Turning to look at his little sister, he found that she was also staring at Chen.
“Why are you here?” Chen asked, feeling quite puzzled.
“Hmm… do you remember what I told you back in Level 219 about how I accidentally noclip into Level 9?”
Tina said, carefully choosing her words.
“My brother and I accidentally noclip from Level 11 to Level 9. Because it happened so suddenly, neither of us had many survival supplies, so after some discussion, we decided to look for supplies in a house in Level 9.”
Tina paused, then added,
“And then I noclip into Level 219 when I opened a door.”
“As for why I came back here, it’s because I had to save my brother. I followed a painting in the Diurnal Art Gallery and came straight to Level 9.”
…
You’re going to save someone in your condition, having just come out of Level 219?
Chen listened silently, not offering any further opinion.
Regardless of anything else, she had provided enough emotional support.
There was no time for idle chatter; the most urgent task now was to leave this place.
Chen distributed some basic supplies to the two of them, and after regrouping, the three of them prepared to set off.
Following the road signs along the street, the path was smooth, but the probability of being targeted by Entities also increased accordingly.
After walking for about a kilometer, Chen suddenly noticed a strange radio wave sound in the sky.
Beep, beep, dong, ding.
This strange sound was like some kind of distorted echo.
The moment he heard this sound, Sean’s expression changed, and he hurriedly pulled the other two into the nearest house.
“Brother, what’s wrong?” Tina still had great faith in her brother from the Survey Corps, but she didn’t know much about Level 9 and was a bit confused.
“This is the most troublesome variant of Neighborhood Watch, the sound of a Watcher,” Sean said with a grave expression.
“The Polaris Squad of the Fifth Survey Corps, which I was a part of, was wiped out by this thing. If it weren’t for my good luck…”
Seeming to recall some bad memories, Sean’s expression looked very grim.
Watcher?
Entity 96 – “The Neighborhood Watch”
Consists of human eye-like entities predominantly found in Level 9 of the Backrooms.
Consists of three distinct categories of beings.
“Watchers”
Gigantic eyeball-like structures with multiple optic veins protruding from their surfaces.
Upon spotting prey, Watchers emit a beam of light from their pupils that instantly turns any living matter fully absorbed in the light into fine, gray dust.
“Striders”
Six 8-foot appendages composed of choroid, nerves, and veins centralized under their main eyeball.
Reaching speeds of up to 90 mph, making them impossible to outrun.
They use their arms to grab hold of and pummel their target onto nearby surfaces until they expire.
“Swimmers”
Despite their small stature, they can latch onto victims with great strength and will attempt to submerge and drown them.
If they can’t, they will resort to tearing off exposed appendages to incapacitate their prey.
After listening, Chen pondered for a moment.
He recalled the specific information about this Entity: a Vel’Koz-like creature that fires life-disintegrating rays.
The life-disintegrating ray here wasn’t Vel’Koz’s ultimate ability, but literally a ray that physically disintegrates life.
Any living creature struck by the ray would be directly reduced to ashes.
It was indeed very insidious.
Chen thought for a moment and said,
“How about we stay here for a while? But before that, we might need to handle another situation.”
As he spoke, he pointed to the bedroom nearby, which had been making slight noises ever since they entered.
“It seems we’ve disturbed a witch.”
“Damn it, it’s most likely a Smiler.” Sean was in a really bad mood.
Entity 3 – “Smilers”
Smilers are generally hostile.
They can be identified by their signature reflective eyes and teeth gleaming in the dark.
The best way to escape a Smiler is to keep eye contact.
The Smiler is attracted to light and will chase anything they see with a light, so distracting it by throwing a light source at it would be great for an escape.
Because the noclip was so sudden, he hadn’t brought any equipment; he had entered the map completely empty-handed.
As a result, he didn’t even have a gun right now.
Tina glanced at Chen, who clapped his hands and smiled at the two of them, “Leave it to me.”
After speaking, Chen walked to the bedroom door, took a slight breath, and then pulled several bottles of almond water out of his crotch.
The moment he opened the door, the Smiler sprang out as if it were spring-loaded, and the moment it poked its head out, he immediately unleashed a holy water attack.
Almond water was extremely effective against Smilers, essentially a specialized weapon.
In an instant, a sizzling sound rang out.
The Smiler’s entire body was decaying and emitting white smoke, and it looked extremely painful.
Taking out a suppressed MP5, Chen took advantage of the Smiler’s paralysis to aim slightly and took it out with a single shot.
Chen was incredibly grateful at this moment that the gun he had swiped from the camp had a suppressor; otherwise, that loud gunshot would have attracted Entities in droves.
Furthermore, Chen had originally intended to use the compression cube to end the fight, but the interior of the house they had entered was relatively small, and the compression cube might have accidentally harmed his allies.
After a little thought, Chen came up with the idea of using almond water combined with precision shooting.
After all, his marksmanship really wasn’t that good.
After confirming the Smiler was dead, Chen searched the room a little, and the supplies he found were casually given to the brother and sister.
Anyway, he wasn’t lacking anything right now.
The three of them stayed quietly in the room for about twenty minutes, then Chen stuck his head out the door again.
By this time, that strange radio wave sound had disappeared. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
It seems it has gone far away, Chen thought.
Then he was dragged back into the room by Sean.
“Be careful, this Watcher is a huge troll; it often pulls dirty tricks like backtracking. The Polaris Squad was wiped out before because they weren’t cautious enough,”
Sean said with a bitter smile.
“In fact, the vast majority of people don’t know about this; I only learned this information at the cost of my teammates’ lives.”
“Wouldn’t the M.E.G. Library archives be updated?” Chen felt a bit strange.
Hearing this, Sean’s smile became even more bitter.
“Chen, I have to tell you something: you can’t fully trust the archives in the M.E.G. Library, because there are things we don’t know about that modify the archives.”
This was the first time Chen had learned of this.
He was shocked, but given the vastness of The Backrooms and that anything is possible, he could accept anything that happened.
Through the small blinds, Chen indeed saw a blob of a giant eyeball flying around in the sky five minutes later.
Now he really dared not move.
The three of them continued to hold their breath, crouching quietly in the house.
After the Watcher passed by several more times, it seemed to realize that its prey was not here and left directly.
After waiting for a long time and it didn’t come back, the three of them cautiously moved forward.
Then, not long after, Chen saw the back of a girl on the road in the distance, facing away from them.
“Hey, are you a Wanderer?” Sean shouted at the girl.
Hearing this, the girl slowly turned her head, and Chen saw that her eyes seemed completely devoid of life.
“Wait…”
After observing for a while, Sean stopped Tina, who was about to go forward.
“That is a Skin-Stealer.”
Entity 10 – “Skin-Stealer”
A Skin-Stealer is an Entity that can wear other people’s skin like clothes.
It will disguise itself as the person it killed.
If you get close, you will be eaten by the Skin-Stealer, and then it will change into new clothes.
Of course, when well-fed, a Skin-Stealer is very docile; it won’t even pay attention to you if you touch it.
As for the one in front of them, Chen guessed it must be hungry.
Because ever since it saw the three of them, it started accelerating and running towards them.
No way, this damn Skin-Stealer can run this fast?
The three of them were shocked.
They saw the Skin-Stealer running faster and faster, just like a tractor starting up.
Holy cow!
It’s using a speed hack!
In a panic, Chen directly pulled out the compression cube and threw it at the approaching Skin-Stealer.
The cube unfolded rapidly in the air, precisely enclosing the Skin-Stealer, and then violently compressed it.
Afterward, the three of them could only see a Skin-Stealer pancake.