You’re Late

Zhang Heng looked at a blue helix-shaped test tube and felt rather dazed.

While he had expected to find something like that, the rush of excitement that hit him when the tube of the virus was right before his eyes exceeded his expectation nonetheless.

He was holding a tube of the T-Virus in his hand, a small tube of fluids that had destroyed an entire civilization. Even the notorious nuclear bombs would have been like child's play in comparison to the damage the virus had wrought.

He moved faster than he had ever moved in his life, right after he lured the licker out of the laboratory, to look for his mission target in the abandoned laboratory. When he saw three rows of identical tubes of T-Virus solution laid before him on the experiment table, excitement rose within him all the same. He was even able to find a well-organized copy of the experimental data to one side, which had a clear line of words written on its cover: T-Virus Data.

He had actually managed to stumble upon the thing he tried so hard to look for, just by accident.

Roarrr!

A loud, deafening roar came from below, just when he was picking up that tube of T-Virus with his shaky hand. The noise of glass and concrete being torn apart followed the roar. The noise grew increasingly close and it was only then that he realized that the crawling creature had discovered that it had been duped.

He didn't bother finding out just how that thing managed to figure out that it had been duped. He took three tubes of the T-Virus solution sample in one hand and that stack of data in the other, before bolting down the stairs, stopping only when he reached the 50th floor. He then hid in one of the offices to the side of the corridor.

"Yurianne, just how long until the cooldown is over?" Zhang Heng asked anxiously.

"Four minutes and 13 seconds to complete the 48 hour-cooldown period. You only need to hold out for yet another four minutes to finish the trial." Yurianne's voice still sounded as uncaring and nonchalant as ever, making it seem like she didn't if her host lives or dies at all.

Four minutes!

He began taking deep breaths. He recalled information regarding the licker, which, from how things were portrayed in the movies, had developed a very, very heightened sense of hearing and smell after losing its sight entirely. While its sense of smell was probably somewhat weaker than a dog's, its sense of hearing eclipsed that of dogs by huge margins.

The zombie blood all over Zhang Heng had yet to dry completely, which meant that his scent was still masked at the moment. But there was simply no way his raging heartbeat could escape the licker's hearing.

As such, the only thing he could do at the moment was to just take as many deep breaths as he could to force his heartbeat down, so that he could conceal his hiding place.

His yearning for survival in that terrifying life and death situation triggered his potential. His heartrate actually dropped at a rate that no normal person could easily achieve as he kept taking deep breaths. His heavy, messy breaths slowed down and weakened as well, so much so that he was able to make himself completely silent and still.

If there were a regular person beside him at the moment, that person would have been astonished at just how Zhang Heng's presence had become so small that he became practically invisible. If one were to not keep their eyes on him, he could have stood right before that person and it would still be difficult for that person to notice him.

Roarr!

But, the licker's anguished roars still rumbled all over the topmost floor, just when his heartbeat gradually dropped to that of a regular person. He knew right there and then that the monster had finally made its way back up. He checked his watch and found that there were still three minutes before the cooldown was over.

Hurry up!

Zhang Heng felt sticky all over. Due to over-secretion of adrenaline, he was sweating profusely. The blood that was almost dried up was rendered moist again, exuding a thick, putrid stench.

But, then again, none of that mattered to him anymore. He was just staring at the time on his watch, not daring to imagine what would happen if the monster managed to find him.

Boom!

The licker tore up one of the offices on the 52nd floor right away. Judging from where the noise came from, it was probably the office where he threw the computers off of the building to lure the licker away. While he was covered in zombie blood, it became evident that the trick didn't actually manage to completely fool the licker, which sported a sense of smell that seemed to be more sensitive than that of dogs instead.

The raging, rumbling noises from the 52nd floor seemed to result from the fact that the licker was still unable to find Zhang Heng, and so it took out its anguish at the tables and chairs. But the noise of that rampage went silent moments later.

Did the thing give up?

Zhang Heng saw sense to just breathe with his mouth instead, just so that he could minimize the sound produced by his breath. He filled his lungs with air with every breath, holding it for several seconds before exhaling.

Boom!

Before he was able to exhale, however, he heard the door of an office on the 51st floor being shattered. it seemed that the licker had finished looking through the 52nd floor, and he wondered if the monster actually intended to search the entire building.

He began panicking at that thought and his heart raced once again. He immediately adjusted his breathing and saw that there were still two minutes left. Two minutes! Just two minutes! Please let me make it!

He kept looking down at his watch every few seconds. That was his first time hating that time moved so slowly. He felt like he had been waiting for a very long time, yet the hands on his watch had only moved just a bit.

The noise from the 51st floor gradually subsided.

Boom!

The silence that time was longer than it was previously, yet the sound of a wooden door being torn to pieces caused him to shudder all over nonetheless, because that noise came from a place that was just one wall away from the office he was hiding in.

He took a deep breath and was unable to keep his heartrate down anymore. He stood up right away and ran to the French window before him and opened it wide.

20 seconds to go!

The howling of the wind at high altitudes gushed inside the office the moment he opened the window. The higher a place was, the stronger the wind became. That was just common knowledge, yet he seemed to hear something else in that howling of the wind.

So… the will to survive, I guess?

He actually had a slight fear of heights, yet when he looked down from the window, more than 200 meters away from the ground at the moment, he didn't feel the slightest hint of fear. He simply kept looking back at that fragile wooden door right behind him.

20 seconds… ten, nine, eight…

He saw the door behind him rumble as it was torn apart by a powerful force at the eight-second mark. A huge amount of debris flew into his face and body right there and then. But he hardly even blinked at that moment and was actually feeling relieved. He turned around and flicked a middle finger at the ugly monster that was just sticking its head into the room.

"You're late!"

He saw the monster charge at him without any hesitation at all, and then he leaped, flying out of the window like a bird.

Six seconds!

He even went on to check his watch right after he leaped out of the window, finding that there were still six seconds left.

To most people, six seconds was a duration of time so short that it was deemed insignificant. A lapse of mind or just spacing out for a bit would have made that six seconds felt like they were never there.

Yet, at times, that six seconds were more than enough to determine whether one was to live or die.

Done!

Zhang Heng dropped deceptively fast to the ground at the speed of freefall. At a height of over 200 meters, anyone would have thought that it was impossible to survive such a fall, yet common sense didn't apply to him at the moment.

When he was just mere centimeters away from hitting the ground, his freefalling body vanished into thin air in a flash, and he was nowhere to be seen.