Chapter 18: Escape
After Su Mengfan saw the hideous appearance of {Demon}, he looked at Tyne, thinking of a card that Tyne had gotten from the bookshelf before.
Turning his head to look back, he saw that Thatch and the Commander were doing their own thing, and reached for Tyne's shirt. He took the card out of his pocket.
Looking down, my brain felt a trance, but it immediately eased up again.
Su Mengfan lowered his head and thought deeply.
"Alcohen, don't look at it, we're going to hurry up, our mission is important." The commander said to Su Mengfan.
Su Mengfan immediately put away the card in a panic and walked towards the commander.
Looking at the commander's face, he did not notice a sad look. It seems that he doesn't care about Tyne's death, as if it is not a comrade who has just fought together, but a crayfish that can be seen everywhere.
Yes, in today's world, life is worthless. Without the constraints of the law, life seems less precious.
At this time, Thatch put his arm around Su Mengfan's shoulder, "Alcohen, are you okay?" Tyne was a powerful hunter, but he didn't expect him to die like this. ”
Su Mengfan was silent, thinking of why Tyne said before, it was better not to meet {demon}.
I naively thought that if {Demon} did appear, I would kill him immediately, but I didn't expect that Tyne Hunter would die in front of him, and I was so scared that I couldn't move.
The commander clenched his fists, and the green tendons in his hands burst out. With a deep exhalation, the panel of the protective shield was immediately enveloped by this turbid breath, and slowly disappeared into water vapor.
Without saying anything, he turned around and walked out of the room.
A large wooden door creaked far away from the passage.
The Commander dashed out to the side with swiftness, hiding behind a pillar at one end of the arch.
Daniel immediately rolled to the side.
Su Mengfan is the same.
"Further up is the main reading room," Thatch whispered to Su Mengfan, "and they sometimes show up there......"
"Don't talk nonsense!" The Commander jerked off their conversation.
"Don't you know that {librarians} can't tolerate noise?
For them, making noise is like waving a red cloth in front of a bull! ”
Cursing, he pointed to the door to the reading room, and he leaned against the wall as he began to move towards the massive oak doors.
Su Mengfan and Thatch followed behind without landing a single step.
The commander led the way forward, and he leaned his back against a door panel and raised his hand to rush. Sharp guns, with the barrel pointing up.
He took a deep breath and exhaled, then quickly pushed his shoulder against the door as he pointed the barrel of his gun at the dark, open door of the main hall.
They quickly gathered there, the hall was a surprisingly large room, 20 meters above the floor, there was a ceiling, the same as the antechamber.
Morning glories hung from the ceiling, connected by dense and thick vines, and the walls of the hall were decorated with equally unnatural morning glories.
There are 6 huge windows on each wall, and only some of them have not yet fallen off the glass.
However, the lighting here was faint, and the moonlight barely shone through the densely tangled foliage and glowing stalks.
Originally, there was a row of tables from left to right for readers.
But now, a large part of the furniture has been removed, some have been burned or broken, but there are about 12 tables.
They stood near a decorated, dilapidated door panel on the opposite wall, and a sculpture protruded from the center of the tables, as vague as the half-hidden surroundings.
The plastic paper says "Please be quiet", and such plastic paper is used all over the place with screws.
The silence here is very different from the silence in the Frontrooms, where the silence is so heavy that it is almost palpable.
The silence completely fills this old rough hall, and you all feel afraid to break it.
They stood there, searching the space in front of them with flashlights in their hands, until the commander said, "Maybe it's the wind ......."
But at this moment, Su Mengfan noticed that in front of them, between the two dilapidated tables, a gray shadow appeared, disappearing into the black opening between the bookshelves.
The commander saw it too, and he put the night vision device on his eyes and jerked it upward. Sharpening the spear, carefully stepping on the mossy floor, began to walk towards the mysterious entrance.
Although the commander in front motioned for Su Mengfan and Thatch to stay where they were, they couldn't help but follow the stalker forward, and it was too frightening to stay alone at the entrance.
At the same time, Su Mengfan couldn't help but look at the hall, where there were still traces of the magnificence and grandeur of the past.
Doing so saved not only his own life, but everyone else's life.
The galleries, which are several meters high, completely enclose this room, are narrow corridors enclosed by wooden fences.
You can see through the gallery's windows, and there are doors to the office on the walls next to the gallery and on the walls on either side of the old door panels.
One can enter by reading the carved pairs of staircases on either side, or by a separate staircase extending upwards from the population.
The gray bulges were moving down the stairs, silently and cautiously.
There are more than 12 creatures in them, which do not completely melt into the darkness.
They lean forward and bend over, with long front legs (which, magically, resemble arms) that hang almost to the floor. If you stand up straight, you will be as tall as Su Mengfan.
The creatures move forward on their hind limbs, and although their steps are staggering, their gait is light and agile, which is surprising, and from a distance, they look like gorillas.
Su Mengfan thought of the gorillas he saw in the zoo with his parents when he was a child in his previous life.
It took no more than a second for Su Mengfan to draw these observations.
Because when the beam of his flashlight fell on one of these creatures and cast a clear black shadow on the wall behind it, a vicious chirp suddenly erupted from among them.
The creatures stirred up, and instead of tiptoeing as they had done before, they quickly rushed downward.
"{Librarian}!" Thatch shouted with all his might.
"Lie down!" The commander commanded.
Su Mengfan and Thatch fell to the ground, and they didn't shoot.
Because the Stalkers have warned that if a gun is fired, or any loud noise is made, it will attract a large number of {librarians} and make them angry.
But the hesitation of the men to shoot or not to shoot quickly dissipated after seeing the commander's action, which lay down beside them and opened fire first.
Several creatures fell to the ground with a roar, while others quickly flashed into the darkness in order to sneak closer to the people.
Moments later, a monster suddenly appeared two meters away from them, leaped high and pounced, trying to grab the Commander by the throat, but the Commander lay on his back on the ground and quickly killed it.
"Run! Get back to the roundhouse and find a way to get to the archives!
Solomon should know how to get there, they taught them!
We're going to stay here, cover you, and try to repel them. The commander said to Su Mengfan, and then, without saying a word, he moved forward and added people to them.
Thatch gestured to Su Mengfan, and the two of them cautiously rushed towards the exit.
A creature emerges from the darkness and blocks their path, but it is quickly knocked to the ground by a storm of bullets.
The commander covered both of them all the time.
After exiting the main reading room, Thatch surged back into the antechamber where he had been before.
Su Mengfan had thought that his partner was too frightened by the {librarians} and was ready to run away.
But instead of rushing to the staircase leading to the exit, Thatch walked around, past the surviving card catalog cabinet, and ran to the other end of the front hall.
On that side, the room narrowed, and there were three doors at the end, one in front and one on each side.
The door on the right hand leads to a staircase completely submerged in darkness.
Here Thatch finally caught his breath.
It took Su Mengfan a few seconds to catch up, he never thought that his companion would be so agile.
They stood silently, listening. They heard gunshots and roars coming from the hall, and it seemed that the fighting was going on.
It is not known who will win this battle, and they have no time to waste waiting to see the final outcome.
"Why are we coming back? Why should we start the other way? Su Mengfan gasped and asked.
"I wonder where they're going to take us?" Thatch shrugged, "Maybe they want to give us another way, the elders only taught me one way, and that way to get us from this side of the front hall to the document room."
Now we climb the stairs from the first floor and follow the corridor to another set of stairs.
Then, walking through the copied card catalog, we will arrive at the document room. ”
He punched with his hand. The spear pointed into the darkness and stepped into the stairwell.
Su Mengfan followed, using a flashlight to light the way ahead.
In the center of the staircase is a lift shaft that extends about three floors downwards and covers about the same distance upwards.
Apparently, this lift shaft was previously enclosed with glass, as the ground was littered with glass shards.
Now, it has been in the dust for decades, but its raised silhouette can still be seen in the reinforced concrete.
The square shaft on the lift was surrounded by rotting wooden rungs, on which pieces of broken glass, spent brass bullets, and piles of dry wings were everywhere.
There was no trace of a railing here, and Su Mengfan had to stick himself tightly against the wall and carefully observe his feet so as not to slip and fall underneath.
They went up one floor and found themselves in a small square room.
There are also three exits here, and Su Mengfan understands that without Thatch's leadership, it is unlikely that he will be able to get out of this labyrinth.
The door on the left leads to a wide, dark hallway. The flashlight in his hand couldn't shine on the end of it.
The door on the right-hand side was closed, and for some reason, it was sealed with a criss-cross of wooden planks.
On the wall next to it, it was written with soot: "Don't open it!" Very dangerous! ”