Trap

Negative Fourth Floor.

At the stairwell entrance, the clean chill from the air conditioning lent the place a faint sense of calm. Everyone wore gas masks, slowing their breaths as much as possible while staring at the stairwell door—a composite steel door nearly twenty centimeters thick.

The ninety soldiers had been divided by Slade into eighteen squads, crisscrossing and covering one another. Some squad positions also concealed traps, traps that Ba Di would have to approach in person to deal with.

Even with every preparation in place, Slade still did not feel there was the slightest chance of victory.

It came from his instincts. He felt that Ba Di was simply too dangerous.

That danger did not refer to his strength, but to the fact that Ba Di had survived countless battles, with experience so extensive that it frightened him.

Even Slade, who had fought his way through the Vietnam War and mastered every kind of firearm and combat technique, could withstand the encirclement of several squads alone on the battlefield and wipe them all out. Such near-inhuman combat prowess was enough to astonish anyone.

Even Slade himself had secretly felt proud of it.

But compared to Ba Di's record on the Negative First Floor—running to evade bullets, never missing a shot, and killing nearly eighty soldiers in barely fifty seconds—

Slade's achievements seemed pale and powerless.

Wiping out several squads had only been possible because he had used every kind of trap and ambush tactic in the dense forest. Even then, he had only barely won.

Slade thought silently, his expression resolute and his lips pressed tightly together. His keen, cold eyes revealed that he knew he could no longer retreat.

Ba Di would not spare anyone.

He had not spoken much with Ba Di, but he instinctively sensed Ba Di's brutality.

No one would be spared.

He could only fight to the death.

Slade gritted his teeth, a fierce light flashing in his eyes. Either Ba Di would die, or everyone on the Negative Fourth Floor would be wiped out.

The air conditioning gradually made the place cold and quiet, as though the chilled air drifting through the air could be seen.

Suddenly!

A faint sound of steel colliding came from the stairwell.

Slade and the soldiers tensed, their grips on their guns tightening involuntarily.

Ba Di took out a test tube of dark yellow liquid from his left breast pocket and casually tossed it at the password input panel on the steel door.

Ba Di smashed the test tube. The crisp shatter of glass mixed with the dark yellow liquid as it splashed across the composite steel door.

'Sizzle...'

A deep, cold scent of corroding steel, mixed with the stench of oxidation, spread out and drifted upward into the stairwell.

The intense corrosive smell made Ba Di's nose uncomfortable. He pressed the back of his fist beneath his nose, took several steps back, and narrowed his eyes slightly as he watched the steel door.

The steel door was like paper being burned through from the middle. Bubbles rapidly formed as corrosion ate through it, spreading inward and completely corroding the electronic circuitry.

In just four or five seconds, an oval hole more than twenty centimeters in radius had appeared. The corroded steel flowed down like bubbling lava, a horrifying sight.

Through the faint smoke still rising with its foul oxidized stench, Ba Di's Super Vision saw fully equipped soldiers outside the door, wearing gas masks and waiting for him.

Without hesitation, the instant he saw them, Ba Di reacted with astonishing speed and fired two rapid single shots from his M16 Automatic Rifle.

The bullets passed through the corroded hole. In Ba Di's vision, they left two sonic-boom trails as they struck the heads of two soldiers in gas masks, blowing their heads apart.

"N16!"

Slade's reaction was not slow either. He shouted almost as soon as the composite steel door developed a large hole, but he was still slower than Ba Di's superhuman senses and slower than the bullets. The instantaneous deaths of two soldiers made the vicious gleam in Slade's eyes constrict.

An RPG Missile shot toward the hole in the steel door, its tail flame roaring and trailing black smoke. Clearly, they had no intention of letting Ba Di come out.

Ba Di could determine the missile's trajectory from sound alone. The RPG's speed was not fast, and it appeared at the opening exactly as he expected.

'Bang.'

Ba Di's expression remained indifferent. Holding the M16 Automatic Rifle, he casually lifted it slightly, and a bullet shot straight at the RPG Missile.

Another 'bang' rang out.

After a soft burst, the missile did not explode into flames and heat waves. Instead, after being struck by the bullet, it went 'bang' and released billowing green smoke.

Chemical weapon! Poison gas! Ba Di's expression turned slightly stern. He was not sure what effect the poisonous mist would have on him.

But just as the green toxic fog rapidly surged down the stairs to his feet, Ba Di recalled the soldiers he had seen through the corroded hole. They wore gas masks, yet the skin on their hands remained exposed.

That clearly proved that this toxic fog would not take effect through skin contact.

Poison gas that required breathing it in? Ba Di considered. With his powerful lung capacity, he could hold his breath for half an hour.

He pulled the two smoke grenades hanging from the belt behind his back and threw them out through the corroded hole. As the green toxic fog rose to his feet, he held his breath and suddenly exerted force.

In two or three steps, he stomped the soft rubber elastic flooring into a depression, borrowing the downward impact.

'Bang!'

A tremendous boom erupted. The door, weighing nearly ten tons, was kicked crooked by Ba Di. The sound of that immense force rang through the area, making the cold air, green poisonous gas, and smoke grenade smoke all tremble slightly, as though they had frozen in place.

Against the grating background noise of steel, a towering figure rose from the dense fog as if he were about to hold up the sky.

The aura emanating from Ba Di's figure truly possessed the power to shake people's hearts.

"R8!"

Slade's heart tightened slightly, and then he barked an order—the combat restriction he had carefully prepared for Ba Di.

After shouting, Slade took the initiative and leaped to the side. A bullet grazed his cheek, cutting a line of blood across it. He had narrowly avoided it.

Had he been one second slower, his head would have been blown apart.

Slade's pupils constricted, and cold sweat instantly broke out across his back. When he had watched Ba Di fight on the Negative First Floor, he had guessed that Ba Di possessed the ability to locate targets by sound. He had not expected it to be so accurate. He had nearly died beneath Ba Di's gun.

Ba Di was slightly surprised. His shot, aimed by sound, had actually been avoided. Clearly, he had not expected Slade to possess such outstanding combat instincts. Just as Ba Di was about to fire again in pursuit—

Dozens of thigh-thick launchers appeared in the soldiers' hands and fired at Ba Di's silhouette in the dense fog.

A continuous barrage of 'bang bang bang bang bang bang' rang out.

Dozens of launchers fired enormous metal nets, covering Ba Di from every direction at three hundred and sixty degrees, without a single blind spot.

Ba Di activated his super hearing and immediately felt as if heaven and earth were being enclosed around him, with no gaps anywhere. There were simply too many metal nets.

His eyes flickered. His tall body sprinted rapidly, stirring the smoke into a whirlwind. In an instant, he reached a spot with fewer metal nets.

He reached out toward a metal net and grabbed it, then spun it with his hand as though shaking out clothes, winding the metal net into a roll.

Suddenly.

Ba Di's expression changed. A powerful blue current spread through the metal net, numbing his body and making him freeze sluggishly.

Only then did Slade land on the ground. Seeing that Ba Di had fallen into his trap, he roared fiercely.

"Fire!"