Chapter 136: The White Face Returns

The moment one of his feet stepped into the inflatable playground, Qi Chen instantly realized that the degree of bizarre distortion within this inflatable area was far greater than that of the shopping mall.

Especially these spiked ocean balls. As they pierced the skin, a wave of peculiar power exclusive to the anomalous entities simultaneously invaded the spirit—an invasion that was extremely difficult to resist.

This precisely fit the definition of "rules" in rule-based anomalies: an irresistible mental distortion.

Even with Qi Chen's mental strength as high as B-rank, his mind still went slightly dazed for a moment. Glancing sideways at the children around him, he found that in his vision, the appearances of these kids had changed. Although their body sizes remained the same, their facial features had all transformed into those of adults.

It was the same principle as seeing livestock on the first floor; Qi Chen already understood that seeing adults in the children's playground on the second floor meant that one's mind had been invaded.

However, this was precisely his goal.

Reaching out, he forcefully pulled up a special operations team member who had been buried in the spiked ocean balls, only to find that the man's skin had turned as black as the ocean balls, and the texture to the touch was completely identical to plastic.

Looking closely, the special operations team member's face was also completely stiff, his eyes devoid of light, and his expression frozen in that moment of terror when he was dragged in, completely devoid of life.

"Mask! Get out here!" Warm Guy not far away had already activated the ability of anomalous possession, with the "Enthusiastic" entity covering the surface of his body to prevent invasion by the children transformed by the anomalies. However, while protecting himself, his mobility was also significantly affected.

He was unable to provide help to the other team members trapped in the ocean balls, and in reality, there was simply no opportunity to lend a helping hand anymore.

Under the dual onslaught of the spiked balls and the bizarre children, these team members who had been dragged into a desperate situation lost their vitality in an extremely short period of time.

The only one hanging on by a thread was the special operations squad leader, but he was also being dragged toward the center of the inflatable playground by several children, his hands continuously wielding a dagger to stab the anomalies surrounding him. Distorted to this extent mentally, he was naturally able to see these pure anomalies.

Yet how could a purely physical dagger possibly cause damage to anomalies?

Despair crept up his face, and his limbs began to grow stiff like cheap plastic toys, yet they were extremely fragile.

Crack!

A child cheered and savagely tore off the squad leader's left arm, as easily as dismantling a large toy.

The squad leader let out a wail, but his eyes still flickered with a struggle of unwillingness to give up.

No one... is willing to die just like this.

"Roar!"

A wild, unbridled roar exploded. The squad leader also heard this roar, which was even more formidable than that of lions and tigers. In his gradually blurring vision, he caught sight of Overlord's sturdy, ash-gray figure, along with Qi Chen, who was hacking his way through the ocean balls to charge toward him.

He opened his mouth, wanting to tell this officer to give up on him, but his inner struggle still made his body instinctively raise its hand, wanting to grasp this last straw.

Bang, bang, bang!

Overlord, projected outside Qi Chen's body, was the first to approach the squad leader. With fierce and powerful punches delivered with both fists, punching heavily one after another, the heavy iron fists carried tremendous force as they smashed into those bizarre children, inciting sharp, piercing shrieks and knocking them all back into the ocean balls, where they ceased to move.

With Overlord having cleared the path, Qi Chen arrived right next to the squad leader.

Clack!

Grasping the squad leader's barely raised hand, Qi Chen's face was etched with sheer determination.

Aside from wanting to confront that conceptual entity head-on, he was likewise unwilling from the bottom of his heart to let these special operations team members perish in this place just like that.

"Pull yourself together! There's still a chance!" Qi Chen no longer cared about being mindful of the psychological condition of the wounded at this moment, roaring loudly in an attempt to use the sheer volume of his voice to rouse the squad leader's spirit.

After roaring, he bent down, ignoring the ocean balls covered in spikes as he reached both hands down and scooped the squad leader up from this despair-filled playground in one go.

Seeing this, Warm Guy in the distance could not help but curse inwardly, but his actions were swift as he moved to cooperate with Qi Chen, enabling him to get out of the playground more quickly.

"This is it!" Warm Guy noticed a sign nearby. His hands, possessed by the "Enthusiastic" entity, quickly grabbed the billboard. As his ability activated, the rigid sign instantly became incomparably soft. Warm Guy held his breath, not daring to delay for even a second.

He kneaded the billboard, which had become extraordinarily soft in his hands, back and forth. In the blink of an eye, he completely altered the appearance of the sign, twisting it into a long rope. Then, he too let out a great roar, unleashing the C-rank power of "Enthusiastic" to effortlessly and accurately throw the rope in his hand right beside Qi Chen.

"Grab the rope! I'll pull you two out!"

Without a word, Qi Chen gritted his teeth, sliding one arm under the squad leader's armpit to cradle him against his front, while his other hand—its skin already scored with numerous gasps by the spiked ocean balls—fought desperately to grip the rope thrown by Warm Guy.

"Pull!"

His throat trembling, Qi Chen shouted toward Warm Guy's direction, while Overlord behind him continuously attacked the bizarre children surging in from all directions.

Swish, swish!

Hearing Qi Chen's shout, Warm Guy immediately exerted his strength. Although the power of "Enthusiastic" could not be considered top-tier, it at least possessed the strength of ten men, so pulling Qi Chen and the squad leader together was not a problem at all.

Through a tacit cooperation between the two, in the blink of an eye, Qi Chen carried the squad leader away from the playground that had almost completely wiped out the special operations team.

"Hah! Hah!" Collapsing onto the ground, Qi Chen panted heavily. His entire body was covered in injuries inflicted by the spiked balls, every inch of his skin burning with pain—especially since he had been dragged for a distance just now, and his back, which had endured the most contact, even had his clothes ripped into shreds.

With both hands pulling Qi Chen and the squad leader respectively, Warm Guy walked quickly toward the exit of the children's playground. He remembered that the pig-headed man on the first floor had also not actively left the restaurant, and the bizarre children in this inflatable playground would most likely follow the same rule.

Just as he thought, when the only three remaining people stepped out of the children's playground, the clamoring bizarre children inside instantly fell silent and gradually stopped focusing their attention on them, resuming their play with one another just as they had at the beginning.

With the crisis momentarily averted, an unspeakable heaviness suddenly erupted in Warm Guy's heart.

Intending to save a teammate, they had instead encountered an even more severe loss. Lowering his head to look at the squad leader, he saw that the man was already taking in far more air than he was letting out.

Perhaps... the original investigation team would soon consist of only him and Qi Chen.

Warm Guy's mind suddenly flashed back to the single encounter with a rule-based anomaly he had experienced in his early years. It had been just as agonizing, with losses so devastating that he was the only survivor.

And this time, with the even more perverted rule-based anomaly of the Livelihood Shopping Mall, he was already wondering if he still had any possibility of escaping.

At least... Warm Guy glanced at Qi Chen.

He could not let this junior fall here.

Meanwhile, Qi Chen's eyes were somewhat dazed at the moment as a familiar voice rang out in his ear.

"Do you want to live? Do you want to take your friends away?"

The long-dormant white-faced mask floated before his eyes once more.