Chapter 94: Loss

They had been ambushed!

After Katherine pressed the button, the people from Dawn Gathering Place, who had just rushed into the Experiment Hall through the winding corridor and were searching around only to realize something was wrong, looked up at the thick smoke billowing down from above, and their faces changed instantly.

“Cough, cough!”

“It’s an ambush!”

“Retreat, everyone retreat immediately!”

The thick, choking smoke engulfed them in an instant, making it impossible to see even a hand in front of their faces. The men around them coughed violently, and chaos reigned. Amidst this sudden turn of events, Long Ying was both shocked and furious. How could he not know that they had blindly stumbled right into a trap that had been laid beforehand?

In fact, just moments ago, when they rushed into the Experiment Hall through the winding corridor, Long Ying had faintly sensed something was wrong, because the entire Experiment Hall was completely empty. There were not many people, and not even many instruments. It seemed everything had been moved elsewhere, leaving the Experiment Area deliberately empty to serve as bait and a trap.

However, just as he was about to give a warning to retreat, a large amount of smoke started pouring out from the ceiling, and all the electronic door locks were sealed shut. Because they were just one step too slow, their line of sight was now filled entirely with the extremely choking thick smoke, making it impossible to tell direction, and they had missed the chance to retreat immediately.

“Boss! Boss, where are you!”

“Quick! Find the way we came in!”

“Watch out for enemy sneak attacks!”

Within the thick smoke, figures collided chaotically. Although this smoke had a limited effect on a Transcendent with sharp senses like Long Ying, most of the other members under his command were ordinary people. Faced with this sudden change, they immediately fell into chaos.

Step, step, step… And just as the thick smoke was spreading, the sound of numerous footsteps rapidly approached, followed immediately by the sound of shattering glass and the noise of some kind of thrown object landing. Then—

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

Several loud explosions rang out consecutively. Within the thick smoke, several fiercely burning flames suddenly burst forth. The smoke and air were torn apart in an instant, and scorching blast waves accompanied by countless sharp fragments shot out in all directions!

“Those are grenades!”

“Ahh! Ahh!”

In that instant, the squad members within the thick smoke suffered heavy losses. Five or six people were blown apart on the spot, three Awakeners were severely injured by the blasts, and even Long Ying, a Transcendent, was caught off guard in the thick smoke and struck by the flying fragments, his body suddenly bearing several bloody wounds deep enough to see bone!

And the attack was not over. At the same moment the grenades exploded, a dense volley of gunfire erupted from the corridor outside the Experiment Hall. Who knew how many bullets poured into the smoke screen like splashing water, once again causing the Dawn Squad trapped in the smoke to scream and roar in fury without end.

“You… will die!”

The dense gunfire and the screams of his subordinates echoed in his ears. Eyes splitting with rage, like an enraged lion, Long Ying let out a fierce shout. His figure whipped up a fierce wind as he pounced violently toward the direction outside the hall where the grenades had come from.

Whoosh!

Amidst the howling wind, Long Ying charged madly out of the rolling thick smoke of the Experiment Hall, appearing in the corridor outside like a bolt of lightning. He immediately spotted a squad of soldiers with exceptionally refined weapons and equipment—it was the armed squad under Diris’s command.

And the utterly furious Long Ying truly revealed his inhuman strength. He slammed his body straight into them, and under the ferocious force, the leading soldier’s tendons snapped and bones broke, sending him and four or five soldiers behind him tumbling hard as if struck by a car. Long Ying appeared before these white soldiers like a phantom. With an extension and a claw-swipe of his arm, five bloody holes appeared directly in their chests and throats, killing them instantly. Long Ying’s movements did not pause for a moment. Swift and violent like thunder, the well-equipped soldiers could not even see his actions clearly, let alone have a chance to fire back before dying in an instant!

The sound of tearing flesh rang out continuously, as soldiers and guards in the corridor fell one after another under Long Ying’s hands.

“It seems… you must be the leader of these people?”

A voice suddenly rang out. Just as Long Ying, amidst his rampant slaughter, finished breaking the neck bone of the ninth soldier with a punch, his figure paused. He immediately sensed, in the booming of displaced air, an intense threat carrying a howling evil wind, violently attacking him from behind!

“Did you think you could sneak up on me!”

In a split second, Long Ying turned around fiercely, the veins on his arm bulging. With a single arm tensed, he whipped it backward without even looking, like a lash.

Boom!

Fist met arm. The violent air current blew outward in all directions. Long Ying felt the opponent’s power was incredibly fierce, completely on par with his own. His body involuntarily staggered back several large steps. The attacker, gaining the upper hand, showed no mercy, pressing forward with large strides that even left faint footprints on the steel corridor floor, attacking Long Ying relentlessly.

Bang, bang, bang, bang!

A rapid series of explosive, blasting impacts followed. Their strengths were similar, but the attacker had seized the initiative. Under the frenzied onslaught, Long Ying was forced to retreat repeatedly, moving further away from the Experiment Area and his heavily wounded and killed subordinates.

At the same time, the sounds of hurried footsteps, cruel laughter, and gunfire echoed continuously in the Experiment Area. Long Ying saw large numbers of guards constantly appearing in the corridors, surrounding the Experiment Area and firing madly into it. Although Long Ying was burning with anxiety, no matter how he charged and tried to break through, he could not overcome the blockade of the white youth in front of him for the time being.

Long Ying’s face turned ashen. He knew the opponent before him must be the base’s strongest, mentioned by Lin Kun—Diris, who had also reached the Transcendent level!

“At a time like this, you still have the leisure to worry about others?”

Forcing Long Ying back once again as he tried to get past him, Diris stood squarely in the middle of the steel corridor, laughing mockingly:

“Don’t worry, soon you’ll be joining them!”

…

Behind the base, the underground river channel.

Under the scattered lights of the Hydropower Station, after a careful observation, the tall figure of Chen Chong emerged from the darkness like an agile leopard, arriving at the door leading to the base’s internal Experiment Area.

This electronic iron gate was tightly shut, causing Chen Chong to frown slightly.

“Something’s not right.”

Chen Chong’s nostrils flared slightly; he could faintly smell a pungent, smoky odor, coming from behind the door.

Rumble… Rumble… Rumble…

At that moment, a series of explosions seemed to occur inside the base. Muffled booming sounds echoed from behind the door, transmitted through the medium, and Chen Chong immediately felt a slight vibration under his feet.

“Seems like the fighting is intense!”

Wasting no more time, Chen Chong chuckled, completely unafraid. The next moment, he took a deep breath, his strong chest slightly puffing out. Muscles and sinews rippled in his right arm. Then, stepping forward, bending his body, he punched out!

Clang!

The iron fist slammed into the iron door with a deafening clash of metal on metal, reverberating endlessly throughout the entire cavern space. Under Chen Chong’s pure brute force, the rock wall before him trembled violently, sending countless bits of rubble and dust raining down. The electronic iron gate, at the moment of contact with Chen Chong’s iron fist, twisted and deformed, then collapsed with a thunderous boom!

After the iron gate collapsed, what came into Chen Chong’s view was thick smoke filling the passageway, along with the sounds of intense, dense gunfire and agonized screams coming from deeper within.

“Have they been ambushed?”

Seeing the pervasive smoke everywhere, Chen Chong guessed what had happened, a savage grin spreading across his face:

“Diris… are you waiting for me?”