Chapter 120: Aberrant 10

It was the seventh night, and the five-member team, with their last-ditch determination, headed toward the Tianzi Building.

On their way, they saw numerous low-level players near the Tianzi Building, swallowed up by the buildings themselves.

In the Monster Domain, not just the Tianzi Building was alive—all the buildings in this domain were alive, and the closer they were to the Tianzi Building, the more active the buildings became.

The buildings that had swallowed the players even had lights that flickered on in the darkness, much like the Tianzi Building.

The convenience stores, small supermarkets, pharmacies, and small restaurants on the streets near the Tianzi Building, when their lights turned on, looked just like any ordinary street in the real world—familiar and full of a sense of security, as though stepping inside would bring them back to the safety of the real world.

Many low-level players couldn’t resist the eerie Room and voluntarily walked in, only to disappear behind those doors.

The five-member team, having grown accustomed to seeing life and death in the domain, didn’t stop for anyone, charging straight into the Tianzi Building.

With their experience, they quickly passed through the bottom six floors, not as disheveled as before. But when they reached the first floor above, the five of them almost fell there.

Just as Teacher Wen had observed earlier, over the past few days, the resentment in the Tianzi Building had grown inexplicably, and the entities inside were becoming increasingly aggressive.

From the moment they stepped into the Tianzi Building, almost every entity in every room launched an attack on them.

Some had the ability to confuse the mind, and if a person’s willpower was even slightly weak, they could easily be manipulated. Fortunately, the five of them supported each other—if one was in trouble, the others would wake them up, preventing them from losing themselves.

Some entities directly attacked, like the thin, middle-aged man holding a knife, chopping his wife. For the first time, he actively left his room and chased them.

Nurse glanced into the room as they passed, noticing that the man’s cutting board was gone, and the bowls and pans strewn across the floor were also gone. Instead, a woman’s head was laughing on the table.

When their gazes met, the woman’s smiling face suddenly changed expression. She left the room and appeared in front of Nurse, almost face-to-face.

Black Cat, hidden in the shadows nearby, thrust a dagger into the woman’s head, sending it flying, where it was caught by the man chasing them from behind.

The man had gone into a frenzy. His body grew taller, becoming like a giant, and the knife in his hand grew larger, dripping blood continuously. With a crazed, violent expression, he swung the massive blade over and over at the five of them, attempting to decapitate them.

Meanwhile, the woman’s head floated beside him, watching them with a sinister gaze, anticipating their heads would be severed like hers.

Each time she laughed, the five of them would briefly falter, slowing their movements. So, even though Big Bear was repeatedly blocking from behind, clashing his Guan Gong sword with the dripping blood-stained blade, the five of them were still in disarray as they ran.

Worse still, the staircase leading upstairs had disappeared at some point, and the hallway before them had become infinitely long, with only doors opening along the sides.

One entity after another opened their eyes to confront them.

“Damn it, have these entities gone mad? They’re all ganging up on us! Usually, there aren’t so many entities attacking at once, is there? Why the hell is our aggro level so high?” Nurse shouted.

“Teacher Wen, was it like this last time you came? Did all the entities have such high aggression on the final day?” White Eagle shot at the entities emerging from the floor with exorcism bullets.

“No, the aggression of the entities in Tianzi Building wasn’t this strong last time. It’s also possible that I didn’t delve as deeply last time.”

“It’s that Pyramid group of troublemakers, it must be because they woke Aberrant up early that everything turned out like this!”

The chaotic aggression of the entities inside the Tianzi Building made the five-member team abandon their intention of heading further upstairs.

Teacher Wen decisively ordered everyone to retreat from the building. They had come to fight the biggest Boss Monster, but now that they hadn’t even encountered Aberrant yet, they were being forced into this situation. If they pushed on, they’d probably all be wiped out as soon as they met. Forget about a direct confrontation and data collection.

After resting for a while, the five-member team charged once more, but by the second floor, they were forced to retreat.

Looking at the unconscious Nurse, Big Bear with a broken arm, and White Eagle and Black Cat covered in blood, Teacher Wen covered his aching chest and sighed helplessly, “Forget it, no more attempts. This mission is a failure.”

As he spoke, he took off his glasses, which were one of his most important tools, and they shattered here.

Meanwhile, as they were continuously charging and trying, Aberrant was being held down in the Infant Room by a group of small babies, with her skirt tightly gripped by Qian.

“I haven’t finished drawing yet, you can’t move.” Qian had finished half the box of water pens, but her mother’s skirt was too big, and she hadn’t finished drawing.

Aberrant had tried to pull the skirt out of her hand, wanting to go outside, but interrupting what the child was doing would make her cry.

After hesitating for a moment, Qian, as the eldest sister, commanded her younger siblings. They all rushed in and successfully held Aberrant in place. Covered in children’s hands, Aberrant could only patiently wait and play with them.

Once Qian finally finished drawing on her mother’s skirt, turning the terrifying bloodstained dress into a big, floral red dress with a rustic charm, Aberrant hurriedly disappeared as if she were running late for work.

Once she was gone, Qian climbed up from the floor and ran to the place where she had disappeared, wanting to follow her out to play.

As soon as her mother ran off, seeing her sister about to leave, the group of small babies crawled over, grabbing Qian’s hands and feet.

Qian was already used to this, freeing herself from their grasp and, with a sisterly tone, said, “You all stay here and be good. I’ll bring back some toys for you to play with.”

Aberrant rushed out, but still missed the last wave. The players who came to the Tianzi Building voluntarily had already fled, and the ones who were brought here passively had long been consumed.

Not giving up, the mother continued to drift through every floor of the building, hoping to wait for some food to come in.

But as the night was about to end, she still hadn’t encountered any food. In a fit of anger, she devoured the two entities that had passed by.

Usually, where Aberrant appears, other entities won’t show themselves, but these two were newly born in the building, still chaotic, unaware of how dangerous Aberrant was at this point.

Aberrant’s black hair suddenly grew wildly, wrapping around the two entities and devouring them in one bite.

As she acted, every door in the building slammed shut, and the entities that had been chasing human players before became silent, too afraid to make a sound.

Facing the hungry Aberrant, the entities in the building also felt fear.

Entities could already devour each other, but Aberrant had an especially large appetite. In the past, the entities in the building would leave the highest-level players to be toyed with, driving them in front of Aberrant to feed her.

As long as Aberrant was fed, she wouldn’t eat them, and everyone could coexist peacefully.

But this time, the entities in the building had failed to stop in their attempts to vent their resentment, and Aberrant had still not appeared. The entities thought perhaps Aberrant wouldn’t join the feast this time, so they ate all the good food themselves, leading to Aberrant becoming completely frantic with hunger.

The entities on the lower floors, which had consumed the most players, remained silent, but were still pulled out of their rooms and eaten by Aberrant because of the fresh blood on them.

After finally eating her fill, Aberrant calmed down.

The night passed, and the dawn broke, signaling the end of a cycle.

The players still alive in the domain were pulled back into the real world by the Survival System. As for those who had died here, they were completely gone, leaving nothing behind. Those who had not died completely might merge with other things to become new entities in the domain.

The entire domain was devoid of any living beings.

But this silence of life soon ended. A new batch of players would soon be pulled into the domain to start their Survival Game.

Chen Cailing was horrified when she realized that the domain she had entered was an S-rank Monster Domain.

She stared at the simple introduction given by the Survival System and looked around at the old, worn-out streets, her face filled with fear.

She was only twelve years old, one of those unlucky players who had been dragged into this terrifying world early on by the Survival System.

Low-level players rarely survive in high-rank domains, especially since Chen Cailing was a beginner. Before being pulled into this domain, she had only completed a D-level domain.

That had been a plague disease dungeon, where the players’ mission was to escape from a small town.

The infected people in that mission were like zombies from a movie—they would eat people and infect players, turning them into infected as well.

At that time, Chen Cailing was lucky enough to meet an older sister, a mid-level player who had successfully cleared three A-level entity domains. With her guidance, and since Chen Cailing was obedient, she safely completed the mission.

But this was an S-grade Domain. What terrified Chen Cailing the most was that she had also received a special mission from the system, which required her to bring something out of the Tianzi Building.

This round of the Survival Game had just begun, and the sky hadn’t even darkened yet. Chen Cailing stood alone on the street, her eyes fixed on a corner of a building not far away, bathed in sunlight.

That was undoubtedly the Tianzi Building, and she wasn’t far from it.

Though her body was still trembling slightly, Chen Cailing gritted her teeth and ran toward the Tianzi Building.

She didn’t know much about this domain. After all, with so many large and small entity domains, no one could remember all the details. Information about S-grade domains was mostly kept from low-level players, only high-level players researched them.

As for low-level players… everyone said that if you entered, you were as good as dead, so there was no need to know anything about the situation.

But she didn’t want to die.

Wiping away a tear, Chen Cailing trembled as she walked into the building.

It was eerily quiet.

Because Aberrant had just gone on a rampage and devoured a round of entities, the ones left in the building were unusually obedient, quietly restraining themselves.

In this suffocating silence, Chen Cailing almost dared not breathe.

She frantically looked around the first floor, hoping to grab something and run out.

But suddenly, the sound of footsteps startled her, freezing her in place as her eyes went wide, staring ahead.

A small child appeared in the stairwell ahead.

It was a little girl in a floral dress, around three years old, about the same age as the two younger sisters she had back in the orphanage.

Since the arrival of the Survival Game, many had died, and the number of orphans had increased. Orphanages of all sizes had appeared everywhere.

Because there weren’t enough teachers, older children had to take care of the younger ones. Chen Cailing, at her age, was already considered an older sister and was often tasked with taking care of a bunch of kids. Seeing such a young child here immediately made her think of taking her along to run.

Chen Cailing suddenly realized and showed an anxious expression.

She waved her hand at the little girl, calling softly, “Come here, over here!”

Qian had sneaked out to play while her mother was asleep. Seeing an older sister calling her, she curiously ran over.

“Sister, what do you want me to do?” She asked, looking up at her.

It wasn’t until she had called her over that Chen Cailing became uneasy, unsure if she was truly human. She reached out, grabbed Qian’s hand, and felt flesh. When she saw the shadow, she finally relaxed.

“This place is very dangerous. Let’s leave here first. I can take you to the supermarket outside, where there’s food. Maybe we can eat!”

Chen Cailing comforted the little girl, quickly running to the courtyard and pulling out a red brick from around the vegetable garden, considering it as completing her mission. She didn’t dare go into those rooms to take anything, so she could only hope that this brick counted as something from the building.

“Hurry, come with me. I’ll hold your hand.”

Chen Cailing extended her hand, and Qian obediently took it, asking expectantly, “Can we really go to the supermarket and get food?”