Chapter 901: Contact

In the dimly lit underground channel of the karez, Qing Wanglai reached out to catch the dust slowly falling from above, dislodged by the tremor.

This unstable structure made everyone present feel a bit uneasy.

Qing Wanglai spoke to the seemingly hysterical Li Huowang, who was banging his head against a distant wall: "Li Huowang, you'd better stop. We don't know when this karez was built. If you cause this underground channel to collapse, we'll all be buried here."

Li Huowang stopped, suddenly freezing like a statue. It wasn't Qing Wanglai's words that made him stop, but Zhao Shuangdian's finger held vertically to her lips.

"Shhh," Zhao Shuangdian's hushed sound made all other noises gradually quiet down.

She seemed to have discovered something. Li Huowang's heart beat faster and faster as he became certain she wasn't merely perceiving her own hallucination.

Seeing Zhao Shuangdian quietly crouch down, Ba Nanxu immediately dove towards her, kneeling on the ground and using his back and hips to brace the barrel and body of his rifle.

Zhao Shuangdian aimed for a long time into the pitch-black channel ahead. When she suddenly pulled the trigger, with a "bang," blood gradually began to seep from the darkness in the distance.

"I didn't come to the wrong place... So, what happened before wasn't all my hallucination?"

As this thought suddenly emerged in Li Huowang's mind, he was overcome with euphoria and charged forward. The gunfire behind him, far from slowing him down, only made him accelerate.

When Li Huowang emerged from the darkness again, he was dragging a terrified Black man with both hands. "Can you see him? Can you all see him now? Is this person a hallucination or not!"

When everyone nodded and confirmed they could see the man, an overjoyed Li Huowang laughed, raised the military knife in his hand, and plunged it into the man's neck.

"It's real! Not all of it was fake! Some of it was definitely real!"

Just as he pulled the knife, still clutching a piece of the man's windpipe, from the victim's neck, a tremendous force slammed into him from behind, sending Li Huowang flying.

The force from behind was so immense that it propelled Li Huowang into the air. Looking at the rugged, pitted rocks on the ground, Li Huowang knew that if he landed on them, his injuries would be severe.

With enemies now located, Li Huowang didn't want to get injured right away. He exerted all his strength, laboriously turning the corpse in his hands to position it beneath himself.

With a "thud," Li Huowang landed heavily. The entire face of the corpse beneath him, skin and flesh, was completely smeared across the uneven ground.

Gasping for breath, Li Huowang stood up and returned to his companions. Under everyone's focused gaze, a group of people gradually emerged from the darkness ahead.

They were all human, mostly Black, carrying various firearms. Many of them were wounded, clearly from a recent skirmish.

Leading them was a massive Black man. He looked at the corpse of his comrade on the ground, a hint of suppressed anger on his face.

However, he didn't unleash it. Instead, he frowned deeply, staring at Li Huowang and asking: "Nafurahikukuon'a,"

Qing Wanglai stepped forward, blocking Li Huowang, and said with a smile: "Jumbonagomvimaridhawa'o"

Hearing that Qing Wanglai could communicate, the burly man's expression softened slightly. He took another step forward and continued to ask: "Rafikm, falmewetu. 刀i, munguwetuna"

But the next moment, Qing Wanglai raised a hand and fired a shot directly at the man's head, effortlessly eliminating their leader before he could react.

"Nye!!" A roar of fury erupted, followed by angry shouts and the sight of dark muzzles aimed at them.

Qing Wanglai turned without hesitation, hiding behind Li Huowang, and pushing him forward with both hands against his back.

"Get away!" Li Huowang kicked backward, using the recoil to tighten his grip on the military knife and charge forward.

The sharp blade sliced deep into flesh. Feeling the vibration from the blade, Li Huowang quickly twisted it. The blade, still embedded, slid to a joint and twisted again, and with a "crack," the enemy's arm was instantly dislocated.

Seeing the anti-material rifle in the distance pointed at him, Li Huowang roared, plunging both knives into the man, using the screaming individual as a shield, and pushing him towards the others.

Gunshots rang out, and Li Huowang's shield was instantly shredded. However, Li Huowang, who had half-crouched beforehand, managed to dodge a portion of the damage.

Clutching his weapon, Li Huowang hurled it with force towards the gun muzzle. His military knife flew instantly and struck the opponent's body.

But it wasn't over. Li Huowang knew that thing absolutely couldn't fall into anyone else's hands; his body armor couldn't protect against that type of weapon.

Just as Li Huowang was about to charge through, carving a path for the others, a dark object rolled to his feet.

"Grenade!" Li Huowang lifted his right foot and kicked the object away.

However, just as it flew a short distance, a violent explosion instantly erupted, shaking everything around them.

Li Huowang was closest and affected the most. Without his equipment, he might have been gone long ago.

But even so, once the dust settled, Li Huowang was buried under soil and rocks, with only one hand exposed.

In the darkness, Li Huowang felt someone pat his hand, signaling him to be patient.

A moment later, Li Huowang saw the dark visor of his helmet light up again as he was dug out.

Watching the others frantically clear the rocks from his body, Li Huowang felt, only at this moment, that they were truly his companions.

"Are you okay? Can you hear me, Li Huowang? How many fingers am I holding up?" Li Huowang, whose head was ringing, saw Wu Qi's face swaying back and forth in front of him.

He turned his head to look at the channel beside him, only to find that it had completely collapsed, filled with rocks, and the previous enemies were long gone.

Just then, the ringing in Li Huowang's head lessened, and Qing Wanglai's voice reached his ears.

"They did it on purpose. They want to block the path and prevent us from getting closer."

Qing Wanglai said, pulling a compass from his pocket and quickly shaking it, "But it's fine. This trick will only delay us for a bit. The karez is very long, and there are wellheads every so often. As long as we keep walking in this direction, we can find another well to descend."

"Right, no time to lose. Let's keep going. Judging by their reaction, we've found the right place."

As they spoke and were about to leave, Li Huowang, still sitting on the ground, suddenly reached out and firmly grabbed Qing Wanglai's ankle. "Sanqing! I've been meaning to ask this for a while: why can you speak their language? Are you very familiar with them?"