Despair

Amidst the smoke and dust, several more Guard Team were knocked down by insects. The grenades not only failed to achieve their intended effect but also disrupted the Guard Team' own formation.

After a burst of intense fire, the insects' attack was temporarily repelled.

After checking, the group discovered that five more people had died in the chaos.

"Captain, it seems like they're playing a trick on us?"

"It seems like they're using up our ammunition."

"But why is that? They could have wiped us out in one fell swoop just now!"

"Yes, I noticed that too. We didn't drive them away; they retreated on their own."

"Shut up, all of you. Whatever they're up to, they're not going to invite us to dinner. Set all the bombs to 5 minutes from now and get out of here!" If we keep fighting, we'll be slowly devoured sooner or later. We should take advantage of the insects' temporary retreat and speed up our escape.

The group set the timers on their explosives and carelessly discarded them on the ground. Having thrown away the explosives, each person lost a considerable amount of weight. After briefly checking their weapons and ammunition, they began to fight their way out.

Soon, the diameter of the passage narrowed again, to only about 20 meters. The Guard Team's firepower became much more intense in the slightly narrow passage, and everyone seemed to see a glimmer of hope for breaking out.

But after retreating another fifty meters, they ran into Seneva's team, who had left earlier.

"Seneva, what's going on?" Hasmu shouted without turning around. It wasn't that he was being impolite, but he didn't have time to turn around because the insects had started a new round of attacks.

"Captain, the back is blocked. That passage is full of bugs, we can't get through at all." It was the communications soldier Kones who spoke. The situation on Seneva's end was so urgent that he didn't hear Hasmu's shout.

"Damn it! What are these bugs trying to do?" Hasmu cursed angrily, he hadn't sworn as much as he had in all these years.

Before he could think of a solution, explosions rang out one after another in the passage, followed by violent shockwaves that sent the Guard Team flying.

Each member of the Guard Team carried a varying amount of sticky explosives, totaling over two hundred kilograms. The destruction caused by such a large quantity of explosives in a confined space would be devastating.

A large amount of rocks and dust were shaken down, and the falling rocks blocked most of the passage. The cave trembled for a full half minute before slowly stopping.

Hasmu pushed away the rubble on his body, shook his head, and wiped the dust off his mask. He looked around; visibility was extremely poor, and the mask he had just wiped off was covered with a layer of dust again in no time.

He pressed the button on his helmet, switching it to thermal imaging mode, and finally spotted some humanoid heat sources in the distance.

After a short while, he struggled to his feet. The spear he had been carrying had long since been flung away somewhere. He switched his view to normal mode and looked around, but couldn't find it.

Left with no other option, he pulled out the pistol strapped to his lower back and carefully crept towards the heat source he had just seen.

He found several insects on the road, some of which he couldn't tell if they were stunned or killed by the shockwave. Lacking the knowledge to distinguish them, he simply finished them off with his knife.

The insect's leg armor is extremely hard, making it very difficult to cut with an alloy dagger, but its back and abdomen are relatively weak, allowing the dagger to easily penetrate.

After a while, Hasmu found several team members among the rubble, and then the search speed increased. Some team members also regained their senses and voluntarily rejoined the team.

A few minutes later, all the people who could be found had been gathered. Hasmu quickly counted them and found that there were only 32 people left. Apart from the three bodies that were found, the other dozen or so people had disappeared.

Disappearing at this time, they were probably either buried under rubble or killed by insects, and their chances of survival were very low. Fortunately, the passage was temporarily blocked by rubble, which reduced the insect attack from one side, greatly increasing the survival rate of the remaining people.

A lot of equipment and weapons were lost, and there was no time to search for them. At Hasmu's command, everyone quickly ran back the way they came.

Actually, the insects on the way back weren't affected by the explosion much. Even if they were, they were affected much less than the Guard Team.

If the insects had truly wanted to eliminate them, the brief period when they were unconscious would have been enough to wipe them out several times over.

But for some reason, the insects didn't take advantage of the situation; it was as if they were waiting for the children to wake up so they could continue to observe them.

This made Hasmu feel like he and his group were a bunch of clowns.

But circumstances dictate his actions; if he wants to continue living, he has no choice but to perform with all his might.

But he knew in his heart that although the insects were doing this for some unknown reason, they probably wouldn't let them leave alive. When they got close to the exit, it would likely be their death day.

Along the way, some people were knocked down by insects, but no one paid any attention to them. Now, everyone had more or less noticed something was wrong, which terrified them.

But the instinct for survival kept them mechanically shooting, dodging, and running, but the closer they got to the exit, the closer they got to death.

This situation, where they were forced to willingly walk into death, filled their hearts with despair.

Finally, the passage narrowed to 5 meters, and they arrived at the 500-meter-long vertical passage.

Special reconnaissance soldier Angulo is still alive, and miraculously, his equipment hasn't been lost. But now he'd rather the equipment were lost, so he wouldn't be able to see those densely packed red dots on it.

Like someone struggling against the current, grasping at a last straw, he trembled as he turned a set of probes on his helmet to his eyes, tilting his head slightly upward to look into the vertical passage.

Then, as if in utter despair, he collapsed to the ground.

"Angulo, what happened? Where are you hurt?"

"Captain... Captain... It's over, it's all over..." Angulo muttered to himself...

"What's going on?!"

"Up... up..." Although Angulo was an elite technical soldier, he still lacked mental fortitude. After enduring mental torment all the way, he finally couldn't hold on any longer.

"What happened up there! Tell me!" Hasmu shook Angul's shoulders violently, shouting angrily as he looked at the distraught Angulo.

Hasmu was actually very clever; seeing Angulo's expression, he had already guessed the truth. But he still clung to a sliver of hope, wanting to hear Angulo say it with his own ears—just in case it wasn't what he thought.

What if?

Unfortunately, there's no such thing as a "what if"!

"It's full of those invisible magnetic field creatures! All of them! The passage is blocked by them!" Angulo's dazed eyes snapped back to reality amidst the violent shaking. He looked at Hasmu and suddenly shouted, as if it would give him courage.

But these words did not embolden him; instead, they discouraged the others, including Hasmu. Many team members collapsed to the ground in frustration.

An atmosphere of despair spread...

Thank you for the 100 Qidian coins reward from Abyss Order.