Three kilometers to the north of the SW0304 safety zone is a mountain range that stretches for thousands of kilometers, and although there is no bird song and flowers, it is also a cherished habitat for countless mutant species. The mountain range straddles the southwestern edge of the continent and serves as a natural trap from the southwest to the interior.

There is a high-speed rail tunnel in the middle of the mountain range, the high-speed rail tunnel is 12,506 meters long, affected by a variety of bad geology, the tunnel construction is laborious and laborious, the risk is extremely high, and it is called a class I risk tunnel.

The entrance of the tunnel is a large circular hole made of concrete, the edge is convex from the inside to the outside in the shape of a fish's mouth, the top of the hole is a slope of 60 degrees, the slope is all filled with emerald green vegetation, there are occasionally a few places of vegetation "bald", revealing the pale yellow composite material wall with obvious weathering traces below, there is a ladder at the top of the slope, and a row of dilapidated barbed wire fences is blocked on the stairs, and inside the barbed wire, there is a dense dense forest and animal paradise.

The tunnel extends from the inside to the outside of four tracks, which are separated by a flat concrete floor. On both sides of the track are long strings of rusted iron frames and long-lost wires. In civilized times, high-speed trains often traveled through the tracks.

Today, the place has been abandoned for half a century, and the four tracks are full of weathering and obvious signs of destruction, as if they are silently indicting things with ugly remnants.

An 18-ton armored truck was driving between the tracks hundreds of meters away from the hole, thick bulletproof. The tires crawl at a steady speed on hard ground that has been deprived of smoothness by weathering. The armored truck is covered in a sturdy layer of iron armor, and the heavily armed black mercenaries are holding HK416 or MP5 in the back compartment, and the small upper body is just enough to poke out the iron plate for accurate shooting.

The armored truck had a 12.7 mm anti-aircraft machine gun of the NSV type on the top of its nose, which was loaded with Lao Hu as a heavy machine gunner. Ordinary first-order mutant creatures who dared to approach armored trucks would be torn to pieces by the relentless fire of anti-aircraft machine guns.

The driver was Deputy Liu, who was dressed in a pitch-black armed uniform. Wang Sheng sat in the co-pilot seat with a cigarette in his mouth, he was wearing specially reinforced military protective gear, and the armor of the explosion-proof military helmet was lifted above his head. His right elbow was leaning against the window, his fist was pressed against his short bearded chin, and his round and heroic eyes squinted at the scenery outside the window, watching the wind and clouds recede, and he didn't know what emotions were brewing behind his black-brown pupils.

Wu Qi, An Yi and other members of the mercenary team sat quietly in the back warehouse, 5 members of the mercenary team came, Zhou Qing, who had a first-level strength, a strengthened defense and a first-level danger perception enhancement, naturally arrived, and the rest stayed in the safe area, responsible for maintaining order and food distribution that day.

Wu Qi sat quietly in the dark back warehouse, and only by looking up could he see the bright light and thin clouds in the sky over the iron plate of more than one meter. He was holding a long knife wrapped in animal skins, and the bag behind his back still contained the little red fox Qiyue. Wu Qi's beautiful eyes silently looked ahead, he did not reject dark places, dryness and darkness always reminded him of his childhood in the mountains and caves, and his eyesight was not bad in a low-light environment.

Sitting across from him was Takato, who was holding a slender and rough sniper in his arms. Shoot the gun, keep your eyes together and rest your mind. The close contact made Wu Qi more sure that Gao Yuan's breathing method was similar to him, which made him have a faint impression of Gao Yuan's life, and felt that the static skills of professional snipers were really extraordinary.

When he was less than 100 meters away from the tunnel, July in Wu Qi's bag suddenly came out with some restlessness, Wu Qi opened the opening of his bag, and Red Fox July couldn't wait to get his fluffy and fiery little head out. Wu Qi slowly stroked Qiyue's silky hair with his hand, but he didn't expect Qiyue to suddenly break free of Wu Qi's palm and step on his shoulders and move upward.

This movement shocked everyone in the back warehouse, including Gao Yuan. In the crowd of onlookers, July stood on the top of the iron plate with four legs, a pair of black round eyes staring closely at the deep tunnel, it seemed to smell something that made it resist, and grinned to reveal a rare fierce look.

"Yo, this little red fox is your pet, boy, it looks good." Lao Hu teased with a smile on his face when he saw July, and he also stretched out his fingers wrapped in thick black gloves to caress July's forehead.

"Hey, don't underestimate the red fox, its bite force can penetrate your glove, biting your finger off half of it the moment you can't react." Wu Qi said to the old nonsense calmly, but his body stood up, and he looked at the fried July with a little surprise.

Lao Hu's half-stretched hand suddenly hung in the air and stopped, he smiled awkwardly, a big man with a rough and rough face and a big man with a rough and rough label in his eyes, there was a faint love for the furry July and regret that he couldn't touch it.

"In this tunnel, there is a smell that makes July extremely vigilant, and it is likely that there is some kind of dangerous creature." Wu Qi said softly.

Lao Hu's shoulders were loose, leaning against the wall of the back warehouse and said easily: "Don't worry, our mission is a C-level exploration mission issued by the mercenary group, and the goal is to explore this cave to collect intelligence information." Even if you encounter an enemy, your strength will not exceed the first order. ”

"If it's just an ordinary exploration mission, with more than a dozen mercenary groups fully armed and equipped enough to crush groups of first-order mutant creatures, and they also drive armored trucks," Wu Qi looked at Lao Hu's eyes and said slowly, "Here, some of them are probably not as simple as a dozen or twenty mutated creatures, right?" ”

Lao Hu and Wu Qi looked at each other for two seconds, grinned widely, and lowered their voices and said, "Boy, what you said is good. If it's a small group of mutated creatures, a more athletic lone mercenary will be enough to do it. Let me tell you a little secret, there is a message on the mission information, which reads 'Multiple plague species have been observed'. The bounty for completing the quest is also 4 times that of the average C-level exploration quest. ”

"Plague seeds?" A trace of fluctuation flashed in Wu Qi's beautiful obsidian eyes.

"That's right, as long as the plague species are involved, the quest bounty will be multiplied. After all, among mutant creatures of the same rank, the strength of the plague species is often at its peak, and it even has cross-class combat power, and it is cruel by nature; Perhaps because of their failed evolution and alienation into living corpses, they have a deep genetic hostility towards pure humans who are safe and sound and the pioneers of evolutionary success. Lao Hu said to Wu Qi without bothering.

In the mercenary team in the security zone, the only thing that Lao Hu was interested in was this young man named Wu Qi. Compared with the typical "survivors" who showed panic in their eyes - An Yi and others, Wu Qi, a young man, was a "warrior" who was not afraid of bloodshed and fought near the sharp fangs of monsters with knives. He dared to confront the powerful and majestic Wang Sheng, and even he didn't dare to do it.

It's that Wu Qi's face is too delicate, and in Lao Hu's aesthetics, rough is enough for the masters.

Wu Qi silently digested the explanation that Lao Hu told him, of course he didn't know what Lao Hu thought about his appearance. Sister Ruoying had told him a lot about the plague species, and he had also heard the "explanation of cruelty by nature" that Lao Hu said. At the same time, Sister Ruoying also told him that a plague species with too much virus in the body may infect a large group of mutated animals and even pioneers, dragging them into the abyss of the virus rampage and assimilating them.

There was not a single plague species in the mountains where Wu Qi stayed in his childhood, and if there were, it would be absolutely impossible for the number to be less.

Thinking about this, the noise of the engine next to my ears suddenly became much quieter, and the light suddenly disappeared. Entering the tunnel doorway, the armored truck slowed down.

"Ladies and gentlemen, be vigilant at all times. Otherwise, out of the darkness out of nowhere, a monster will come out and take your life! Wang Shenglang, who was sitting in the co-pilot in front of him, said loudly, leaning on the side of the car window with his right hand and throwing a cigarette butt with an unextinguished spark out of the window.

The cigarette butt fell to the floor of the tunnel, and after a small bounce, he lay down quietly, only a faint spark on the butt of the cigarette became the only light in the dark tunnel.

The tunnel was dark and quiet, except for the much quieter sound of the engines of armored trucks. The air in the tunnel is not clean, and dust accumulates on the tunnel walls, filling the environment with a strong smell of dust. The mercenaries were all vigilant, and An Yi, Gao Yuan and others, who were sitting in the back warehouse before, also stood up and paid attention to their surroundings.

The mercenaries of the Black Gun have put down the face armor of their explosion-proof helmets and turned on the night vision function, so they can see every move that may occur in any corner of the tunnel. Not all people have enhanced vision.

In the back warehouse, An Yi looked around a little nervously, and Zhou Qing's legs trembled faintly. He closed his eyes tightly, eager to use all his senses. It's a pity that he didn't perceive the individual emitting a dangerous aura, but the entire inside of the tunnel was faintly exuding a dangerous aura.

"Captain, this is just an exploration mission, it should be fine." Young Dayong grabbed Anyi's arm and said in fear.

An Yi gave him an encouraging smile, although he didn't know the bottom of his heart. He patted Dayong on the shoulder and said, "Don't worry, even if there is danger, the mercenaries of the Black Gun are well-equipped, and it will not be our turn to resist the monsters." ”

"Hmmm......"

The armored truck drove for a while and suddenly stopped. The driver and Wang Sheng saw at the same time that on the right side of the tunnel ahead, there was a huge hole with a radius of three to four meters. The concrete tunnel wall had partially collapsed, and the edge of the hole was jagged, and the bottom was full of falling cement-like things, as if they had been destroyed by a huge force.

"Prepare to search." Wang Sheng gave the order, he opened the car door, and his dark brown boots were the first to step on the tunnel floor. Most of the people in the back warehouse got down, and Wu Qi, An Yi and others got out of the car one after another. The mercenaries of the black gun raised their guns to guard the surroundings, while Wu Qi silently untied the animal skin wrapped around the long knife and put it into his bag. Even July was stuffed into it.

Wang Sheng and the others walked to the hole on the right side of the tunnel and carefully observed. He stroked the dust scattered on the ground, rubbed it in his hand, and tried to see some traces of creatures in the holes. A mercenary next to him took out a pen and paper to draw a record.

Wu Qi walked around, his eyesight could see his surroundings very clearly, and even more naturally and clearly than the mercenaries who used night vision equipment to observe the environment. He stepped on the track and keenly felt the unevenness of the track.

Wu Qi squatted down, he was good at observing the complex jungle, and he was as good at observing details as he got here, and soon, he saw a picture that surprised him extremely much.

The ground of the tunnel, and even the surface of the track, had countless irregular dents, and a closer look at the large number of dents, Wu Qi found that their edges had a special and consistent outline. If it weren't for the fact that his eyesight was good enough in the dark, and his vision was wide enough, it would be difficult to see the whole thing through the traces.

"Could it be...... Footprints of the plague species? Wu Qi was highly attentive and muttered to himself, which was his instinctive guess based on his 9 years of jungle life experience.

Suddenly, a slight electric sensation ran through Wu Qi's whole body from the top of his head, causing his skin and even his muscles to tingle for a moment. Wu Qi's pupils contracted suddenly, he knew that this was a precursor to danger!

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