The ceiling lights were dangling as if they were about to fall onto them anytime. The muddled mirror right in front of them made things worse as it allowed them to see the state of condition they were currently in. Shi Zuo tried to struggle and look around if there was anything they could use to get themselves out.
“Bro, this whole thing just doesn’t sit right with me… Can’t I just use the emergency escape from this place? They will refund us, right?” Bin Yong trembled but Shi Zuo demanded him to calm down.
“Look, this is just the start, and we are still able to talk to each other. Boss Jin may have placed us in this situation, but so far, none of his instances has ever been unfair or impossible to solve. It’s just that our storage rings and even our phones are not within our possession. ” Shi Zuo tried to calm Bin Yong down
“Besides we are Pandawans, do you want that Hippo to tease us because we failed a new instance in record time? So let’s take a deep breath, simmer down and try to find something in this room to break out.” Shi Zuo managed to convince Bin Yong at the mention of Xiong Da.
Suddenly, they heard some footsteps coming towards them, and from the sounds of it, very rushed ones. Eventually, it seemed whoever it was making those footsteps made some attempts to open the door, but it was to no avail. If the door was locked even from the outside, that possibly means help. After a little pause, a complete silence enveloped the entire situation the Pandawans were in, and the next thing they heard was some static noises before the door was forced opened violently.
It was a…. They could not believe their eyes. The fact that both Shi Zuo and Bin Yong were still in shock because of the thing they saw broke all expectations of the dungeon. It was a teenage girl dressed in full panda pyjamas with a full panda mask who entered their ‘prison cell’.
“Your mission, should you choose to accept it; Find Captain Hei in 34th Street, Exit A of Penn Station.” The pyjamas girl announced as she pulled off the restrains with all her might from Shi Zuo, helping him to be free. He did not hesitate to save his buddy, but while both of them were preoccupied with removing the restrains that they did not see pyjamas girl with the full panda mask vanishing. Both were a bit baffled but figured this was just part of the instance’s setting.
Shi Zuo took a quick peek out of the room and noticed that there were no guards, nor any strict security measures in place or anything of that sort. When he felt it was safe enough, he beckoned Bin Yong to follow right behind him. As of now, they were feeling extremely vulnerable without access to any weapons. (Though they kind of forgot that they themselves were living weapons). For some reason, they decided to be cautious and stealthily tried to find a way out without making any noise.
No matter how hard they looked, there were no signs of enemies. It appeared as if they were locked up in some abandoned building the more they searched the vicinity. “Looks like a recently moved office to me. Not much dust, some leftover documents in the trash, a few broken tables and some vandalism…in some weird old English. Hmm, thou…shall, urgh I cannot read the whole thing. It looked cryptic to me.” Shi Zuo whispered to Bin Yong as he quietly opened a door, which finally revealed a glimpse of the outside world to them instead of just closed rooms, walkways and corridors.
“Maybe because we are just awfully bad at English?” Bin Yong rebutted and they chuckled a little before stepping forward.
Both kept their silence for a moment as they could not believe their eyes the moment they saw what was beyond the windows. Bellowing thunderstorms, along with the heavy rainfall, made it almost difficult to see what was afar. But there was one thing that hit a raw nerve for both of them as they saw a landmark that should be familiar to almost everyone in the world.
“The Empire State Building.” Bin Yong walked closer to the window to have a better look at it. At the spur of the moment, Shi Zuo quickly realised why that turned out to be a terrible idea. True enough, Bing Yong also saw what was beneath it- a guy in dark sunglasses among the crowd in the streets that seemingly made eye contact with him.
That guy in the black suit suddenly stood up from his seat and began to place his hand at his ear, as if he was communicating with someone while keeping a close eye at Bin Yong.
Shi Zuo saw what was going on and quickly pulled Bin Yong back. “Shit. I think I have figured, what is going on here. This is not a simple dungeon instance where we just rush in to fight and kill the boss. We are not the pursuers here, we are the escapees!” Shi Zuo explained as he started to look for exits in the current level they were in.
“Remember what the girl said? Your mission if you choose to accept? Didn’t that sound very familiar to you?” Shi Zuo finally found an exit to a staircase and beckoned Bin Yong to follow him. This was his turn to shine finally. Unless he was mistaken, this particular dungeon was designed to be some spy action thriller kind of instance, and it was making his heart pump a hell of lot faster. He had always wanted to try this kind of agent type of dungeon instances.
There had been some dungeon suppliers that boasted offering this kind of spy thriller dungeons and till now, he had yet to experience something worthwhile. But this dungeon instance by Jin, he knew, no… He trusted Jin to provide him with a full blown spy agent experience. He did not know what exactly would be in store for them in this current dungeon and did not care even if they were supposed to be the terrorists that would destroy New York or some handsome team of spies that saves the day.
All Shi Zuo had in mind right now was to survive first and get to 34th Street as soon as possible to find Captain Hei to get the next piece of information. “Now I get what Boss Jin meant by terror!!” Shi Zuo thought to himself grinning when suddenly a door swung open with one of the guys in black suits.
Shi Zuo did not hesitate to kick the door back and ordered Bin Yong to jump and slam at the door as he continued to run down the stairs swiftly. Bin Yong obliged and once again hindered the movement of the guy in the black suit.
Albeit their little stunt, three more black suits were rushing towards them when they reached the first floor, and Shi Zuo immediately engaged them in hand to hand combat. While Bin Yong had yet to find out the truth about this instance, he saw his friend jump in to engage with three enemies.
He could no longer remain passive since this was after all a dungeon instance. If he had been so fearful, Bin Yong should have just left at the start. Therefore, Bin Yong hurried towards Shi Zuo to help him out since he would take a frontal fight every day of the week over this instance, where they had no knowledge of what exactly was happening.
The Black Suits put up a good fight but what they lacked was teamwork, something which Shi Zuo and Bin Yong excelled in, and with the combined efforts of both their attacks, Shi Zuo managed to knock out two black suits while Bin Yong was handling the last.
However, in their euphoria of handling the ones in front of them, they seemed to have forgotten about the one that was chasing them from behind. Shi Zuo only noticed him when he pounced towards Bin Yong. At the spur of the moment, he did not hesitate to charge and rushed up to block the black suit guy from side ambushing his friend.
Unlike the other three, this black suit was armed with a dagger, but before he could use it, Shi Zuo smashed his hand onto the railings, making him drop the knife as it bounced down to the ground near Bin Yong.
Though hurt, the surviving black suit of the trio continued to struggle against Bin Yong and what followed was an intense bout of hand to hand combat….until he who had been losing against Bing Yong, had withdrawn a few steps away from him.
He threw his sunglasses away and the instant Bin Yong saw his aberrant set of ghoulish yellow eyes. That exposé instantly made Bin Yong reach for the dropped dagger for self defence. In retaliation, the Black Suit hissed at him and opened his mouth to reveal his unnaturally long tongue. Soon his jaws expanded, allowing more and more teeth to grow out as it became visibly sharper, longer and deadlier. Bin Yong realised those Black Suits had to be the Deep Ones in disguise.
“That Boss Jin is getting creepier!” Bin Yong rapidly dashed into the transforming Deep One, hoping to kill him before he fully transformed. Unfortunately, the Deep One was not as vulnerable as Bin Yong had expected. With his already grown out tail, he not only parried Bin Yong’s blade but even counterattacked with a piercing stab.
Instinctively, Bin Yong raised his left arm, but without his familiar shield, he had nothing to block the incoming attack, causing him to be injured by the tail jab. Nonetheless, with sufficient experience in dungeons, Bin Yong had used that attack as an opportunity to strike the fish’s head. Straight into this eye socket.
“Bombardier Beetle Style, Bombardment Counterattack!” An outburst of smoke emerged from the dagger, causing searing pain to the Deep One as well as giving Bin Yong the chance to pierce into where he hoped would be his heart. “Ramming Blast of the Beetle!!” Bin Yong shouted as he penetrated the tough skin layer of the Deep One and greenish brown blood slowly flowed out of the Deep One’s body. Bin Yong always use that as a shield technique which he figured this was an equally good opportunity to test out the impact with other weapons.
“Bro! Dagger!! QUICK!” Shi Zuo’s opponent was beginning to change its form too and the only weapon they had access to was the dagger. However, Shi Zuo was not willing to simply wait for the Deep One to transform as he continued to throw punches furiously as if he had entered into some blood rage while he waited for Bin Yong’s reinforcement.
“Switch!” Bin Yong shouted and Shi Zuo gave it one last kick that made his enemy fly backwards while Bin Yong jumped up from the first floor to the landing of the half turn stairs and tried the same finishing move against the transforming Deep One.
But unlike the previous Deep One, it seemed that Bin Yong had missed the vital part, which he compensated by punching the Deep One once at the head. That sucker punch gave him the momentum to swing his right fist to the hilt of the still stuck dagger, finally causing a fatal blow to the Deep One.
He did not hesitate to pull the dagger out as he looked at Shi Zuo land safely on the other two unconscious Black Suits. Bin Yong then threw the dagger at Shi Zuo. They both understood it was foolish to take chances and it was better to finish the job before those two woke up.
However, Shi Zuo did not comply immediately. Instead, he began to strip the two black suits down. “What are you doing?” Bin Yong asked as he hurried down the stairs before Shi Zuo told him to quickly strip the other Black Suit.
“We need to check if they are carrying anything else to improve our chances of surviving like wiretaps, communication wires, phones or wallets.” Shi Zuo explained as he checked every pocket the Black Suits had.
True enough, they found another dagger as well as a storage ring which contained an iron sword, a small buckler and two iron hatchets. They were not their original weapons, but at the very least those were weapons that they were proficient in. Shi Zuo took the hatchets while Bin Yong equipped the buckler. Thankfully, the items came with a back holster, which allowed them to place their weapons at their back.
Only then did Shi Zuo notice that it was a bad idea. They needed to blend in the crowd to reach 34th Street and not to stick out like a sore thumb. So he took one of the black suit’s outer jacket and tied the sleeves around his waist while he forcefully wore the holster at his waist. That way the outer jacket hid the hatchets.
Seeing how Shi Zuo did it, Bin Yong placed his new loot back in the storage ring and copied it by hiding the daggers at his waist with the holster too. “Ready?” Shi Zuo asked, to which Bin Yong nodded as they proceed to slit the throats of the two unconscious Black Suits.
After which, both cultivators cautious opened the door before exiting to the streets. Their experience of the dungeon instance had barely begun.
