This assassin is upright

Chapter 449 Encounters Beneath the Ruins

"call…"

Shining its searchlight into the darkness, the mouse couldn't help but complain, "This place is really hard to get around in."

"Boss, is there anything good around here?"

"Quiet down," Black Hawk said in a deep voice. "Don't forget, we already have people in here."

"What if they hear a sound and come back?"

"Ok."

The mouse covered its mouth and stopped talking, only asking Black Hawk a question with its eyes.

Black Hawk's sharp eyes quickly scanned the surroundings.

His special eyes were able to see clearly even in the darkness, and he could "see" the nearby building structures to some extent.

This is undoubtedly a huge advantage for the excavation team, and it is also the source of Black Hawk's confidence in establishing the Black Hawk team.

“There should be a lot of stuff over there, but we need to watch our step and our surroundings,” Black Hawk said in a deep voice. “There are broken building structures everywhere here, and one wrong step could result in being pricked by exposed steel bars.”

The others nodded in unison.

"Yu Zhun, you go ahead of me." Tie Ta patted Yu Zhun on the shoulder, chuckled, and whispered, "Usually during explorations, I bring up the rear."

"That way, if you encounter any danger, I can lend a hand."

"Okay." Yu Zhun nodded slightly and walked from the back of the line to the front of the iron tower.

After spending this time together, he has developed a basic trust in the other members of the team, and at least he can entrust his back to them.

Although it was his first time entering the ruins of an old era, Yu Zhun had experienced even more rugged places before, so holding a searchlight, his steps were steady and he never made a mistake.

On the contrary, the rat walking in front of him stumbled several times, only to be caught by Wolf Fang, who was with him, thus averting danger.

Stumbling and falling, the group successfully reached the area targeted by Black Hawk.

This is a relatively flat and open area, but the ground is still covered with various debris. In the corner, there is a broken plaque with only the beautifully written character "德" (virtue) remaining.

Upon seeing the plaque, the mouse's eyes lit up instantly.

"It's Draco Jewelry!"

He couldn't help but exclaim, "This was the most prestigious jewelry store in the old days before the catastrophe, with branches in most shopping malls."

"I'm absolutely certain there's plenty of jewelry around here!"

At this point, the mouse couldn't help but give the black hawk a thumbs up.

"The captain is amazing!"

"Hurry up, let's finish searching this area as soon as possible." Black Hawk's lips curled up slightly, clearly in a good mood.

Everyone immediately got to work.

The mouse, along with Yu Zhun, rummaged through chests and cabinets searching for jewelry, while also teaching him his techniques: "Try to take gold."

"This is the most valuable thing; the others aren't worth much."

"Is this worthless too?" Yu Zhun picked up a string of exquisite-looking jewelry necklace and couldn't help but ask.

“Hey, you’ve come to the right person.” The rat chuckled. “Before the cataclysm, a necklace like this would probably be worth a fortune.”

“But now…” the rat shook its head, “only the big shots in the city would be interested in this kind of thing, and the price they offer is very low.”

"Gold is the real hard currency. This precious metal can be used in a variety of precision processes and is valuable no matter where it is placed."

As he spoke, the mouse found another gold brick and stuffed it into his pocket.

Seeing this, Yu Zhun didn't hesitate and quickly searched through boxes and cabinets for gold.

Soon, a short whistle rang out from outside the jewelry store ruins.

That was the signal from the Wolf Fang guards on lookout duty, indicating that some unexpected changes might have occurred, so a reunion was necessary.

"It's time to go." The mouse glanced reluctantly at the ruins that were still mostly unexplored, then pulled Yu Zhun and turned to leave.

As they stepped out of the jewelry store, they saw Wolf Fang and Black Hawk standing together in a corner, their expressions somewhat serious.

"Boss, why are we gathering?" Noticing the heavy atmosphere, Mouse lowered his voice.

"I just searched the area and found this."

As Black Hawk spoke, he pointed with his unsheathed longsword to a small black box at his feet that had been cut in half. The components inside the black box looked both delicate and rough, completely different from the creations of the old era.

"Let me see." The mouse picked up the small black box that had been split in two, and after examining it, its face immediately darkened.

"This is a marker with location and listening capabilities."

He quickly disassembled it and then said, "It was opened not long ago; it must have been left behind by the group of people who went in before us."

“It seems they’ve been here before and marked this jewelry store.” Black Hawk nodded slightly. “When I discovered it, I acted immediately, but inevitably some noise was still made.”

"Now that the machines have been destroyed, the other side should have already noticed." Black Hawk then changed the subject, "How many have they found?"

"Not bad. Yu Zhun and I together should have two or three jin." The rat chuckled. "Two or three jin of gold, that's a huge profit."

"Hide this gold for now," Black Hawk said in a deep voice. "The enemy has located us, so we need to be prepared for them to come back for us at any time. Carrying this gold is too much of a burden."

"I understand." The rat nodded, put the gold he and Yu Zhun had found together, and then its short body nimbly moved through the narrow gaps in the ruins, returning empty-handed in no time.

Even Yu Zhun couldn't see where the other party had hidden the gold.

"Let's go." Black Hawk locked onto the next direction and led the group carefully through the ruins once again.

The further down they went, the wetter and slipperier the ground became, and the more complex the terrain became. Yu Zhun frowned and spoke up as he smelled the stench permeating the air.

"Would there be any living things in the ruins?"

"It's hard to say." The rat shrugged. "The cataclysm destroyed a lot of things, but there may be living things left in the ruins of the old era. After so many years of evolution, they have become unpredictable."

“We’ve been to another mall before, and there are quite a few polluted beasts there.” The rat grinned as it spoke.

"It seems that it was because there were several pet shops in that mall. After the cataclysm, those pets underwent uncontrollable mutations, mated and reproduced with each other, and eventually turned the entire ruins into a den of polluted beasts."

“That time was indeed very dangerous.” Wolf Fang couldn’t help but interject, “We only explored the outer area and encountered several medium-sized polluting beasts. In the end, we didn’t dare to go any further and retreated directly.”

“However, apart from that one time, we rarely encounter a large number of living creatures in the ruins,” Eiffel Tower added with a smile.

“For most creatures, such a dark environment is uninhabitable.” Iron Tower paused slightly. “So, Yu Zhun, why did you suddenly ask this question?” “It’s just a little strange.” Yu Zhun shone his searchlight on the area beneath his feet. It was a patch of slippery, dark moss-like plants that covered almost everything he could see. “The further we went in, the more of this stuff seemed to appear.”

“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Black Hawk said calmly. “It must be some kind of special moss or fungus that can live in the dark.”

“Places like shopping malls would not lack various foods before the catastrophe, and once these foods become moldy, they can easily become a breeding ground for fungi.”

"After the cataclysm, an abnormal force swept across the entire world, causing countless creatures to mutate. It's normal for something like this to appear."

Yu Zhun nodded slightly, then suddenly spoke.

"So, what exactly is a catastrophe?"

Upon hearing this question, everyone fell silent for a moment.

"It's hard to say," the mouse shook its head.

"Hundreds of years have passed since the destruction of the old era. Almost all the people who actually experienced the catastrophe are dead. Even if there are still some who can prolong their lives with technological means, they must have become important figures, beyond our reach."

There are many different theories about what a catastrophe is.

"Some say that people in the old era developed weapons capable of destroying everything, and then buried their opponents and themselves together in a war. The terrible radiation from those weapons is the cause of all the anomalies."

"Some say that a special virus destroyed everything, and that this virus causes all living things to undergo special mutations."

“Some people also said…” the rat paused slightly, “that people in the old days encountered a group of terrible enemies, and in order to fight them, they had to use methods that were almost mutually destructive.”

“But whatever the circumstances, one thing is certain,” the rat shrugged. “The old era was countless times more powerful than the present, yet they were still utterly wiped out by a cataclysm, leaving only…”

He stomped his foot. "So many things."

“But these things don’t matter to us.” The mouse chuckled, regaining its relaxed demeanor. “After all, we excavation teams are like outlaws, living a precarious life in the wild.”

"Being able to live through each 'today' is the greatest blessing."

Yu Zhun nodded slightly, his gaze fixed on a certain point in the void.

After killing two members of the excavation team, he was able to vaguely sense a connection between himself and something distant in the depths of the Void Realm. Although this connection was still extremely weak, it constantly reminded him of the ultimate purpose of this third-stage trial.

Based on our current understanding of this world, even after hundreds of years since the cataclysm, the population has not recovered due to external dangers such as the polluted beasts. It is now only one percent of what it was before the cataclysm.

The number of kills required to toll the death knell for a world is terrifying. Yu Zhun even doubted that even if he killed everyone in the world, he still wouldn't be able to meet the conditions for tolling the death knell.

Therefore, the way to sound the death knell is not necessarily through murder.

After all, the criteria for killing can include other things besides people.

That's why Yu Zhun asked that question, wanting to understand the truth of the disaster in order to decide what he should do.

Unfortunately, as a first-tier evolved being, he is still a long way from uncovering the truth of this world.

Thinking of this, Yu Zhun looked into the depths of the ruins.

Joining the excavation team was definitely a good decision.

After all, digging into the remnants of the past is the best way to understand the truth.

"what--"

A barely audible scream came from a distance in front of them.

In an instant, all five members of the Black Hawk team stopped in their tracks, their expressions turning serious.

"What's going on?" The mouse looked somewhat surprised and uncertain. "Wasn't it said that only one team came in?"

"Could it be some kind of trap? Or is there infighting?"

“This is generally good news for us,” Black Hawk said calmly. “Our adversaries seem to be in trouble.”

"Come on, let's go take a look."

As he spoke, Black Hawk quickened his pace.

The group followed closely behind, cautiously alert to everything in the darkness around them, and quickly headed towards the direction from which the screams came.

Passing through an extremely narrow area, Yu Zhun leaned against a crooked low wall and slung his body over a narrow gap that could barely accommodate one person. Feeling the unpleasantly slippery texture in his hand, his brows furrowed again.

There's more and more of that slippery stuff.

For some reason, even though Black Hawk had given an explanation, he still felt that things weren't that simple.

After all, they were getting closer and closer to the direction from which the screams were coming, and the closer they got, the more and more of these slippery black things appeared.

“Fungi or mosses…” Yu Zhun’s eyes narrowed.

A somewhat frightening idea suddenly popped into his mind.

Just as this thought crossed his mind, a low shout from Black Hawk suddenly rang out from ahead, "Everyone, be careful!"

The moment he finished speaking, the rat's angry curses rang out.

"Holy crap, what the hell is this?!"

Yu Zhun felt the slippery thing under his feet wriggle. When he turned the searchlight to his feet, a terrifying scene instantly came into view: countless tentacles emerging from the black thing, spreading towards Yu Zhun's feet as if to devour him whole.

Under the spotlight, the tentacles' wriggling suddenly stopped, as if everything had been paused.

But before Yu Zhun could breathe a sigh of relief, a slight noise from above made him feel alarmed.

He suddenly pointed the searchlight at the top of his head, and the dense black things above him kept extending their tentacles toward him, the longest of which almost touched his face.

As the searchlight shone on them, the dark object above stopped.

But almost at the same time, Yu Zhun felt the slippery surface under his feet wriggle again.

"This thing is sensitive to light! Close your eyes!" Black Hawk growled, quickly pulling something from his pocket and slamming it to the ground.

"boom--"

With a loud bang, Yu Zhun, who had his eyes closed, vaguely heard a scream. When he opened his eyes again, he hurriedly used a searchlight to check his surroundings. The black things had completely disappeared.

“This thing is very strange.” Iron Tower said in a muffled voice, while raising one of his arms. There were some reddish marks on his arm, left from when he was entangled by those black tentacles.

"After it touches my body, it can suck blood and has a narcotic effect similar to that of a leech, so that the person being sucked will not feel anything at all."

"If nothing unexpected happens, the screams we just heard should have come from the guy who ambushed our men ahead of us," Black Hawk said in a deep voice. "They've gone deeper than us, and we don't know if anyone is still alive."

A chill ran through everyone.

(End of this chapter)