Players, Please Board the Train

Chapter 207: Monster Paradise

Almost instinctively, Xu Huo turned around and swung his sword to strike. Before his shifting vision could fully capture everything behind him, his entire body was blasted away by a powerful force, and a black shadow closely pursued him!

Adjusting his posture mid-air, he kicked off a giant plant's leaves and branches to face the black shadow head-on. The crimson sword slashed out then quickly condensed into a thin, narrow blade of sword energy—but the shadow was too fast, and this strike only grazed its edge!

"Its energy value is more than ten times yours! You're no match for it!" Jiang Yihua shouted from not far away, using the sickle-limb she had previously removed from the mantis to fiercely chop at the Man-eating Flower's branches and leaves!

"CRACK!" The branch suspending a human-shaped cocoon was severed at the waist. As the leaf fell to the ground, rustling friction sounds filled the Glass Greenhouse. The giant Man-eating Flower's Flower Crown trembled, then spat out over a dozen smaller man-eating flower crowns from its stamen area. These flower crowns shot out like cannonballs, crashing down in all directions!

"SQUEAK!" The black shadow blocking Xu Huo's path emitted a sharp chirp and fled deep into the flower clusters. But as the small man-eating flower crowns descended, a giant mantis was suddenly bitten, lifted into the air, and swallowed into the giant Flower Crown without any chance to struggle!

The sound of swallowing came from the Flower Crown area. Xu Huo and the others took only one glance before fleeing without looking back!

"BOOM! BOOM!" Small man-eating flower crowns kept crashing down nearby, but they weren't targeting the humans. Instead, they were grabbing animals from the dense thickets that the group had completely missed—one of them even held a human head in its mouth!

"Is this fucking Monster Land or what!" Zheng Liang couldn't help but scream. But before his voice faded, the middle-aged woman beside him was bitten by a man-eating flower and lifted up. He instinctively reached out to pull her back, but was splattered with blood—the man-eating flower had directly bitten through her throat!

As the headless body fell, a Mutated Animal pounced from the jungle to catch it. But before it could start eating, another larger mutated mantis swung its sickle-limb, cutting both in half at the waist!

"There's a small house ahead!" Dai Wenqian suddenly pointed forward.Indeed, about ten meters away stood a small cabin with a small lamp hanging in front and a "Holiday Cabin" sign beside it.

"BANG!" Zheng Liang flashed to the front of the cabin and kicked the door open. Xu Huo and Dai Wenqian quickly entered one after another, with Jiang Yihua and Wei Bin slightly slower. Dai Wenqian's companion walking at the rear was snatched away by a silken thread that shot out from the jungle, while the slower Wealthy Young Girl trio had already been swallowed by the jungle!

Unable to worry about the captured companion and other stragglers, Wei Bin locked the door and stepped back a few paces, looking out through the cabin's glass windows. "They're surrounding us!"

As they moved away from the giant Man-eating Flower, the number of Mutated Animals increased. These creatures had followed them almost step-by-step to the cabin's surroundings, but stopped after they entered the cabin, as if afraid of something and not daring to come inside.

Xu Huo spotted a red button by the door labeled "High-Intensity Lights." He slammed it down, and lights from the Glass Greenhouse's dome shot down, illuminating the area around the small cabin.

The Mutated Animals hiding in the dark shadows feared the bright light and quickly retreated from around the cabin. Even the small man-eating flowers spat out by the giant Man-eating Flower shrank back under the intense illumination!

"Help..." A cry for help came from the dense thickets. It was the Wealthy Young Girl, supporting an injured woman as she struggled toward the small cabin.

"Should we open the door?" Jiang Yihua turned to ask Xu Huo. After he nodded, she pulled the door open and brought both women inside.

Both were injured, but not seriously.

After briefly checking their injuries, Jiang Yihua said, "They'll be fine."

Zheng Liang wasn't concerned about these two, instead looking outside and saying, "How long can these lights last? Will those Mutated Animals come back?"

Dai Wenqian had already found several pages of documents on the cabin's desk. "This Glass Greenhouse has independent power supply. If the main power is cut off, the greenhouse's energy storage can support twelve hours."

Hearing this, everyone present breathed a sigh of relief. Wei Bin couldn't help but feel sorrowful. "Seventeen people came, now only seven remain."

Three players had died too.

"Death in dungeon games is too common," Dai Wenqian said, pointing to the path outside leading to the elevator building. "That area isn't illuminated by the lights. If we can't quickly find a way back to the building, we'll all die here."

Everyone followed his pointing finger. Actually, the distance from the cabin to the building wasn't far, but with so many Mutated Animals ambushing the surroundings, that short distance would be enough for them to die several times over.

"I thought we found a way out, but it turned out to be a dead end," Jiang Yihua said with a pale face.

"Not necessarily." Xu Huo, standing by the window, turned around holding a small cabin design blueprint. "This has Professor Hao's signature. This cabin was probably his observation post for mutated plants and animals. There must be a safe way back to the building."

Otherwise, it wouldn't be called a Holiday Cabin.

"Then let's quickly search around," Wei Bin said.

This small cabin had a spacious workroom outside and a fully enclosed bedroom on the inner side, plus a dedicated bathroom with complete daily necessities. However, most books and documents were gone, leaving only empty bookshelves and bookcases.

Jiang Yihua found a photo in the cabinet showing a chubby middle-aged man posing with a half-human-height man-eating flower. The back of the photo read "Photo with Xiaohua Honghong" along with a date.

"This Professor Hao must be colorblind," she couldn't help commenting. "The man-eating flower is clearly flesh-colored, why name it Xiaohua Honghong?"

Wei Bin and Zheng Liang both glanced at her simultaneously. The former said, "Rather than that, shouldn't we be more surprised by his attitude toward the man-eating flower?"

"It seems the Little Flower Red Red Building was named after this giant man-eating flower. To establish a research institute relying on such man-eating creatures, and even have money to build such a large Glass Greenhouse—this professor isn't quite normal either."

"Isn't that something we already knew?" Jiang Yihua said. "Normal people wouldn't install so many elevators in their workplace."

That made sense.

Wei Bin fell silent.

"Knock knock." Xu Huo tapped the side of the cabinet. The wall-connected side seemed to have a gap. He pried open the side panel with his knife and discovered a red button inside with a note pasted beside it.

"Absolutely do not press, dangerous..." Zheng Liang leaned over to read the note's contents, then looked puzzled at the others. "Hiding a button but telling people not to press it—could this be a trap?"

Xu Huo suddenly reached out and pressed the button.