Chapter 542: The Traveler’s Inn Values Teamwork and Contribution

Those crawling out of the "cocoons" were clearly the Blackdot Group employees who had originally worked on the space station—the "defecting" security forces and the mad researchers. Amid the writhing, flowing viscous shadows, their original human outlines and clothing could still be vaguely discerned, and some shadows even had blurry human faces emerging where their heads should have been.

However, these "human" features did not make them look any friendlier; instead, they made them even more horrifying and eerie.

A tall figure crawled out of the nearest cocoon. It seemed to be the former commander of the lab's security forces. He appeared to still be faithfully carrying out his mission of protecting the lab, commanding the other shadows to attack Yu Sheng and his group. Under his direction, the nearby "Blackdot soldiers" raised their guns, which had been twisted and covered in shadows, and without hesitation pulled the triggers, aiming at their former master—Luo.

Their weapons looked completely corrupted and mutated by shadows into something beyond guns, yet when the triggers were pulled, those twisted weapons actually fired bullets and beams. Beams glowing with an eerie crimson light cut through the air, and several of them flew so close to Luo that her hair stood on end.

But the next second, she saw a large silver-white tail block in front of her. That tail withstood the deadly barrage, its protective spiritual energy flickering violently several times before bursting suddenly into a blazing jet of flame that howled into the midst of the mutated "security forces," triggering a violent explosion.

She looked up again and saw several fox tails flying through the air, unleashing a barrage of firepower at the enemy.

Explosions, the whistling of foxfire barrages, and a rattling sound from somewhere all cluttered around her, leaving Luo completely stunned.

"…What the hell—what did that demon fox just launch?!"

She finally snapped out of her shock, forming psychic fireballs to help fend off the shadows emerging from the cocoons while shouting at Yu Sheng.

"I haven't heard that in a long time!" Yu Sheng laughed at the voice behind him, then raised his "war stick" and slammed it down hard on the nearest enemy. The foe was instantly crushed into a zip-format, splattering "mud" and falling to the ground.

But then Yu Sheng felt something was wrong.

He felt… the enemy was "empty."

Not in the tactile sense—he clearly felt he had hit a solid object, and the feedback was even firmer than ordinary flesh and blood. The "emptiness" he sensed came from the feedback through his blood.

The Lockjaw Staff was coated with Yu Sheng's own blood, like some kind of enchantment. In normal combat, this "war stick" could continuously erode any enemy it touched, with an effect roughly like "three hits and they become your ally"—if they weren't killed. And even if the erosion was incomplete, Yu Sheng could use this "contact" to establish a blood link with the enemy, allowing him to sense their state changes at any time and even interfere with or predict their actions to some extent.

But just now, when he smashed down, the blood feedback only returned an empty roar, as if… he had crushed a hollow cardboard box.

A whistling wind sounded in his ears.

An elegant and graceful figure crossed the battlefield like the wind, blocking a surprise attack from the side for Yu Sheng. Luna kicked away the enemy that was making hoarse murmurs, then spun, leaped high, and with several sharp slashes of her finger-blades, cut the surging "shadow mud" into several pieces midair.

The enemy's remains fell to the ground, making a strange hissing sound, then melted like some fluid into the shadows flowing down from the central platform.

The pitch-black void at the center of the lab trembled and pulsed. A phantom spider leg emerged from above the void, its long limb blindly sweeping through the air, the tip constantly dripping viscous shadow substance. New cocoons quickly swelled from the web, and then, accompanied by devout and grateful prayers, one by one the cocoons burst open. The enemies that had been destroyed crawled out again and continued their attack.

Luna suddenly stopped and turned to look at Yu Sheng.

"Master, they can't be killed."

Yu Sheng immediately thought that sounded weird—so "problematic phrasing" was also part of the Traveler's Inn's corporate culture?

At that moment, a large group of mass-produced dolls teleported in from the valley, swarming over to hide behind some discarded equipment near the lab entrance. Using these "temporary barricades," they fired scorching rays at the enemies crawling out of the cocoons. Ai Lin, hiding behind Luo, shouted at Yu Sheng: "Hey, it feels like we're getting more and more of them!"

Before Yu Sheng could respond, he heard Luo immediately shout: "It's not a problem that there are more—it's that most of them are ganging up on me!"

Yu Sheng hurriedly glanced over from the corner of his eye and saw Luo dodging to the side in a mess. A dozen dark red beams struck the spot where she had just stood, burning pits of various sizes into the ground. Several beams also hit her, blocked by a shimmering psychic shield—but even though she blocked them, the elf's face turned noticeably paler.

This Blackdot "scientist" wore a face full of fear and anger.

The constantly resurrecting shadows around them really were mostly targeting her.

As she spoke, another explosion sounded. Hu Li blasted away the enemies focusing fire on Luo, but before the foxfire fireballs dissipated, more bullets and beams cut through the smoke in the hall, raining down on Luo's direction.

Luo let out a scream, her wheel-like mechanical legs running so fast they almost smoked. In anger, she shouted: "You bastards! I'm your boss! I'm your boss!!"

"Long ears, shut up!" Ai Lin immediately screamed back. "Haven't you ever worked a day in your life!? If one day you turned into this damned shape, holding a gun and not having to worry about tomorrow's attendance or KPIs, and your former boss was standing right in front of you, and you didn't pull the trigger—you'd be this (flipping the middle finger)!?"

Yu Sheng swung his stick and knocked away an enemy lunging at him, then turned to look at the unlucky elf scurrying around. "Tell me honestly, did you usually piss off your subordinates?"

"Shut up! I'm a good boss!" Luo blasted a former lab researcher rushing at her with a psychic fireball. "I never withheld a single cent of their pay!"

The next second, she awkwardly ducked to avoid a barrage aimed at her.

"I gave them bonuses equivalent to three times those of other project teams!"

A Blackdot soldier was stabbed and pinned to the ground by her mechanical leg.

"I even gave them additional paid leave—double the vacation time!"

She screamed frantically, then was showered with firepower from her former employees.

Now almost every monster in the hall was concentrating fire on her.

Even a few enemies that had been firing at Yu Sheng and Hu Li turned their targets.

"Well, to be fair, you're being treated unfairly now," Yu Sheng said with heartfelt sympathy as he listened to Luo's shouting. "I'm almost tempted to ask if you're hiring."

Luo gritted her teeth. "Well, I appreciate your understanding, but I'm about to get killed!"

Yu Sheng: "So I suddenly have a plan——"

Luo: "…Huh?"

The elf only had time to say "Huh?" before she saw a large group of red-eyed shorties suddenly jump out from nearby cover and rush at her in chaos.

An intense unease and the psychological trauma from being kidnapped earlier surged up. Luo felt all her hair stand on end and instinctively screamed: "What are you doing..."

The next second, she was surrounded by layers of mass-produced dolls. Before she could resist, the red-eyed shorties swarmed all over her—some grabbing her legs, some grabbing her arms, some gnawing on her mechanical legs, some pulling her hair, grabbing her ears, biting her fingers, tugging her skirt, and even some who, finding no space left, just twisted a piece of her flesh and hung on...

The familiar feeling came over her. The unlucky elf began to struggle frantically: "Let me go..."

Ai Lin leaped directly onto her and stuffed an Ailment Wanderer into her mouth, nearly knocking out her teeth.

Then the mass-produced dolls carried the elf, whose face bore an expression of "What the hell did I do to deserve these freaks?", and began to dash around the hall.

Those short little legs churned incredibly fast—even faster than Luo's wheels.

And whether due to illusion or not, Ai Lin, who usually had no brains, could accurately judge the enemies' attack frequency and firing blind spots. She directed the mass-produced girls to carry Luo to the front lines to provoke, drawing almost the entire hall's fire, yet taking fewer hits than when Luo had been running and dodging by herself earlier.

Yu Sheng glanced at Ai Lin, and just as he was about to say he hadn't even had time to explain his plan, he saw the little doll standing in the open area giving him a thumbs-up, a bright smile on her small face, carefree and utterly immoral.

That smile was full of collusion, complicity, and joining in the dirty work...

Behind her, the backdrop was the blonde elf being carried wildly around the hall by over a dozen mass-produced dolls.

Mentally thanking Luo for her great contribution to the team, and sighing "even Blackdot has kind souls," Yu Sheng turned and charged toward the dark void at the center of the hall.

But when he was halfway there, some of the enemies that had been focusing fire on Luo suddenly reacted, as if triggered by something stronger, and began to turn their guns toward him.

Yu Sheng felt a push from behind.

Luna rushed over from the side, unhesitatingly using her body to block the fire coming from the side, then grabbed Yu Sheng around the waist and charged forward.

Bullets and beams struck the saintly lady, burning her nun's dress and sparking against her outer shell made of warship armor alloy.

"Lu..."

Yu Sheng only managed to blurt out one syllable before the push behind him suddenly intensified. Luna stomped hard on the ground, lifted Yu Sheng, and hurled him forward like a cannonball.

"Master, go!"

"Waist, waist! My waist is breaking——"