It was supposed to be a casual game, but the Long March dungeon brought tears to everyone's eye

"Buzz—"

The tinnitus subsided, and the sensory system returned to normal.

Kuang Ge opened his eyes and instinctively tried to wrap his cotton-padded coat tighter around himself.

The muscle memory he developed in the snow mountain instance made him feel that as soon as he opened his eyes, blizzards as sharp as knives would rush into his collar.

But this time, there was no cold wind.

A moist, warm air, mixed with the earthy smell and the fragrance of grass, suddenly rushed into my nostrils.

"Achoo!"

Ruan Ruan sneezed and rubbed her eyes blankly.

"this……"

Crazy Brother was stunned.

Hawkeye was also stunned.

Even if they've seen it in the PV and are mentally prepared, the visual impact is still astonishing when they actually experience it.

green.

An endless expanse of green.

The sky was as blue as a giant crystal, with a few white clouds lazily hanging on the horizon.

Beneath our feet lies lush pasture grass, waist-high, which rustles softly as the wind blows, sending waves of green grass surging toward the horizon.

Unidentified wildflowers, red, yellow, and purple, dotted the grass, looking just like the promotional photos of those popular campsites.

"Holy crap..."

Kuang Ge looked down at his feet.

No longer is it hard, piercing, ancient ice, but soft, moist black soil.

Stepping on it felt like stepping on a giant, water-soaked sponge, with dirty water seeping out from the roots of the grass.

"The image quality is terrible..."

Hawkeye crouched down and twirled a blade of grass between his fingers.

The fingertips felt a real roughness, and the unique sap-like texture of plants.

"With this scale of vegetation rendering, each blade of grass has an independent physical collision volume..." Hawkeye looked up into the distance, his pupils slightly contracting, "and the viewing distance has been extended to infinity."

In the snow mountain episode, because of poverty, Luo An used a blizzard to obscure the distant view.

But here, Luo An seems to be "flaunting his wealth".

At the edge of the field of vision, two long, winding dragons were slowly wriggling in this green ocean.

That's a person.

There were tens of thousands of people, dressed in tattered military uniforms and carrying all sorts of strange equipment.

The line stretched for miles, with no end in sight.

This scene left millions of viewers in the live stream speechless.

Previously, in the snow-capped mountains, what they saw was just a microcosm of a class or a company.

Now, for the first time, they directly felt the weight of the words "Expeditionary Force".

"That old scoundrel Luo... he's struck it rich."

Kuang Ge muttered to himself, looking at the spectacular team backdrop.

"Finally, they've decided to hire extras."

But he soon stopped laughing.

Because this huge group was too quiet.

Tens of thousands of soldiers marched, yet not a single sound could be heard.

Only the dull sound of footsteps, the "pop, pop" of feet pulling out of the mud, gathered into a suppressed low-frequency noise that made one's heart tremble.

"Let's go find the old squad leader."

Kuang Ge tightened the cooking pot on his back.

That pot is still the same one from the snow-capped mountain, but the bottom has been chipped flat.

But in this humid and hot environment, there is a strange sense of security.

Following the system's guidance, the three quickly found the familiar number in the middle to rear of the group.

"Class monitor!"

Ruanruan, with her sharp eyes, spotted that familiar figure at a glance. She called out with a sob in her voice and, ignoring the mud on the ground, stumbled and ran over.

Upon hearing the shout, the figure who was looking down to check the footprints of the soldiers in front of him paused for a moment.

The old squad leader turned around.

At this moment, the cotton-padded coat that had frozen into an iron armor in the snow-capped mountains was gone, replaced by a single garment covered in patches.

The empty sleeve was still tucked into the waistband.

But his face was no longer the bluish-black from being frozen, but rather a sallow yellow from long-term malnutrition, with high cheekbones and sunken eye sockets.

Seeing that the three of them, including Kuang Ge, were all standing there unharmed, the old squad leader's cloudy eyes lit up instantly.

That look in his eyes was like that of an old father seeing his lost child suddenly return home.

But he didn't shout like he did in the snow-capped mountains, nor did he give an excited hug.

He just smiled.

The smile was faint, carrying an indescribable weariness, yet it exuded a reassuring composure.

"You're back?"

The old squad leader's voice was hoarse, as if he had a handful of sand in his throat.

He looked up and down at the pot on Kuang Ge's back, then at the old sleeve in Hawkeye's hand, and finally his gaze fell on Ruan Ruan's straw sandals that were not yet covered in mud.

"Good."

"None of them were lost."

"It's good that it wasn't lost."

Kuang Ge felt a lump in his throat, but then suddenly realized that the old squad leader had changed.

The old squad leader spoke with great emotion, unlike the rigid style of Tencent games.

But the old squad leader now seems to have learned to "think".

He would occasionally look up at the gathering dark clouds on the horizon, his brows furrowing unconsciously into a deep frown.

He would look down at the puddles by the roadside, his eyes no longer filled with simple determination, but with a hint of worry.

"That old bastard Luo's AI module..." Hawkeye exclaimed in a low voice, "His micro-expression capture is terrifying."

It's so terrifying that they're finding it increasingly difficult to treat the old squad leader as an NPC.

Just then, the old squad leader seemed to remember something.

He turned around and pulled out three sticks from beside the tattered food bag.

They were three branches, about the thickness of a wrist, broken off from some dead tree. The bark had been worn smooth, clearly indicating that they had been carefully treated.

"Here you go." The old squad leader handed the sticks to the three men.

"What's this?" Crazy Brother took the stick; it felt heavy in his hand. "A dog-beating stick?"

"This is your fate."

The old squad leader looked at the seemingly peaceful and beautiful grassland in front of him, and his eyes became solemn.

He didn't explain much, but simply gripped his own stick tightly and slammed it down heavily on the soft, damp grass.

puff.

With a muffled thud, the stick sank halfway into the soil, bringing out a stream of black water.

"In this godforsaken place, guns don't work, and neither do legs."

The old squad leader raised his head and looked up at the almost unreal blue sky above.

"Only this stick works."

The team set off.

For the first kilometer or two, nothing unexpected happened.

Just as advertised in the PV video, the scenery here is breathtaking.

The ground beneath my feet was a soft meadow, like walking on a thick wool carpet, with a slight bounce with every step.

A gentle breeze rustled through the waist-high wild grass, creating waves that filled the air with the fragrance of grass and earth, a far cry from the biting chill of the snow-capped mountains.

"To be honest, if we don't consider that it's the path we're going to take, this place is really suitable for a picnic."

Ruan Ruan walked in the middle of the group, her tense mood easing slightly.

She looked at a small purple flower by the roadside, a color she had never seen before in the black and white world of the snow-capped mountains.

A girl's love of beauty made her subconsciously deviate from the footprints left by the old squad leader and take a step to the side.

"Ruan Ruan, don't run around!"

Hawkeye walked ahead, poking the ground with a stick in his hand, and gave a reminder without turning his head.

"Although there haven't been any avalanches here, the data panel shows extremely high humidity, which might indicate..."

"Okay, I know, I'll just take a look."

She responded with a soft smile.

The flower was on a patch of grass less than half a meter from the main road.

The turf looked thick and lush, a vibrant green, much denser than the surrounding grass.

She stretched out her foot and stepped on it, but it didn't feel solid as she had expected.

The moment my feet touched the lush green grass, a chilling feeling of weightlessness washed over me.

That wasn't land at all; it was a green sheet floating on the water!

"ah--!"

Ruan Ruan didn't even have time to react before her body seemed to fall into the gaping maw of a monstrous beast and sank instantly.

The seemingly sturdy turf instantly shattered, and black silt, as if alive, greedily enveloped her legs and was rapidly spreading upwards.

In the blink of an eye, the mud had already reached above her knees, almost touching her upper thighs.

"Softie!"

The guy walking behind him, Kuang Ge, felt a twitch in his eyelids; his body reacted faster than his brain.

He roared and, carrying a heavy iron pot weighing dozens of kilograms, rushed forward to pull people out.

"Don't move!!"

A loud shout rang out.

It wasn't Hawkeye who shouted, but the old squad leader.

That shout, filled with the murderous aura of someone who had been through countless battles, stunned Brother Kuang to the spot.

"No one is allowed to cross this road! Anyone who crosses it will die!"

The old squad leader's sallow face was now contorted with rage as he stared intently at Kuang Ge.

"You're carrying such a heavy load; one wrong step and you're dead!"

"What do we do then? Watch her sink?!" Madman's eyes turned red with anxiety.

In the time it took to speak, Ruan Ruan had already sunk down to her waist.

The mud was icy cold, and the more you struggled, the tighter it wrapped around you.

Ruan Ruan turned pale with fright and flailed her arms wildly, trying to grab onto the grass beside her.

But those grass roots were pitifully shallow; they would break if you tried to grab them.

"Help me... Madman... Hawkeye..."

With a soft, tearful voice, she felt the immense suction pulling her toward hell.

"Lie down! Don't move!"

As the old squad leader shouted, he quickly snatched the "dog-beating stick" from Kuang Ge's hand.

Instead of rushing over rashly, he lay down directly on the muddy ground to increase the contact area.

"Put the stick horizontally! Place it across the mud!"

The old squad leader roared at Ruan Ruan, who was already terrified.

"Grab the stick! Don't try to pull your leg away with brute force!"

"Use the stick to flatten your body, like you're swimming!"