The situation changed abruptly.
This sudden turn of events stunned both You Long Gongzi and Fei Yuhan, but the old-school martial artists were the first to shift their focus, working together to block the charging Fallen.
"Go, find a way to break out!" A middle-aged man said urgently, "We absolutely can't be surrounded!"
The other two containers also stirred, with constant banging sounds coming from inside. Bulges appeared one after another on the iron skin, and the single fixing lock was clearly not going to hold for long.
If these two containers were also filled with dozens of people, then forget about eliminating the enemy, even escaping would be a problem.
The most important thing now is to avoid being attacked from both sides, unable to advance or retreat!
Fei Yuhan quickly reacted. She turned and headed towards the factory gate – as long as she could break into the open area, retreating separately would at least prevent total annihilation.
This was undoubtedly the most correct breakthrough route.
Roland still chose to cover the rear, but unlike his initial ease, he had now gathered all his mental strength to deal with the newly transformed Fallen that were pouncing like zombies. Even if they couldn't exert their full strength in front of him, being bitten would still cause injury.
"This is Team One, we're in danger. The number of enemies far exceeds expectations, requesting support!" The team leader shouted while fighting back.
In just a few breaths, two more people were knocked down. The white light protecting their bodies only flickered twice before being torn to shreds by the Fallen's frantic bites.
Seeing the blood and flesh splattered from his companions, You Long Gongzi's movements noticeably slowed down. Even an amateur like Roland noticed that his punches and kicks were no longer as agile as before, and his offensive and defensive transitions showed openings. After knocking down several Fallen, the first scratch appeared on his body.
"Boom—!"
The container door finally gave way under the heavy impact of the frenzied Fallen, crashing heavily to the ground.
But the number of enemies rushing out was not as many as expected.
Roland raised an eyebrow slightly. He saw steel pipes binding about a dozen dead Fallen. Although they had completed their transformation, they had not broken free from the ropes on their bodies. Large holes in their bodies were still leaking blood, as if they had been pierced by something the moment they were infected.
Following the line of their corpses to the container wall, several newly added light holes were clearly visible.
Well done, he couldn't help but praise in his heart.
Undoubtedly, it was Phyllis's doing—he could even imagine Phyllis, under the cover of Tyron, silently moving to the rear of the container and inserting the blade magic claw into the container as soon as she sensed something was wrong.
"What...what's going on?" The enemy leader said angrily, "You damned thieves, what have you done to my children!"
The group naturally didn't have time to pay attention to it. Although their doubts were no less than its, now was not the time to care about this. Without the pressure of fighting ten against one, the possibility of breaking out alive was much higher, and the team's morale was boosted for a time.
"Forget it," it stamped its foot. "My plan won't be hindered by this little episode. You're all going to die here anyway!"
With that, it took out a square box resembling a remote control from its pocket and pressed the button on it forcefully.
With a few loud explosions, the four corners of the factory instantly exploded, and the entire ground cracked into several pieces, collapsing downwards! The burning torches were also scattered by the air currents, and the surrounding vision became completely dark.
Damn it! Roland couldn't help but curse. Did this guy actually bury explosives under the floor? Although he possessed strange powers, he couldn't fly like Lightning!
"Your Majesty!" At this critical moment, a slender little hand reached out and grabbed him.
After swaying a few times, he felt himself being held tightly. After a series of bumps, he finally landed on a flat ground.
"Cough cough... Ling?" He fanned away the choking dust in front of him and asked in a low voice.
"It's me, are you alright?" The latter replied immediately, "Fortunately, the explosion just now extinguished the fire, so I had the chance to grab you."
Sure enough, after the torches were blown away, the factory covered by the night became Ling's domain—when she moved in the shadows, she could almost achieve the same effect as Nightingale's mist traversal.
"I'm fine, are the other witches okay?"
"Please rest assured, with Phyllis here, this degree of collapse will definitely not hurt Tyron. And Faldi has been staying outside the factory to monitor the situation and hasn't come in."
"That's good," Roland pulled down the night vision goggles on his head again and looked around at his surroundings.
"Your Majesty, this thing that looks like a beholder is..." Ling asked curiously.
"A low-light night vision device allows ordinary people to see clearly at night," he explained. "So even in a place where you can't see your fingers, you have to be careful to hide your tracks and be careful not to be seen."
"Yes... Glug glug..." Ling submerged into the shadows, leaving only half her head exposed, with a few bubbles rising in front of her nose, as if it were really water.
With the help of the faint moonlight shining down from above, he quickly identified the current situation.
The collapse had scattered everyone. The scene was full of messy concrete slabs, and it was impossible to determine the location of other teammates for a while. However, considering that martial artists can use the power of nature to resist conventional damage, this degree of collapse shouldn't kill them. Similarly, the enemy should also be aware of this. Since they had set up such a trick, they definitely wouldn't just want to trap them here—as long as they delayed for a while longer, Team Two's support would arrive, and the Fallen leader's sacrifice plan would inevitably fail.
The suspicious point is this pit.
When C02 explained the route, it didn't mention that there was a basement under the meeting place, and according to the map, the factory should have been built on flat ground.
Judging from the uneven mud walls around, this was clearly not part of the design.
In other words, digging out the underground of the factory and installing enough explosives to collapse the floor were both deliberate actions by the enemy.
Why?
Roland noticed that the entire pit was gentle around, but the center point suddenly sank, like a huge vortex. And most of the fallen Fallen corpses slid into the center of the vortex, stacked on top of each other.
Could it be... is this also part of the sacrifice ritual?
His doubts didn't last long—the leader appeared in his sight again. Under the command of the "butler," the surviving Fallen did not search for the martial artists' hiding places everywhere. Instead, they hugged the core energy vortexes that had not fallen into the pit and the corpses of their own kind, and jumped into the center of the pit one by one. Not only that, they didn't even let go of the broken corpses of the martial artists they had fought to the death with. In the blink of an eye, the not-so-large bottom of the pit began to be filled.
Roland's heart skipped a beat, and the heat flow in his body suddenly became active, as if sensing some kind of summons.
"God... please receive my final offering!" The butler opened his arms and fell headfirst into the pit—
All the cores almost simultaneously burst into dazzling light!
Roland tore off his night vision goggles and stared in stunned silence at the center of the pit—a scarlet core energy vortex slowly rose, gradually condensing into a mass, then spreading out to the surroundings, forming an irregular "erosion!"
Then something drilled out of the erosion and quickly merged into a whole—it looked like a human figure, with a head and hands, but it was just an outline. And within the outline was a一片 of darkness, with countless nebulae swirling within, like a deep universe.
With the appearance of the humanoid phantom, scarlet blood flowed from under it, quickly spreading to the entire pit, turning the dark underground into a twisted space of red and black.
The bug on his shoulder also chirped and chirped, indicating that Faldi had sensed a dangerous aura.
Roland had seen such a scene more than once. When he robbed the Fallen before, he had encountered a similar pure magic creature—but this one was much larger than that one. Just the raised half of its body was two or three stories high!
So this is the other party's real purpose! The so-called sacrifice is not just a
gimmick, but an attempt to artificially create erosion and allow monsters that do not belong to the dream world to descend!
He just didn't understand, if a large number of infected core energy vortexes could achieve erosion, why did they have to wait until now and lure the Martial Artist Association to intervene?
However, the enemy quickly provided an answer.
Suddenly, a dozen black tentacles sprang out from the ground that had been soaked in scarlet blood, dragged out a martial artist hiding under a concrete slab, and sent him to the magic creature.
"Mo-monster..." The latter gathered all his strength, wanting to pry open the tentacles, but all his struggles were in vain.
"You stole things that don't belong to you and tried to take them as your own. Now it's time to return them to their owner." The magic creature grabbed the martial artist and threw him into the erosion. "I will correct this error and return order to the right track—accept your fate and return to the source!"
Under its deafening declaration, the erosion suddenly expanded a circle, and its figure also grew a section, looking like it was about to climb out of the ground!