Modern Cultivation : The Strongest Couple Bonded by Vampire System-Chapter 683: A Tunnel
They ran until the alley narrowed into a crack between two broken walls.
This place used to be a research complex.
Now it was a grave of concrete and rusted metal. Floors had collapsed into each other.
If they continued, they would end up in an open field.
Alice didn’t need to see it with her own eyes. She was sure a group of marauders was already waiting for them there, crossbows raised, ready for them to come out.
Alice’s grip tightened on Silen’s arm.
"Wake up already, you fatso!"
She cursed and even tried to pinch him, but he didn’t budge.
Karr came from behind, breathing hard.
"It’s useless. That gas probably sedated him for a few hours. Maybe you should leave us here, Alice."
Alice started to consider it too.
She could use her wings to escape through the sky, but then the question was, could she find another ally like the two of them?
The possibility was there, but very slim.
Finding the other fairies who came with her also wouldn’t be easy.
Behind them, the voices got louder.
"Left! Cut them off!"
"Don’t let them reach open ground! We should be the ones taking the bounty!"
Thwang!
A bolt hit the wall beside Alice’s head.
She didn’t bother looking back. She ran with all her strength.
Alice glanced around, looking for any way out.
A collapsed stairwell on the right.
A ruined building on the left, with only the bottom-floor walls still standing.
"Karr," Alice said. "Do you have any idea?"
Karr’s eyes flicked over the area. "Left. Those walls should be the best choice."
They dragged Silen toward the broken building.
Karr’s goal was to use the walls as cover. The building also didn’t have any upper floors, making sure they could see every enemy.
A shout came from behind.
"There!"
More marauders poured out of the alley behind them.
Some had pipes. Some had knives.
Two carried crossbows.
"Just give up!" one of them yelled. "We won’t kill you!"
Alice didn’t respond.
She knew better. Being captured by them would be a fate worse than death.
She shoved Silen behind a broken pillar and picked up a chunk of brick.
Karr stepped in front of her, raising his sword.
The first attacker rushed in with a pipe.
SLASH!!!!
Karr cut his wrist.
"Dammit! My arm! How can you still be so strong!"
It wasn’t that they underestimated Karr. Based on what they knew, he should have been exhausted.
Just how many people had he killed so far?
More than a dozen.
Alice stepped in and smashed the brick into his face.
BAM!
His skull caved in, destroying his brain.
Two more came in from the side, trying to get around Karr.
Alice moved to block the gap. She slammed her shoulder into the first man’s chest and drove him back into the second.
She stabbed the first man’s thigh with her knife.
STAB!
"My leg!!! Dammit!"
He howled and dropped to one knee.
Karr swung and cut the second man’s head.
SLASH!
Blood sprayed.
The head fell to the ground.
A bolt snapped in.
CLANG!
It hit the pillar near Silen and bounced away.
Alice’s eyes sharpened.
No matter how many they killed, these marauders were like cockroaches that refused to die.
They kept coming without caring about their own lives.
In reality, it wasn’t that they wanted to die. In their minds, Alice, Silen, and Karr were already at the end of their rope.
It wasn’t a matter of winning or losing. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺
It was a matter of when they would fall.
And Alice realized it too.
’Dammit. Is there really no way out, other than leaving them?’
Alice thought hard, then flashed back to the paper she had read.
Mars. A ruin underneath it. A research facility.
People didn’t build research facilities in random places.
They usually built them close to their research subject.
’The ruin should be close!’
Alice looked around again.
"Karr, if you had to hide a secret entrance in this place, where would you put it?"
Karr looked confused by the question, but he still answered.
"I’d hide it in the building we stayed in before, since it seemed to be the strongest. But considering how much time has passed, if this facility was important, the best spot would have been destroyed as the first target."
Alice locked her gaze on a spot behind her.
Most of the concrete was cracked in random lines.
But this part was cracked in a circle, like something used to be there.
"Cover me," Alice said.
Karr didn’t ask questions. He grabbed one of the dead bodies and used it to block the crossbows.
SWOSH! SWOSH!! BAM!!!
Alice sprinted to the circle and stomped the concrete.
It sounded different.
BAM! BAM!
Footsteps rushed toward her.
"Capture her!"
Karr intercepted them. He threw the body he was holding, then slashed through it and the man behind it.
SLASH!
A man dropped with a sliced calf.
Karr kicked another in the knee.
BAM!
Alice grabbed a long metal rod from the rubble and jammed it into a crack.
"Come on... let there be a miracle."
She knew better than anyone how small the odds were that the entrance would be here.
If it really existed and had been destroyed, it would probably be buried deep under the rubble.
The only exception was if someone else had opened it.
The concrete plate lifted half an inch, then dropped back down.
BAM!!!!
"Dammit, I need more strength!"
SWOSH!!!
A bolt hit the ground near her foot.
CLANG!
Alice didn’t care. She needed to move fast.
She searched the rubble and found a rusted fuel canister, crushed but still sealed.
She rolled it onto the circle.
Karr’s voice snapped. "More coming!"
Alice yanked her lighter out.
She flicked it and shoved it into a strip of cloth, then jammed the cloth into the canister’s torn seam.
"Back!" she shouted.
Karr grabbed her shoulder and pulled her away.
The attackers didn’t understand until it was too late.
A man jumped for the canister.
"Idiot!"
Boom.
The blast wasn’t huge, but it was enough. Fire and pressure slammed into the cracked concrete.
The circle shattered outward. Dust exploded up like a wave.
Two men were thrown off their feet.
One screamed as shrapnel cut his leg.
The crossbowmen stumbled back, coughing.
Alice didn’t waste a second.
She ran to the new hole.
It was a huge opening, dropping into darkness.
"JACKPOT!!!"
A metal edge showed beneath the broken concrete.
Karr came up beside her, eyes wide.
"You found something," he said.
