Inside The Black Mist

The sound suddenly stopped.

"Shall we go up and check?" Tianyang suggested.

Cang Du nodded without objection. The team found the stairs leading to the upper floor and began to move.

The stairs were littered with garbage—papers covered in Inverse Universe symbols and images, torn and damaged handbags, rectangular touch screens that looked like communicators but lacked buttons, and even firearms.

At the corner of the second-floor stairs, there was a human skeleton, dead for who knew how long, holding a gun in its bony hand.

A black metallic gun, structurally indicating the use of live ammunition.

However, the gun was small, and it seemed to have limited firepower.

Cang Du picked up the gun and tossed it into his backpack, saying, "The fortress has been studying military forces in the Inverse Universe; this gun should be worth at least 100 contribution points. Don\'t worry, the gains during the search will be distributed in proportion."

Thump, thump, thump—

The knocking sound echoed again, this time from the third floor.

"Let\'s go."

Cang Du led the way with the gun. The group reached the third floor and looked inside through the door at the top of the stairs.

Inside was a corridor that was quite spacious, accommodating two or three people walking side by side.

On the left side of the corridor were windows that allowed a view of the street outside and the buildings on the opposite side were covered in black mist.

There were some rooms on the right side, lit by the light and with doors every three or four meters. The corridor also had some unidentifiable tools, and the ceiling was damaged, with a tangled mess of wires hanging from the gaps.

At this moment, knocking sounds came again from deep within the corridor. Cang Du gestured for everyone to be careful and moved along the right wall.

Just as they passed the third window on the left, a beam of light broke through the window!

The edge of the beam was pitch-black, and the middle was crimson. It nearly grazed Cang Du\'s nose, entering the wall in front of him and leaving a neatly circular hole.

If Cang Du had moved a bit forward, the beam would have pierced through his head!

In an instant, Cang Du understood. "It\'s a trap!"

The knocking sounds from deep within the corridor were obviously meant to attract their attention and lure them into an ambush.

"Get down, get down!" Cang Du shouted. "Stay as close to the ground as possible; backtrack quickly!"

At the same time, the guy with the ponytail pulled out a handgun hanging from his waist and fired a shot out of the window.

A bright light burst from the muzzle, illuminating the building on the opposite side of the street. The sudden burst of intense light made things lean out of the window on the other building, emitting sharp and short cries retracting back into the building.

While lying down, Tianyang glanced out of the window. In the rush, he only saw that those things had faces resembling goats—humanoid, at least in the upper body.

Their arms were not equipped with claws or blades but had transformed into some kind of firearm.

The gun, formed from flesh and blood, had a white, bony barrel extending from it. Even more bizarrely, there were eyes on the alien firearm.

The intense light caused the eyes on the guns to close, but that didn\'t stop those things from shooting towards the building where the team was.

Black-red beams shot from the white bony barrels intersected and danced above Tianyang and the others\' heads, leaving cup-sized holes in the walls of the building!

Tianyang and Cang Du crawled into the stairwell one after the other, quickly descending to the lower floor, finally letting out a sigh of relief.

"Those things should be the Mysterious Marksmen," Cang Du said breathlessly. "I\'ve heard about them, but today is the first time encountering them."

The Mysterious Marksmen were a common type of dark creature in the 127th Inverse Universe, similar to Mad Dogs, classified as level 2 in terms of danger. They have humanoid bodies with goat-like faces and agile movements.

The danger posed by the Mysterious Marksmen primarily came from their mutated biological firearms. They seemed to charge their guns with their own energy, firing the black-red beams.

Sometimes, mutated variants known as Mysterious Gunners appear among the Marksmen. These creatures function as walking artillery, with energy cannons threatening even light tanks. Fortunately, for now, only Marksmen were present in the building across from them.

If there were Gunners, it wouldn\'t be as easy.

Suddenly, a scream echoed from the corridor.

Tianyang looked, and another soldier crawled into the stairwell, but his left lower leg had been hit. The leg\'s protective armor couldn\'t stop the beam from penetrating, and blood was now pouring out of the wound!

To make matters worse, pale glows lit up at the deep end of the corridor. In the darkness, shaky figures staggered towards them.

Lurkers!

Tianyang slightly bent his body, about to rush into the corridor.

However, Cang Du grabbed his hand, asking coldly, "What are you doing?"

"Saving people!" Tianyang replied without hesitation.

Cang Du said coldly, "Save people? How? Forget about him; he\'s just a soldier. They\'ve already prepared for sacrifice before entering the Inverse Universe. Now, we don\'t have time to linger here."

After saying that, Cang Du let go of Tianyang\'s hand and descended the stairs with another soldier.

Tianyang looked down the corridor, where the Mysterious Marksmen across the street were still shooting frantically. The black-red beams danced above the soldier\'s head, and at one point, a beam even grazed his helmet. The soldier continued to crawl forward, unwilling to stop due to his will to survive, but the leg injury significantly slowed him down.

Maybe the beam would hit him again in the next second.

The Lurkers were closing in behind the corridor, occasionally taking hits from the Marksmen\'s beams. But as long as their Will Cage was intact, these creatures were still attracted by the soldier\'s pheromones, moving towards the flame soldier despite the Marksmen\'s firepower.

Tianyang suddenly lifted his gun, pointing it at the wall in front. In his eyes, the wall began to fade, disappearing.

He saw the dark creature almost hanging from the window on the opposite side of the street. Then, the bodies of these creatures began to fade. When Tianyang\'s attention focused on one of the Marksmen, the Marksman in his field of view eventually left only the eyes on the alien gun body.

Deep within those eyes, a faint yellow glow floated.

Will Cage!

Tianyang pulled the trigger, and the Assault Rifle emitted a deep blue stardust beam. The beam easily pierced through the wall, crossed the street, and entered the eye of that Mysterious Marksman.

The Marksman fell silent instantly, sliding out of the window and falling.

Tianyang did the same to the others, replicating the process. With the support of weak point detection, his line of sight penetrated the outer wall of the building, locked onto the Marksmen\'s Will Cages, and destroyed them.

After firing three to five shots, the black-red beams above the flame soldier\'s head noticeably reduced, and the soldier couldn\'t help but breathe a sigh of relief. Suddenly, his lower leg tightened. Turning around, he found that he had been caught by a Lurker.

The corrosive bodily fluid from the Lurker\'s hand dripped onto the leg armor. The armor immediately emitted blue smoke. At this moment, a deep blue beam swept across in front of the flame soldier\'s eyes, entering the Lurker\'s chest and shattering its Will Cage.

"Hurry up!"

Tianyang shouted, firing a few more shots to kill several Lurkers that were getting closer.

The flame soldier sped up under the cover of Tianyang, finally crawling out of the corridor, leaving this death zone!