Philly suddenly tensed up, then threw all his strength into a fierce kick at the closing elevator doors.
"You dare?!"
Huan Tian's eyes turned icy cold, but his reaction was just a beat slower. Philly's foot slammed precisely into the elevator's safety lock. The safety mechanism was triggered again, and the doors slowly slid open.
"Howl—"
Five zombies sprang up from the floor. Two lunged at Philly like rabid dogs, while the three nearest the door locked their eyes on Huan Tian.
Philly let out a pig-like screech of pain, but his face twisted into a wild grin.
"Huan Tian, if I can't live, I'll drag you down! Let's die together!"
But Huan Tian's face showed no emotion. A flash of cold light gleamed at his waist—his fruit knife was already in his right hand, held in a reverse grip. He sidestepped the first zombie's lunge and drove the knife straight into the back of its head.
Countless life-and-death battles in his previous life had honed Huan Tian's every move to deadly precision. The sharp blade pierced the zombie's brain through the foramen magnum beneath the occipital bone like a surgeon's scalpel.
The zombie collapsed, dead in an instant.
The remaining two pounced. Huan Tian managed to kick one away, but the other had already opened its bloodstained jaws and lunged—there was no space left to dodge.
"Die! Be infected like me!"
Philly cackled maniacally.
But the grin froze on his face the next second.
At the last moment, Huan Tian threw up his left arm. The zombie's gaping mouth clamped down on his armored forearm. The massive bite force tore through the outer layer of metal, but inside, three layers of rolled-up hardbound books stopped the fangs cold, perfectly shielding Huan Tian's flesh and muscle.
Using the zombie's momentum, Huan Tian fell backward, driving his fruit knife upward from the zombie's jaw. The blade tore through muscle, pierced the upper jaw, and sank deep into the brain.
The zombie convulsed briefly, then fell, lifeless.
When the second zombie was slain, Huan Tian sprang to his feet like a coiled spring. With a swift, soccer-like kick, he shattered the neck of a third zombie just as it was trying to rise.
Caught in a deadly triangle, Huan Tian relied solely on lightning-fast reflexes to tear open a gap in the encirclement, slaughtering all three zombies in one breathless sequence.
[Ding! Killed Tier-1 Zombies: 3 | Demon Hunt Points Gained: 3 | Total Demon Hunt Points: 14]
Philly was dumbfounded.
To him, Huan Tian no longer looked like an ordinary man, but a seasoned, cold-blooded zombie hunter—each movement sharp, efficient, as if crafted solely to kill the undead.
But his shock lasted only a heartbeat before pain stole his breath.
Two zombies had clamped onto his thighs and tore away massive chunks of flesh, fighting each other over the meat like wild dogs. Blood sprayed from his ruptured femoral arteries, painting the elevator walls a ghastly red.
The overwhelming scent of fresh blood awakened the rest of the undead. This time, all of them lunged at Philly.
Huan Tian stood silently, watching coldly from the side.
The elevator doors began to close once more.
Zombies clung to every inch of Philly's body. His screams were hoarse and full of agony. In his last moments of clarity, his eyes landed on the Desert Eagle at Huan Tian's waist. A final thread of desperate hope flickered in his eyes.
"Huan Tian… please… kill me… kill me!!"
But Huan Tian remained expressionless, watching him like a silent judge as the elevator doors inched shut.
Just before they sealed completely, Philly heard Huan Tian's voice—calm, cold, utterly devoid of mercy:
"People like you deserve to rot in hell."
"No—no!!"
"AHHHHH—!"
Thud!
At that final instant, the suit jacket from which Philly had been dangling finally tore apart under the relentless tug of the zombies.
His body crashed down into the horde. Blood sprayed in every direction. In a heartbeat, he was swallowed whole—just another fresh, tender feast for the ravenous dead.
But at that moment, a deep, thunderous crash suddenly echoed from beneath the elevator!
"Boom!"
Something massive had slammed violently into the elevator floor, the sound like two cars colliding head-on with deafening force. The tremendous impact sent Philly and the zombies clinging to him flying into the air before crashing down hard onto the ground, blood and flesh splattering everywhere.
The violent shock triggered the elevator's danger detection system, which recognized that the passengers inside were in peril. The elevator's closing procedure was abruptly halted once again.
Huan Tian's eyes widened, his pupils dilating as a sudden chilling thought raced through his mind. Instinctively, he stepped back and put distance between himself and the source of the impact.
Dazed and dizzy from the fall, Philly barely had time to react before a second heavy impact struck from below!
"Boom!"
Another deep, resonant thud shook the elevator. The sturdy alloy floor bulged upward where the strike hit, as if some terrifying creature was trying to break through from underneath.
The zombies, who had been ravenously attacking Philly moments before, suddenly froze in uncharacteristic silence. For the first time, their bloodless, lifeless eyes showed something almost human: Fear.
"Boom!"
A third deafening crash came from below. This time, five brutal, pale claws—each about half a foot long—suddenly burst through the thick alloy floor like bone spikes.
One of the claws precisely pierced Philly's thigh as he lay inside the elevator.
"Squelch!"
Blood sprayed as Philly let out a harrowing scream. Then, the claws slowly retracted back beneath the elevator floor, as if retreating momentarily.
But the fresh scent of blood seemed to send the creature below into a berserk frenzy!
"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"
The entire elevator shook violently, rattled by relentless pounding from beneath, as if some monstrous beast was trying to smash its way through the metal box from below.
"Ahhh! What is down there? What kind of thing is that?!"
Philly paid no mind to the sharp pain in his thigh and body; he struggled desperately to get up and escape. But the next second, a piercing metallic tearing sound rang in his ears—the brutal pale claws tore through the elevator floor again.
This time, it wasn't just claws but a pair of massive hands, muscles glistening with terrifying red fibers, their ten fingers slowly ripping open the elevator floor, revealing a narrow gash.
Huan Tian and Philly stared in shock as the gap gradually widened.
Philly glanced back, seeing a horrifying sight that made his whole body tremble as despair overtook him.
"Help! Somebody, please help me!"
He unleashed strength beyond anything before, lunging wildly toward the elevator doors, managing to grab hold of the slowly closing doors.
But in the end, he couldn't hold on.
A giant claw, covered in bloody sinew, suddenly reached through the gap and gripped Philly's thigh with a vice-like force.
Before such a monstrous grasp, Philly's thigh snapped like a brittle stick at the slightest pressure.
Blood sprayed out like a fountain, instantly staining the entire elevator red.
The fresh blood dripped continuously from the torn wound, while increasingly frenzied roars erupted from below.
"I don't want to die… I don't want to die!"
"Help me!"
Philly clawed desperately at anything nearby, but no matter how he struggled, he couldn't stop himself from being dragged toward the less-than-thirty-centimeter-wide opening.
"Crack!"
His broken thigh was pulled inside first, followed by his hips, right leg, waist, and chest…
The creature's strength was terrifying—wild and brutal like a mad dog—forcefully dragging Philly, a man weighing over two hundred pounds, bit by bit into the darkness through that narrow slit.
Like a meat grinder, relentlessly and mercilessly tearing him apart, inch by inch…
Philly's eyes widened to their limits, his body cruelly compressed until blood flowed from every orifice. Only his hands, shoulders, and head remained stuck in the narrow gap.
Suddenly, disgusting tearing and ripping sounds echoed from below the elevator. Philly's lower body was brutally torn apart.
The creature emitted a wild, satisfied roar that seemed to shake the very air.
"Help… me…"
With only half his body left, Philly let out his final, agonized cry.
At the same time, the surrounding zombies swarmed in, ravenously feasting on the grisly leftovers the beast had left behind.
Ding.
The elevator doors finally shut, and the downward indicator lit up.