Chapter 134 Unexpected Encounter

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

"What's that?" Doomsday Assault looked at the pile of decaying metal scraps on the ground. "Some kind of trap?"

"Looks like a monster's corpse to me," Final Assault said. "Remember that explosion?"

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

"We've taken out three or four of those orange-clad guys, and they don't have any exploding weapons," Final Assault said. "Just anti-gravity catapults, so it's pretty safe to say that explosion was Frenzied Blade and his partner."

Doomsday Assault picked up, "That means we're on the right track."

Final Assault nodded. "This underground lab is big, but it's not a maze. The few forks there are don't stretch very far. We've explored the end of the other side, so if we follow this corridor, we're sure to find them."

Doomsday Assault said, "But... we didn't see any exits in the area we just searched, which means the direction they're headed might have a way out."

Final Assault said, "So what? The synopsis said this 'Old Earth' is full of hurricanes, blizzards, toxic swamps, and even the ocean is polluted. The outside will obviously be worse than it is down here."

As they talked, they reached a metal door at the end of the corridor. The door was open, the room inside was dark, and it reeked.

"Careful, could be an ambush or a trap..." At the door, Doomsday Assault lowered his voice to his teammate.

Final Assault didn't reply, just made a simple gesture, signaling his teammate to follow him inside and each check a direction. It seemed they had a fixed routine for entering dark spaces.

Final Assault charged through the door first, switching on his high-powered flashlight as he entered. The light shone straight ahead, sweeping counterclockwise. Doomsday Assault followed closely, but his flashlight scanned clockwise.

The room was empty of anything valuable, with only a ruined cage and an empty safe.

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

"Yeah, should be..." Final Assault said as he paced around. But before he could finish, there was a loud thud.

"What happened?" Doomsday Assault turned around.

Final Assault had face-planted. He calmly pushed himself up with a push-up, stood up, and wiped two lines of blood from his nose...

"I tripped on something..."

The way these two talked was getting weirder and weirder. Even when something unexpected happened, their expressions and tone remained cold and stiff, their pace unhurried.

Final Assault felt around near his feet where there seemed to be nothing. "There's an invisible... um... corpse here." He knew it was a corpse, not just because he could smell a pungent odor up close, but also because he felt the exposed monster organs that Feng Bujue had cut open. His hand was now covered in disgusting, invisible slime.

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

"Wait a..." Before Final Assault could say the second "wait," his teammate had slammed his palm into the corpse's chest cavity.

"Uh... this..." Doomsday Assault was filled with regret, but it was too late.

"Now that you're covered in it, it'll be easier for me to explain," Final Assault said. "Have you noticed, this corpse has a few too many fatal wounds..."

"Yeah... the forehead's been chopped with something, and the torso too..." Doomsday Assault frowned slightly. "Were those two dissecting it or flogging the corpse..."

"Maybe they attacked different parts during the fight," Final Assault said. "That's the only explanation."

After inspecting Feng Bujue and Frenzied Blade's masterpiece, they quickened their pace and continued forward. They knew that even if there were more monsters along the way, the other team of two would have taken care of them, so they could safely close the distance.

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

This time, Doomsday Assault checked it out first, shining his flashlight on the thing and saying, "Is that a head..."

Final Assault walked over to him, looked around, and said, "But where's the body?"

"Eaten by a monster?" Doomsday Assault replied.

"Look at the cut on the lower edge of the helmet... very smooth." As Final Assault said this, cold sweat ran down his pale cheeks. "Clearly severed with a sharp weapon in one stroke."

Doomsday Assault turned to his teammate. "You're not implying that Frenzied Blade and his partner ate the body, are you..."

"How could that be..." Final Assault squatted down to examine the head in the helmet. "Whether they destroyed the body on the spot or dragged it away, there should be a lot of blood, but there's almost none here. And... look at this head, the inside is dried up. Besides some blood on the face, there's hardly any brain matter left."

Doomsday Assault said, "So the conclusion is?"

"We haven't seen any corpses or blood along the way," Final Assault replied. "That means they killed the person somewhere ahead, then came back and placed this head, whose fluids have almost dried up, here."

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

"Probably," Final Assault said. "Look at the holes in the helmet, they don't look like weapon damage, so... this person was probably killed by a monster before being beheaded, drained of the fluids in his skull." He stood up. "They cut off a corpse's head and threw it here, trying to put psychological pressure on us? Heh... looks like Frenzied Blade is nothing special, just playing tricks."

"They're feeling guilty," Doomsday Assault said, his confidence boosted. "What Knife and Sword Laughs, they're just as chickenshit even if they're a lower level, huh... ha..."

"Let's hurry up," Final Assault said, stepping over the dead man's head. "Since they want to delay us, the best countermeasure is to not let them get their way."