An eerie silence spread like moss growing over the walls. The air grew increasingly humid and stifling, with droplets occasionally falling from the ceiling of the corridor. Along the way, they saw many bizarre corpses: indigenous bodies with their lips cut off, and The Trinity mercenaries dismembered beyond recognition. Thick, foul-smelling blood spread, flowed, and diluted across the damp stone floor. Camila and her squad could all feel the stone beneath their feet becoming increasingly slippery, their anti-slip tactical boots slowly becoming unreliable.
Everything here indicated that The Trinity mercenaries had engaged in a prolonged confrontation with the indigenous people.
Under normal circumstances, The Trinity, armed with modern rapid-fire weapons, should have been able to wipe out the indigenous people effortlessly through their overwhelming firepower advantage. The Spaniards, British, Dutch, and French had managed it with muzzle-loading smoothbore guns; there was no reason these Trinity mercenaries could not. Yet Camila's squad saw far more Trinity mercenary corpses than indigenous bodies. Many indigenous people only fell after taking several bullets. They had even encountered dying natives who, despite having their limbs shattered by bullets, still howled as they lunged at them.
"They aren't afraid of pain." Laura Croft picked up a small knife and scraped at the black paste coating one indigenous man's teeth. It could have been a mixture of dried blood, plant residue, mineral powder, or something else. "It may be some kind of stimulant, coca leaves or a similar plant. Perhaps they know secret passages we don't, which let them catch these mercenaries off guard. Watch above and around you. Indigenous people could rush out from some corner we don't know about."
Camila told Laura Croft not to worry. She and her squad had undergone systematic CQB training. However, so had those Trinity mercenaries. Quite a few had