There's Something Alive in This Cave!

Fuck!

Chu Hang's mind went blank with a buzz.

That crisp little "click" was like Death had pressed the switch on the countdown to his life. The last trace of light vanished, and the entire world was swallowed by boundless darkness and cold.

He could no longer see anything.

In this environment, his eyes became the most useless organs. No matter how wide he opened them, all he could see was a pure, panic-inducing blackness. His other senses, however, were magnified countless times in that instant.

He could clearly hear his heart pounding wildly—thump, thump, thump. It was so loud that it felt like someone was beating a drum beside his ear, making his eardrums ache. He could feel the frigid air rushing in from all directions, greedily sucking away the last bit of warmth from his body. He could also smell the damp, earthy stench in the air, the kind of smell that seemed to belong only in a grave.

And most deadly of all, there was that sound.

"Hiss... scrape... hiss... scrape..."

That damned metallic scraping, like something heavy being dragged, had not stopped with the disappearance of the light. On the contrary, in this deathly silent darkness, it became clearer than ever, as if someone were holding a rusty saw beside his ear and sawing away at his nerves, stroke by stroke.

The sound continued, and it seemed to be getting closer and closer!

Chu Hang's body stiffened like a log frozen inside a block of ice. He could even feel every hair on the back of his neck standing on end.

No way, officer? He had just escaped Hydra's encirclement, only to plunge headfirst into the nest of some prehistoric monster? Could this cave be the secret base of some deranged serial killer? Wasn't that how it always went in movies? A madman isolated from the world loved turning unlucky people who wandered onto his turf into all kinds of bizarre artworks.

Or perhaps... Hydra was conducting some secret experiment here, raising some monster that could not stand the light?

Countless horror movie scenes flashed madly through his mind, each one enough to scare him pissless on the spot.

He gripped the MP40 submachine gun in his hands tightly. The cold feel of steel was his only source of comfort right now. But he knew perfectly well that in this pitch-black darkness, it was no different from a fire poker. He could not exactly close his eyes and spray bullets into the dark. That would do nothing but expose his position.

What should he do? What should he do?

His powerful desire to survive forced his nearly stalled brain to start thinking again.

Calm down! He had to calm down!

He took a deep breath, and the icy air made him cough, but he forcibly stifled the sound in his throat. He struggled to control his racing heart, commanding the muscles throughout his body to slowly relax from their rigid state.

He gave up trying to see and focused all his attention on his ears.

He carefully distinguished the sound.

"Hiss... scrape..."

It was heavy and rhythmic, but the pace was slow. And mixed in with it seemed to be an extremely faint, suppressed sound of panting.

It was human breathing!

This discovery loosened Chu Hang's tightly wound nerves slightly. As long as it was not a monster, it was fine. If it was a person, there would always be a way to deal with them.

But immediately afterward, an even more scalp-numbing thought surfaced.

Would a normal person walk around a place like this dragging heavy iron chains?

Just as his thoughts ran wild, the scraping suddenly stopped.

The entire cave fell into deathly silence once more.

Chu Hang's heart leaped into his throat. He held his breath, barely daring to breathe at all, and stood motionless where he was like a statue awaiting judgment.

The unknown was the most terrifying thing of all.

Time seemed to stretch infinitely in that moment. Every second felt as long as a century.

Just as Chu Hang was about to be driven mad by the suffocating silence, a hoarse, weak voice filled with obvious pain suddenly sounded from the darkness not far ahead.

"Who... who's there?"

English!

Chu Hang shuddered and nearly cried out.

He almost answered instinctively, but swallowed the words back at the last moment. He did not know who the other person was, whether they were friend or foe. What if they were a Hydra captive? If he spoke, would he not be exposing himself?

But if he did not answer... what if the other person had a weapon and started firing wildly in the dark? That would be a truly unjust death.

Take a gamble!

Chu Hang made his decision quickly. Lowering his voice, he answered carefully in English as well. "A friend. I'm just... looking for a place to hide."

His voice produced a small echo in the empty cave.

There was silence in the darkness for several seconds.

Then Chu Hang heard a relieved sigh, followed by a crisp clang, as though some metal object had fallen to the ground.

"Friend..." the hoarse voice repeated, filled with exhaustion and a trace of disbelieving delight. "Thank God..."

As soon as the words fell, Chu Hang saw a faint spark burst from the darkness ahead with a scratch.

Then a tiny orange-yellow flame flickered to life, driving away a small patch of darkness around it.

It was an old-fashioned kerosene lamp.

Under the weak light, a familiar Black face covered in sweat and pain came into view.

"Gabe Jones?" Chu Hang blurted out.

The man lying on the ground and struggling to light the kerosene lamp was none other than Gabe Jones, the Black teammate from the Howling Commandos whom he had only met once in the barracks!

Gabe Jones clearly had not expected to see Chu Hang here either. His large eyes were filled with shock and wild joy. His mouth opened and closed before he cried out excitedly, "Chu? My God, it's really you!"

"How did you end up here?" Chu Hang asked as he hurried over.

Only when he got closer did he see Gabe Jones's miserable state clearly.

His left leg was clamped tightly in a huge, rust-covered bear trap! It looked like a steel mouth full of fangs. Its sharp serrated teeth had sunk deep into his calf, and the military trousers around it had been dyed dark red with blood. It was a horrifying sight.

Beside him lay a thick iron crowbar.

Chu Hang understood at once.

That hiss-scrape metallic sound from earlier had not been chains at all. It had been Gabe Jones dragging that damned bear trap, or using the crowbar to try to pry it open!

"Damn it, what bastard put a bear trap in here?" Chu Hang cursed, immediately crouching down to inspect Gabe's injury.

"I don't know either." Gabe Jones grimaced in pain, his forehead covered in cold sweat. "I got separated from you guys after parachuting down too. I wanted to find somewhere to hide, but as soon as I entered this cave, I stepped on this damned thing. I've been at it here... for nearly two hours."

Chu Hang frowned as he looked at the simply constructed but exceptionally sturdy bear trap. It had snapped shut using the immense force of a spring. Once it bit down, it was nearly impossible to pry open through human strength alone without specialized tools. Gabe Jones had spent two hours struggling against it with a crowbar. That already made him one tough bastard.

"Bear with it!" Chu Hang said in a low voice.

He set his submachine gun aside and grabbed the two steel jaws of the bear trap with both hands.

"Chu, don't waste your strength." Seeing what he was doing, Gabe weakly shook his head. "This thing... is too tight. I tried. There's just no way..."

Before he could finish, he abruptly stopped, his eyes widening like bells.

Chu Hang took a deep breath, and the muscles in his arms bulged instantly like gnarled old tree roots. A terrifying power far beyond that of an ordinary person traveled from his waist and abdomen into his arms before exploding from his fingertips!

"Hah!"

With a low roar, strength comparable to the peak of human ability erupted from him without restraint!

With a teeth-grating creak, the bear trap that Gabe Jones could not handle even with a crowbar was forcibly pried open by Chu Hang's bare hands, inch by inch!

Gabe Jones stared dumbfounded at the scene, his mouth wide enough to fit an egg. He had even forgotten the agonizing pain in his leg. He had always thought Chu Hang was merely an Eastern kid with good aim and good luck. But the strength he was displaying now... this was simply not something a human could possess!

"Click!"

With one final crisp sound, the trap's spring was forcibly stretched to its limit and jammed in place.

Sweating profusely, Chu Hang released his hands and panted heavily. His arms ached terribly, as if they were about to dislocate. This thing had far more force than he had imagined.

"Quick, pull your leg out!" he shouted at Gabe, who was still staring blankly.

Gabe snapped back to his senses and hurriedly pulled his mangled left leg from the steel fangs.

The instant he pulled out his leg, Chu Hang let go weakly. The two iron jaws snapped shut again with a loud bang, the sound echoing through the cave and sending chills down their spines.

Gabe looked at his still-bleeding leg, then at the horrifying bear trap on the ground, and finally turned his gaze to the panting Chu Hang. His eyes were filled with gratitude and... awe.

"Chu... you..."

"Don't say any more for now." Chu Hang waved a hand and pulled a first-aid kit from his backpack. "I'll treat your wound first. This place isn't safe. We need to leave as soon as possible."

He tore open Gabe's trouser leg. Even he could not help sucking in a breath at the sight of those deep wounds, where bone was visible. He rinsed away the dirty blood with clean water, sprinkled on hemostatic powder, and then tightly wrapped the injuries with bandages, layer after layer.

After finishing all that, he was exhausted as well and dropped onto the ground.

He took out the remaining half block of compressed biscuits and his canteen from his backpack, handing them to Gabe. "Eat something first. Get your strength back."

Gabe did not stand on ceremony. He took them and wolfed them down.

For the moment, peace returned to the cave, with only the sounds of the two men chewing and breathing.

The joy of surviving the disaster did not last long before an even more pressing problem presented itself to Chu Hang.

Gabe's leg was injured too severely. Forget fighting—he could barely even walk now.

And in his mind, the cooldown countdown belonging to the [Superpower Copier] was clearly displayed—remaining time: 3 days 3 hours.

He had to find Captain America within three days and "touch" him.

But now...

Chu Hang glanced at Gabe Jones beside him, who could not even stand, then looked toward the bottomless darkness outside the cave.

Damn it, this was just great.

What had originally been a solo stealth survival mode had now been forcibly turned into a two-player escort-the-wounded mode. The difficulty of this game had increased by more than several times.