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Chapter 7: Arroz
The group remained silent for a while before bursting into laughter.
Click. Grosso disengaged the safety on his automatic rifle, raising it slowly. He tilted his head slightly, aligning his right eye with the scope as he focused on Tang Fang. “Bang.”
Tang Fang narrowed his eyes slightly, his face darkened.
“Hahaha,” Grosso laughed mockingly, casting a playful glance at him. While turning around, he waved his hand and said, “If anyone wants to follow me, let’s go.”
Several men exchanged glances, then quickly followed. After a brief hesitation, two more caught up. Grosso took a total of eight men with him. After accounting for the four who had died, there were still twenty left.
Byron didn’t say a word. After wiping his knife clean, he sheathed it in the scabbard on his leg with a flourish and walked away coolly.
Housen stood up, grinning, and hurried after Byron. Then came the short man, followed by the woman with a tulip tattoo on her chest.
A total of twelve people chose to follow Housen. After all, he had once been a pirate leader. In terms of reputation and character, he far surpassed Grosso.
Only seven people remained on the scene, one of them injured.
Tang Fang waited for a while. Seeing no one else leaving, he took a deep breath, stood up, and began walking toward the setting sun.
The scruffy man with stubble didn’t say a word, grabbed his gun, and slowly followed. Behind him, only one woman, three men, and the injured man remained.
“Arroz chose to follow him?” The three men looked at each other. Finally, gritting their teeth, they also followed.
The only ones remaining now were a man with a leg injury and a woman wearing a leather collar around her neck.
Noticing that she shared his descent, Tang Fang glanced back at her inadvertently, only to see her approaching the injured man slowly, offering him a water bottle.
“Thanks,” the man said, extending his hand to take the water bottle. He unscrewed the cap and raised it to his lips, but just as he was about to drink, a cold glint suddenly flashed in the light of the setting sun. In an instant, a gleaming knife sliced through his carotid artery, spraying blood sprayed all over the woman before him.
After sheathing the knife, the woman pried his fingers off the water bottle, reclaimed what was hers, and casually walked away, trailing behind Tang Fang’s group.
The setting sun cast its light on her, stretching a long, straight shadow behind her. Droplets of blood trickled down her cheek, making her look like a blood-soaked demoness.
Meanwhile, the three men who had started following resumed their conversation, while Arroz kept his usual indifferent expression. As for Tang Fang, a sharp glint flashed in his eyes, and the value representing the crystal on the system screen jumped to 35.
As the sun finally dipped below the horizon, its blood-red glow cast a haunting light across the clouds. The barren desert turned cold and biting quickly, with fierce wind, tainted with radioactive particles, howled like a knife, swirling and forming towering columns. Suddenly, a bolt of purple lightning sliced through the sky, heralding the arrival of a thunderstorm—a phenomenon unique to Planet 5.
The entrance to the underground cave loomed ahead. Tang Fang glanced back at the dark, churning sky; the thunderclouds rolled like waves, and the fierce wind roared. No one could survive the thunderstorms on Planet 5—not even the native inhabitants, who could only huddle in the caves, trembling in fear.
As the storm clouds completely covered the sky, Tang Fang and his group descended into the underground cave. Officially, the mission was simple: find the resource site marked by the research vessel and determine the composition and quantity of minerals. Of course, there were dangers too—they might encounter attacks from Rockbugs.
Most of the prisoners had military experience and didn’t take these low-level creatures seriously. To them, the mission was nothing more than a good opportunity. Once they completed it, they would regain their freedom.
While the authorities considered Operation Butchers a suicide mission, Tang Fang knew better. There were no new bug species underground, only some weak Rockbugs. Truthfully, he wasn’t particularly interested in the resource point itself. He was more intrigued by the Rockbugs. The more life energy he absorbed, the more Zerglings he could hatch, further ensuring his survival.
Time passed slowly, and before they knew it, they had descended several hundred meters underground. The Rockbugs were expert tunnel diggers, creating an intricate network of intersecting caves and passages resembling a labyrinth.
As they followed a slippery tunnel, a foul stench hit their noses. It was the smell of Rockbug excrement.
Tang Fang halted and gestured to the group behind him. He lowered his night vision goggles, leaned forward to peer ahead, and pulled a fragmentation grenade from his belt. Holding down the trigger, he tossed it gently forward.
The sound of the grenade rolling on the ground echoed. Then, the sound of continuous bug screeching followed, indicating that the Rockbugs had noticed something.
But it was too late.
“Boom!” A loud explosion was followed by the sound of debris flying.
When the dust settled, the group emerged from the tunnel. Their lights swept over the area, revealing a cave roughly three meters in diameter, with several other tunnels connected to it.
The explosion had left more than twenty Rockbug corpses strewn across the ground, along with shattered rocks and yellow-green fluids.
“Life energy collection complete: 46 units.”
Seeing the system’s crystal value rise to 81, the corners of Tang Fang’s mouth curled into a faint smile. As long as he could kill enough Rockbugs, he could collect more life energy and form a Zergling army.
Skilled and practiced, he commanded a larva to morph into an egg. Then, he walked to the front of several other tunnels, hesitated for a moment, and leaped into one of the downward-sloping passages. The woman silently followed him.
The three men, however, sniffed the air at the tunnel entrance, their expressions changing.
“Does that guy have a suicide wish? That tunnel stinks the most, but he still jumped in.”
“F*ck, that bastard’s trying to get us killed.”
“If he wants to die, let him. Let’s just take another route.”
Arroz remained indifferent, giving the three men a cold glance before lowering his head and slipping into the tunnel.
The three men looked at each other. They glanced at the Rockbug corpses behind them, then at the several dark, seemingly bottomless tunnels nearby. After some hesitation, they finally chose to follow, jumping into the tunnel one by one.
The passage was deep, and after crouching and walking for about ten minutes, they finally heard the sound of dripping water in the distance. Tang Fang turned off his light, put on his night vision goggles, and crept along the wall toward the exit. Scanning the area, he found a vast abyss outside.
There was a three-foot-wide rocky bridge stretching across the gap. About ten meters below was a bottomless pool of water. On one side of the pool was a rock platform raised about a meter or two above the water, covered with Rockbug eggs. The nauseating stench of excrement was coming from there.
Tang Fang examined the area carefully and felt a bit disappointed. Other than the large number of eggs, there were no adult Rockbugs in sight.
He checked his navigator and saw there was still a long way to the target location. He would have to cross to the other side. After a moment’s hesitation, he removed his night vision goggles, raised his gun, and cautiously stepped onto the rock bridge.
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