Dare to shirk responsibility? This adorable little one will tear down your military district!

Hearing Lao Ma's cries, Gu Changfeng pulled out the triangular military dagger hanging on his outside thigh and used the steel tip to forcefully slash two lines on the edge of the black granite.

With a harsh metallic scraping sound, only two very faint white marks were left on the heavy rock weighing several thousand kilograms.

Gu Changfeng snorted coldly, "This damn rock is indeed hard; it really could be killed by pouring mud and molten iron on it. Old Ma, you just said that those gold prospectors couldn't even break it with their hundred-pound sledgehammers?"

Old Ma huddled on the sand dune behind him, banging his head against the ground like he was pounding garlic: "Commander, we really can't break it! This is black gold stone, several times stronger than a lump of iron! This is the gate to the underworld, how can a living person open it so easily? They'll be punished!"

"Shut your beak right now!" Platoon Leader Li had just been pulled out of the quicksand pit by Ya Ya, and now all he could think about was repaying her kindness and making a good impression.

He tossed the semi-automatic rifle behind him, glared at Old Ma, and said, "Can't break it? That's because those bumpkins haven't seen the tough stuff we have!"

Gu Changfeng waved his hand and ordered sharply, "Xiao Li, go to the truck and get the TNT blocks we brought! If two packs aren't enough, get four! I refuse to believe that these few thousand pounds of broken rocks can be harder than military-grade high explosives!"

Xiao Li responded loudly and beckoned the two sharpshooters to run back quickly. A moment later, the three of them brought out several thick, yellow parcels from the supply crate. Tearing open the waterproof paper, they revealed square blocks of high explosives inside.

Ya Ya stood to the side, stretching out her chubby little hand and pointing at the grotesque, blue-faced demon carved on the big black rock. In her childish voice, she cried out, "Dad! Put in more gunpowder! This demon face is so ugly, it hurts my eyes! Blow it into pieces so we can go inside and get the big yellow croaker!"

As Gu Changfeng listened to his daughter's innocent words, his resolute face was filled with boundless indulgence. He bent down, stretched out his long arm, and scooped the five-and-a-half-year-old Ya Ya up from the scorching sand, holding her steadily in the crook of his arm with one hand.

"Alright, Dad's on my daughter's orders today. Blow this ugly thing to smithereens!" Gu Changfeng turned and shouted at Platoon Leader Li, who was stuffing explosives into the cracks in the rocks, "Did you hear what my daughter said? Give us plenty of explosives!"

Lin Wanrou stood aside and sighed repeatedly. Her husband was decisive and ruthless when leading troops in battle, but when he was in front of this little girl, he completely lost his principles and became a living bodhisattva who would grant any request.

"Changfeng, don't always let her give orders blindly. This explosive is so powerful, what if someone gets hurt if they get too close?" Lin Wanrou stepped forward and grabbed Ya Ya's leg, her face full of disapproval.

Gu Changfeng pressed Ya Ya's head against his broad shoulder, then turned to Lin Wanrou and said, "Wanwan, take Niu Dan and step back, follow me."

Thirty elite soldiers moved swiftly and efficiently. They stuffed four large bags of TNT into the four corners and the gap in the middle of the stone gate, connected the detonators, and pulled out a long fuse.

"Everyone retreat! Spread out and take cover!" Platoon Leader Li shouted at the top of his lungs.

Gu Changfeng protected his wife and daughter, retreating sixty or seventy meters in one breath, and lay down behind a high sand dune. He tore off his large military green overcoat and wrapped Ya Ya and Lin Wanrou tightly under it.

Niu Dan, like a wary wolf cub, crouched to the side, gripping the cast iron boning knife tightly with both hands, his eyes fixed on the altar.

ignition!

The fuse burst into blinding sparks, hissing and burning fiercely all the way, like a small fire snake burrowing into the ground, directly into the crack in the stone beneath the altar.

"Cover your ears! Open your mouth!" Gu Changfeng shouted, his two rough hands pressing down firmly to cover Ya Ya's little ears.

Ya Ya obediently opened her mouth wide. She had seen many such scenes in the apocalypse in her previous life and knew that opening her mouth wide could prevent her lungs from being damaged by the shock wave.

"boom--"

A deafening roar erupted in the center of the ruins. The entire desert seemed to be overturned by this thunderous sound. The yellow sand on the ground was blasted into the sky, forming a pillar of earth tens of meters high.

A powerful shockwave, visible to the naked eye, swept across the sand. The crumbling stone pillars in the temple ruins were all shaken, causing large chunks of rock to fall with a "crackling" sound. The black granite, weighing several thousand kilograms, couldn't withstand the brutal tearing of the military-grade TNT and was directly blasted into more than a dozen pieces of rubble.

With a screeching sound of molten iron breaking apart, the heavy stone gate known as the "Ghost's Mouth" collapsed with a deafening roar.

Pebbles flew in all directions like hail. A fist-sized black rock slammed into the sand pit in front of Gu Changfeng with a whooshing sound, creating a deep crater.

Black smoke and yellow dust mingled in the air, creating a hazy, gray atmosphere. The air was thick with the acrid smell of gunpowder.

It took three or four minutes for the strong winds of the Gobi Desert to disperse some of the dust around the altar. Gu Changfeng shook off the half-pound of sand covering his back, stood up, and squinted as he looked ahead.

The massive black gate, carved with grotesque faces, was completely gone. In its place, a huge, square entrance to a passageway had been blasted open. The entrance was pitch black, like a bottomless maw, its depths unknown.

"Chief of Staff! The gate is open!" Platoon Leader Li rubbed his hands excitedly. He gripped his semi-automatic rifle tightly and strode towards the entrance of the passage, wanting to be the first to scout the way.

Gu Changfeng also strode forward, just about to lead his men to check the condition of the underground palace.

Just then, Niu Dan, who had been squatting silently to the side, suddenly sprang up from the sand like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. He held the cast iron knife horizontally in front of his chest, frantically sucking air in through his nose, his dark face instantly turning purplish-red.

"Don't go over there!" Niu Dan howled like a wolf.

Platoon Leader Li suddenly stopped in his tracks and turned around to look at him blankly.

Niu Dan was so anxious that he didn't even bother to hold the knife steady. He covered his mouth and nose with one hand and pointed at the black hole with the other, shouting, "Poison! The smell down there is wrong! Come back quickly!"

Thirty elite soldiers couldn't smell it, but Niu Dan, who had drunk highly concentrated spiritual spring water, had a sense of smell dozens of times sharper than the big wolfhound Black Wind. Just now, the air was filled with the smell of gunpowder, completely masking the odor rising from underground. Now that the door was fully open, the cold air from underground, mixed with an extremely terrifying stench, rushed up directly.

Niu Dan only caught a tiny whiff of the odor, but it felt like his lungs were being slashed by a blade, the pain bringing tears to his eyes. The smell was not the ordinary stench of a dead rat, but a sickeningly sweet, rotten fruit mixed with the nauseating stench of a moldy, stagnant ditch.

Gu Changfeng had unwavering faith in Niu Dan's animalistic instincts. He had survived countless brushes with death on the battlefield thanks to his keen judgment of danger. Without hesitation, he roared at Platoon Leader Li, "Retreat! Everyone back thirty meters!"

Without saying a word, Platoon Leader Li turned around and ran back as fast as he could.

Less than two seconds after Xiao Li ran away, a large cloud of mist slowly emerged from the entrance to the blasted passage. This mist looked extremely viscous; it wasn't ordinary white water vapor, but rather a deathly yellowish-green.

It was much heavier than ordinary air, and instead of drifting into the sky, it clung to the large bluestone slabs on the ground, slowly spreading outwards like a living venomous snake. Wherever it passed, the few withered camel thorns in the cracks of the stones, upon contact with this yellowish-green mist, instantly turned into a pool of bubbling black water.

The thirty elite soldiers gasped at the horrifying scene. Platoon Leader Li broke out in a cold sweat; if he had actually leaned over and taken a bite, his internal organs would probably be rotten to a pulp by now.

Old Ma, standing far away, saw this and was so terrified that his legs went weak. He knelt on the ground with a thud, pounding the earth and crying, "It's poisonous miasma! This is deathly miasma that has been buried underground for hundreds of years! If you inhale even one breath, your internal organs will turn to blood! Even if a god came, he couldn't save you!"

"Pull up your collars! Wet the rags with water and cover your mouths and noses!" Gu Changfeng remained calm in the face of danger and loudly gave orders to his soldiers. He pressed Ya Ya's head tightly into his coat, afraid that even a tiny bit of the poison gas might drift over with the wind.

Ya Ya nestled comfortably in Gu Changfeng's arms, her big eyes darting around. She had just secretly activated the wood-type ability core within her body to sense the swirling yellow-green mist, and she already knew exactly what was going on.

This wasn't some kind of supernatural phenomenon; it was clearly a highly toxic mixture that had been fermented for hundreds of years by countless piles of rotten wood, poisonous plants, and insects underground, mixed with the stale moisture from underground rivers. She'd seen plenty of this kind of rubbish in the post-apocalyptic rainforest; it would instantly cause massive blisters if it touched her skin.

"Dad, the smell in this cave is awful! It's even worse than the latrine in the next alley!" Ya Ya pinched her little nose, muttering with disgust. "How are we going to find gold in here? The big yellow croakers inside must have been rotten to the bone!"

Gu Changfeng stared at the spreading poisonous miasma, his face as cold as an iron plate. There wasn't a breath of air underground; the poisonous gas had accumulated for countless years. If this miasma wasn't cleared, these dozens of people wouldn't be able to take a single step inside. But where could they find an exhaust fan in this desolate desert?