Tang Hao couldn’t help but twitch slightly, and Ling Mo immediately shot him a fierce glare.
There was a pause before a man’s voice muttered, “Go in?”
No one seemed to respond, but the sound of light, deliberate footsteps began to approach.
The shadows on the wall started to stretch longer, but instead of reacting, Ling Mo pressed himself further back against the wall.
“Right… he has that invisible attack…” Tang Hao thought anxiously.
In fact, from the moment the two men pushed open the door, they had already entered Ling Mo’s range of attack.
Back when Ling Mo and Butterfly were battling, Tang Hao already noticed that Ling Mo’s optimal combat range was approximately thirty to forty meters. If the distance was too far, his psychic power might not hold up. Either the attack’s power would weaken, or its accuracy would drop. If it weakened to the level of his shooting skills, then Ling Mo’s threat would be nearly reduced to zero…
But even with this range limitation, Ling Mo’s abilities remained extremely troublesome. And even if they managed to withstand Ling Mo’s attacks, there was still that hidden mutation panda lurking around…
“That mutation beast is massive! How on earth is it hiding?” Tang Hao wanted to look around, but as the two men approached, he only grew more nervous.
After Butterfly’s death, this was his second chance…
“Hey, anyone there?” The lazy voice asked again.
This time, the voice sounded much closer. To Tang Hao, it felt as though the person was now just within arm’s reach.
But Ling Mo remained pressed against the wall, his eyes fixed ahead without blinking.
“What the hell is he waiting for…” Tang Hao thought in frustration.
“Looks like he’s too scared to come out,” the previous male voice said.
Finally, the other man spoke, though all he gave was a grunt in response. A moment later, a tearing sound broke the silence…
“Why don’t we just smoke him out?” The lazy voice said again. “Or crush him like this-right here and now.”
Just as he finished speaking, a sharp metallic clang rang out from nearby, followed by a loud “bang.”
Tang Hao watched as a metal panel seemed to be flung into the air and crashed down violently. He couldn’t stop the cold sweat from breaking out all over his body. ꭆâ𝖔ＢĘ𝐬
“Damn it, I better not get caught in the crossfire!”
In the next one or two seconds, the room was suddenly filled with a cacophony of crackling sounds. The muffled booms echoed incessantly in the somewhat spacious room, as if explosives had been detonated all at once.
Just as Tang Hao was about to clutch his head and start praying, Ling Mo suddenly grabbed his arm.
“Get ready…”
“Get ready for what?”
Watching as the equipment around them toppled over, Ling Mo unexpectedly turned his head and said, “Back in the corridor, didn’t you say someone was jiggling the door?”
“Huh?” Tang Hao was completely lost, unable to keep up with Ling Mo’s train of thought.
“Heh… someone really was jiggling the door.” Without waiting for a response, Ling Mo pulled Tang Hao and ducked to one side.
“Bang!”
A piece of scrap metal crashed into the spot where Ling Mo had been standing just moments earlier, immediately sparking against the floor on impact.
“Damn it!”
Before Tang Hao could even curse out loud, a sudden “thud” resounded from somewhere inside the room.
The chaos around them was so overwhelming that Tang Hao couldn’t tell where the sound had come from. But the other two men in the room instantly froze, their actions halting as they turned their attention toward another corner of the room.
That corner was much farther from the doorway and piled high with various disorganized materials.
When the two men entered earlier, they had noticed the disappearance of a corpse, but with potential intruders in the area, they hadn’t dwelled on it much.
Still, the idea of an intruder capable of moving a corpse put them instinctively on edge…
After exchanging a quick glance behind the door, the two men silently agreed to force the hidden enemy out with brute force. Venturing into those dim corners to search for someone would clearly be a last resort. However, while smashing their way through the room, the two kept a constant, wary watch on their surroundings. As for the earlier comment about “crushing him,” it had been more of a bluff-a threat meant to provoke the intruder into revealing themselves.
This approach, honestly, was perfectly logical. Even Tang Hao, not just Ling Mo, could have guessed it. But preoccupied with thoughts of Ling Mo’s ambush and the vanished panda, Tang Hao had overlooked this very simple reasoning.
It wasn’t until the sudden sound broke out, combined with Ling Mo’s cryptic comment earlier, that Tang Hao finally began to piece things together.
There was no ambush. The real trap had been set long before Ling Mo even entered this room. No-it had been planned even earlier, maybe right back when they heard that sound in the corridor.
Ling Mo’s pause, and his deliberate decision to come to this room, were because he already knew something.
“What was that noise?”
The two men exchanged glances, and one of them slowly started moving toward the corner where the sound had come from.
The other followed closely behind, cautiously keeping watch and ready to provide cover at any moment.
“Bang!”
Before they could get closer, another muffled sound rang out suddenly.
Tang Hao and the two men froze simultaneously. But in the next instant, a look of terror flashed across Tang Hao’s face.
“That sound…”
The two men seemed to realize something as well. But before they could react, a streak of white shot toward them.
“What the hell is that?!”
Taking advantage of the distraction caused by Xiao Bai, the white figure, Ling Mo immediately dragged Tang Hao and darted out from their hiding place.
As Ling Mo stopped to steady himself, the white figure also bolted out of the room. At the same moment, another figure abruptly appeared, slamming the door shut with lightning speed.
“No!”
An enraged roar came from behind the door, but the figure outside had already locked it securely.
“So fast!”
Tang Hao, still shaken, was startled once more by the figure’s astonishing speed.
It wasn’t until the figure stepped back that Tang Hao recognized her-it was the woman with the mask.
“Wait a minute… doesn’t this mean that she had been following us just now?” Tang Hao muttered, still stunned. However, it didn’t take long for him to realize what was happening. His face turned pale, and he looked at the door in terror.
At this point, Xiao Bai had already placed its paw firmly against the door. Initially, the door shook violently under the relentless pounding and “boom-boom” sounds from within, accompanied by the two men’s furious curses. But soon, an eerie, guttural roar erupted from inside the room.
The moment the roar echoed out, the banging on the door stopped abruptly. What followed was a series of muffled, chaotic thuds from inside, as though pandemonium had broken out.
Tang Hao’s legs gave out beneath him, and he slumped to the ground. He turned to Ling Mo with wide eyes, as if he were staring at a ghost.
“Did you know?” Ling Mo asked suddenly, looking at Tang Hao with a faint smile. “Xiao Bai is actually really good at digging tunnels. And its scent can attract a lot of… things. Assuming, of course, that the right things are nearby.”
“You…” Tang Hao attempted to speak, but his teeth were chattering uncontrollably.