Chapter 1 After One Hour

An hour later, Doomsday Assault and Final Assault arrived at the fork in the road where Feng Bujue and Frenzied Blade Shadow had encountered the giant monster.

"What is that?" Doomsday Assault looked at the pile of decaying metal trash on the ground. "Some kind of trap?"

"I think it's the corpse of some kind of monster." Final Assault said, "Remember that explosion?"

"Oh... I see, it was blown to pieces." Doomsday Assault said, "That means... a little over an hour ago, someone took down a..." He shrugged, unable to imagine what this puddle of pus and metal looked like when it was alive. "Anyway, it was a pretty big monster."

"We've already taken out three or four of those guys in orange suits, and they don't have any explosive weapons." Final Assault said, "Just anti-gravity catapults, so we can be pretty sure that explosion was caused by Frenzied Blade Shadow and his team."

Doomsday Assault continued, "Then that means we're on the right track."

Final Assault nodded. "This underground laboratory is big, but it's not a maze. The few forks in the road don't extend very far. We've already explored the end of the other side. Next, we'll follow this unexplored corridor and we'll definitely find them."

Doomsday Assault said, "But... we didn't find any exits to the outside in the area we just searched, which means that the direction they went might have a way out."

Final Assault said, "So what? The plot synopsis said that this 'Old Earth' is full of violent storms and poisonous swamps, and even the oceans are polluted. Obviously, the situation outside is only going to be worse than down here."

As they spoke, the two of them reached a metal door at the end of the corridor. The door was open, the room inside was dark, and it reeked of a strange smell.

"Be careful of ambushes or traps..." After reaching the door, Doomsday Assault lowered his voice to his teammate.

Final Assault didn't respond, just made a simple gesture, signaling his teammate to follow him in and each take responsibility for checking a direction. It seemed that they already had a fixed routine for entering dark spaces.

Final Assault charged through the door first and turned on the high-intensity flashlight in his hand the moment he entered, the light shining from directly in front of him, sweeping counterclockwise; Doomsday Assault followed closely behind, but his flashlight scanned in a clockwise direction.

In the end, there was nothing of value in the room, just a prison cage with a damaged door and an empty safe.

"Looks like they killed the monster at the door, came in and opened the safe, and then left." Doomsday Assault said.

"Yeah, probably just..." Final Assault was pacing as he responded, but he suddenly stopped in the middle of his sentence, and then a dull thud was heard.

"What's wrong?" Doomsday Assault turned around.

Final Assault fell flat on his face. He calmly used a push-up to prop himself up, stood up straight, and wiped away two lines of nosebleeds...

"I tripped over something... something."

The way these two talked seemed stranger and stranger the more you looked at it. Even when unexpected situations occurred, their expressions and tone were still the same, cold and stiff, and their speech was neither hurried nor slow.

Final Assault felt around at what seemed to be empty space at his feet and said, "There's an invisible... um... corpse of a creature here." The reason he immediately realized it was a corpse was not only because he could clearly smell a pungent odor at close range, but also because he felt the monster's internal organs that had been cut open by Feng Bujue and exposed to the air, and now his hands were covered in disgusting but invisible slime.

Doomsday Assault also walked over, wanting to confirm with his hand.

"Wait a..." Final Assault didn't even finish the second "wait" before his teammate had already pressed his palm into the corpse's chest cavity.

"Uh... this..." Doomsday Assault felt an immense sense of regret in his heart, but it was too late.

"Since you've already touched it, it'll be easier for me to explain." Final Assault said, "Have you noticed that this corpse has a few too many fatal wounds..."

"Yeah... the forehead was chopped with something, and the torso too..." Doomsday Assault frowned slightly. "Were those two dissecting it or whipping the corpse..."

"Maybe they attacked different parts during the fight." Final Assault said, "That's the only way to think about it."

After the two of them finished inspecting Feng Bujue and Frenzied Blade Shadow's masterpiece, they quickened their pace and continued forward. They also understood that even if there were more monsters on this stretch of road, they had already been taken care of by the other team of two, so they could safely shorten the distance between themselves and their opponents.

After running for a while, suddenly, on a dimly lit section of corridor floor ahead, they saw something again.

This time, Doomsday Assault went forward to check first. He shined his flashlight on the thing and said, "Is this a human head..."

Final Assault walked to his side and looked around. "But where's the body?"

"Eaten by a monster?" Doomsday Assault replied.

"Look at the cut at the lower edge of the helmet... very clean." As Final Assault said this, cold sweat ran down his pale cheeks. "It was obviously cut off with a single blow from a sharp weapon."

Doomsday Assault turned his face to look at his teammate. "You're not implying that Frenzied Blade Shadow and his team ate the body, are you..."

"How is that possible..." Final Assault crouched down and carefully observed the head inside the helmet. "Whether they destroyed the body on the spot or dragged it away, it would have left a lot of blood, but there's almost no blood here. And... look at this head, the inside is already dry. Besides some blood on the face, there's almost no brain matter left."

Doomsday Assault said, "So the conclusion is?"

"We haven't seen any corpses or bloodstains along the way." Final Assault replied, "Which means they killed someone somewhere ahead, but then came back and left this head, whose fluids have almost completely dried up, here."

"Hmph... trying to scare us away?" Doomsday Assault snorted coldly.

"Probably." Final Assault said, "Look at the holes in the helmet. They don't look like they were caused by weapons, so... this person was probably killed by a monster before he was beheaded, and the monster sucked the brain matter and blood out of his skull." He stood up. "They cut off the head of a corpse and then brought it here to put psychological pressure on us? Heh... it seems that Frenzied Blade Shadow is nothing more than that, just playing petty tricks."

"This is a sign of being insecure." Hearing this, Doomsday Assault's confidence instantly increased. "So what if he's a swordsman? If his level is low, he's still going to be a coward, right? Ha..."

"Let's hurry up and chase them." Final Assault stepped over the dead man's head and said, "Since the other side wants to delay us, the best strategy is not to let them get their way."