Warhorses whinnied as Shen Feng and Kuafu tore through the city ruins, darting wildly. Behind them, a troop of Ape Cavalry gave chase on horseback.
"RAT-A-TAT-TAT..." Gunshots erupted, and a stream of bullets whizzed past them.
Their pursuers were no longer holding back, firing directly from their saddles.
Fortunately, the jarring ride on horseback threw off their aim, and the bullets went wild.
But when Shen Feng and Kuafu glanced at each other, they both saw the anxiety in the other's eyes.
They had only managed to put a hundred meters between them and their pursuers. There were simply too many of them, and a stray bullet was bound to find its mark eventually.
"Head east!" Kuafu said, gritting his teeth.
The pair spurred their horses onward, quickly racing through two city blocks. A clamor of ape noises came from up ahead, and Shen Feng's eyes widened in shock.
The buildings lining the street ahead were packed with apes!
However, these apes wore no clothes, and their behavior was purely animalistic. Only a few clothed female apes watched over them, apparently serving as caretakers.
Upon seeing Kuafu, the apes in the surrounding buildings and on the street erupted in a chorus of roars, as if welcoming their king, and immediately surged toward them.
This was where the Ape Race raised their young!
Their offspring were all just ordinary apes, with no signs of intelligence!
"Don't stop!" Kuafu roared, and he and Shen Feng spurred their horses through the street.
The pursuers arrived just then, only to have their path blocked by the less intelligent apes flooding the street.
Stone Eye's expression was grim. With a wave of his hand, dozens of warhorses charged straight through without pausing, trampling many young apes to death.
Clearly, he didn't consider these ordinary apes to be his kin!
The pained screams of the apes echoed from behind them. A look of anguish crossed Kuafu's face, but he didn't slow down in the slightest.
Shen Feng glanced at him, his own expression conflicted.
They reached the street corner, and the pair simultaneously reined their horses around the bend. A massive office building instantly loomed before them.
The building was over fifty stories tall, large enough to accommodate tens of thousands of people. It was the headquarters of the National Academy of Sciences and the Capital Epidemic Prevention Center!
The Skinners inside had long since been cleared out by the Ape Race, so the pair met with no resistance.
They spurred their horses into a wild gallop, charging toward the office building.
"CRASH!" With a tremendous noise, they smashed directly through a dilapidated glass window on the first floor!
Their exhausted warhorses collapsed. Shen Feng and Kuafu scrambled to their feet and vanished into the building's corridors.
The moment they were clear, the spot where they'd just been was shredded by a hail of bullets. The two horses were riddled with holes, killed instantly.
Despite the brief delay, their pursuers arrived.
Stone Eye and his Ape Cavalry reined their horses to a stop in front of the building, his expression growing even darker.
'Kuafu and that human actually managed to escape into the building. Now it's impossible to surround and intercept them.'
'But this will only delay their deaths. Trapped in a building like this, they're like fish in a barrel. There's no possibility of escape!'
Staring at the shattered window, Stone Eye ordered coldly,
"Bring the wolf pack! The rest of you, go in after them! Kill on sight!"
Dozens of Ape Cavalry dismounted, barking a few orders. With guns at the ready, they poured into the office building, while others began clambering up its exterior to search for any sign of Shen Feng and Kuafu.
By now, Shen Feng and Kuafu had reached a room on the third floor. Seeing that Kuafu's hands were still bound, Shen Feng's eyes narrowed. He drew his dagger, cut the ropes, and then handed Kuafu the shotgun.
Kuafu didn't hesitate. He took the shotgun, checked its condition, and said gravely,
"Stone Eye's squad is elite. The two of us can't possibly face them head-on. I suggest we keep moving up. We can use the building's massive size to split up their forces and pick them off one by one."
Shen Feng grabbed a submachine gun for himself and said,
"Good. We'll head to the top floor, then use a fire escape to get back to the bottom and hit them with a surprise attack from the rear."
Neither of them mentioned waiting for reinforcements. They had no idea when Kuafu's other followers might return and knew they couldn't pin their hopes on it.
Shen Feng took a grenade and a thin wire from his backpack, intending to set a tripwire at the entrance to the stairwell.
Kuafu quickly interjected, "The apes rarely take the stairs. They climb up through the gaps in the building. Set the trap on the handrail!"
Shen Feng nodded, immediately rigging the tripwire in the gap between the flights of stairs, then continued upward.
The Capital Epidemic Prevention Center Building was equipped with a solar power system. However, this had been the epicenter of the Petrification Disease outbreak. In the ensuing panic, the building had been looted several times. Coupled with its immense size, the solar power system could no longer supply enough energy to run the elevators.
They would have to climb on their own!
"CRACKLE... POP..." Faint noises emanated from within Shen Feng's body. After twenty days of dormancy, the Stone Statue Virus inside him was on the verge of a full outbreak.
He could feel his skin gradually losing its elasticity, becoming hard and stiff, as if covered in a thick callus.
His speed had also dropped considerably.
Kuafu watched the human youth beside him, his expression grave. 'This boy is brilliant,' he thought, 'and a formidable ally. I absolutely cannot afford to end up fighting alone.'
"Get on my back!" Kuafu said, dropping to all fours.
Shen Feng didn't argue. He climbed onto Kuafu's back, using his tactical webbing to strap himself on tightly.
"Hold on tight!" Kuafu growled. Powering with all four limbs, he leaped to the next flight of stairs, then continued upward in a series of powerful bounds, carrying Shen Feng with him.
As the leader of the Ape Race, he was not only exceptionally intelligent but also far larger and stronger than an ordinary ape. His stamina was immense.
Soon, they reached the thirteenth floor.
"BOOM!" The sound of a grenade exploding echoed from below. A pursuer had clearly triggered the tripwire Shen Feng had left behind.
At the same time, a Brain Ape smashed through a window on the exterior wall and lunged inside.
Shen Feng immediately swiveled his gun and fired half a magazine, knocking the Brain Ape to the floor.
"CRASH!" Another Brain Ape burst through a nearby window, raising its gun to fire.
In a flash, Kuafu raised the shotgun slung across his chest and fired, blasting the Brain Ape off its feet and through the air.
Shen Feng, meanwhile, aimed his gun downward and fired the rest of his magazine, knocking two more climbing Brain Apes off the side of the building.
"ROAR! They're... here!" A shout echoed from a side corridor. The pursuers had found them.
"Keep moving!" Shen Feng barked. He dropped the empty submachine gun, pulled out his last grenade, and hurled it toward the sound.
The roar of the explosion and the screams of apes followed them. Kuafu didn't look back, continuing to carry Shen Feng upward until they reached the thirty-fifth floor. Only then did he stop, exhausted and gasping for breath.
Shen Feng unstrapped himself from Kuafu. The pair moved quickly through the building's interior, reaching a central area before ducking down a stairwell and descending two floors. There, they found an inconspicuous room and ducked inside.
The building was filled with human stone statues. They had hidden in a conference room, where rows of statues sat around a large table, clearly petrified in the middle of a meeting.
With hundreds of rooms on every floor, it wouldn't be easy for a few dozen Brain Apes to pinpoint their location.
Shen Feng emptied his backpack. Aside from basic supplies, he had two pistols and four or five magazines.
Combined with the shotgun and dozen or so shells Kuafu was holding, that was the extent of their firepower.
'It was barely enough.'
Shen Feng sat on the floor, leaning against a wall. He poked the back of his hand and frowned.
'The situation is deteriorating rapidly,' he thought. 'It's taking almost ten minutes for my skin to rebound after being pressed!'
'The Stone Statue Virus in my body is on the absolute brink of erupting!'
'I just don't know how much time I have left.'
'An hour? Twenty minutes?'
The man and ape looked at each other. Shen Feng handed a pistol and two magazines to Kuafu.
"The Stone Statue Virus is about to erupt. I have to get to the research lab on the top floor and find the last Stone Statue Disease Vaccine and the muscle viability agent. But since the Ape Race already cleared this building, you must have taken the agents already...
Also, why haven't the human statues here been removed?"
Kuafu touched his waist, and his hand came away red; he'd been grazed by shrapnel. He took the pistol and said with a grave expression,
"I've seen what happens to humans right before they petrify. The Petrification Disease in your body will likely erupt in ten minutes, tops...
If you mean the classified research lab on the top floor, I've never been inside.
This was humanity's most advanced research base for the Petrification Disease. Who knows what mutations those terrifying viruses might have undergone? That's why I forbade any ape from entering the virus research labs on the top floor.
As for the statues in this building... this place is the cradle of ape civilization. It's our Holy Land. You could say the researchers here were our creators, so we left them preserved and untouched."
Shen Feng nodded. 'It's just as I thought, these intelligent apes have a complicated relationship with humanity.'
'So the last of the agents are upstairs,' he thought, breathing a small sigh of relief.
'My biggest worry was that the vaccine and the agents had been destroyed, making my mission impossible.'
Kuafu continued, a note of regret in his voice,
"Your arrival has taught me something. Perhaps we should have chosen a different way to show our gratitude for inheriting human civilization...
Don't worry. After you petrify, if I survive this, I will lead my people to revere the old humanity and its civilization. We will wait for the next person like you to arrive. Or perhaps... we'll just die here together."
Without Shen Feng as his ally, it would be nearly impossible for him to fight against dozens of well-trained, fully-armed apes. He would most likely die here, fulfilling Stone Eye's ambition.
Shen Feng gave Kuafu a long, hard look.
"No. You still have to keep your promise. You're going to have your people submit to me."
As he spoke, he pulled a syringe from his clothes. With his stiffening right hand, he savagely plunged the needle into his arm and injected the contents!
A faint label was visible on the syringe: "Petrification Disease Type 1."
The Skin-Stripping Potion!
Just then, a burst of barking erupted from outside. Their pursuers had found them!