Abundant Martial Arts Virtue
Chapter 91 - 71 It (Added more for Alliance Hierarch Extinguishing Yu Ye Sakiji!)

Chapter 91: Chapter 71 It (Added more for Alliance Hierarch Extinguishing Yu Ye Sakiji!)

Wu Xiaode pressed one hand against his knife, clenched a fist with the other, and took the lead, walking forward.

Xiao Baihong was by his side.

Ying and the gunman followed behind them.

The captain was in the middle.

Sun brought up the rear.

The group moved forward in silence.

Shortly after.

A long row of offices appeared ahead.

A sign stood in the hallway:

"All scientists have sacrificed, this place is temporarily sealed."

This was the place—

He had to figure out what exactly had happened here before he could complete that assignment.

Wu Xiaode thought to himself.

Sun glanced around and said, "No life signs detected, ah, how wonderful, I’ve discovered there’s even a mechanical room here."

"What kind of machinery?" the gunman asked with interest.

"It might be the central control facility for large underground operations, should we go study it together?" Sun suggested.

"A central control facility... I thought it was weaponry, never mind." The gunman immediately lost interest.

So Sun went off alone to the end of the hallway.

"Do you want me to come check it out with you?" Wu Xiaode shouted.

"I’m wearing Mecha— you take care of everyone else, and besides, it should be all machinery inside, no problem." Sun smiled and shook his head as he looked back.

Wu Xiaode watched his figure fade into the darkness.

To be honest, in that instant just now, he thought he saw the blood on Sun’s chest had stopped flowing.

—Had the wound healed?

Or had his blood run dry?

Click!

A noise brought Wu Xiaode’s attention back.

Ying had opened an office door.

Inside were a desk, bookshelves, a sofa, all a complete mess.

"Looks like it’s already been thoroughly searched; we won’t get anything here," the gunman said.

"Assassin, no, Mr. Thief, can we find anything useful here?" Ying asked, turning around.

"Let me see," Xiao Baihong walked in.

He stood in the room, looked around, thought for a moment, then suddenly bent down, picked up a sofa cushion, and pulled out a photograph from within.

"According to my intuition, this photograph is the most valuable," Xiao Baihong said with a smile.

Everyone looked over to see several scientists in the photo.

The scientists stood on the platform in front of the tunnel, smiling towards the camera.

There were two lines of text below the photo:

"From left to right: Li Bing, Sun Shuhua, Zhang Erwu, Liu Run, Ding Tao."

"Remember, this is the order we were in for the photo."

"It’s just a photograph, why do you think it’s the most valuable?" Ying asked, perplexed.

"Not sure, that’s my ability, it’s never wrong," Xiao Baihong replied.

The captain took the photo, pondered for a moment, and said, "You go check out the other rooms and find anything of value."

"Roger that!"

Xiao Baihong kicked open the doors to the offices, taking a look around each.

Watching from a distance, Wu Xiaode couldn’t help but find Xiao Baihong’s ability amusing.

He saw him walk in, stand in the center of the room, not observing the layout or paying much attention to the chaos around, but rather, after spacing out for a while, he pulled something out from a pile of stuff and came out.

"Research diaries," Xiao Baihong handed a notebook to the captain.

Xiao Baihong searched all the offices and found a total of five research diaries.

"So these are the most valuable things?" the captain asked.

"Yes, besides these, everything else has been searched several times, not worth looking for again," Xiao Baihong replied.

The captain passed around the diaries, and everyone started looking through them.

The diaries were quite thick, the title pages had the scientists’ names, and inside was various data and content related to geological exploration.

Wu Xiaode flipped to the last page of the diary he held, where the owner had scribbled random lines and marks, apparently pondering something and scribbling idly on the paper.

Going through the entire diary, it was just a record of minerals and underground exploration progress.

"Seems like it’s of no significance to us,"

Wu Xiaode said.

"Indeed, it’s useless," the gunman agreed.

"Keep them, who knows, they might be useful later," the captain gave all the diaries to Wu Xiaode.

Wu Xiaode packed the several diaries into his military bag.

At that moment, Sun returned.

"Any findings?" the gunman asked.

Sun shook his head and said, "This place is an operational hub, but if you go further down those tunnels, they’re all abandoned, nothing in there."

"We can’t stay here any longer, who knows when the demons might come down, let’s keep moving along the tunnel," the captain said.

Everyone agreed in unison.

They returned to the platform and boarded the underground train.

Sun and Ying went together to the driver’s cab to start the train.

The rest of the people rested in the carriage.

After a few breaths.

The train slowly moved, heading deeper underground.

"If only we could find some demons that we could beat," Xiao Baihong sighed.

Wu Xiaode shook his head.

They had encountered a huge change upon entering the Otherworld this time, rushed into the cave right after to avoid the surface disaster.

Then they encountered that terrifying creature blocking the cave entrance.

Not even a single corrupted human was in sight.

How would they return?

Perhaps...

An idea surfaced in his mind, but he dared not speak it aloud.

"Maybe we can’t get back for now,"

the captain suddenly said.

Everyone fell silent.

Yes, without small monsters to kill, they couldn’t go back.

The current situation made it impossible for any monsters to be available for them to kill.

"So we’re trapped here," Xiao Baihong said with a smile.

Suddenly.

The Book of the Dead trembled slightly and fell in front of Wu Xiaode, showing a row of ice crystal small characters:

"The book has detected a sudden mission, would you like to accept it?"

Wu Xiaode was taken aback.

Hadn’t he already accepted a mission just now?

Why was there another one?

And the Undead Officer had said that he didn’t dare venture further down the tunnel because there was a power deep in it that could obliterate him.

As Wu Xiaode was thinking, another line of text appeared on the Book of the Dead:

"Please make an immediate decision whether to accept the mission, otherwise the mission will disappear."

Wu Xiaode paused for a moment and muttered silently, "Accept!"

Immediately, another line of ice crystal small text emerged on the Book of the Dead:

"This book has accepted the arrival of that undead."

The next instant, a familiar figure appeared in front of Wu Xiaode.

Sun.

—It was actually Sun!

Wu Xiaode almost couldn’t help but cry out.

He was in the form of an undead!

But hadn’t he just boarded the train?

Could it be that he was dead?

Then, who was that Sun in the train’s cockpit?

Sun, his body half-transparent, said hastily, "Little Wu, I didn’t expect you to have such an ability. I need to warn you—"

Before he could finish speaking, his expression suddenly changed, and he looked toward something behind him.

"What is that?" Sun murmured.

A black spot suddenly appeared on his chest.

A translucent tentacle shot from a far-off place, instantly piercing into the black spot.

Whoosh!

It was as if Sun’s entire body was caught by a giant force, in an instant, he was yanked away, passing through the carriage above and the layers of rock, disappearing from Wu Xiaode’s sight.

"No, save me, I don’t want to—"

Sun’s telepathic cry, filled with fear, burst forth, but his soul was already nowhere to be found.

Wu Xiaode stood frozen in place, feeling a chill creeping up his spine, completely clueless about what had just happened.

Quickly, two lines of ice crystal small text appeared on the Book of the Dead:

"The undead that posted the commission has disappeared."

"Current commission is canceled."

Disappeared...

Sun’s soul was gone.

...Damn it, what exactly just happened?

More importantly, if Sun was already dead, then who was driving the train?

Wu Xiaode, yawning, stretched his arms lazily, using it to cover up the changes in his expression.

Stay calm.

You must remain calm!

He rubbed his eyes, stood up, and walked to the train’s passage, shouting loudly toward the cockpit:

"Sun, is there anything to eat on this train?"

"You gluttonous guy, this is a geological survey tunnel train; do you think this is a sightseeing tour that provides food for you?" Sun scolded with laughter.

Ying, standing beside Sun, interjected, "If you want to eat something, go ask Xiao Baihong or the captain. They both like to bring some snacks and such."

Wu Xiaode nodded and turned to walk toward the carriage.

If not for his ability to communicate with the undead, he would haven’t known that Sun was already dead.

What kind of force could silently kill a person and then impersonate him?

Wu Xiaode placed his hand on the hilt of his knife, hesitated for a moment, adjusted the position of the knife, and then withdrew his hand.

He couldn’t take action.

Without evidence, any move would be indefensible.

He couldn’t withstand the attack from everyone.

—But how to convince everyone to support him?

He scanned the entire carriage.

Xiao Baihong squatted in a corner, eating a piece of strawberry cream cake.

The gunner had set up various firearms equipment on an open space and was checking each of them.

The captain sat in a window seat, supporting his chin with his hand, focused on a map of the underground route structure.

No one noticed that Sun was dead.

Thinking carefully—

The platform they had just been on was discontinued because all of the scientists died there.

Sun was killed and replaced there as well.

If the scientists left any clues before their death—

Wu Xiaode sat down against the wall, opened his rucksack, took out those journals, and the photograph.

The photograph still showed the five scientists.

Wu Xiaode caressed the two lines of small text on the photo and read softly:

"From left to right, in order are Li Bing, Sun Shuhua, Zhang Erwu, Liu Run, Ding Tao."

"Remember, this is the order we took the photo."

Remember... the order.

Wu Xiaode put down the photograph, took out the journals, found their names on the title pages, and then arranged them in order of "Li Bing, Sun Shuhua, Zhang Erwu, Liu Run, Ding Tao."

What now?

If there was a hint in those words, what should he do next?

Wu Xiaode picked up the journals, flipping through them one by one.

There was nothing out of the ordinary.

Just as he started to feel disappointed, a scene from his memory suddenly resurfaced in his mind.

Yes...

It seemed like this...

He quickly flipped to the last page of the journals.

Just as he had seen before, there were sparse, indecipherable lines and strokes, impossible to discern what they were.

The order.

Wu Xiaode memorized the strokes from the last page of the five journals and then, in his mind, traced them according to the scientists’ photo arrangement sequence.

The first one was Li Bing; the strokes he left appeared first in Wu Xiaode’s mind.

Then came Sun Shuhua.

The strokes seemed to connect, promising!

Immediately followed by Zhang Erwu, Liu Run, Ding Tao...

A horizontal line, a vertical line, a flick, a dot—all the strokes in Wu Xiaode’s mind pieced together perfectly to form individual characters.

These characters formed a sentence:

"It is among us."

Wu Xiaode paused for a moment.

He restrained the chill rising in his heart and flipped through the notebooks again.

After all, on the last page of every notebook, apart from the strokes, there were some hastily drawn lines.

Wu Xiaode extended his hand and traced those lines discreetly on his leg.

—At this moment, no one was paying attention to him.

Shortly.

The tracing was complete.

An image formed in Wu Xiaode’s mind.

It was a bizarre creature.

It had a long tail, its back was covered in hard carapace, a pair of vertical pupils, and the body and limbs of a human.

This was not like any fallen human he had seen before.

What in the world was it?