Escaping Danger

Li Qinwu charged forward with his Autogun raised. The rats ahead of him screamed in terror and fled backward, throwing the scene into chaos.

Whenever the rats in front ran too slowly, Li Qinwu fired two- or three-round bursts, killing seven or eight of them.

He kept charging forward, killing as he went. More than a thousand people were sent fleeing in every direction by him alone.

After charging forward several dozen meters, Li Qinwu looked back and breathed a sigh of relief. Little Joel's parents were not stupid; they had listened to his instructions and stayed close behind him.

With that, he charged and killed even faster, intending to break through the rats' encirclement with the family in one go.

Rats were cowardly. If you appeared strong enough, they would be frightened by you.

Rats also forgot pain as soon as they ate. Show even the slightest weakness, and they would swarm you, gnawing you until not even your bones remained!

That was why Li Qinwu was in such a hurry. He had to lead Little Joel's family out in one breath!

As long as they broke beyond the rats' encirclement, no rat would dare chase after them.

There were still nearly a thousand prisoners at the Great Elevator's entrance. Those nutrients were more than enough for the rats to digest; there was no need to gnaw on a tough bone like him.

Most of the rats thought the same way. Once Li Qinwu, this god of slaughter, had intimidated them into giving way, they stopped paying attention to him and turned their gazes toward the thousand soft targets at the Great Elevator's entrance.

But do not forget, this was the Lower Hive. Life here was unbearably oppressive and dangerous. Nothing was strange in the Lower Hive, and lunatics driven mad by life's oppression were one of the more common species!

Li Qinwu suddenly heard something slicing through the air from his left. He ducked instinctively, and a spinning steel pipe flew over his head.

He flew into a rage and looked left. A bald man wielding a machete was charging at him, bringing the blade down toward his face.

The bald man had no reason whatsoever to trouble Li Qinwu. Li Qinwu's gunshots had simply been too loud and caught his attention, and he happened to want to kill someone. That was all.

For that simple reason, he had jumped out and attacked Li Qinwu, wanting to chop off Li Qinwu's head and kick it around like a ball.

Li Qinwu was in a hurry to leave and had no desire to be entangled with him. He raised his hand and fired, blowing the bald man's head apart.

He wanted to keep running, but a woman's cry came from behind him. It was Little Joel's mother.

In the few seconds Li Qinwu had spent dealing with the bald man, another idiot had rushed out for some unknown reason and, without a word, tried to snatch the child from Joel's mother's arms.

Joel's mother screamed in fright and clutched the child tightly, refusing to let him be taken.

Li Qinwu cursed, picked up the bald man's machete from the ground, and rushed before the lunatic trying to steal the child. He raised the blade high and brought it down hard, chopping off both of the lunatic's hands.

The lunatic howled in agony as blood sprayed from his severed wrists, frightening Joel's mother into backing away again and again.

Li Qinwu swung again, severing the lunatic's neck. His head rolled straight onto the ground!

At that moment, greed appeared once more in the eyes of the surrounding rats as they looked at Li Qinwu's group. An Autogun was a treasure in the Lower Hive!

If someone had an Autogun and a little ability, they could use it to become the leader of a gang of more than ten people. Well, it was one way to change their fate!

The rats who had just run away began surrounding them again, eager to make a move. That was how they were: terrified one moment, then ready to gamble their lives for something the next!

Li Qinwu realized things had gone bad. Those few seconds of delay had stirred up the rats' desires again!

But his mind worked extremely fast. With 16 points of energy, he instantly analyzed the best way to break the situation!

He fired every remaining bullet in his Autogun in one direction, killing dozens of people and blasting open a path there.

Then he grabbed the sling and hurled the Autogun toward the area near the path he had just cleared.

The Autogun traced an arc through the air, instantly drawing the attention of every rat present.

They lunged for the gun like madmen, hacking at and killing one another as they fought for it, creating a huge patch of chaos.

Next, Li Qinwu took out the semiautomatic pistol Lieutenant Rudosen had given him and shoved it into the hands of Little Joel, who had just regained consciousness in the wheelchair. Pointing at the Clean Water Guild at the end of the path, he roared:

"Run over there! Don't stop! Don't look back!

Run all the way there, find the person in charge of the Clean Water Guild, and give them my name. They'll protect you!!"

As he spoke, he ignored whatever the others thought and slammed a fist into Little Joel's father's shoulder.

"Run!!"

Little Joel's father hardened his resolve, let out a shout, and pushed the wheelchair into a run. Little Joel's mother ran with her head down, clutching the younger brother in her arms.

Little Joel gripped the pistol with both hands in the wheelchair, crying as he fired at the people ahead.

Li Qinwu followed behind the three with the machete in hand. Whenever anyone came close, he rushed over and hacked and stabbed wildly, killing four or five people in the blink of an eye.

He was like the Joel family's mayfly cannon, killing on the outskirts of the group and preventing those mad rats from getting close!

Under his protection, the Clean Water Guild drew nearer and nearer. All of them were about to escape alive!

But at that moment, an accident occurred!

A gunshot rang out from the swarm of rats. Li Qinwu, who had been hacking madly, was shot in the abdomen. The bullet punched straight through his stomach, making him stagger mid-run and roll across the ground.

That single fall separated Li Qinwu from Little Joel's family. After the surrounding rats let Little Joel's family pass, they surged toward Li Qinwu.

The instant he fell, Li Qinwu hurriedly forced himself back to his feet. He gripped the machete in his right hand and touched the bullet hole in his abdomen with his left, gritting his teeth from the pain.

When he raised his head again, he faced hundreds of pairs of greedy, bloodthirsty eyes.

These Lower Hive rats held steel pipes or machetes, watching him eagerly as though they would rush up and devour him the next second.

But Li Qinwu was not afraid in the slightest. He burst into loud laughter and charged straight at the rats ahead.

Gripping the machete with both hands, he brought it down brutally and split open the head of a rat who had no time to react, sending its eyeballs popping from their sockets.

Then he followed through with a horizontal slash, dragging the blade across the neck of a rat to his left and cutting through the man's windpipe.

After that, the rats rushing in from every direction pounced on him and knocked him down.

The rats swung all manner of weapons at Li Qinwu. Until the very moment of his death, Li Qinwu kept thrusting upward with his machete, wounding and killing four or five more people before he was beaten into pulp.