Deep Within the Living

Chapter 64: Security Office

In the corridor on the first floor of the academic building, a headless security guard lay on the ground, a syringe embedded in the neck.

Gao Yuxuan immediately determined that this armored anomaly, wrapped entirely in protective gear, was nearly impossible to kill with physical attacks. Without hesitation, he used the succinylcholine chloride he had just retrieved from the infirmary. This is a fast-acting muscle relaxant, and an oversized dose rendered the security guard immobile in seconds. Whether or not the guard was truly dead didn’t matter—at least it wouldn’t block his way anymore.

Without wasting any time, Gao Yuxuan sprinted toward the Security Office. As he ran, a nagging thought weighed on his mind.

Inside the school cloaked by the Seams, individuals with insufficient willpower who underwent abrupt mutations almost always exhibited vortex-like characteristics. These traits were observable across many areas on campus:

The liquid in the syringe, if left still, formed a vortex on the surface.Even the entire sky above the school had been consumed by swirling vortex patterns.This "vortex" element had permeated every corner of the campus. Gao Yuxuan recalled reading numerous external journals about the Seams, but none of them mentioned anything related to vortex imagery. Upon further reflection, there seemed to be only one possibility:

One particular Impersonator within the Seams was uniquely special—so special that its very essence had altered the entire area. It was even more extraordinary than the flesh-type Impersonator in the Sports Center.

“Based on Luo Di’s description, is the source of these vortex elements Mr. Guo? If Mr. Guo truly harbors no hostility, maybe we stand a chance at surviving this,” Gao Yuxuan thought.

On the track field, Gao Yuxuan had witnessed far too many students die. Over fifteen of his own classmates had perished before his eyes. He didn’t dare hope for much; he just wanted to do everything in his power to protect the people around him—his friends.

He quickly crossed the first-floor corridor and reached the outermost edge of the academic building. The Security Office was just ahead.The office appeared to be a standalone extension built onto the academic building, resembling a small fortress with an arched structure. It was equipped with a monitoring room, armory, and even a temporary detention room (used to hold students with severe psychological issues or trespassers deemed dangerous).

Yet the entire Security Office was shrouded in darkness, completely devoid of light. The eerie atmosphere was reminiscent of the infirmary—it didn’t feel like anyone was there.

“No one?” Gao Yuxuan murmured.

Recalling the headless security guard he encountered earlier, he couldn’t help but suspect that the entire security team might have fallen victim to some catastrophe.

Since the Security Office seemed empty and silent, Gao Yuxuan decided to abandon his search and head back to the infirmary.

But just then—

A faint sound emerged from the direction of the Security Office.

It was so subtle that even someone as experienced as Gao Yuxuan struggled to describe it. It sounded like fabric being torn apart or some kind of leather being cut. Although faint, the sound was disturbingly clear in the otherwise silent campus.

Without hesitation, he sprinted toward the source.

While gripping his field combat blade, he also ensured that the silver needle box strapped to his left arm was accessible. Additionally, he prepared a syringe at his waist, ready for immediate use.

He pushed open the door to the Security Office.

The scene that greeted him was one of horror: the bodies of security guards were strewn across the room, each one headless, as if their heads had collided with the ground from a great height.

Currently, the guards’ bodies, along with their armor, had been sliced apart into chunks, scattered all over the floor.

Inside the room, only two figures remained.

One was the middle-aged woman in a school uniform Luo Di had described.

She looked disheveled, her hair a wild mess. Her ten fingers manipulated threads of skin, controlling the upper bodies of relatively intact security guards as her slaves.

From Gao Yuxuan’s perspective, this woman appeared to have been sliced apart over ten times during her battle with the security team. Her body was covered with visible stitching marks, and her tattered school uniform was soaked with blood, some wounds still oozing.

Hearing someone enter, the woman’s pallid face, coated with white powder, twisted 180 degrees to stare directly at Gao Yuxuan, who stood in the doorway.

Upon seeing the bespectacled and handsome young man, her previously grim expression twisted into a grotesque, perverse smile.

Infirmary

Ten minutes had passed with no sign of Gao Yuxuan returning.

During this time, Luo Di, out of impatience, began softly clicking his tongue.

At first, he had been lying flat, then switched to sitting on the edge of the bed. Now, he was already standing, trying his best to adjust to the imbalance caused by his missing arm and reposition his center of gravity.

Finally unable to hold back, he shouted, “Xiaoying!”

“Hmm?”

“Come over and help me remove the IV needle. Also, get me some sedatives and stimulants.”

“I…” Xiaoying hesitated, torn about what to do. She knew the waiting time had already dragged on too long.

“Hurry.”

The commanding tone left Xiaoying no choice but to remove the IV needle. She obediently walked over to the medicine cabinet, trying to locate some emergency medications that might prove useful. While she rummaged through the supplies, Luo Di came up behind her, deliberately standing very close.

“Found them yet?” Luo Di seemed to be supervising her every move, making sure she didn’t use the search as an excuse to stall for time.

“Almost.”

“Xiaoying, you should stay here later~ If the class advisor and the others succeed in their mission, they’ll probably come back here. You can guide them over to help us when they arrive.”

Xiaoying, clutching the medication she had retrieved, turned to face him and bit her lip. This content belongs to novel✶fire.net

“And if they… don’t succeed? What if the ones who come back are Impersonators?”

“Then you should still stay here. At least for the past ten minutes, this infirmary has been safe.”

However, for once, the usually obedient Xiaoying shook her head and refused.

“No, I’m going with you. I might not be much help, but I can handle small things. The class leader has always cared for me—I have to go find her.”

“Aren’t you afraid of dying?”

Xiaoying didn’t answer directly. Instead, she lifted her head and looked up at Luo Di with a rare, resolute gaze.

“Let’s go,” Luo Di said finally, swallowing two stimulant pills he would normally never dare to touch.

As he descended the staircase, he kept his eyes fixed on the infirmary door, silently praying that Gao Yuxuan would appear, bringing the class leader with him.

Unfortunately, there were no such coincidences.

The pitch-black infirmary was completely empty. The mechanical ticking of a clock urged Luo Di to quicken his pace as he headed for the Security Office not far away.

In the corridor, the two of them encountered the headless security guard.

The vortex-like opening at the neck still had a syringe embedded in it, and the body lay silently on the floor.

As he passed, Luo Di knelt on one knee and plunged the zombie blade into the guard’s neck. The body twitched violently before finally succumbing to death.

They passed through the corridor.

The fortress-like Security Office loomed at the forefront of the academic building. Not a single sound could be heard.

Perhaps it was a smell, or maybe pure intuition, but Luo Di slowed his pace slightly and whispered, “Hold onto my sleeve. Stay in contact.”

“Got it!”

Xiaoying grabbed onto his sleeve with one hand, while tightly clutching her claw knife with the other.

They cautiously approached the front door of the Security Office.

Luo Di pushed open the bloodstained door handle.

Sizzle, sizzle (the sound of static electricity).

Under the flickering and dim light, a gruesome scene unfolded before their eyes: shattered body parts, shredded security uniforms, and various scattered gear from the guards lay like a chaotic stew across the floor.

What in the world had happened?

Was this the work of that skin-type Impersonator, slaughtering the entire security team? Or was it something else entirely? Something Luo Di couldn’t begin to fathom?

Xiaoying, who had never encountered such a horrific "scene" before, instinctively covered her nose and mouth, trying to suppress her body’s violent reaction to the overwhelming stench.

When she lifted her head again, she saw that Luo Di had already stepped onto the uneven ground, using the flashlight from the infirmary to carefully examine the remains.

After a thorough search, Luo Di’s tense expression finally began to relax.

He hadn’t found any body parts resembling the class leader or Gao Yuxuan among the remains. Moreover, he noticed that many of the scattered corpses were incomplete—numerous body parts were missing.

As Luo Di puzzled over where Gao Yuxuan might have gone, Xiaoying’s voice called out from the doorway:

“Luo Di! There’s something upstairs in the academic building. I think I heard fighting, and I saw shadows moving.”

“Which floor?”

“The fifth floor. It seems to be near our classroom!”

“Our classroom?”