After arriving near the entrance, Yuan Tianxing and the others got off the vehicles before walking straight to the edge of the entrance. The entrance was over ten meters long. Shining the flashlights into the cave, they saw the road leading downward and the dark cave.
Yuan Tianxing and the others tied the anti-poison respirator around their waists, armed themselves to the teeth, then set their feet into the cave. They brought the anti-poison respirators in case there might be poisonous gas down in the cave.
They looked around as they carefully moved downward. They lightened the cave with flashlights and kept moving while observing the cave. Old Guo followed behind the others. While walking, he felt the rock face with his fingers and carefully looked around.
As same as him, Yuan Tianxing had also been closely observing the rock face or the roof of the cave. Both the roof and the rock face were rough; many claw marks could even be seen on them. Only the ground was relatively smooth, probably trodden flat by the underground creatures who lived in the cave.
After spending about half an hour walking, Yuan Tianxing took out the simple map that Yun Meng drew for him and looked at it. After that, he soon entered the round, large room marked on the map. As the map had shown, the room was connected with many tunnels.
Before Yuan Tianxing and his people came into the cave, Yun Meng talked to him about the structure of the cave and also told him to choose the largest tunnel to walk into, so they wouldn't be lost too easily.
The cave was all quiet. Except for their own footsteps and voices, they could hear nothing.
"Damn! Those gorillas are so good at burrowing. What are they? Rats? Rabbits? They don't look like rats or rabbits. Why do they look like gorillas?" Standing in the large room and looking at the entrances of the seven or eight tunnels, Lin Yu sighed with surprise.
"Their claws can easily cut through metal. Creating tunnels isn't a problem for them at all. They live underground and can barely see light though. No wonder they have no eyes. Actually, I heard from the lab that they have eyes. It's just that their eyes are covered by their eyelids," Li Zheng shone his flashlight around and then asked Yuan Tianxing, "Which tunnel are we taking?"
"This one," Yuan Tianxing pointed at the largest tunnel. Soon, the group of people and zombies walked into that tunnel.
Feng Yuming vigilantly stayed by Lin Yu's side. He wasn't paying attention on the cave at all, but on the zombies who came into the cave along with him and his friends. He told himself not to look at them, but he couldn't help to observe them from the corners of his eyes, especially the zombie old man who frightened him before.
…
At that time, Lin Qiao had harvested quite some nuclei at level six or seven that belonged to mutated plants or beasts. She had also caught a few level-six zombies on her way. Currently, she was pursuing a level-seven zombie. The ones who gave out a strong blood scent had all been killed by her. Only the relatively mild ones were captured alive.
The zombie dominator she was pursuing now possessed wind and sand power. Lin Qiao planned to kill him, because the hostility and blood scent coming from that zombie was both too strong. The awful scent emitted from its body could be sensed from about a hundred meters away.
"I can say for sure that Chief wants to kill him because he smells terrible!" Jingyan, who was in a group action together with Yan Xiao, said to her partner while watching Lin Qiao fighting the sand storm.
By group action, they were actually sent to the side to watch. After all, they were only at level five or six. Facing a level-seven enemy, they couldn't be helpful at all.
The zombie dominator had sand power. He was able to turn soil into quicksand and create a sandstorm so great that could even connect the sky and the earth.
Standing on a rock nearby, Jingyan watched Lin Qiao wave a hand and release an enormous stream of black fire. The fire transformed into a black dragon and bumped straight into the sand storm.
Boom! The sandstorm was dissipated easily, the sand and dust falling all over the sky.
"I think this zombie dominator should have eaten a lot of humans. The bloody scent coming from him is so strong!" Jingyan slightly raised her head and expressionlessly looked at the sand covering the sky.
"Humans… The poor people he ate were either from Green Mountain Base or Sky Fire Base." Those two bases were the nearest bases from that area.
"I guess he used to live near Sky Fire Base or Hidden Cloud City Base. He was probably attracted here by the level-nine man's nucleus," said Jingyan.
Lin Qiao covered her mouth and nose and swiftly flashed into her space to dodge the stand storm. She didn't want to be covered by sand.
In the space, she narrowed her eyes to observe the zombie dominator. She saw him running fleetingly, but being stopped by Ye Qingxian, Six, and Mo. The three blocked his way, but weren't able to hurt him.
The zombie dominator soon freed himself from Ye Qingxian's green vines and instead wrapped the vines up with a thick layer of sand before wringing them into ashes. The earth wall that Six created was easily broken by the sharp sand thorn that the zombie had built. Mo flashed across the air and sent a few short metal spears toward the zombie. Thankfully, they were in a town, and there were plenty of metal objects for her to use.
But, the level-seven zombie turned his body slightly to dodge the spears.
Lin Qiao turned herself invisible and flashed out of the space before flying at the zombie. Within a blink, she showed up before it and reached her claw toward his neck.
The level-seven zombie looked a little ferocious. His lips had fallen off, exposing his gums. His teeth were stained with dark-red blood, but were still shining with a cold light. His mouth cracked from ear to ear, and half of his nose was cut off. His eye area was so dark that he looked like a ghost.
Lin Qiao reached out and accurately grasped his neck, then showed her face. Next, she swiftly inserted her other hand into the zombie's head and pushed upward, cutting off its skull.
"Roar!" The zombie dominator only managed to utter a painful roar before he lost the strength to fight back. His skull was cut off, and he was so dead already.
Lin Qiao dug out his nucleus, then brought out a cup of water from her space and washed the nucleus in it.
"Alright. It's about the time to go and meet with the others," Lin Qiao threw the nucleus into her space, then poured the water away and said to her friends.
Ye Qingxian and the others flashed to her side. Lin Qiao brought them to the road and took out the vehicles, subsequently driving toward the cliff. They also planned to conveniently visit Green Mountain Base on their way back.
As they arrived at the crossroad near the cliff, Lin Qiao hopped onto the car roof and gave a series of roar. The black panther on a tree, who was resting with his eyes closed, immediately opened his eyes and leaped off the tree.
"Let's go! Chief and the others are at the mountain foot."
Not far away from the tree, Duan Juan and Shui Mingjun both turned to him. The two of them quickly stood up to pack their things and prepare to leave.