150: Chapter 144 The Mysterious Barn

Chapter 144: Mysterious Barn

The news about the appearance of the passage leading to the next floor quickly reached Wang Ting's ears.

Without any delay, Wang Ting immediately brought people to the stinking main house. A crowd of people squeezed in front of the master bedroom, looking at the security door and stair passage in front of them, sizing them up.

"Are the stair passages leading to the next floor inside the Infinite Building of Jumu City also like this?"

Wang Ting was asking Researcher Huoling this question, as she was the only one here who understood multi-layered Infinite Buildings.

For the vast majority of Shelters, their Infinite Buildings only had one floor, so they really didn't know much about these matters.

Researcher Huoling glanced at the old security door in front of her and nodded slightly: "It's about the same. The passage leading to the next floor will randomly appear in any corner—in the water, on a tree, or even in a cave—it's possible anywhere. I remember the one inside Jumu City was in the woods."

Feng Bo, who was standing to the side, asked: "Are we going to explore the second floor directly now, or what?"

"Send two brothers in to take a look."

In most cases, the next floor should be a progressive floor of the current floor.

The one in front of them had a high probability of being a habitable floor, but no one could guarantee whether there were specific dangers or unexpected changes, so it was best to send someone to scout the path.

Feng Bo quickly picked two experienced team members, had them check their equipment respectively, and pulled open the iron security door.

The two walked forward along the door and stepped onto another flight of stairs. The footsteps echoed in the corridor and reached their ears.

Even knowing that the end of the stairs might be a habitable floor, no one could remain calm at this time. The higher the two walked up the stairs, the more nervous they felt, and the tighter their hands gripped their rifles.

With firm steps, the two crossed the last step, and a white light suddenly lit up before their eyes. When the white light disappeared, an endless grassland appeared before them. Verdant weeds, bushes, and trees were spread out before their eyes. The scent of green grass coming with the wind could already be smelled head-on.

Looking into the distance, the mountains gradually undulated, and the forest spread out, forming a sizable woods. Descending from the woods were low bushes, this clump here and that cluster there, growing lushly everywhere alongside the rolling grassland.

Wang Hong and his companion scanned what was visible before them and found that the terrain was mostly gentle. Although weeds and wild wheat were everywhere, no traces of monsters were found. They thought to themselves: I'm afraid the monsters here are also Scarecrows and Rot Soil Hounds, both hidden inside the soil, but this really is a habitable floor.

After roughly looking at the surrounding environment, the two immediately retreated back into the stairs.

"How is the situation?"

Feng Bo stepped forward to ask, his face full of concern.

Wang Hong immediately replied: "The second floor is also a habitable floor, and its area should be larger than the first floor. The distance from the floor passage to the furthest floor barrier is about three kilometers."

They had only measured the distance from the stair passage to the floor barrier, but the stair passage was not at the edge of the other barrier; instead, it was located in the middle-ish area of the floor. Looking at it this way, the area of the entire floor was probably far superior to the first floor.

"What is the monster situation?"

Feng Bo asked in detail. Although Wang Hong had only taken a rough glance, he still had some confidence in his heart: "With weeds and wheat thickets, the situation should be similar to the first floor. If we rashly start harvesting wheat, it will attract batches of Scarecrows and Rot Soil Hounds."

The two told Feng Bo and Wang Ting everything they saw and heard.

Wang Ting showed a thoughtful expression: "Feng Bo, Xiang Nan, take a few people and come with me to check out the situation on the second floor. As for when to develop it, we'll talk after seeing the situation."

Hearing Wang Ting's words, Feng Bo and Xiang Nan calmed down, and their hearts also breathed a sigh of relief.

Developing both the first and second Floor Worlds simultaneously posed a tremendous manpower pressure for the Outpost Camp.

Taking their current situation as an example, the exploration team only had more than 30 people over, and 10 people still needed to stay behind to guard the outside. Splitting just 20 people to explore two places and clear the monsters within them was quite difficult.

As for land reclamation, it required more manpower, and right now the entire Outpost Camp had at most seven or eight hundred people. This was even with a fair portion of people just recently gathered into the camp and still in the quarantine zone. At this speed, it naturally couldn't keep up with the demands of land reclamation.

The squad quickly assembled. Because it was just a simple exploration, this time they did not wait in full battle array like they did for reclaiming the first floor.

They followed Wang Ting into the passage of the second floor, and sure enough, their eyes lit up as a vast grassland appeared before them.

"What is that thing?"

However, right directly in front of them, at a position about 600 meters away, a pitch-black, huge barn impressively appeared.

The barn seemed to be forged entirely of metal, about 10 meters high, with a few low black houses here and there around it, looking like farmhouses.

At this moment, Wang Hong and his companion's expressions changed drastically, and they hurriedly said: "This thing wasn't here when we came in just now."

Wang Ting reached out and patted the two of them on the shoulders: "It should be something that appeared suddenly. Otherwise, with a size this big, it's impossible you wouldn't have seen it. Everyone be careful and pay attention to observation."

Seeing that Wang Ting didn't blame them, the two breathed a slight sigh of relief, but the vigilance between their brows did not dare to decrease by even a fraction.

Everyone slowly approached. When they were about 400 meters apart, Feng Bo and the others suddenly stopped in their tracks. A black monster wrapped in a dark-gray sack slowly walked out from the distant barn.

[Discovered low-level anomaly, Sickle Scarecrow. Collection progress: 5%]

The black monster was draped in a dark-gray sackcloth garment, tattered as if it had been torn apart. Beneath this rag-like garment, a flesh-and-blood body covered in straw was faintly visible.

Its figure was slender, two heads taller than an ordinary Scarecrow, reaching around 2.2 meters. In its hand, it held a pitch-black, sharp giant sickle, looking like a grim reaper roaming among the rice paddies.

As time passed, the number of Sickle Scarecrows walking out of that barn also increased, with three or four coming out successively.

"This monster looks much more terrifying than a Scarecrow. I wonder how its strength is? Should we give it a try?"

The gun in Xiang Nan's hand had already aimed at a Sickle Scarecrow wandering in the fields.

"Don't rush, there's more."

Wang Ting's gaze stared closely at that pitch-black barn. Among the farmhouses surrounding the barn, a figure slowly emerged.

Its figure was hunched, and its skin was as dry as firewood, walking step by step from the farmhouse into the wilderness. In its hand, it held a tattered wooden stick, one end of which was connected to a hoe. The hoe was also pitted and covered in rust, and the person holding it looked like a hardworking old farmer.

Except that its steps were faltering, and every step looked like a slowly wandering zombie.

Seeing this, everyone couldn't help feeling a bit strange. Looking closely, the farmer-dressed monster slowly turned its head, instantly giving everyone a start: lean skin wrapped around its entire head, with no eyes and no nose, only a huge mouth splitting back to its earlobes, filled with sharp teeth inside. Its appearance was truly bizarre.

[Discovered low-level anomaly, Faceless Farmer. Faceless Farmer collection progress: 5%]

The successively appearing Sickle Scarecrows and Faceless Farmers numbered around seven or eight, constantly wandering across the wilderness.

Seeing this scene, some members of the exploration team couldn't help but doubt whether this was a monster floor or a habitable floor.

Of course, such doubt was merely a fleeting thought.

Just such a vast grassland and suitable weather were enough to prove that this was a habitable floor. As for the large number of monsters, it was because this was the second floor, where the concentration of extraordinary factors contained was higher, and more monsters had accumulated.

Just as everyone was puzzled, suddenly that pitch-black barn seemed to fall into an illusion, flickering in and out of view.

"Is it going to disappear?"

Everyone stared closely at the barn. After flickering gradually, the barn's figure became fainter and fainter, and then the next moment it suddenly disappeared. This sudden phenomenon left everyone baffled, deepening their wariness of the second floor by another fraction.

Wang Ting took the corpse hound sniper rifle and aimed it at one of the Sickle Scarecrows. He pulled the trigger, and with a loud bang, a gunshot rang out. The bullet quickly cut through the air and landed directly on the Sickle Scarecrow's head.

With a loud bang, the Sickle Scarecrow's head shattered like a watermelon. Following the death of their companion, those monsters finally let out a roar, then locked their targets onto Wang Ting and rushed over quickly.

Unflustered, Wang Ting aimed the muzzle at the Faceless Farmer again. With a shot blasted over, more than half of the Faceless Farmer's body was blown to pieces. Having killed two in succession, collection progress instantly appeared before his eyes.

[Sickle Scarecrow collection complete. Collection progress obtained 150 monster points]

[Faceless Farmer collection complete, obtained 100 monster points]

Seeing the monsters rushing towards them, Wang Ting's peripheral vision looked further away. At a location about one kilometer away from him, that disappeared barn had actually emerged again at this moment.

"First withdraw from the second floor, and after completely developing the first floor, we will slowly explore and develop it."