The hallway outside of his room was just as Wu Xiaoming expected: gray, bare and almost completely dark without light. The only reason he could see anything in his surroundings seemed to be there was a bit of "back light" to this world - a pale, faint, spotty white light coming from everything, barely noticeable out in the open but glaringly obvious when all the external light was blocked.
Still, the visibility was terrible, he had to slow his footsteps so that he wouldn't bump into anything.
But before he could walk very far, a loud snarl made the hairs on his back stand up. A pale white humanoid shadow was standing in front of a door before him - the right neighboring room. Yellow glowing eyes, long, slender yet muscular arms and legs, it was staring at Wu Xiaoming, its whole body in a position ready to strike.
Wu Xiaoming took a small step back and readied himself as well. This creature was taller than him, had longer limbs, not to mention much longer and sharper nails and teeth. Without a weapon in hand, it would probably be quite dangerous to attack first. And without enough lighting in this area, running away was not a good option either.
The creature narrowed its eyes and hunched its back. Without any further warning, it lunged right at Wu Xiaoming, with its two arms extending forward aiming at his neck and chest area.
"Attack!" Wu Xiaoming leapt backwards and yelled, focusing his attention on the creature's left eye. An energy blast struck the creature right on target.
The creature's move stopped as it backed off from the sudden blow, crossing its slender arms before its face to defend against further attacks. Wu Xiaoming took a step forward, focusing on the creature's neck and yelled again: "Slash!"
Foul dark blood gushed from the creature's neck, its growls and snarls turned into whimpers and heaves. It flailed its two arms at Wu Xiaoming, leaving a few scratch marks on the wall and the floor, forcing Wu Xiaoming to fall back as well.
"Slash!" The previous slash was obviously not deep enough, as the creature could still make a sound with its throat, so Wu Xiaoming wasted no time to follow up with another attack. But this time, the left hand of the creature was in the way. More blood gushed onto the floor, the creature let out an ear-piercing screech before turning around and running away.
Wu Xiaoming ran only a few steps before stopping and standing close to the wall. The creature ran into the stairs and seemed to have jumped down the staircase. There was no way he could follow it without risking his life. This creature was native to this world, while he himself was suffering from a strange weakened state, this wasn't a risk worth taking, for now at least.
Also, judging from the effects of his word attacks, they seemed to be weakened as well. With his full concentration and an element of surprise, Wu Xiaoming was confident that one single "Slash" could easily fatally slit even the thickest human neck. But against this creature, he barely got through the skin and reached the neck muscle and artery, still a bit of distance away from actually slicing up the crucial veins. The unusual hardness of the creature's skin was one thing, his "Law of the Words" ability was definitely suppressed, presumably by whatever forces that weakened him here.
He pulled back a little and began looking around. The first thing he needed to do was to get familiar with his surroundings. And most important of all, he probably should clear his surroundings as much as possible - should he die here somehow, he would rather die having earned enough Spirit Fragments. When he'd done that, he could decide if he wanted to try the stairs, or even the elevator - he had no idea if it was still in this realm, or if it would work at all.
He kicked the neighboring door in. The wooden door flew off the hinges, landing right on another charred shadow like the ones in his room. The shadow was bashed into the wall, screaming and screeching.
"Attack! Attack!" Wu Xiaoming shot into the room and yelled two times, two energy blasts blew through the wooden door and obliterated this shadow.
This was the only hostile creature in this room. Wu Xiaoming took a breather in the corner - unleashing word attacks took more than his lung power, but also his actual energy and stamina, not unlike throwing a full force punch or a kick, only without the muscle ache but with the added fatigue to his brain.
Only a small hair of experience away from level 6.
Current currencies: 2631 Spirit Fragments, 45 Vision Slivers.
The flying door gave him just a bit of inspiration. He tried ripping panels off the door, and eventually got one longer, more sturdy block that he could use like a short stick.
"Rough wood stick" this was the description of his newly fashioned "weapon".
He kicked two more doors in, but found no shadows behind them. Maybe this was actually the norm and he was simply lucky with the first two rooms.
He took a look at the direction of the staircase. He could not see anything clearly but only the general outline of the environment. There was no way he would go in that direction - that pale humanoid creature might still be there, waiting to ambush him.
"Emergency exit." Wu Xiaoming mumbled to himself as he turned and ran towards the end of the hallway - where the emergency exit staircase was.
There was nothing behind the heavy fireproof door. To his disappointment there was no fire axe on the walls either. He hesitated a few seconds before deciding to go up instead of down - it would be better if he could get a clear view of the general area first.
There were at least five floors above his original level. Each time he passed by the door connecting to a new level, he would peek through the window to see if there was anything in the hallway that could be of threat to him - on the second floor above his level, a white shadow with long black hair was wandering in the hallway; on the last floor before he would reach the roof of the hotel, the entire hallway was covered in fleshy veins, muscles, polyps and even fingers and teeth. Both occupied hallways gave him the creeps just by looks alone and he decided against venturing in.
He pushed the metal door to the roof of the hotel - it was not locked. As the door creaked open, he took a quick look at the space behind it. Two humanoid creatures were wandering - skeletons with gray smoke coming off their bones, both holding martial weapons - one was holding a long sword, the other was holding a bow and had a quiver behind its back. Both skeletons' weapons looked like they used to be fancy but succumbed to time and weather.
And at the center of the open area, was a crack in the space, inside of which was a dim vortex of energy. A jump point, or a portway, portal, whatever one wished to call it. Wu Xiaoming recognized it because that was the design in his game.
Maybe he was indeed in some kind of hallucination or dream. He scoffed at himself internally. Yet either way, he still needed to do what he must.
He burst from behind the metal door and charged at the skeleton with the bow and quiver. Both skeletons reacted by drawing their weapons, clicking and cracking their bones. The skeleton archer leapt backwards with unlikely agility, pulled a thin bone arrow from its quiver and readied a shot.
"Shield!" Wu Xiaoming roared, at the same time lowering his body and swinging his wood stick at the skeleton archer's waist.
The bone arrow pierced through the energy shield without much trouble, but the angle in which it hit Wu Xiaoming's left shoulder made it so that it only left a small scratch and bounced away. The tip of the stick landed on the skeleton archer's pelvis and sent its lower body flying through the air. Wu Xiaoming unleashed a swift kick at his opponent's chest, breaking its chest away from its two arms and forcing it to drop the bow.
Alarms blared in Wu Xiaoming's mind. He ducked and rolled to the side out of instinct. A cold, light blue energy blade swept through the space he was in, leaving a bleeding gash on his waist. This was the skeleton with the sword.
"Attack!" Wu Xiaoming focused on the skeleton warrior's head and yelled. Yet it was too far away, and the energy blast only exploded in the air at its maximum range, releasing a shockwave that barely fazed the enemy.
The skeleton warrior raised its sword again and charged at Wu Xiaoming. A dim green glow gradually faded away from the blade, presumably that was the residual energy from that slash.
In but a moment's time, their weapons in hand clashed. The sword cleaved through the shaft of the wood stick. Wu Xiaoming had to arch back so fast that it hurt his back and waist, yet the tip of the sword still left a gash on his chest.
"Attack!" Just when the skeleton warrior's sword swung back at Wu Xiaoming's neck, he unleashed another attack. This time the energy blast struck the skeleton right on its right elbow, breaking its grip on the sword.
Yet before Wu Xiaoming could unleash a follow up attack, the skeleton warrior caught the falling sword with its left hand and swung at Wu Xiaoming's leg. Wu Xiaoming jumped up and threw the remainder of his rough wood stick at the skeleton's head.
Neither attack landed. The sword missed Wu Xiaoming's feet by a small bit, and the stick only grazed the skeleton's temple.
Just when Wu Xiaoming landed on his feet, the one handed skeleton warrior swung again, this time at his neck. Wu Xiaoming lowered his body again, losing only some hair on the top of his head.
"Attack!" Wu Xiaoming roared, this time aiming at the skeleton warrior's chest.
"Crack!" The skeleton warrior tried to dodge this attack, but the explosion still blasted its chest away from its arm. The magical sword dropped on the ground. Its skeletal arm still tried to raise it, but Wu Xiaoming's left foot already stepped on the wrist and broke the entire sword away from its grip.
"Rusted Grim Enchanted Sword: a weathered sword with faded enchantment. Grants active skill: Grim Slash." The sword might just be the best weapon he had found so far.
"Rough Wooden Bow: made of wood and ox sinew." - this was the bow.
With the two skeletons defeated, Wu Xiaoming had finally reached level 6.
Current currencies owned: 3531 Spirit Fragments, 50 Vision Slivers. A pretty big bump from the previous numbers. The skeleton warrior might just be an "elite".
After a quick break, Wu Xiaoming approached the jump point. Hesitantly, he reached his hand over.
Visions of different locations flashed before him: the roof of another hotel building, a corner behind a studio, the roof of a small hill, the roof of an office building and - the roof of a building inside his father's community.