Chapter 18
Chapter 18: Evacuation
A panicked shout burst out: “Ah!”
Gu Yi had no time to react before he slipped and fell through the opening.
Gunfire cracked against the rim of the sewer mouth: bang bang!
With a heavy thud, Long Ming jumped down after him, landed, grabbed the fallen Gu Yi, and dragged him along the tunnel.
Gritting his teeth, Gu Yi hissed in pain and pushed a bundle at him: “Ow, it hurts! Bro, you run by yourself. I can’t get away. I don’t want these things anymore. Take them all and get out!”
Gu Yi reached into his backpack, pulled out a double-barreled handgun and a short staff about thirty centimeters long made entirely of gold, its surface etched with complex lines and a Red Tier gem set at the top, then shoved them into Long Ming’s hands.
Long Ming stared at the short staff and froze. No wonder Zheng Bin and his men were chasing Gu Yi to kill him. The staff looked like art, but it was no ordinary piece. Even he felt a tug of greed. In the end, he still forced himself to refuse and said, “I don’t want it, and stop saying things with no courage.”
Gu Yi forced the words out through the pain and waved him on: “Bro, I really can’t move. Don’t drag yourself down because of me.”
Boots hit metal behind them as Zheng Bin and the others dropped into the tunnel. Seeing Long Ming and Gu Yi ahead, they slammed in fresh magazines, raised their guns, and shouted with hatred: “Kid, die!”
Seeing trouble coming, Gu Yi shoved Long Ming forward, spread his arms, and stood in front of him as a shield.
Gunfire roared again: bang bang!
Gu Yi took one bullet after another like a target dummy. Eyes wide, he murmured in a daze: “It hurts. It hurts so much.”
Long Ming’s face went cold. He snapped up his single-shot rifle and fired: bang!
Zheng Bin and his men ducked on reflex, but Long Ming hadn’t aimed at them. His bullet smashed the light on the tunnel ceiling. In an instant the corridor was pitch-dark.
Long Ming shoved everything into his backpack at random, then sprinted ahead with all his strength.
Zheng Bin cursed and led the chase, barking orders as he reloaded and fired blind down the black tunnel: “After him!”
Shots snapped through the dark: bang bang. They hit nothing but air.
In moments Long Ming burst through an open iron door and out onto an extended platform.
He ran straight for the edge.
By the time he reached it, Zheng Bin and his crew had also pushed out of the iron door. They saw Long Ming had nowhere to go and laughed, shouting: “Run! Why aren’t you running now?”
Long Ming frowned, gave a short, cold snort, and jumped.
Wu Kang gaped and yelled to his leader: “What the hell, Brother Zheng, he jumped!”
“Damn it, he doesn’t want his life!” Zheng Bin charged to the edge with his men.
But when they looked down, they realized Long Ming hadn’t died. He was already sprinting away in the opposite direction of the Mobile Fortress, at least one to two hundred meters out and widening the gap.
Zheng Bin stared in disbelief and blurted, “How is that possible? The drop is more than ten meters!”
Wu Kang pointed below the outer edge and called out: “Brother Zheng, there’s a boarding ladder!”
Feeling played, Zheng Bin lifted his gun and snarled: “Shoot!”
They fired several times: bang bang!
They still couldn’t hit him. Long Ming soon melted into the night.
Stomping with rage, Zheng Bin spat his curse into the darkness: “Bastard! Don’t let me see you again!”
Far off, Long Ming glanced back at the Mobile Fortress, then raised his Wristband and opened the map. Seeing no nearby Extraction Point, he headed toward one he had scouted earlier.
A gust of wind blew over the sands, and he shivered. The temperature was dropping fast. He forced himself to keep moving. As long as he reached the Extraction Point, he would be safe.
When the horizon began to pale with the first light of dawn, Long Ming dragged his tired body to a rise near the Extraction Point. He didn’t rush in. Instead, he lay flat on a dune and watched the area with sharp caution.
There is a saying that the moment before victory is the most dangerous.
He had no intention of getting ambushed at the end and throwing everything away.
After a while, sure there was no trap, he checked the time on the Wristband. He had already survived over fifteen hours in this world. He rose carefully and walked toward the mechanical platform.
He stepped onto it, collapsed on the metal, and gulped for breath.
Time ticked by, second by second.
A prickling worry crept over him. The platform still didn’t respond. He sat up, frowning, and muttered, “What’s going on? Is the platform broken?”
He shook his head and answered himself: “No. That’s impossible.”
He had seen someone extract from here with his own eyes. This platform couldn’t be broken.
A notice popped up on the Wristband: “Notice: This Extraction Point has already been used. Please proceed to a different, unused Extraction Point.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Long Ming groaned as the corner of his mouth twitched. He hadn’t expected to dig a pit for himself.
He steadied his mood fast, opened the map, and checked every Extraction Point in range.
Then he looked at his own status. He was already moderately dehydrated, and his stamina had fallen to one-third. He did the math on what strength he had left, weighed all the Extraction Points, and picked one farther away that he could barely reach at his limit.
He chose not to go to any closer points because they were too near the ruins, which meant they might have been used already or, worse, might be under ambush.
Once he set the target, he started moving at once.
By noon, Long Ming staggered under the blazing sun, panting hard. He was badly dehydrated. His lips were split.
He glanced at the map on the Wristband. The chosen Extraction Point was only two kilometers away. He told himself to hold on a bit more.
Right then a ripping sound came from the sky.
Startled, he looked up. Far off, a Red Tier streak tore across the heavens, flying straight toward his position.
He scowled and muttered: “No way, am I really this unlucky?”
Seeing the Red Tier light arrow straight at him, he felt his face go as dark as charcoal. If it hit him, dying like that would be too pathetic.
Luckily the streak skimmed over his head and slammed into the desert about three kilometers away.
A thunderous blast rolled out. A wall of dust and sand swept across the flats.
Long Ming stared, stunned. He had not expected to run into something like this while retreating.
[What on earth fell?]
Curiosity pulled at him, but worry tugged back. He lifted his Wristband and saw red warnings flooding the screen:
“Warning: You are in Severe Dehydration!”
“Warning: You are in Severe Hunger!”
He kept frowning. The object hadn’t fallen very far, but his stamina was almost gone, and the time remaining was only 2 hours 16 minutes. The impact site was also off his extraction route.
If he went to investigate, he might not have enough strength left to reach the Extraction Point. Then everything would be over.
Even so, giving up left a sour taste in his mouth.
This world’s civilization looked primitive, so it shouldn’t produce anything that great. But he had a hunch. [That Red Tier streak might be something good.]
The terrain here was all desert, so there probably weren’t many people nearby.
That meant it was unlikely anyone would fight him for it. The risk was low.
It was a rare chance. If he let it go, he would regret it. Even if he saw something like this again, he might not be able to get it.
[Fortune favors the bold.] His eyes hardened as he made up his mind. He set his jaw, changed direction, and headed for the crash site.