“I guessed right! This is Gao Ye's target!”

Time was pressing, so while heading to the working surface, Meng Chao called Ye Xiaoxing.

But the interference was very bad. Besides, he could hear deafening explosions from Ye Xiaoxing's side. Meng Chao shouted for a long time into his wrist communicator, but he did not know whether Ye Xiaoxing heard him.

He could only send the highest alert to Ye Xiaoxing, which symbolized that he had discovered the target. Then, he jumped into the construction site by the river with Lu Siya.

Since the current was rapid, the tunnel was dug deep under the river. They needed to fall for dozens of meters before they landed on the ground.

When they looked into the tunnel, it was dark, and they could not see anything. There was only a red glimmer in the distance.

The engineers who escaped told Meng Chao that due to the rat hordes biting the cables, all of them were severed. They could only use the emergency lighting system powered by crystals.

At that moment, the workers and experts who were controlling the equipment and biochemical beasts to minimize losses noticed that more water was seeping in. They had to abandon everything and run with their hands wrapped around their heads.

Meng Chao and Lu Siya poured spirit energy into their eyes, and it looked as if they had equipped rings of s.h.i.+ning light around their pupils. By stimulating their optical cells, they could possess hawk-like vision in the darkness.

“Run! This place might collapse at any moment, and the water will charge in!”

Meng Chao and Lu Siya grabbed the workers who ran over and tossed them to the Red Dragon Army soldiers, who followed them closely, and sent them safely to the surface.

They then asked the Red Dragon Army to set up crystal bombs at the spot where the tunnel under the river connected to the underground tunnel.

If the tunnel under the river really collapsed, they had to explode the construction area to prevent the rampaging water from flooding the fully constructed tunnels that were connected to Subway No.20, because those tunnels were also connected to subways.

But detonations like these required precise calculations and holes for detonation at precise places. They needed at least ten minutes to prepare it.

Until then, Meng Chao and Lu Siya had tol halt Gao Ye's destruction.

The further they went into the tunnel, the stuffier and more humid the air became. They could hear dripping and cracking everywhere. Countless intersecting cracks were appearing on the walls of the tunnel.

At some unknown point in time, the water had flooded the dry surface, and it went over their ankles.

A red light swayed ahead of them. A few workers staggered over from the dark.

Meng Chao grabbed those workers and shouted, “Run!”

But as a Spirit Sensor, Lu Siya noticed that something was off. “Careful!” she shouted out.

At the same time, she activated her ability. Spirit tattoos shone around her eyes, as if she had put on dazzling eyeshadow.

A few spikes formed of rocks shot out from under Meng Chao's feet and went toward the workers.

The workers were like puppets with ruined joints. They moved in strange ways and avoided the spikes, though barely.

At that point, they also revealed faces that were green, swollen and covered in red lines.

“Zombies?!”

Meng Chao shuddered and immediately understood what had happened. They were deep in a tunnel under a river. It was the best place for a rat horde to attack.

Even though it was winter on the surface, the underground tunnel was humid and hot. Many workers did not obey the standards of operation fully and did not wear their protective clothing properly.

As long as the rats scratched or bit their exposed skin, their tragic fates were set.

Meng Chao sighed. His legs instantly turned into whirlwinds, and he kicked the zombified workers away from him. They flew away like cannonb.a.l.l.s.

He used a lot of strength, and all of them were reduced to a b.l.o.o.d.y mess against the walls of the tunnel. Their bones were broken.

With their spines crushed, it should have been impossible for them to get up. But strange sounds of bones protruding and flesh squirming came from where they fell. Then, as if they were controlled with a string by demons, they stood up again with crooked bodies.

There were a few workers who could not get up, so they decided to go on all fours, just like human spiders. Their heads spun 180 degrees, and they stared at Meng Chao and Lu Siya with bloodshot eyes.

Red threads gushed out of their wounds. They were like hungry tentacles that stretched out toward Meng Chao and Lu Siya.

“Blood Flower!” Meng Chao hissed.

He knew it. The abnormal beasts were indeed in control of a technology that allowed them to fuse the zombie virus, rabies virus, and pseudo fungus creature—Blood Flower—together.

They managed to turn humans into existences more terrifying than monsters.

Lu Siya sighed and snapped her fingers lightly. She turned the st.u.r.dy reinforced concrete under the zombies' feet into loose, flowing sand, and their limbs sunk into it,

Then, she changed the electron sh.e.l.l and molecular structure of the flowing sand, turning it back to reinforced concrete, thus pinning the zombies firmly to the ground.

The zombies yanked at their limbs with everything they had. Rage appeared on their deformed, swollen faces. Even if they tore their joints and flesh, they insisted on yanking out their severed limbs.

Meng Chao could not watch it any longer. He pulled out his gun and fired repeatedly to end these innocent victims' lives.

Even though the zombies continued squirming madly because of the stimulation from the viruses and Blood Flowers despite having their heads blasted open, at the very least, the people's souls could rest in peace and would not need to continue to bear any pain.

The two were blocked for a moment by zombies, and suddenly, the tunnel wall cracked loudly.

The dripping of water was also replaced by another, even more terrifying sound. It sounded like thousands of horses running at them.

Meng Chao and Lu Siya could not stop themselves from looking at the top of the tunnel.

There were now fine cracks over there.

They had started on the surface near the river and had walked more than 300 m into the tunnel. In other words, they were right under Red Dragon River now. Above them was the raging river, along with countless aquatic monsters.

The sounds of horses galloping became louder. It was as if the river water had gathered together to form a huge army and was rus.h.i.+ng at them, who were deep in the tunnel.

Lu Siya gritted her teeth and knelt down on one knee. She pressed her palms against the ground.

Countless spirit tattoos rose on her forehead, corners of her eyes, the roots of her ears, shoulders, arms, and palms. Then, they gushed out from her palms to spread out into the depths of the tunnel like living streams.

Soon, the walls of the tunnel were covered in spirit tattoos.

With spirit energy interference, the cracks soon closed up. Thick stone pillars shot out of the surface as well. They overlapped with each other to form multiple breakwaters. Then, they slowly fused together to form an impenetrable stone wall!

After being nourished by the Red Radiance Jade tsunami and Blue Origin Crystals together with Meng Chao under Raging Waves, Lu Siya had also gained a blessing.

Besides, she had also experienced all sorts of hards.h.i.+ps in the abnormal beast research department over the past year. With her burning, ambitious nature driving her forward, she trained madly and fought hard every day, so her fighting strength had reached an explosive breakthrough.

She was no longer the mine explorer who needed powerful fighters to protect her. Instead, she was a true Heaven Realm superhuman. She could control sand, earth, and rocks to fight. She was a true daughter of earth!

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The deafening sounds of water cras.h.i.+ng against things could be heard deep in the tunnel.

Something had completely crushed the end of the tunnel, so the rampaging river water from Red Dragon River surged in like a berserk aquatic dragon.

Originally, the river would have been able to instantly flood the whole tunnel and destroy everything in it. But it was weakened by the breakwaters Lu Siya constructed, and the impact was largely reduced.

In the end, when the water reached their waists, Lu Siya finally closed up the damaged part of the tunnel and blocked it.

This task took up most of her spirit energy and stamina.

Her face was stark pale. Her breathing was rapid, and the spirit flames around her flickered.

At that moment, a black shadow squirmed madly in the water that had reached their waists.

Splas.h.!.+

A monster with s.h.i.+ning purple marks, which resembled an electric eel but was as thick as a python, suddenly shot out of the water. It opened its mouth wide, and electricity sparked from its sharp fangs. It went straight for Lu Siya's face.

It was an aquatic monster that had surged into the tunnel with the water!

Meng Chao acted quickly. He brought his arm down and cut off the giant electric eel's head.

Blood that was almost transparent gushed out of the creature's oropharynx. It fell limply back into the water and started twitching madly.

The electricity arcs illuminated the murky water, giving it a crystalline blue hue. It also illuminated the countless aquatic monsters hiding beneath the water's surface.

Since Lu Siya had sealed off the cracks in time, most of the creatures who came in with the water were small aquatic monsters, thin enhydris-type monsters, or electric eel-type monsters.

But this did not mean that they were not dangerous.

Many of the aquatic monsters were not even at the length of Meng Chao's arm, but half of their bodies were their heads and they had unique jaw structures. When they opened their mouths wide, they could easily bite off a human's head. Their astonis.h.i.+ng bite strength could even allow them to bite through a steel plate like it was a biscuit.

They were like the upgraded versions of the piranhas on Earth.

Even a lot of the aquatic monsters who were dozens of times larger than they were would turn into prey for these man-eating aquatic creatures if they had the slightest wound on their bodies, because they would surge forward in a horde when they scented blood.

At that moment, after they tasted the blood from the giant electric eel, thousands of piranhas swam madly toward Meng Chao and Lu Siya. Some of them even jumped out of the water eagerly while being more than ten meters away. They surged toward them as one.

“You're just asking for it!”

From the moment he noticed that the innocent workers were infected by the virus and turned into new zombies, Meng Chao had seethed in anger.

His chain sabers burned with flames that could not be extinguished by water and dazzling electrical arcs that made the dark cave look like there was a sun inside. Then, as his spirit energy surged even fiercer than the river water, they split into dozens of illusions… No, they were not illusions!

Since Meng Chao used the Ultimate Style, he did not need to acc.u.mulate power or cool down. His advantage lay in possessing extremely good endurance. He instantly delivered dozens of fatal strikes to the center of piranhas' heads and accurately split open dozens of those that had jumped out of the water.

The piranhas lurking in the water were forced out when Meng Chao used the spirit energy that surged out of the 36,000 pores on his body to push the water away. He did the same thing again, then, and cut them into pieces.