EDEH Chapter 88.1

Ling Gen, who arrived at the scene, only saw the askew wall ladders, Bao Cang holding his waist, and the mercenaries still not recovered from their magical daze.

There were soldiers around, but not many assigned to this area.

“General!”

Ling Gen sensed the relatively gentle movement outside the wall, and the ground vibration wasn’t too obvious. He frowned: “Wasn’t it said that the antlion swarm was about to break through the defense line?”

A deviant pointed to the cracked ground: “It was about to break through.”

Ling Gen: “Was about to?”

Another person said: “Then suddenly an evil dragon burst from the ground, saved Old Bao… and killed a large group of antlions.”

“…” Ling Gen asked: “Did spore clusters come too?”

A soldier replied: “Report, General, no.”

Ling Gen scoffed: “Then how did you all have collective hallucinations?”

“General… there really was an evil dragon, we saw it with our own eyes. All black, tail thick to thin, proportional to body length. When attacking, the wing edges would shoot out spikes, horns like lightning, and fish-scale thin gills…” The soldier hesitated: “General, I’m certain this is the evil dragon clan from the Eye of Paradise.”

The Eye of Paradise had more than just evil dragons, but they were the most famous.

For no other reason than that while other dragons only liked shiny things, evil dragons also liked beautiful humans, regardless of age or gender. If you encountered an evil dragon, there was only one way to survive – be good-looking.

Then you’d be carried off to the dragon’s nest to become a ‘little plaything.’

The evil dragon’s name in the contaminant guide was actually ‘Black Scale Dragon,’ but later their reputation for snatching people spread wider and wider, earning them the title ‘Evil Dragon.’

There had been several survivor cases in history, dating back two to three hundred years.

At that time, a well-built man was carried off to a nest by a female dragon. Most terrifyingly, the female dragon would supervise him bathing in wild ponds and picking contaminated but extremely beautiful flowers to wear on his head.

If he didn’t wear them, she’d stare at him with those pitch-black dragon eyes, as if about to open her bloody maw the next second.

After living precariously for two or three years, the female dragon took a fancy to a more muscular man and lost interest in him, finally allowing him to escape while she was out hunting.

But if the female dragon was still interested in you, even if you fled to the ends of the earth, she’d chase you back.

Once they remembered a person’s scent, they’d remember it for life.

Coincidentally, a hundred years ago, a famous female researcher nearly got captured by an evil dragon while collecting samples at the Eye of Paradise. The specific reason for her fortunate escape wasn’t recorded, but it seemed the dragon died for other reasons.

Such examples were countless, so that while the Black Scale Dragon population was smallest, their notoriety was far-reaching.

Hearing the soldiers and mercenaries speak with consistency, not like hallucinations, Ling Gen instinctively looked back at the distant lighthouse, still standing in the city center, emitting warm yellow light in the night.

He climbed the wall ladder and turned on a strong flashlight to illuminate outside the wall—

A ground full of antlion corpses, all without exception pierced through belly and back, bloody, with no extra wounds.

Ling Gen frowned.

Although evil dragons’ reputation for loving beautiful people was well-known, adding quite a bit of amusement to their image—

In reality, evil dragons were extremely brutal, exceedingly cruel to prey, taking pleasure in torture. This clean, swift hunting method didn’t match their characteristics.

Ling Gen once again looked back at the lighthouse. The sonic dispersal device should still be fine, otherwise he would have received emergency military communications long ago.

But at this moment he still had doubts, contacting aerial patrol to confirm the situation.

“Report, sir, the sonic dispersal device is operating normally.”

“Understood.”

Ling Gen’s brows furrowed tightly as he looked at everyone: “Tell me carefully about what just happened.”

…

“Cough cough…”

Saiya was slapped awake, his face stinging with pain, having been slapped at least three or four times.

He propped himself up and saw a straight silhouette covering his mouth and nose not far away.

The smoke had also made his voice hoarse, like an old rooster being strangled: “Sir, are you alright?”

“I’m the one who saved you,” the person who slapped him reminded. “Shouldn’t you be concerned about me first?”

“…” Saiya perfunctorily asked: “Mr. Hao, how are you?”

Hao Hui said: “Not bad, fourth-degree burns.”

Fourth-degree burns really weren’t a big deal. Colin had third-degree burns before.

Hao Hui was the chief maintenance engineer for the underground city’s magnetic field equipment, brought by Huo Yanji to assess the magnetic field situation at the solar base station, but a mountain fire had started halfway through.

Saiya’s face was dirty, black and gray patches, with half his eyebrows singed off by the fire.

“Cough cough…” The smoke in the air was visible to the naked eye. He got up and walked to Huo Yanji’s side: “Sir, it’s been a week now. You need to leave here quickly!”

“You think your superior doesn’t want to leave?” Hao Hui was also in a terrible state, with half his upper arm exposed, his clothes burned, apparently having jumped into a lake to put out the fire, his body now soaking wet.

He sighed: “Communication signals are down, compass isn’t working, and the smoke is too thick to determine direction by the stars at night. We don’t even know which way to go.”

Night had fallen, yet their eyes were still filled with red light.

The forest vegetation of this era had extremely tenacious vitality – a mountain fire wouldn’t stop for several months.

Only three or four soldiers remained around them; the others had either gotten separated or died.

The dangers of the Thousand Wolf Mountain Range weren’t limited to just the mountain fire, but also the contaminated monsters thrown into chaos and agitation by it. Usually they occupied their own territories and could judge danger levels through the environment, but now that was impossible.

For example, at this moment, twenty meters from the cave entrance, a huge black snake was actually wrestling and tearing at a giant toad that usually hid in lakes.

The giant snake’s form was particularly terrifying, its back covered with densely packed small snake heads, all flicking their tongues: “Hiss!! Hiss—”

They were trying to inject venom into the toad’s body, but the toad’s outer skin was both hard and resilient, difficult to pierce. The giant snake could only change tactics, suddenly coiling around the giant toad’s body and constantly constricting.

Long as the black snake was, it could only wrap around the toad’s corpulent body twice, like tightening a balloon – the middle was being squeezed thinner and thinner while the top and bottom were being compressed larger and larger, as if it would explode the next second.

The deadly thing was that once the toad exploded, the pressure inside its body would splatter its mucus within a fifty-meter radius, and no living creature could escape.

For self-preservation, the poisonous bubbles on the toad’s skin surface had already begun exploding, and the explosive toxic gas would slowly spread through the air. But the venom couldn’t corrode the giant snake’s fine scales, so it could only use its long tongue to bite and coil around the small snake heads on the giant snake’s back in unwilling defiance.

Even when bitten off, the small snake heads didn’t die, but instead bit through the toad’s tongue with their rigid bite, impossible to shake off.

“Croak———!!”

The toad’s agonized cry came from its abdominal cavity, immediately shaking down the withered leaves that were already precariously hanging after being burned by fire, floating in the wind.

The toad and snake fought closer and closer to the cave entrance, with crackling burning sounds everywhere. Small trees constantly fell as their roots were burned hollow, making loud “banging” sounds.

Looking up, the towering trees that seemed to have no visible tops still stood firm – they wouldn’t burn down in the short term.

Huo Yanji threw Saiya a wet cotton cloth: “Retreat deeper into the cave!”

“Yes!”

This cave was very hidden, but Huo Yanji immediately noticed smoke drifting this way, which led him to discover the entrance hidden behind dead tree trunks.

The ground beneath their feet kept sloping downward, with complete darkness ahead. The uneven wall surfaces turned white under the strong flashlight beam, bumpy and rough, with mucus hanging on the stone walls.

It was impossible that there were no dangerous creatures below.

But outside was equally dangerous – not to mention the thick smoke that could quickly cause suffocation, the constantly falling trees and emerging spider and snake swarms were all extremely dangerous existences.

Plus this entire area was filled with blue lakes, each containing two giant toads… simply deadly.

Led by Huo Yanji, everyone slowly advanced into the cave interior, their steps light and steady, trying not to disturb any monsters that might exist in the cave.

With the mountain fire raging outside, the shallow cave interior was surprisingly still cold and damp, with faint sounds of howling wind.

Huo Yanji straightened his black gloves and raised his hand to wipe some mucus from the stone wall. The rocky soil beneath their feet was hard but somehow inexplicably loose.

His expression unchanged, he lowered his voice: “Worm burrow.”

Hao Hui panicked. Having lived in the underground city for years, he had never seen such things, only witnessed their terror in documentaries.

“Then what do we do? Do we keep going?”

Huo Yanji said: “Keep going, and you might be devoured by a swarm of worms.”

Hao Hui: “Then going out…”

“Going out offers more varied ways to die.” Huo Yanji said flatly: “You might suffocate from thick smoke within five minutes, or before that get hit in the waist or leg by a thick tree trunk burned through and fall, unable to move, burned alive by the flames, or be infected by some contaminant and die in the dual agony of disorder and burning—”

“…” Hao Hui immediately picked up his pace: “Then let’s go down.”

Huo Yanji was like a walking encyclopedia: “Worms usually live about twenty meters underground, have no vision, weak sense of smell, and rely entirely on hearing to hunt – move your hands and feet carefully, don’t make any noise.”

“Yes!”

Huo Yanji checked his communicator – the screen was still full of garbled text.

Signal interruption had two possible causes: first, nearby signal towers were destroyed by the mountain fire, which was normal – even without mountain fires, outdoor signal towers were often damaged for various reasons.

But there was another possibility – they were affected by the chaotic magnetic field of the solar base station.

If it was the latter, then the underground city’s situation was quite critical, and they were still ten kilometers from the solar base station.

“We can’t contact the outside world, so we must save ourselves and keep clear heads at all times. Don’t panic.” This was obviously said for Hao Hui’s benefit.

Since losing contact, they had fired a total of eight signal flares, but they were all obscured by rolling thick smoke and received no response.

Even knowing their approximate location, the underground city would find it difficult to conduct rescue operations. With such a massive fire, helicopters would have a 100% crash rate if they lowered altitude.

Cars couldn’t get in, and there were no means to extinguish the mountain fire – they were completely trapped.

“To protect the solar base station, rescue teams will definitely dig isolation barriers first. The most suitable distance should be five or six kilometers away…” Saiya analyzed: “Sir, is it possible for us to walk several kilometers to reach the isolation barrier?”

Huo Yanji glanced at Hao Hui: “It was originally possible.”

“…?” Saiya also looked at Hao Hui.

Hao Hui said awkwardly: “The map was lost along with my bag during the daytime escape…”

Saiya suppressed his emotions and said: “As the chief maintenance engineer of the solar base station, you still need to rely on a map to navigate?”

“Actually, I haven’t been here many times… Most of the time I take helicopters, almost never driven in.” Hao Hui said self-destructively: “Don’t criticize me either. Do you really think we have the technological level to repair the solar base station now? This is a creation from over a hundred years ago. We don’t even understand the principles. The so-called maintenance is just maintaining the surrounding buildings…”

Huo Yanji stopped in his tracks, his voice ice-cold: “This is your reason for not explaining the underground city’s magnetic field chaos to surface humans?! Because you can’t solve it, so you simply ignore it?”

Hao Hui still tried to defend himself: “We’re not sure if the underground city’s situation is caused by the solar base station, we’re still investigating… Ha!”

“Very good.”

Huo Yanji suddenly grabbed Hao Hui’s neck, his five fingers wrapped in gloves but still slender tightening more and more, his eyes filled with coldness: “You’ve been investigating for five or six years without results and kept hiding it. What do you take the lives of these women in the underground city and the sacrifices on the surface all these years for!?”

The surrounding soldiers didn’t dare breathe.

Huo Yanji rarely got angry – the last time was when interrogating the governor.

Hao Hui was even more terrified, his face turning red, his eyes filled with horror. He tried to pry open Huo Yanji’s arms, but it was like grasping hard steel, unable to move it even slightly.

“Ugh—”