If you slap me, the whole world will suffer the same harm.

That night, as usual, Tie Lang led a team to defend the southeast corner, Chen Hu was in the northwest, and Zhang Han was in the center directing operations.

Lin Chen sat cross-legged in a small room on the top floor of the main building, attempting to break through to level six.

Suddenly, a piercing scream came from inside the building.

"ah!!!"

Lin Chen opened his eyes instantly, grabbed the Evil King Spear, and rushed out.

"What happened?"

The hallway was in complete chaos.

A middle-aged man clutched his stomach and collapsed in a pool of blood, his body torn open from the inside by something.

"Brother Lin! There's something evil in the building!" someone shouted.

Lin Chen's pupils contracted: "Inside the building? How did you get in?"

"I don't know! They just appeared out of nowhere! On the third floor! No, there are some on the fourth floor too!"

"They're on the fifth floor too! They're everywhere!"

"Run!"

Screams, running sounds, and the clatter of overturned objects mingled together, turning the entire building into hell in an instant.

Lin Chen gritted his teeth, swung the Evil King Spear, and a black blade of energy cleaved the evil creature at the end of the corridor in two.

It was a cockroach-like creature, only half the height of a person, but with a metallic sheen and two rows of fine compound eyes on its head. It crawled at an astonishing speed.

"System! What is this?"

"Ding! A level 3 evil creature, 'Shadow Cockroach,' has been detected. Its characteristics are: small size, extremely fast speed, and short-distance teleportation capability. This attack is in 'random spawn' mode, and the evil creature will appear directly inside the building."

Lin Chen's face turned ashen: "Random refresh? Why wasn't that mentioned before?"

System: "Ding! After the shelter level is upgraded, the monster invasion mode will change and will randomly refresh to the new feature of level 2 shelters."

"You should have said so earlier!"

System: "Ding! The host did not actively query."

Lin Chen: "I'll check your grandpa's records!"

With no time to waste words with the system, Lin Chen ran wildly through the stairwell while frantically slashing with the Evil King Spear.

But there were too many Shadow Cockroaches, and they specifically targeted ordinary people who had no fighting ability.

"Iron Wolf! Zhang Han! Chen Hu! Take men into the building! The evil creature has spawned inside!" Lin Chen shouted at the top of his lungs.

Iron Wolf, who was defending outside, nearly dropped his axe upon hearing this: "What? It spawned inside the building?"

"Yes! Hurry! There are many ordinary people inside!"

"Damn it! Brothers! Follow me and charge in!"

Iron Wolf led his men into the building, while Zhang Han and Chen Hu also charged in from another direction.

However, the building's interior space was cramped, and the Shadow Cockroaches were fast and could teleport, making it impossible for them to carry out their ranged attacks.

Instead, the shadow cockroaches used the walls and ceiling to launch continuous sneak attacks.

"puff!"

Another elderly man was pierced from behind by a shadow cockroach and collapsed to the ground convulsing.

"Damn it! These beasts are too fast!" Chen Hu's slash missed, and Shadow Cockroach had already circled behind him.

"Watch out!" Iron Wolf swept his axe across, swatting away the shadow cockroach behind Chen Hu.

Thanks!

"Stop talking nonsense! Get them into the hall!"

The battle lasted all night.

When dawn broke, Lin Chen looked at the corpses and bloodstains scattered on the ground, his face turning terribly grim.

The statistics came out quickly...more than 1,200 people died.

Most of them were elderly people, children and women who were not capable of fighting, and a small number of weaker first and second-level combat personnel.

"Twelve hundred people..." Lin Chen's voice trembled slightly.

"These beasts spawned in the rooms, and many people were still sleeping when..." Xiaoxue's eyes were red, and she couldn't continue.

Hong Ji gripped the iron rod tightly, her knuckles turning white: "I will kill them all."

Xiaoya squatted in the corner, covering her face and crying.

Iron Wolf kicked over a table: "Damn it! How are we supposed to fight like this! We can defend against the outside, but not the inside!"

Chen Hu paced back and forth irritably: "Everything was fine yesterday, and now it's all changed!"

Zhang Han stood by the window, silent for a long time before finally speaking: "The system has changed its rules, and we must adapt. Continuing to complain will only lead to more deaths."

Lin Chen took a deep breath, suppressing his anger: "Zhang Han is right. Starting tonight, everyone will gather in the main building, all important supplies will be moved to the upper floors, checkpoints and traps will be set up inside the building, and there will be patrols 24 hours a day."

"That's all we can do," Iron Wolf said in a muffled voice.

Just as everyone was preparing to act, the ground beneath their feet suddenly began to shake violently.

"Rumble..."

The whole building was shaking, and dust was falling from the walls.

"Earthquake?" Chen Hu leaned against the wall.

"No! This is bad!" Lin Chen's expression changed drastically. "It's a merger of the shelters!"

System: "Ding! Shelter merger detected. After this merger, the shelter level will be upgraded to level two. Warning: The shelter area will be expanded and the number of people it can accommodate will increase after the merger, but the shelter's functions will undergo significant changes."

Lin Chen: "What changes?"

System: "Ding! A new 'random spawn' mechanism has been added to the Level 2 Shelter. Evil creatures will no longer only enter through the main gate, but will appear randomly in any location within the shelter."

"In addition, Level 2 shelters no longer have fixed gates. All boundary areas are protected by the shelter itself. However, when evil creatures spawn, they will bypass the outer barrier and appear directly inside."

Lin Chen felt a chill run down his spine: "No main gate? The evil spirits are lurking inside? How are we supposed to guard it?"

System: "Ding! It is recommended that the host concentrate personnel and construct a core defensive area."

Lin Chen didn't have time to think it through and shouted, "Everyone! To the main building! Quickly! Take everything you can!"

"Another merger?"

"Damn! That merger almost killed us last time!"

"Stop talking nonsense! Run!"

After a brief period of panic, the remaining 5,000-plus people quickly surged toward the main building.

The main building has eighteen floors and is the tallest and most sturdy building in the shelter.

More than 5,000 people squeezed in; it was incredibly crowded, but no one cared as they were trying to survive.

Led by Lin Chen, Tie Lang, Zhang Han, Chen Hu, the three women, and more than twenty experts of level four or above quickly organized a group to block all the stairwell entrances with boulders, iron plates, and cabinets, leaving only a narrow opening for one person to pass through.

"Everyone, get to the upper floors! Don't stay on the first or second floor!" Lin Chen commanded.

Half an hour later, the shaking finally stopped.

Through the windows of the main building, everyone witnessed a shocking scene.

The shelter is surrounded by the remains of several other shelters, pieced together like building blocks.

The abandoned buildings, broken walls, and barren open spaces were all pieced together by an invisible force.

Ten minutes later, a super-large shelter that could accommodate 50,000 people was presented to everyone.

"This...this is so big..." Xiaoxue's mouth dropped open.

"It's more than ten times bigger than before," Zhang Han frowned. "But what's more troublesome is that there's no main entrance."

Chen Hu: "Without a main gate, how can the evil spirits get in?"

Everyone fell silent.

They looked into the distance at the newly merged areas, which also had many buildings, and inside were a large number of survivors hiding.

"At least... there are many more people now," Iron Wolf said.

"A large number of people isn't necessarily a good thing," Zhang said coldly.

---

Just as Lin Chen had predicted, on the first day after the merger, all parties chose to wait and see.

The newly arrived residents from the different areas all stayed hidden in their own buildings, and no one came out.

Most of the scattered survivors in the original shelter also remained silent.

But soon, unsettling news spread.

"More than 10,000 people have gathered in the central square!"

Lin Chen stood on a high floor of the main building, looking towards the square with binoculars.

Sure enough, there was a sea of ​​black heads.