This Smell Was Way Too Intense!

Chu Hang plunged headfirst into the pitch-black drainage pipe and felt like his whole life had gone dark.

Oh my God, this smell is way too intense!

If the smell outside had only been an appetizer, then now he felt like he had plunged headfirst into a bioweapon vat where aged pickled cabbage and a public toilet had fermented together for eight hundred years. The stench invaded every pore from every direction without a single blind spot, making his eyes stream with tears.

He instinctively wanted to hold his breath, but then he remembered that he was a Super-Soldier now. His lung capacity was incredible; he could hold his breath for more than ten minutes without even breaking a sweat. The problem was, holding his breath couldn't stop that smell from forcing its way into his nose!

The freezing sewage rose past his calves, thick and slimy, and who knew what delightful things were floating in it. Chu Hang only felt something soft beneath his feet, and every now and then, he could feel something slick swimming past his legs.

The moment he thought about what those things might be, his stomach churned violently, and he nearly sprayed the compressed biscuits he had eaten for lunch all over the place.

Suppressing his nausea, he looked up at Steve, who was walking at the front.

Damn, he truly was Captain America. Steve held a small waterproof flashlight in one hand and his precious shield in the other, his back perfectly straight as he stepped through the sewage one stride at a time without splashing much water at all. His expression was as calm as if he were walking through his own backyard. It was almost infuriating. The foul stench that could knock someone unconscious seemed no different to him than fresh country air.

Then he looked at Logan behind him. That man's expression was far more colorful.

Logan's features were practically twisted into a knot. His beast-like sense of smell was practically a curse in an environment like this, and the mental contamination he suffered was probably several times worse than Chu Hang's. An unlit cigar hung from his mouth, while low, rumbling growls continuously rolled from his throat like an enraged bear on the verge of exploding.

"Fuck... this place stinks worse than any bear den I ever dug into in the Canadian woods," Logan finally muttered in a raspy voice.

Chu Hang deeply agreed. This simply wasn't a place for humans. In his previous life, he had thought it looked cool as hell when movie protagonists crawled through ventilation ducts and sewers. Now that it was his turn, he realized movies were all lies. Reality meant enduring stench and claustrophobia while constantly worrying that he might step on something he really shouldn't.

"Stay sharp." Steve's steady, powerful voice came from ahead like a shot of adrenaline, clearing Chu Hang's nearly stink-addled mind somewhat. "Chu Hang, pay attention to the sounds around us. We don't know where this pipe leads or what might be inside."

"Understood." Chu Hang answered, forcing himself to shift his focus away from the nauseating smell and concentrate on his ears.

The Super-Soldier Serum's enhanced hearing came into play again. He closed his eyes, and the sickening odor around him seemed to fade somewhat as countless faint sounds gathered in his mind.

There was the rushing sound of sewage, the drip-drip of water falling from the top of the pipe, and the splashing sounds made by the three of them wading through the water.

Beyond that, he heard something else.

"Something's ahead to the left, about fifty meters away," Chu Hang said quietly.

Steve and Logan immediately stopped and warily looked in the direction he pointed. The flashlight's dim yellow beam couldn't reach that far, and the path ahead remained a stretch of profound darkness.

"What is it?" Steve asked.

"I hear a lot of... tiny crawling sounds, rustling, and something chewing." Chu Hang frowned as he tried to distinguish them. "There are a huge number of them. They sound like... rats, and they're pretty big."

Logan sniffed hard, and his face became even uglier. "He's right. I can smell that piss stink. Fuck, they're some big bastards."

Steve frowned as well. Rats in the sewers weren't unusual, but this many, and this large, was abnormal. In a Hydra base, who knew what strange things they might have created.

"Can we go around them?"

"Probably not." Chu Hang shook his head. "The sounds are coming from across the entire pipe. It seems like they've blocked the way ahead."

Steve fell silent for a moment before making his decision. "Let's go take a look. Stay alert."

The three continued forward. The farther they went, the stronger the rats' distinctive musky stench became. Mixed with the sewer's own foul odor, it created a horrifying smell so indescribable that it could make an ordinary person pass out on the spot.

Soon, Steve's flashlight beam illuminated the scene ahead.

Even though Chu Hang had prepared himself mentally, he still couldn't help drawing in a sharp breath when he saw it.

The pipe ahead was packed with countless black rats. They were several times larger than the rats Chu Hang usually saw, each one about the size of a kitten. Their blood-red eyes glimmered under the flashlight with a savage, greedy light, like countless red gemstones.

They seemed to be gnawing on something, making teeth-grating crunching sounds. At the center of the swarm, he could vaguely see the nearly stripped skeleton of some unknown creature.

"Oh my God..." Chu Hang felt his scalp go numb. If he fell in there, not even bone fragments would remain.

"Fuck! These little bastards!" Logan let out a low growl. He seemed to have an instinctive disgust for these filthy creatures. The veins on the backs of his hands bulged, and he looked ready to pop his claws.

"Don't be rash, Logan!" Steve grabbed his shoulder. "Too much noise will bring the people upstairs down here."

Looking at the nauseating tide of rats before them, he calmly analyzed the situation. "They're just ordinary rats attracted by food. Their bodies probably mutated because of contamination from factory waste. They're afraid of fire."

As he spoke, he took a flare from his tactical backpack and snapped it hard.

Hiss—

With a soft sound, a dazzling red flame instantly ignited in the dark pipe, dyeing everything around them in an eerie blood-red glow.

The rats, which had been baring their teeth and ready to move, immediately reacted as if they had encountered a natural predator the moment they saw the flame. They let out terrified shrieks. The swarm instantly erupted into chaos as countless rats surged like a tide toward the sides and ceiling of the pipe, desperately trying to get away from the flame that terrified them.

Very quickly, a path wide enough for one person to pass through was cleared through the swarm.

"Move!"

Without hesitation, Steve held the burning flare and strode through the "road" formed by the rats.

Chu Hang and Logan followed close behind.

Walking in the middle, Chu Hang felt like Moses parting the sea. Except there was no seawater on either side of him, only countless pairs of red-glowing eyes filled with malice and greed. He could even feel the heat radiating off the rats' bodies and their fear-raised fur brushing against his pant legs.

The feeling was fucking exhilarating.

After passing through the rat swarm without incident, the three walked another hundred meters or so before they reached a fork.

One path led left, and the other right.

"Which way?" Logan was growing impatient. He just wanted to get out of this hellhole as soon as possible.

Steve was also troubled. The map didn't show the sewer layout. Taking the wrong route would not only waste precious time but could also lead them into unknown danger.

"Chu Hang?" Once again, he placed his hopes on Chu Hang.

Chu Hang nodded and closed his eyes again.

This time, he listened even more carefully.

The water sounded stronger in the pipe on the left, and he could vaguely hear a strange humming noise, like some kind of large fan turning.

And in the pipe on the right...

Chu Hang's eyes suddenly snapped open.

"Right!" He pointed at the right-hand passage and spoke with certainty. "I hear... footsteps! And metal clashing! It's above us and slightly to the right! That area should be very close to the factory's interior!"

"Good! We'll go right!" Steve decided immediately.

The three promptly turned and entered the pipe on the right.

This pipe was narrower and drier than the main one, and even the foul smell seemed much weaker. The farther they went, the clearer the sounds Chu Hang heard from above became.

He could hear the synchronized footsteps of what had to be patrolling soldiers.

He could hear the heavy clang of metal doors opening and closing.

He could even hear someone loudly reprimanding something in German.

They were getting closer and closer to their target.

After another two hundred meters or so, Steve, who was in front, suddenly stopped.

"It's a dead end."

Chu Hang leaned forward to look. Ahead of them was a rusty metal ladder extending up from the sewage to a square exit at the top of the pipe, sealed with an iron grate.

They were finally getting out!

A surge of wild joy rose in Chu Hang's heart.

Steve made a quiet gesture, then climbed the ladder as silently as a cat. He pressed himself against the cold pipe wall, brought his ear close to the iron grate, and carefully listened to the sounds outside.

A moment later, he gently nodded at the other two below, then mouthed: Safe.

He gripped the iron grate with both hands, and the muscles in his arms bulged again. This time, he controlled his strength and avoided making too much noise. With only a teeth-grating sound of twisting metal, the seemingly indestructible iron grate was forcibly torn free from the concrete.

A comparatively fresh gust of air rushed in, carrying the smells of machine oil and rust.

Chu Hang and Logan greedily took a breath, feeling as though they had come back to life.

Steve climbed out through the exit first, followed by Chu Hang, then Logan.

When Chu Hang's feet finally landed on solid concrete, he let out a long breath.

They had successfully infiltrated the place.

He looked around and found that they were in a narrow, dim corridor. It seemed to be some underground maintenance passage in the factory. Thick pipes and cables crisscrossed the ceiling, while dim yellow explosion-proof lamps were mounted on the walls at long intervals. The air was filled with damp mildew and a heavy scent of machine oil.

"We're at the factory's northeast corner. This should be the underground level for the boiler room and power system." Steve glanced at an internal layout map hanging on the wall and quickly made his assessment. "The electrical room is one level above us, not far from here."

Just then, Chu Hang's ears twitched.

"Shh!" He suddenly raised a hand and lowered his voice. "Someone's coming! Two people! Their footsteps are heavy, so they should be patrol soldiers wearing heavy combat boots! They're less than thirty meters away!"

As soon as he finished speaking, clear footsteps and German conversation came from around the corner.

Steve and Logan's gazes instantly sharpened.

Steve quickly scanned the surroundings, pointed at a pile of clutter covered by an oilcloth nearby, and made a gesture for them to hide.

The three immediately slipped behind the clutter and held their breaths.

The footsteps drew closer and closer...

Chu Hang's heart rose into his throat. He gripped the MP40 tightly, his palms slick with sweat.

Now things were finally about to get real.