Hunter of Mysterious Creature

"Damn it?! Who fired that signal flare?! Are they out of their mind?!" the fisherman cursed immediately.

Yang Qi and Sun Hang said that with the firepower of a "Merfolk-class" missile destroyer, flattening the above-ground remains of the research institute would be a piece of cake.

The place where the signal flare was launched was less than a kilometer away from them, and according to the agreed bombing range before the operation started, the place where Sun Hang and the others were also within the bombing zone.

"Since the Yamata Orochi has appeared, the destroyer probably won't carry out the bombing order as usual... right?" Shino also came out, looking at the flaming red light still burning in the sky.

"Would you dare to bet on it? I sure as hell wouldn't!" the fisherman said, "If we wait until the shells start falling, it'll be too late to run! We need to get out of here quickly!"

"What about her?" Shino pointed at Huangfu Sha in the room.

"I'll carry her! Other than that, ditch all non-essential equipment and gear, and run full speed towards the edge of the basin; we should make it out of the bombing range in time!"

"There's not enough time." Sun Hang shook his head.

At the same location, three more red signal flares soared into the sky.

A single set of three red flares means "requesting bombing," and a second set means "urgent situation, bomb immediately" — the delay for bombing will be reduced from the original five minutes after the flares to just one minute.

One minute isn't even enough to run out of this neighborhood.

"Are you crazy?? Who the hell is over there! Are they in that much of a hurry to die?" the fisherman cursed again in anger.

"The only place we can avoid the bombing now is underground," Sun Hang said, "The curse won't kill you instantly, but the bombing will."

"The nearest underground entrance is in Zone C; go past the intersection ahead, take a left, and walk a hundred meters, there's a tunnel entrance underground!" Shino said, "Just not sure if it's been blocked."

"Bring Huangfu Sha, let's go!" Sun Hang picked up a box of weapons in one hand and the monitoring equipment in the other, rushing straight toward the intersection.

The fisherman wasn't dawdling either, turning back to the house to carry Huangfu Sha over his shoulder, quickly following.

Instead, the lightly packed Shino was left behind.

Rounding the corner, a building that looked like a subway station came into Sun Hang's view. The entrance was originally sealed with iron bars, but the chains binding them had been cut, and the leftmost two rows of bars had been moved aside.

It's obvious that the earlier groups of Hunters had entered the institute's underground from here.

With just ten seconds left before the bombing, the three of them could no longer care about anything else, quickly rushing down the steps, into a horizontal underground passageway.

Next, deafening explosions accompanied by violent shaking came crashing down, broken stones constantly falling overhead, as visible cracks rapidly spread along the walls of the passage.

"No! This place is going to collapse! Get further inside fast!" Shino shouted.

The three of them carried the unconscious Huangfu Sha further ahead, where at the end of the passage, there was a wider, sturdier tunnel, its floor laid with rails, with dozens of carts used for transporting construction materials neatly lined up, and a hundred bags of cement piled against the walls up to the tunnel's ceiling.

The bombing lasted a full hundred and twenty seconds. By the time the constant explosions stopped, the passage they entered had completely vanished.

"How does such a cliché plot from those melodramatic shows happen to me?" Sun Hang sighed, patting the collapse-blocked passage filled with debris.

The collapsed passage was packed solid, even with Sun Hang's ability to manipulate earth and stone, digging a path back to the surface was extremely difficult.

Forcing open a passage would likely trigger a secondary collapse.

"Damn it, I didn't want to come underground, yet here I am; this really is dogshit!" the fisherman angrily punched the wall, the dull thud echoing far down the tunnel.

"If the other exits aren't blocked, we still have a chance to get out," Shino said, "This is the C Station of the Nameless Island underground railway. According to the original construction plans, this underground railway was completed earlier than the second and third phase expansions above ground; its initial purpose was to transport building materials."

"Back in those days, even regular cities didn't have subways yet?" Sun Hang approached the tracks, examining them closely, "Looks like the Xiazhou Federation really valued this place back then."

"It's more like those mine cart tracks in tunnels rather than a subway," Shino said.

"What do we do now?" the fisherman asked.

"There's plenty of carts for carrying stuff, but no locomotives," Shino continued, "Otherwise, we could have used the railway to quickly move to another exit."

"I noticed just now, the person who launched the signal flares and requested the bombing, their location was right in the middle of the basin," Sun Hang said, "Meaning the entire site of the research facility ruins is likely within the bombing range, and the situation at the other exits might not be optimistic."

"I just hope that person wasn't blown to bits," the fisherman said through gritted teeth, "If I run into them, I'll beat them to within an inch of their life."

"Sun Hang, what's your plan?" Shino looked at Sun Hang with a hint of concern in his eyes, "If the curse here is truly like those Angsa Hunters said... to use an old saying from Xiazhou, 'This place is not suitable for staying long.'"

"We'll follow the tracks and check if all the exits along the way are blocked," Sun Hang said, "Plus, I'm curious about where the two groups of Hunters who entered underground earlier went..."

"The carts show signs of being moved," the fisherman, somewhat calmed, noted, "The footprints disappear at the edge of the tracks, and there are fresh scratch marks on the tracks... I reckon there was a locomotive here, and they used the tracks to leave."

"Which direction?" Sun Hang asked again.

"From left to right," the fisherman rubbed the scratch marks on the tracks with his finger, and then replied.

"That's the direction to the second underground level," Shino, who had memorized the entire layout of the Nameless Island Research Institute, immediately said.

"The second group of Hunters also went this way?" Sun Hang continued to ask.

"The second group... that's odd," the fisherman muttered, "There's only one set of footprints here... so, either the second group joined the Angsa Hunters, or they never even entered underground... wait!"

The fisherman suddenly lifted his head as if he thought of something: "Damn it, could it be that they fired the signal flares?"