In the sewer under the ruins where the repair work had long since stopped, the light was dim, the air was foul, and from time to time, there were sounds of iron cans or dull thuds in the darkness. It was impossible to tell whether they were made by Bone-Eating Rats or some other unknown things.
Bailin suppressed her gasps, inhaling and exhaling the air slowly to minimize the noise she made. She looked around warily. Her many years of hunting experience told her that Bone-Eating Rats were not the only monsters that liked to hide in the sewer.
Under the interference of the darkness, her vision became narrow, and she could only see the outlines of things about five meters around her. If Dudian were here, he would be surprised to find that dark vision was not something shared by all Hunters. It was actually one of the abilities attached to his Marks of the Demon!
Bailin pricked up her ears and sensed the lurking danger through the subtle sounds around her. So she couldn't let her gasps be too loud.
Squeak!
Suddenly, the shrill scream of a Bone-Eating Rat sounded more than twenty meters ahead. It was extremely painful, and the scream stopped quickly. At the same time, there was a splashing sound of water, which then quietly subsided.
Bailin's heart tightened. She wasn't sure if it was several Bone-Eating Rats fighting over food or something else hunting the Bone-Eating Rats. However, she didn't leave right away. Monsters that liked to eat rats weren't that powerful themselves. As long as she was careful not to be sneak attacked, she would be fine.
She stuck close to one side of the wall and walked forward gently, always on guard against the nearby ditch, in case something might jump out from the ditch filled with rat corpses and decaying things and drag her in.
After groping forward for hundreds of meters in such a nervous state, she finally found an open corner. The road surface here had collapsed, and a faint light shone in. The foul smell in the vicinity had been dispersed a lot. The Bone-Eating Rats she had encountered along the way all scurried away when they sensed her approaching. In terms of recognizing the strength of the enemy, the weak Bone-Eating Rats were even more sensitive than large monsters.
Bailin climbed out of the sewer along the rubble. Fresh air rushed towards her. She took a deep breath, looked back, and seeing that the herd of Brain-Pecking Beasts hadn't chased after her, she let out a sigh of relief. She quickly left this street and came to a nearby building.
There were several zombies locked in the building. As soon as they saw Bailin, they roared and pounced towards her. Without even looking at them, she swung her one-handed sword like a whirlwind. The heads of the several zombies fell off like leaves in the autumn wind.
She found a place to sit down. Feeling a bit hungry, she suddenly remembered that she had discarded her backpack. Her face darkened immediately, and the hatred for Dudian in her heart burned again. She thought to herself, "This little brat smelled my scent and got rid of the herd of Brain-Pecking Beasts. He knows that I'm not dead and should still come after me. When he comes to my door himself, it will be his death!"
Thinking of the dead Nick, Lorna, and the others, she couldn't help but clench her fists. "I will avenge you. I'll cut his body apart and bury the pieces in front of your hunting cemetery one by one."
After the hatred churned in her heart for a while, she gradually suppressed it and began to think calmly. "This little brat has a lot of bad ideas. When he shows up again, he will surely come up with some new insidious method. If he uses monsters again, I'll hide in the sewer or go to the neighboring Ninth District. However, there aren't many monsters that he can use. The Brain-Pecking Beasts don't eat zombies, so he smeared Zombie Powder on himself and hid in the dark, which made it relatively easy for him to attract them. If it were other monsters, they would have eaten him up the first moment. This is too risky, and he probably won't do it a second time."
"If he doesn't use monsters and just relies on traps, he shouldn't know much. Although he killed Geli before, it was purely a sneak attack and can't be considered a trap."
"Moreover, from the beginning until now, it can be seen that his effective shooting range is only a mere hundred meters!"
Bailin's eyes were cold and sharp. During the previous few times when Dudian made a move, she had noticed the shooting range of the other party. And to improve one's own shooting range, it couldn't be achieved with just three to five days of training. Especially outside the Wall, there weren't so many arrows for Dudian to keep shooting, and the training efficiency was extremely low.
"Within a hundred meters, if he launches a sneak attack and shoots an arrow, I only need three seconds to catch up with him and kill him! Before, with the herd of Brain-Pecking Beasts chasing after us, I had to let him go. If I had known that Nick and the others would still die, I should have risked being seriously injured and killed him!"
There was a trace of regret in her heart, but she quickly started thinking again. "He has run out of options. Unless he's really stupid enough to think that he can shoot me with a sneak attack. However, instead of waiting for him to attack, it's better for me to make him attack and take the initiative into my own hands! An advantage can also be a disadvantage. He used Geli's sense of smell to deceive Geli's judgment. I can do the same."
With this thought in mind, a plan emerged in her mind.
...
...
Whoosh!
Dudian ran quickly on the street, searching for the police station. Occasionally, when he smelled the scent of a monster, he would take a detour to avoid it.
"I've searched more than a dozen streets, and there's still no sign of it. Could it be that the police station in this city isn't in the Seventh District?" Dudian frowned tightly. Suddenly, he saw an open area ahead. There stood a tall barrier, about thirty to forty meters high, stretching for hundreds of meters. The middle part had collapsed. It was unclear whether it was washed away by the Disaster Rain or baptized by the war.
"A fortress?" Dudian was taken aback when he saw it.
Although it was covered with vines, its appearance left a deep impression on him.
Three hundred years ago, when the disaster broke out, all countries around the world built large defensive fortresses in the refuge cities. These fortresses were located at various refuge entrances in the city and were the second line of defense after the national defense was breached.
Now, as time passed, the old people had long passed away, and the once sturdy and solid fortress had also become mottled.
Dudian was silent. After a moment, he suddenly thought of something and quickly ran towards this fortress.
As he got closer to the fortress, Dudian immediately saw the traces of artillery fire and bombs everywhere on the ground. On one of the skeletal corpses, the military green uniform had long since faded, and the hand still held a machine gun!
Under the corrosion of the open-air rain, the machine gun was covered with rust. Although the steel of the machine gun itself was rust-proof, the nuclear radiation in the rain was too severe, and the other components in the steel had long been damaged and deformed.
When Dudian saw the machine gun, he was delighted. There were indeed a lot of military supplies in this defensive fortress!
He picked up the machine gun and gave it a gentle twist. The gun barrel broke. He pulled out the bullet chain behind the machine gun. On each bullet, there were faint marks dented by the rain. He took a couple of looks and quickly unscrewed the back cap of the bullet. Inside was the dark gunpowder, but it couldn't be poured out. It had been invaded by moisture and hardened in the bullet casing.
Feeling regretful, Dudian threw away this string of bullets and continued forward, planning to search inside the fortress.
Along the way, there were piles of bones everywhere, all skeletal. Even the Bone-Eating Rats were too lazy to gnaw on them. Some of the bones hid small patterned snakes. The tails of the snakes stuck out from the gaps between the ribs, and they lived inside.
"A tank?" Dudian suddenly saw a large object under the fortress. It was covered with moss, but the long gun barrel was still visible. It was actually a tank. However, it was now overturned. There were bones all around the tank. It wasn't hard to imagine the fierce battle that had taken place here in the past.