"We'll circle and shake him off!"
Sensing that Luo Mai was about to grab something again, Huan Tian swiftly slammed in a fresh magazine and, without turning around, raised his hand and fired two shots behind him.
Luo Mai had just reached out toward a chair but was forced to pull his right hand back to shield himself. Both bullets struck directly at the base of his index finger.
With the enhanced firepower of the Desert Eagle, the rounds pierced straight through, stopping right at the mutated bone joint.
Boom!
Two Tier-1 Nightmare Ammo exploded in unison.
Luo Mai's index finger was blasted off in a spray of blood, and the grotesque pale claw landed on the ground with a wet thud.
"ROARRR!!"
Even without pain receptors, the sudden loss of a finger sent Luo Mai into a blind rage.
His swollen muscles trembled violently, and his speed surged again—he was now running like a flesh-and-blood tank, capable of smashing through solid walls without effort.
"Turn right! Where does that lead?"
"That's the HR department. Their workspace is a large, open area with numerous desks and furniture. If we go that way, he'll have even more things to throw at us—"
"We don't have a choice!"
Huan Tian yanked Lin Qingqing with him and made a sharp turn to the right.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a black sign on the wall—Project Department. Just ten meters ahead was the office door!
No time to open it.
He raised his gun and fired—
The enhanced round blew the lock to pieces. The two of them charged inside, slamming through the doorway.
Inside was a neat grid of cubicles—boxy, dense, packed tightly together like cells in a hive.
It was easy to imagine over a hundred people once working here. A narrow, straight path just wide enough for two people cut through the maze, leading to another exit at the far end.
They ran full speed through it without stopping.
Behind them, a thunderous crash rang out—Luo Mai had smashed his way into the office, completely blowing apart the doorway.
The wall behind them now had a giant hole in it.
He kept chasing, but the tight space and cluttered layout slowed him down significantly.
"RAAAHH!!"
Zombification had stripped Luo Mai of most higher reasoning.
Frustrated, he let out a deafening roar and began swinging his massive right arm like a wrecking ball, smashing through cubicles like sweeping aside dust.
But the broken wood, flying folders, and a blizzard of white A4 paper filled the air, blinding him and making him even more frenzied.
He kept smashing ahead, but the more he tried to clear a path, the more the chaos slowed him down.
"It's working!"
Lin Qingqing's face was flushed from running, but there was a hint of joy in her eyes.
"Don't celebrate yet—he's still coming!"
Just as Huan Tian finished speaking, a furious roar erupted behind them—
"RRAAAH!!"
The fury of losing his prey—and watching them get farther away—completely ignited Luo Mai's rage. He threw his head back and let out a thunderous, earth-shaking howl. Thick veins bulged on his forehead, writhing like venomous snakes beneath his skin.
His bloodshot eyes locked on the fleeing duo ahead. Ignoring the maze of office cubicles around him, he charged straight ahead like a berserk beast, smashing through everything in his path.
Broken chairs, shattered desks, flying shards of stationery and paper burst into the air around him, but Luo Mai didn't even flinch. His crimson eyes were fixed solely on Huan Tian's back.
Snarls spilled from his mouth as his lips curled like a ravenous wolf, growling low and wild from deep in his throat.
He suddenly grabbed a heavy office desk—something that would normally require two people to move—but in his hands, it was light as foam. With a savage roar, he hurled it forward like a makeshift projectile.
Huan Tian, already anticipating the move, spun to the side and narrowly dodged the flying mass. Without breaking stride, he leapt over the splintered remains and kept running.
Ahead lay the edge of the office zone. Just around the corner was the rear exit—a thick, reinforced glass door, far tougher than any wooden one.
"Don't slow down—just sprint!"
Huan Tian's voice cut through the chaos, sharp and commanding, leaving no room for hesitation.
Lin Qingqing had instinctively started to slow down to open the door, but at his shout, her legs surged forward again. The door was only a few meters away now—charging at it without slowing down could mean a broken skull.
But she didn't hesitate.
She had developed a near-blind trust in Huan Tian. And that trust had already begun turning into unwavering obedience.
Bang! Bang!
Two gunshots rang out behind her.
While sprinting, Lin Qingqing heard a piercing whistle in her ears—
Two Nightmare rounds zipped past, slicing the air just beside her face and slamming into the reinforced glass door ahead.
Crack! Crack-crack!
The glass shuddered violently, webbed with spreading fractures that bloomed like snowflakes under the bullets' impact.
She instinctively raised her arms, ready to crash through—
But in that instant, a powerful arm wrapped around her waist and lifted her off the ground!
"Curl up! Don't move!"
Huan Tian's voice roared above her.
He kicked off the ground and launched forward like a missile, slamming his back against the fractured glass door.
Boom!
Glass exploded in every direction. Huan Tian's muscled back absorbed the entire shock of the collision.
Still holding Lin Qingqing tightly, he tucked and rolled across the ground, using the momentum to land in a fluid combat roll. Within seconds, he was back on his feet, pulling her up and running again at full speed.
BOOM!
They had only run a few steps when another deafening explosion erupted behind them.
This time, it wasn't just the door—
Luo Mai's monstrous charge didn't simply break through it.
He blasted straight through the entire wall, taking the steel frame and reinforced glass down with it in a rain of rubble.
Now, Luo Mai was a walking mass of blood and ruin.
Splinters and metal shards had torn through his flesh like blades during his charge. His body was covered in ragged, gaping wounds—
But he kept going, unfazed, like a blood-soaked demon forged from flesh and fury.
"ROAAAARRR!!"
The constant injuries only fueled his hatred. His obsession with killing Huan Tian had reached its peak.
A poisonous lust for slaughter burned through him, causing the Nightmare Virus to replicate faster—rampantly—inside his body.
Crrk... crkkk... CRUNCH!
A hideous sound came from behind, like something ripping through raw flesh, gnawing and devouring.
Huan Tian's ears twitched. A cold shiver shot up his spine like a lightning bolt.
He whipped his head around—
And what he saw made his pupils contract.
Luo Mai's body was mutating—at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Beneath his skin, something squirmed. It looked like a mass of living things writhing and crawling under his muscles.
The epicenter was his fully mutated right arm, from which a web of twisted tissue began spreading, infecting everything around it, as if trying to consume every last trace of his remaining humanity.
The transformation reached its peak in mere seconds—
His entire back, half his chest, and most of his face had been devoured by pulsating crimson muscle.
Even his severed lower leg had been grotesquely reconnected by violently growing muscle fibers, fusing into a massive limb several times thicker than the original.
And the bulging muscle on his back had grown so enormous—
It smashed directly into the three-meter-high ceiling above.
By now, Luo Mai could hardly be called human.
What little remained of his original body—barely a third—clung to a grotesque form that loomed around it like a monster cradling a child, ready to consume it at any moment.
The Nightmare Crystal in his palm had swelled in size, now pulsing with a haunting blue light.
Its glow shimmered with an unnatural intensity, casting flickering shadows that hinted at something deeply twisted and otherworldly.