Otherworld Advance Team
Chapter 668 - 661: The Sole Survivor

Chapter 668: Chapter 661: The Sole Survivor

Steping on the mud that had been blown up and softened by the bomb, Luoer and his party continued to the second air-defense position. Before they arrived, this place had already been leveled by artillery fire, with only a ground full of bomb pits left. The buildings and anti-aircraft guns on the position were either blown to pieces or mostly buried by the earth.

Now and then, one could still see residues that had been blown up, leaving only a segment, covered in mud and blood, looking bloody and blurred. However, even under the current state, Luoer and his team did not dare to relax their vigilance.

The bombing from the air fleets was from top to bottom, making it nearly impossible to find any hiding spot in the air-defense position. Unless reinforced concrete bunkers were built underground, even hiding in a pit would not help to avoid being buried alive.

Feng, who was in the front, had soon made a discovery after a short search. She sensed the presence of someone nearby but it was very weak, so she turned her head, called out gently, "Luoer!"

"Anything happening?" Luoer asked, tensely.

"Yes!" Feng nodded.

"Lead us to it!" Luoer urged.

With Feng’s new discovery, Luoer gathered two members to follow Feng in search of possible survivors.

Feng, standing before a small mound made from the freshly blown-up earth, squinted her eyes for a moment and then asserted with certainty, "There is a living person underneath, but the presence is very weak."

"Got it!" Luoer nodded and gestured to Cheng Ziang and Hu Daoke to dig into the mound.

Hu Daoke picked up a broken iron shovel with a wooden handle and dug vigorously into the soft earth. Feng didn’t join them but stood quietly, her right hand tightly gripping the hilt of her long sword, ready to stand guard at any moment and tried to locate the next potential target.

After digging through a thick layer of earth and going more than a meter deep, they saw a hole, in which it seemed a man was squatting.

The area from the mound to more than a meter below the ground was soft earth, showing that this was a hole pre-prepared to dodge bombings. However, during the bombings, thick layers of earth covered the hole and buried the man hiding inside too.

"Come out!" The moment Luoer saw the person in the hole, he quickly stepped back, then raised his rifle, pointing at him.

Hu Daoke dug a few more times, finally opening the hole, revealing a man who was curling up inside, appearing in front of everyone. His hands were covering his drooping head and he was trembling.

He had no weapon, his dark hemp clothes were covered in a lot of mud. Luoer noticed that he had light golden hair. If Luoer wasn’t mistaken, this man should be from Northern Aud.

Seeing that he was still trembling and curling up inside, completely ignoring his words, Luoer motioned Hu Daoke, who acknowledged with a nod, then roughly yanked the man out of the hole by the collar.

"Don’t, don’t kill me, don’t kill me!" The man knelt on the ground, head touching the ground, both his body and voice trembling.

"He can still move, can still speak, tie him up somewhere!" Luoer, with his gun pointing at the man, instructed Hu Daoke.

"Roger!" Hu Daoke nodded, then took out a cable tie, twisted the man’s hands forcefully, and fastened the man’s thumbs and wrists with the cable tie.

The man seemed very submissive, not daring to resist at all, just kept repeating the words he said earlier, shakingly pleading for their mercy.

Hu Daoke took a glance around and found that there were almost no posts or trees nearby to tie the man to. So, he simply tied up the man’s legs with zip ties as well, grabbed him by the collar, and shoved him back into the pit.

The man was securely tied up and was almost unable to move at all. Throwing him into the pit like this, Luoer wasn’t too worried about him running away.

"Good, let’s move on to the next position!" Luoer said, nodding with satisfaction.

"Aren’t we going to keep searching?" Cheng Ziang couldn’t help but ask.

"No need, as long as we can find one, that’s enough," Luoer said. Then the distant rumbling of artillery fire could be heard again. He looked at Cheng Ziang and said, "The bombardment on the next position is underway, and if we waste time here, it might disrupt our rhythm."

"The more we continue the search, the fewer prisoners we’ll find. After all, the enemy is also scared of the aerial fleet’s firepower. By the time we reach the last position, everyone will have likely run off." Cheng Ziang reminded.

"I know, but at least we now have a clue," Luoer said. He looked down at the motionless man in the pit and ordered Hu Daoke, "Gag him. We can’t have him screaming."

"Aye!" Hu Daoke nodded and tore a piece of cloth from the man’s body, picked up a handful of dirt from the ground, and forcefully shoved it into the man’s mouth. While the man didn’t spit it out, Hu Daoke wrapped the cloth around his mouth.

The man grimaced, trying to spit out the mouthful of mud, but was stopped by the cloth. He tried to struggle, but he couldn’t break free of the nylon zip ties.

"Mark this spot and let’s get moving!" Luoer led the way to the next position.

Hu Daoke picked up the broken shovel from the ground and planted it at the top of the small hill. After doing all this, he turned around and quickly caught up with Luoer.

Thanks to Feng’s presence, Luoer managed to keep each position search within ten minutes. For the Advance Team, Feng’s ability was very convenient, as not even the powerful Fulajie’er could sense the living people buried in the positions via Soul Resonance. After all, her Soul Domain was very limited compared to Feng’s, which could easily extend a radius of fifty meters.

Inviting Feng to join the Advance Team was one of Luoer’s brightest decisions. Her joining significantly boosted the combat effectiveness of the Advance Team. This effectiveness did not only refer to fighting, but also task efficiency.

Feng’s background was unusual, and she willingly obeyed Luoer with loyalty. Luoer even thought she might be an angel sent by heaven to help him, only that she was an angel of slaughter.

The situation turned out to be just as Cheng Ziang predicted. The further they went, the fewer survivors they found, or rather, the fewer people they found overall.

Although the Advance Team and the aerial fleet cleaned up the positions at a rapid pace, they were not faster than the people fleeing. When they reached the final position, through Baiyue’s telescope, she could hardly see anyone. She still notified the aerial fleet to bombard the position anyway, leveling the area.

It seemed that the man they found at the second position was the only prisoner, hence, after a brief search at the final position, Luoer ordered the entire Advance Team to rush to the second position, take the prisoner on board, and then call the aerial fleet’s transport plane.

They arrived at the second position and ran to the dug-out pit. By that time, the prisoner had given up on struggling, huddled in the pit with his rear end sticking up, his face covered in a mixture of saliva and dirt.

Luoer ordered people to pull him out of the hole, took the signal gun handed by Baiyue, and shot a blue signal flare into the ground not far away.

The flare emitted thick smoke and dazzling light, and soon the two ground support ships of the aerial fleet sent down three transport planes. One of them flew directly towards them, with the remaining two heading towards the crash site of the transport plane, presumably to recover the materials from the crash and probably to take the dwarf’s body back.

Watching the transport plane descend slowly, Luoer took off his gas mask and breathed a sigh of relief. No matter what, with the help of the aerial fleet, the predicament faced by the Advance Team was temporarily resolved. However, the difficulty they will encounter next is finding the lost virus sample, and the only clue for that right now relies on the Northern Aud man sitting on the ground, spitting out mud.