The mercenaries had already descended the stairs by now. Michael Bolton turned back and sneered at the panting group. Shaking his head, he said, “Hang in there. If you survive, you should thank the heavens. Honestly, you’re already pretty lucky—this horror movie has a very low danger level. In fact, it’s one of the few horror films where bullets can actually solve problems. Just keep going. As long as you make it through this horror movie, you’ll get a thousand reward points to improve your physique.”

As the team pressed deeper, some isolated research labs gradually appeared on both sides of the corridor. All of these labs were filled with water, and besides the water, there were many researchers’ corpses floating inside. The pale bodies looked especially horrifying. Brian Carter and the others knew even more—they had already been infected by the T-virus and turned into zombies. Once the central computer rebooted, they would break free and start attacking and eating people.

“Damn.”

One of the mercenaries said, “To reach the Red Queen, we have to go through these labs. Now they’re all flooded. I don’t think we can get in anymore.”

Matthew Addison nodded and said, “Wayne, J.D., go see if there’s any way to drain the water.”

Surprisingly, the long-haired female mercenary was actually named Wayne, such a masculine name. She and the other mercenary, J.D., gripped their guns and headed deeper down the corridor.

Matthew Addison looked at the water-filled research facility and said, “Kaplan, Michael Bolton, you two go look for another route to the Red Queen.”

Kaplan raised his gun and followed behind Wayne and J.D., while Michael Bolton waved at Brian Carter and the others, then walked off in that direction as if it was no big deal.

Once the four had gone far enough, one of the main characters, Ryan, suddenly asked, “What exactly happened here? Why do these labs look like...”

“Like they were flooded from the inside?”

Matthew Addison glanced at everyone before finally saying, “About five hours ago, the Red Queen sealed off the entire Hive, then used the internal defense system to start killing people—releasing poison gas, cutting off elevators, shutting down labs, just like these. It killed everyone in this research area.”

He paused, then continued, “When the company realized something was wrong, our squad was sent here to shut it down. That’s why we’re here.”

The main characters were all baffled. Alice bit her finger and said, “Why would it do that? Isn’t it an intelligent computer system?”

Matthew Addison shook his head. “We don’t know either. Maybe it was influenced from the outside, like a computer virus... or maybe someone inside sabotaged it. It’s all...”

While Matthew Addison was speaking, a human figure gradually appeared on the glass wall that Matt was leaning against. Matt looked closely and realized it was a corpse floating in the water. He screamed and jumped away in fright.

Everyone was startled, even Brian Carter and the others jumped in shock. All eyes turned in that direction, where a pale female corpse floated behind the glass wall.

Although Matthew Addison and the others looked a bit unsettled, they quickly regained their composure. Only Brian Carter and his group were so frightened that their hands and feet went cold. Maybe it didn’t feel so bad when watching a movie, but actually being there—especially knowing that corpse was already a zombie—made the chilling terror impossible to describe.

Brian Carter was staring at the corpse in a daze when suddenly a small hand patted his shoulder. At a time like this, any movement was enough to scare someone to death. He immediately jumped several meters away, then turned to see the bespectacled girl standing there, giggling.

“Hey, how about we introduce ourselves? After all, we’re about to depend on each other to survive.” The bespectacled girl smiled as she spoke.

The three men didn’t seem to object, so the bespectacled girl said, “My name is Laura James—‘詹’ as in Zhan Tianyou, ‘岚’ as in mountain breeze. Hehe, sounds like a boy’s name, right? My profession is writer. Before coming here, I kept complaining about having no desire or inspiration to write. Who would’ve thought I’d end up in this world of infinite inspiration? Haha, I guess this is karma.”

Brian Carter smiled kindly and said, “Brian Carter—‘郑’ as in Zheng Chenggong, ‘吒’ as in Nezha. My job is company manager. Uh, before coming here, I did complain that the real world was too boring, so dull it felt like I was rotting away day by day. So I wanted to find some excitement... but this is a bit too much excitement.”

Laura James grinned and shook Brian Carter’s hand. “Kindred spirits! Honestly, I felt the same way.”

The middle-aged man gave a simple, honest smile and said, “Eric Bennett—‘牟’ as in Mou, ‘钢’ as in steel. Sigh, I’m not as cultured as you folks, it’s just a name. My job is long-haul truck driver. Before coming here, I did complain that my wife was too stingy, my son too disappointing. Basically, I was pretty disillusioned with reality. I clicked that confirmation while playing games online with friends, and then I ended up here.”