A bizarre and terrifying experience; I messed up the dungeon world.

As Li Feng finished speaking, the commotion in the crowd didn't subside; instead, it bubbled like water boiling in a pot, revealing all sorts of thoughts. The reward was truly tempting, but the Ghost King was also truly deadly.

"Everyone," Li Feng raised his hand to signal silence, "Ten minutes to check your equipment, then you'll enter in groups. Remember, once inside, command will be temporarily transferred to your group leaders, but the ultimate goal is the same—destroy the core. Only those who come out alive will have the chance to deal with those treacherous things."

With things said to this point, no one complained anymore. After all, everyone knew the consequences of refusing.

Zhou Lang checked the chainsaw's fuel tank and then felt the healing potions and defensive talismans strapped to his waist. Zhao Qiang leaned over and handed him a specially made walkie-talkie: "Emergency channel. Stay in touch once you're inside. You and Yingying are in my group. We also have two random people in our group; they seem alright."

Zhou Lang nodded, his gaze sweeping across the crowd. Most people looked serious, with only a few displaying an eager excitement. He noticed a well-built man in boxing shorts, rapidly throwing punches into the air, his muscles taut in the dim light. The man seemed to sense his gaze, turning around and grinning at Zhou Lang, revealing white teeth. He looked familiar. Zhou Lang remembered; this man was also in the last two-star dungeon, his punches and kicks were sharp, and he was a formidable opponent.

"What are you looking at?" Zhao Qiang asked.

"It's nothing." Zhou Lang looked away. "Let's go, it's time to go in."

The rusty gates of the abandoned factory were forcibly opened by soldiers using a cutting machine, revealing the dark, gaping pit of the factory area behind. An indescribable stench wafted out, a mixture of rust, rotting flesh, and some kind of chemical agent, assaulting the nostrils. Some people covered their mouths.

Li Feng stood at the entrance, his voice booming through the loudspeaker: "Groups one through ten, enter in order! Remember your routes, clear the perimeter! Groups two and seven, you're in charge of the east warehouse area!"

Zhou Lang and his team were assigned to Group Five, responsible for several old office buildings in the central part of the factory area. Besides the three of them, there were two random players in the group. One was a tall, thin man wearing glasses who claimed to be a former programmer with the skill "Electronic Interference," capable of temporarily malfunctioning non-biological electronic devices. The other was a taciturn middle-aged woman clutching a modified crossbow, its arrowhead gleaming with a ghostly blue light, supposedly coated with an "evil-repelling" potion.

"Stay close, don't fall behind," Zhao Qiang said in a low voice, taking the lead as he stepped through the gate.

The factory interior looked even more dilapidated than the exterior. Wild grass sprouted from the cracks in the concrete floor, and in some places, the concrete had even collapsed entirely, revealing dark, gaping pits beneath. Most of the windows in the office buildings were shattered, and the remaining panes were covered in a thick layer of dust. The wind howled strangely across the empty factory grounds.

"Something's not right," Han Yingying said softly. "It's too quiet."

She's right. According to intelligence, there should be low-level ghosts roaming the outskirts, but they haven't seen a single one along the way.

The programmer adjusted his glasses: "Could it be... that the monsters have all retreated into the core area?"

"Possibly." Zhao Qiang gripped the iron rod in his hand tightly—a weapon he had strangely enhanced. "But the more this is the case, the more careful we need to be."

The office building that Group Five was responsible for was an old three-story building. When they reached the entrance, the crossbowman, who had been silent all along, suddenly stopped, raised his crossbow, and aimed the arrow at a broken window on the second floor.

"Someone's there," she uttered.

Everyone's nerves tensed instantly. Zhou Lang gripped the chainsaw's trigger rope, and Zhao Qiang stepped to the side, blocking Han Yingying's path. The programmer nervously tapped his fingers erratically, as if preparing to unleash a skill.

A few seconds of deathly silence. There was no movement behind the second-floor window.

"Are you sure?" Zhao Qiang asked.

The crossbowman didn't speak, but simply held his crossbow steadily. Just then—

"Clang!"

A loud crash came from the office building behind them! The sound was deep and massive, as if something extremely heavy had slammed down on the floor from above!

All five groups turned around abruptly. The sound came from the building to their left rear, on the second floor, where a cloud of dust rose from the window.

"Not our building." The programmer breathed a sigh of relief.

But Zhou Lang's heart skipped a beat. The sound was strange; it didn't sound like the actions of ghosts or monsters, but rather... a deliberately created noise.

"A diversionary tactic?" Zhao Qiang immediately realized. "Let's go! Back to our building!"

Before they could finish speaking, dragging footsteps echoed from the lobby of the office building in front of them. Not just one, but many.

"Damn it!" Zhao Qiang cursed.

Several figures emerged from the shadows deep within the hall. They wore tattered work clothes, their skin was grayish-white and festering, and their movements were stiff, but not slow. They were the lowest-level "wandering corpses," one-star ghosts; too many of them would be troublesome.

"Yingying, prepare to treat! Everyone else, hold them off!" Zhao Qiang roared and charged forward first.

The battle erupted instantly. Zhao Qiang activated his strength enhancement skill, swinging his iron rod in a wide arc, creating a whistling sound as it slammed into the chest of a wandering corpse, sending it flying backward and crashing into a wall, the sound of bones shattering clearly audible. The programmer's fingers tapped rapidly, and an invisible wave spread out, causing the electronic components remaining on the two leading wandering corpses—possibly parts of old cell phones or walkie-talkies—to suddenly spark, momentarily halting their movements. The crossbowman calmly pulled the trigger, the evil-repelling bolt accurately embedding itself in the eye socket of another wandering corpse. The body immediately seemed to have been doused with strong acid, emitting black smoke and rapidly decaying and dissolving.

Zhou Lang didn't turn on the chainsaw; the noise was too loud and would attract more creatures. He pulled out his cane, the metal tip gleaming coldly in the dim light, and aimed it specifically at the knees and necks of the wandering corpses. These low-level ghosts were most effective at damaging joints and spines.

After cleaning up seven or eight bodies, the hall fell silent. Twisted remains lay on the floor, emitting a strong stench.

"That's all?" the programmer asked, panting.

"There should be more." Han Yingying crouched down, her palm emitting a soft white light that enveloped a shallow scratch on Zhao Qiang's arm. The wound healed at a visible speed. "The commotion in that building to the east must be from another group."

"That's not right," Zhou Lang suddenly said.

Everyone looked at him.

"Our journey here has been too smooth," Zhou Lang said, pointing to the corpses on the ground. "These wandering corpses seem to have been deliberately driven here. The loud noise from the east just now, and these things that suddenly appeared here... it's all too coincidental."

Zhao Qiang's expression changed: "You mean, something is targeting us? Or, deliberately separating us?"

"Are the monsters in the dungeon really that intelligent?" the programmer wondered.

The crossbowman picked up a broken name tag from a corpse on the ground, blew off the dust, and read the blurry words on it: "Workshop Seven, Quality Inspector, Wang..." She paused, "In my last instance, it was in an abandoned hospital. The nurse ghosts there would use the broadcast system to create fake cries for help to lure players into being alone."