Chapter 327: Pitch-black door
Lin Ye wanted to pull out the girl's heart, but instead grabbed a piece of hard ore.
The various organs inside the girl's body wrapped around Lin Ye's arm like living creatures, preventing him from withdrawing his arm and getting away from her.
The hard ore pierced through Lin Ye's palm, sucking his blood. Lin Ye swung the mining pickaxe at the girl's head, but the pickaxe tip was once again blocked by the girl's right hand.
Lin Ye had predicted the girl's movement. He released the pickaxe in advance, reached forward with his right hand, and snapped the girl's neck.
With her head tilted at an angle, the girl used her left hand to stab through Lin Ye's abdomen and pulled out his intestines.
At this moment, the three teammates finally dealt with the flesh spikes continuously emerging from underground. Old Arthur stepped forward and drove his pickaxe through the girl's head.
Neil stabbed through the girl's left hand with his pickaxe, trying to pull Lin Ye away. But Lin Ye's left hand was stuck inside the girl's body, and his intestines were still gripped in the girl's hand.
Leo, who had been hiding to the side the whole time, circled around the center of the mining area, clutching white ores as he rushed toward the elevator.
However, before he could get close to the elevator, a blood-red flesh spike pierced through his body like he was being skewered.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Leo screamed in agony, but nobody had time to deal with him right now.
The three men engaged in close combat with the girl, but they simply couldn't kill her. Moreover, as the intensity of the battle increased, ores of various colors began growing on the girl's body surface.
Lin Ye's palm and abdomen kept bleeding continuously. His consciousness began to blur, and he gradually lost the ability to resist.
Old Arthur picked up the nearby hunting shotgun and fired at the girl's head, but instead blew Lin Ye's head apart.
…………………………………………
Buzz buzz buzz...
Lin Ye opened his eyes. Without a doubt, he had returned to the familiar prison transport vehicle.
[Remaining Simulation Attempts: 7]
'How do we fight this?'
Lin Ye rubbed his head, the phantom pain from being headshot still lingering in his mind.
'Going in hard doesn't seem to work. I'll have to eat more ores of other colors.'
'What color ore should I eat? First, eliminate red ores, gray-white ores, and gray ores.'
'Eating gray-white ores and gray ores will only turn me into a miner. Those miners became that way from eating those two types of ores.'
'Red ores are like living creatures, uncontrollable and extremely dangerous.'
'I can go take a look at that thing that's been attracting me. If that's also some kind of ore, it might be a safe ore similar to white ores.'
Lin Ye repeated the operations from the previous simulation, leading his teammates to the mining area nine hundred meters away from the initial mining area.
This time, however, he didn't leave behind ten white ores, but ate all the white ores they dug up.
By the time he ate the sixteenth white ore, his teammates had dug enough ores for their needs.
"Next, I'm going deeper into the mine shaft, to places further in. We're currently at a position nine hundred meters from the initial mining area. I'm going to go beyond one thousand meters. It's extremely dangerous there. You can choose to come with me, or separate."
If Lin Ye could obtain that thing attracting him, this might be the final simulation, so they needed to choose their own endings.
"I'll go with you."
Old Arthur said without hesitation.
"Same."
Although Neil remembered part of the route to get here, he didn't think he could rely on partial knowledge to escape the mine shaft.
Leo looked at Lin Ye with a speechless expression. He really wanted to go back alone, but he couldn't remember the return route at all.
"Sigh, you don't need to come with me."
Seeing this, Lin Ye didn't try to persuade them further. Following the gradually strengthening attraction, he quickly walked deeper into the mine shaft.
One thousand meters seemed to be a safe distance. Beyond one thousand meters, exposed ores of various colors began appearing sporadically on the mine walls, with red ores occasionally crawling across the mine walls.
Fortunately, these ores didn't attack them, which might be related to Lin Ye having eaten large quantities of white ores.
"...Should we keep going further in?"
Leo kept making noises from behind, he really wanted to go back.
Lin Ye didn't know how much further they needed to go either. He faintly sensed someone following them from behind.
If he wasn't mistaken, the one following them should be that girl.
"Hey, why is there a glowing mine shaft over there?"
Neil suddenly spoke up.
Lin Ye also noticed that mine shaft emitting red light. It was exactly where the attraction was pointing.
"Can I not go over there?"
Having seen the crawling red ores everywhere, Leo absolutely didn't want to approach that red-glowing mine shaft.
"Suit yourself, but are you sure you want to separate from us in a place like this?"
Lin Ye felt he was asking for death.
"Uh, never mind then."
Leo suddenly realized that after separating, he would still need to find a way to reunite with Lin Ye, otherwise he couldn't escape at all.
Lin Ye walked straight toward the red-glowing mine shaft. The interior of the mine shaft appeared quite normal, except that both the walls and floor were red.
'Could these all be red ores?'
The moment Lin Ye entered the red mine shaft, the entire shaft began trembling slightly, with its structure continuously changing.
His guess was accurate - this was a mine shaft composed of red ores.
The entire mine shaft resembled the gastrointestinal tract of some giant creature, slowly digesting whatever was inside.
The four moved through the mine shaft. Except for Lin Ye, the other three advanced cautiously, not daring to provoke the surrounding red ores.
Even Old Arthur was somewhat restrained - he didn't want to be overwhelmed by masses of red ores.
Lin Ye walked at the front. They soon reached the end of the mine shaft, where a red wall completely covered with red ores stood.
When Lin Ye stopped before the wall, the red ores on the wall quickly moved elsewhere, revealing a pitch-black door hidden beneath the red ores.
The door had a lock requiring password input.
Lin Ye thought of the patterned eyeballs from the first simulation. He stepped forward and entered the password.
Up, left, down, middle, up, down, right...
Before having his head blown apart by the girl, he had incidentally memorized the rotation patterns of those eyeballs. At the time, he didn't know this was the password for some door, only feeling that the eyeballs' rotation patterns might contain some significance.
After entering the password, the pitch-black door opened, revealing a lightless dark space inside. When headlamp light shone into the doorway, it couldn't illuminate the room's interior.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The sound of long-barrel shotgun firing came from behind. Lin Ye turned around and discovered the girl had already broken into the red mine shaft. The red ores pounced on the girl, burrowing into her body, but couldn't stop her advance. Some red ores formed obstacles blocking the girl's path, but could only slow her progress.
In the blink of an eye, the straight-line distance between the girl and them was less than ten meters. Various colored ores grew on her body, with large quantities of red ores merging into her form.
"If you don't want to die, follow me!"
Lin Ye led the charge into the dark room, with the other three closely following behind.