potion shattered there, forming a small, green handprint.

“What is it, Ling?” Ye Bai inquired, now unconcerned about stealth. Yao Ling’s sudden movement and the blaze of Ye Bai’s fire had already given away their presence—or perhaps they’d been exposed since the moment they entered the villa district.

The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind. In this time and place, the roles of prey and hunter seemed to have shifted imperceptibly.

“Hm?” Yao Ling walked closer, examining the corner. Seeing nothing, she turned back. “I don’t know, there’s nothing there now, but I swear I felt something.”

Her brow furrowed, unwilling to let go. She looked again, checked, and only then returned to the group.

“Ling, don’t do that again,” Ye Bai and Cao Xiaosen moved toward her, urging her to rejoin the team. Ye Bai continued, “Don’t leave the group on your own, especially in this darkness. Beware of being lured away. If you go missing here, finding you would be near impossible.”

“Okay,” Yao Ling bowed her head in acknowledgment.

“Ye Bai, don’t you think things are getting stranger?” Even the most sleep-prone would find themselves wide awake in this situation. Cao Xiaosen was unusually alert now—he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so awake, perhaps when he was eight or nine, in a similar situation. If his father hadn’t arrived in time, he might not be here now.

Ye Bai glanced at Yao Ling, making sure she was back. “Yes, the farther we go, the more red and green potion stains appear on the walls. By rights, something should have happened by now, but nothing has. It’s not normal.”

He led them deeper; once the bow is drawn, there’s no turning back. The way back might be even more perilous.

“And it’s so quiet here, it feels like not a single soul exists. Even the sound of breathing is just us three. By the way, Ling, what did you see just now?”

Yao Ling adjusted her goggles, the darkness around her eyes turning green again. “It seemed like something small, something like the rats from before the Dark Era,” she replied, uncertain.

“Rats?” Ye Bai was surprised. Since the Dark Era, rats had grown larger than cats, and now only survived deep in the Divine Wood Mountains.

They walked several hundred meters further. The space seemed to shrink; their steps were less muffled, echoes nearer.

Cao Xiaosen, at the rear, suddenly felt a chill on his neck. “Wait, above us.”

The three raised their heads almost simultaneously, gazing at the ceiling of the underground lab, a shiver running through their hearts.

Ye Bai, who had been about to summon fire, let the element fade from his hand. Lucky he looked up—otherwise, he might never have known how he died.

“They’re corpse bats. Turn off the analyzer on your goggles, let not a single light escape, and make no sound.” Ye Bai stared at the dense cluster of corpse bats overhead, all still asleep, and he let out a silent sigh of relief. If these things woke, not even ten Ye Bais could survive.

“How can this be?” Yao Ling was incredulous. She knew of corpse bats—they appeared only in the early days of the Dark Era. Strictly speaking, they weren’t truly alive, born from masses of corpses, dead things without brains or thought, drawn only to fresh blood.

Whether human or mutant beast, anything they encountered would be stripped to bone. They were like animated lumps of flesh, resembling the bats of old, but spawned from corpses—hence the name.

“Haven’t these things disappeared for decades? How are they here again? There hasn’t been a major war—where did they come from?” Yao Ling’s questions tumbled out; she couldn’t fathom how so many could exist.

Cao Xiaosen eyed the corpse bat above, a thread pulling at his lips, and instantly understood the source of the chilly sensation on his neck.

“Maybe these corpse bats weren’t born from corpses, but deliberately bred,” Cao Xiaosen explained, suppressing his urge to shred the one above him.

“That’s right,” Ye Bai pressed the camera device on his goggles, capturing an image of a claw on the corpse bat’s wing, sending it to Yao Ling and Cao Xiaosen’s neural brains.

“Small claws! Just like the prints we saw on the wall earlier!” Yao Ling exclaimed.

“We must withdraw. We can’t linger here. Everyone knows corpse bats spare no one; no one survives an attack by so many. Clearly, the master of this place never intended to leave alive.”

The rear became the front; the three moved quickly, with Cao Xiaosen leading them toward the exit.

After only a few steps, Cao Xiaosen stopped.

“Perhaps it’s too late.”

Yao Ling and Ye Bai now saw ahead a dozen shadowy, black forms—mutants.

“These are water-form mutants. They can morph any part of their bodies into weapons, adapting to whatever vessel they inhabit, as fluid as water itself. Very hard to deal with,” Yao Ling explained, and Ye Bai recognized them too.

“I never imagined we’d stumble into such a place. To have a dozen water-form mutants guarding the entrance—these are not ordinary creatures. Water-form mutants are all entry-level, but formidable.”

Ye Bai assessed the situation: with the path back blocked, their only option was forward. The three of them could never handle so many water-form mutants, especially with corpse bats overhead.

“Go, keep moving forward.” Now there was truly no choice.

For some reason, the water-form mutants simply stood there, unmoving, as if to prevent their retreat, or perhaps the master enjoyed toying with them.

For the first time, Ye Bai felt helpless—helpless in the face of the unknown. Since entering the underground lab, he’d lost the initiative, forced now to move forward.

His face betrayed nothing, still calm and composed. No matter who panicked, he must not. If he lost his composure, they would never escape.

The water-form mutants did not pursue them. As Ye Bai and his companions moved on, they faded once more into the darkness.

Ye Bai was now racking his brain for an escape, but there seemed only the entrance they’d come through—and now, even that was lost.

Suddenly, he felt his clothing tugged. He turned to find Yao Ling staring wide-eyed, pointing ahead.

Ye Bai, puzzled, turned—and saw a scene he would never forget for the rest of his life.