SCP Corporation: Contain Bonfire-Chapter 181 Trap Task!_1

At this point, the third level of the underground sewer no longer showed any sign of rat skeletons; they seemed to have completely vanished.

After advancing deeper for a few minutes, they came upon a group of people seated on the ground, surrounded by others. There were fifteen individuals altogether, sitting motionless.

As they approached, Colin and the rest saw that these people had turned into mummies, much like "Future Colin" had, each seated at a certain distance from the others and seemingly arranged in some sort of formation.

Hesitating for a moment to ensure the anomaly index hadn’t risen, they proceeded to inspect the scene.

Then...

"How is this possible?!"

Exclamation after exclamation echoed through the sewer.

The group discovered that these "corpses" had some identification which matched with each of the fifteen present, which left Colin confused and shocked, yet also relieved.

After all, this meant he was no longer the prime suspect.

With each corpse’s identity confirmed, the progress on Colin’s parchment rapidly increased, giving him an uneasy feeling.

"I feel like this is some kind of evil ceremony orchestrated by the Ancient God mentioned earlier, designed to bring together people from two identical worlds through some means, like connecting magnets..." one official speculated with an air of trepidation.

"That’s not right. I don’t understand how they knew to choose us. We only gathered together today..." Qin Chuan frowned.

At that moment, someone suddenly exclaimed:

"Wait, there seems to be another body over there!"

Hearing this, everyone was momentarily stunned and then felt a chill in their hearts. They had only entered as a group of sixteen—it made no sense for there to be a seventeenth person!

Could someone else have followed them in?

Colin looked in the direction the voice had indicated and saw a body lying not far away.

This corpse was more damaged than the others, reduced to a pile of white bones with no trace of hair or clothing.

Next to it on the ground, there were some hastily scrawled words that looked like they were left behind while the person was still alive:

"...be careful... I have been replaced..." 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

"Who has been replaced?"

Everyone was puzzled, but only Colin, looking at the pile of white bones in front of him, felt a sense of familiarity. He could tell it was a female, and there was something indescribably familiar about the skeleton, but he couldn’t immediately place who it might be...

His certainty about the gender wasn’t due to any medical knowledge but purely because he had seen enough skeletal remains recently to recognize it.

Soon, a robot took tissue samples, and the results came back within minutes.

"The deceased is Liping, cause of death unknown, suspected to have died within the last three years..."

When the robot reported the name and identity, Colin was certain he didn’t know the person. However, Qin Chuan and five other extraordinary agents looked shocked.

"Two or three years? That’s a joke! How could it be her? She is... She is an Eighth Level Agent! How could she have died here for no reason?"

An Eighth Level Agent?

A flash of insight crossed Colin’s mind, and he remembered a woman with a dignified smile, almost like a stone statue.

"No, a few years ago, it seemed like after returning from a task, she began to excuse herself from appearing publicly due to health reasons, delegating much of her work to others. Even the situation here could possibly be related to this ’Liping’..." Qin Chuan spoke about some past events.

As he spoke, the others grew increasingly silent.

An Eighth Level Agent, a figure who would typically be the sole authority in a province, might now only be an imposter?

Who replaced her?

"If it is really an impostor capable of attacking an Eighth Level Agent, then it’s definitely beyond our ability to cope with. Take these bones with us."

"Just in time, the head of the Southern Region is right here, we can report to him first..."

Meanwhile, Colin’s anxiety grew denser, but his unease was not due to the Eighth Level Personnel they mentioned. Instead, it stemmed from the progression of the mission, especially upon seeing that the mission progress had already reached ninety-seven percent. He felt an inexplicable sense of suffocation.

Regardless of his unease, he didn’t actually sense any immediate danger...

However, it was at this moment that he suddenly had an epiphany. While everyone else’s attention was elsewhere, he switched to the "large size" parchment and saw that a new task had been issued.

[ "Escape the sewer area before the investigation task progress reaches one hundred percent!" ]

Upon seeing this task, Colin’s pupils constricted. He suddenly realized that this task might actually have been issued by Lady Bunny.

The previous task was likely a trap!

Immediately looking at everyone else, who were still in shock, Colin knew that convincing them to leave right now would be nearly impossible. He discreetly pulled out a card from his pocket—

"Fusion Card: Smiling Mountain of Corpses."

The next instant, the robot’s body flashed with red light, and an alarm suddenly went off!

"Warning! The abnormality index is climbing sharply! Warning! The abnormality index is climbing sharply. The threat level has reached C Level and has exceeded our personnel’s capability to handle!"

Several infrared rays aimed at a certain point, and as everyone looked in that direction, they saw that on the ground, the dried flesh and bones of about a dozen of their "future selves" were melting and converging towards the center.

This process was terrifyingly swift, and by the time they snapped back to reality, a massive black flesh orb with two thick arms let out a piercing shriek that shook their hearts.

"Please, Little Fist Stone!"

Colin silently gave the command for it to launch an attack.

"Run! Keep up!"

Qin Chuan and the others didn’t even think, they immediately abandoned the mission and ordered everyone to beat a hasty retreat.

As they retreated, the machine’s guns sprayed gunfire, a barrage of fire raining down upon it, blasting the terrifying flesh orb with the gaping mouth into countless pieces.

It seemed as though they had inflicted fatal damage, but as these pieces hit the ground, they liquified and flowed back to the main body...

But from the beginning, they had not expected ordinary methods to work; the attack was only meant to slow it down.

"┗|｀O′|┛ Ahhh~~"

Enraged screams erupted from Corpse Mountain, and Colin could sense it seemed to hold some grudge, but it had no choice but to maintain a distance from them, as per the requirement, and play a chasing game.

In their frantic escape, everyone was too preoccupied to notice any issues with the acting of "Smiling Mountain of Corpses," as they were running for their lives.

Only Colin was a bit more relaxed, simply turning his wheelchair’s speed to the maximum and racing along the trail he had left behind.

Time after time, "Smiling Mountain of Corpses" nearly caught them, but fortunately, each time they escaped by the skin of their teeth. Eventually, after about ten minutes, they returned to the door they had initially entered through.

Yet, when they arrived at this spot, they instinctively stopped in their tracks, not proceeding any further, but simply staring ahead blankly.

In their eyes, outside the door was not the lavatory they had come from but a degraded world covered in twilight. It was also at this moment that Colin saw on his "small size" parchment that the onboarding task had been completed.

The price of completion was...

They all seemed to have been displaced.

.

.

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