Roar!
The Demogorgon crashed through the wall, pinning a corpse beneath it. Its head, shaped like a blooming demonic flower, spat out a long, slender tongue. Its appearance instantly shattered the standoff between Eleven and Dr. Brennan.
The Demogorgon let out a roar at the crowd and began to run like a hungry beast. As it sprinted, it sprayed saliva everywhere, its massive claws lunging toward the armed men standing in its way.
Rat-tat-tat... Facing the machine gun fire, the Demogorgon shielded its head with one hand and charged forward, knocking two armed personnel flying. At the same time, the bullet holes on its body healed rapidly. It swung its thick, long arms back, sweeping several more people aside in an instant.
"Dr. Brennan, hurry and get back!" one of the armed personnel urged, shielding Dr. Brennan closely and advising him to leave.
Though Dr. Brennan's eyes were filled with terror, he did not choose to leave. He looked at Eleven and said, "Eleven, please help us."
Facing Dr. Brennan's pleading eyes, the simple-hearted Eleven eventually softened. She looked back at her almost defenseless companions and decided to act once more. Using her telekinesis, she seized the frenzied Demogorgon, pinning it down firmly before lifting it into the air.
The ferocious monster was held as if by an invisible giant hand, completely unable to resist. As Eleven slammed it left and right, smashing it violently against the ground, the gymnasium was instantly turned into a mess. Several large craters were gouged into the bleachers, and the Demogorgon's body became deformed from the repeated impacts.
"I'm sorry, Eleven, but I have to do this." Just as Eleven was about to rip the Demogorgon in half, Dr. Brennan unexpectedly pulled a syringe from his pocket and unhesitatingly plunged the needle into the carotid artery of Eleven's neck.
"No!" Steve and Mike shouted in shock and rage. As Steve stepped forward swinging his bat, the armed guard who had been protecting Dr. Brennan suddenly blocked him. With an elbow strike followed by a violent smash from the gun's butt, Steve's face took two heavy blows. His vision went black, and he fell unconscious on the spot.
Mike and the others were blocked by other armed personnel and easily pushed to the ground.
"Let's go." Dr. Brennan swept a cold gaze over Mike and the group. Holding the sleeping Eleven in both arms, he ordered everyone to leave. He was convinced that without the protection of Eleven's abilities, this group would be killed by the recovering monster even without them personally Shooting them.
Bang!
However, just as Dr. Brennan took a step, he felt a sudden pain in his calf and the sole of his foot. Following the sound, he saw Chief Hopper looking at him with murderous intent. The man growled hoarsely, "Where do you think you're taking Eleven?"
"Kill him!" Dr. Brennan broke into a cold sweat from the pain and knelt on one knee, yet he still didn't forget to protect Eleven. He spoke viciously to the guards beside him.
The three armed personnel on the scene had already opened fire on Chief Hopper before Dr. Brennan even spoke. Although Hopper was stout, his movements were neither heavy nor stiff; with a few quick strides, he ducked behind a wall, letting the machine gun fire rake a series of bullet holes into the wall above him.
The three moved forward in an attempt to flank Hopper, but at that moment, Steve, who had been playing dead on the ground, suddenly surged up. With a roll, he grabbed the legs of an armed guard in front of him, causing the man to fall instantly.
"Waaah!" Lucas had already received the signal from Steve's feigned unconsciousness. He operated his slingshot, and a stone accurately struck the eye of one of the armed guards. The man fell to the ground in agony, and his gun went off, accidentally hitting his employer, Dr. Brennan.
Dr. Brennan groaned as he was inexplicably shot in the left shoulder. This time, he could no longer hold Eleven, letting her slide from his arms onto the ground.
"*uck!" Seeing two of his teammates down, the leader's anger flared. He turned his gun toward Mike and the others, but at the critical moment, a gunshot rang out from behind him. Hopper emerged again and shot the complicit leader dead.
Dr. Brennan was wheezing heavily, unable to speak. He looked coldly at the people around him. He wanted to touch that peaceful, innocent sleeping face, but Hopper beat him to it, picking her up and cradling her in his arms. He gritted his teeth secretly, his peripheral vision glancing at the monster behind him.
Whoosh, whoosh... Raging flames appeared, burning the body of the monster that had not yet recovered from Eleven's attacks. Robin was responsible for the flamethrower, while Nancy, that tough girl, had somehow obtained gasoline and was pouring it onto the monster as it struggled helplessly in the fire.
Seeing this, Dr. Brennan suddenly let out a long sigh and simply rolled over onto the ground, no longer thinking.
He had lost, and he had lost completely.
Ridiculously, he had lost to a group of children and a peer.
"You Will eventually pay the price for what you've done," Hopper said coldly, looking at Eleven sleeping in his arms and suppressing the urge to kick that ugly face a few times.
Dr. Brennan kept his eyes closed, but there was no dejection of defeat on his face. He said in a calm tone, "What do you plan to do next?"
"Expose The Lab's atrocities, shut down The Lab in town, and bring peace back to the town, of course," Hopper said as a matter of course, letting out a cold snort.
"If you reveal The Lab's secrets, Eleven's secret won't be kept. The military Will know of her existence from then on. Heh, trust me, they Will only be more cruel than I am. They Will either take Eleven and use any means necessary to get power from her, or they Will simply destroy her."
"Heh, as long as we don't let the outside world know about Eleven, it'll be fine," Hopper sneered, though a strange glint flashed in his eyes. It seemed Richard had indeed thought this far ahead and planned a way out for Eleven.
Hearing this, Dr. Brennan wanted to say something more, but he heard an exclamation from Robin's side. The burning monster had actually experienced a final burst of strength. With a wild sweep of its arms, it sent Robin and Nancy flying. Then, at the moment its life was about to end, it forcibly tore open a temporary rift to The Upside Down on the basketball court floor. It stumbled a few steps toward Hopper and the others before finally turning to ash.
Looking at the forcibly torn rift in the floor, everyone's expressions changed instantly. Robin wanted to crawl up and burn the passage, but she found that the flamethrower she brought had been broken in the violent collision just now. It felt like several of her ribs were broken, making it very difficult for her to crawl up.
Nancy could barely stand, but her condition wasn't much better than Robin's.
"Wait, listen carefully. Does it sound like there are people's voices in this rift?" Will said, staring intently at the opened rift.
Human voices?
Everyone was startled and immediately fell silent to listen carefully. They heard faint sounds coming from the rift.
"Mom!? Why are you here?"
"I really couldn't stop worrying about you guys, so I couldn't help but cross over to help!"
"Jonathan, how is Troy!?"
"I'm still working on it!"
"..."
The voices of Jonathan, Joyce, and Richard all rang out from the rift, which made everyone realize instantly that these three were currently in The Upside Down version of the same environment.
"Joyce! We're here!" Hopper shouted toward the rift.
The other side went silent for a moment, and then Joyce's voice came through, filled with surprise and doubt, "Hopper?"
"Great, there's a temporary passage here. Let's get out through here!" Richard's excited voice came from The Upside Down. The sound of him fighting some kind of giant creature was also clearly audible to everyone.
Hearing this, everyone immediately stepped forward, wanting to rescue Richard and the others from The Upside Down into the real world. But an exclamation from Jonathan made everyone's hair stand on end.
"Watch out, Mom!" Jonathan shouted. Immediately after, before everyone could get close, the rift was pierced by a massive, scythe-like spider leg.
Everyone trembled with terror. Just a glance at the cold light reflecting off that roughly 1.5-meter-long insectoid limb made their hearts go cold. They could hardly imagine what Richard and the others were experiencing on the other side.
At this time, the basketball court in The Upside Down was a sea of fire. Most of the vines had been burned by the flamethrower Joyce brought. The corpses of those Dimogogen Spiders were swallowed up within it, and a small number of spiders immediately retreated and fled out of fear of the fire. Only the largest Dimogogen Spider remained. It was as tall as a three-story building; its body wasn't that large, but its spider legs were incredibly long.
Just as Joyce was about to have her head pierced by the largest Dimogogen Spider on the field, Richard tackled her in time, saving her life.
Joyce's face was still filled with shock, pale and bloodless. Her muscles were trembling, and she seemed completely unable to move.
[Weak Point Exploitation] activated.
Enduring the massive mental burden that activating this derivative skill placed on him, Richard's mind became clear once again. Every inch of the giant spider's weak points above him was exposed to his eyes.
Richard first aimed at the joint of one of the Dimogogen Spider's legs and hacked at it violently, making the spider's stance unstable.
Puchi!
Suddenly, a vine became active at an inopportune moment. It lunged out of the sea of fire and coiled around one of Richard's feet, restricting his movement. This directly caused Richard's movements to be half a beat slow, and a spider leg pierced straight through Richard's right thigh.
"Chade!" the Byers mother and son cried out.
"Don't worry about me, keep saving him! I can do this!" Richard shouted without looking back.
Vaguely, Richard seemed to hear the vine that had briefly ensnared him let out a weird, sinister chuckle before it was burned to ash. But Richard, in pain, didn't pay it much mind. Gritting his teeth, he swung his blade again, hacking off the spider leg that was stuck in his thigh.
The giant Dimogogen Spider, having lost two legs, crashed to the ground. The bud-like head on its body hissed continuously, while its other spider legs struggled and slashed about wildly.
Richard barely dodged several slashes from the spider legs. Finally, dragging his difficult-to-move thigh, he sprinted toward the giant Dimogogen Spider and thrust his machete into its fleshy abdomen. Instantly, a large amount of fluid and unformed spider eggs gurgled out. Seeing the spider's struggles grow weaker, Richard was not satisfied; he twisted the machete inside the abdomen, churning its internal organs until they were shredded and the spider showed no more signs of life. Only then did he stop.
"Cough, cough!" Hearing a violent, youthful coughing sound, Richard looked toward Jonathan's side. He saw Joyce and Jonathan, mother and son, weeping with joy as they embraced. Each of them held the hands of Troy, who had finally resumed breathing. Their hard work had not been in vain after all.
The person had been saved!
...It wasn't until the filthy Richard and the others had all crawled out of the temporary Upside Down passage and returned to the real world that the temporary crisis of this uniquely strange night was considered over.