"All members of the expedition team, get ready immediately... We're departing right away."
After speaking, Wu Dongping glanced at Zhou Ziwei and Wang Xuewei before slowly walking towards the depths of the cave, towards the hot spring pool.
The others dared not be negligent. Upon hearing this, they hurriedly stood up and followed closely behind Wu Dongping, passing by in single file.
"You've arrived."
When they reached the hot spring pool, they saw a middle-aged man in a dark military uniform standing with his back to them by the water, looking up at a dark hole on the opposite side of the pool, his expression somewhat deep and strange.
The cave had already undergone some simple repairs. The uneven ground had been smoothed out, and a battery-powered fluorescent lamp was hung every few meters along the stone walls, illuminating the entire outer cave.
Especially next to this hot spring pool, the lights are even more dazzling, almost illuminating the area as if it were daytime.
But for some reason, no matter how bright the lights were, the entrance to the inner cave opposite the hot spring pool remained completely dark, as if the light couldn't reach there at all. It was impossible to see anything within a meter of the dark cave entrance, giving it a ghostly feel.
"General Liu, when did you arrive?" Wu Dongping, who had been somewhat sullen, paused slightly upon seeing the middle-aged soldier, then immediately showed a rare hint of joy. He hurriedly took a few steps forward and snapped a standard military salute to the man's back.
The middle-aged man slowly turned around, and Zhou Ziwei then noticed that the man's epaulets clearly showed that he was actually a major general.
The other eleven members of the expedition team, besides Wu Dongping, were obviously familiar with General Liu. When they saw General Liu turn around, they all immediately stood at attention and saluted.
Only Zhou Ziwei and Wang Xuewei remained motionless. Wang Xuewei had no idea how to salute, while Zhou Ziwei noticed that General Liu's appearance bore a resemblance to that of Liu Xinghan. After a slight pause, he immediately guessed the man's identity, simply smiled, and made no further reaction.
Because of Liu Xinghan's relationship with him, General Liu probably wouldn't have a good impression of him. Zhou Ziwei felt that he was just a fake soldier and there was really no need for him to flatter this general, so he automatically ignored this dignified general.
General Liu's gaze swept over the expedition team members before settling on Zhou Ziwei.
Since only Zhou Ziwei and Wang Xuewei weren't wearing tactical helmets, they naturally stood out the most. Moreover, they were the only ones who didn't salute, so it would be strange if General Liu didn't notice them.
"You're Zhou Ziwei?" General Liu asked casually, staring at Zhou Ziwei with a meaningful look.
"Um...it's me."
Zhou Ziwei nodded and casually responded, as if he were just chatting with a passerby on the street, without showing any nervousness or respect in front of a general.
General Liu's eyes showed a slight hint of surprise, but he didn't say anything. Instead, he scanned each member of the expedition team one by one before saying in a deep voice, "You should all be clear about this mission, right? I want to remind you again that each of you has a small pinhole camera above your head. I require you to turn on this camera before entering the inner cave. Once inside, don't be greedy for credit. Your biggest task this time is to come back alive and bring back everything you see."
Even if we don't gain anything substantial this time, as long as you all come back alive, the mission will have been successfully completed. After all, we still know almost nothing about the secret world behind this cave, so the most important thing now is to find a relatively safe way to enter and exit this cave. Once we have this discovery, we can send people in again at any time for further excavation. Do you understand?
"Yes—" The expedition team's unified reply reverberated through the cave, though Zhou Ziwei and Wang Xuewei's voices were conspicuously absent.
"Very good, prepare to go in!" After saying that, General Liu turned his gaze to Zhou Ziwei again, smiled slightly, and said, "Director Zhou, be careful. I hope you can come out alive."
Zhou Ziwei rolled his eyes upon hearing this and said casually, "Don't worry, I'm planning to wreak havoc for a thousand years. Even if the earth is destroyed, I won't die."
"That's good..." General Liu saw that Zhou Ziwei was speaking to him so disrespectfully, but he didn't seem angry. He just smiled slightly, then stepped aside and said nothing more.
Wu Dongping glanced at General Liu and Zhou Ziwei with some surprise, then said in a deep voice, "Everyone, pay attention... Enter as quickly as possible according to the pre-arranged order. No one can delay for even a moment."
After saying that, he took two steps forward and came to the side of the hot spring pool. However, he did not intend to wade in. Instead, he stretched out his left arm, aimed at the dark cave entrance in front of him, and suddenly clenched his fist.
With a soft "whoosh," a silver light shot out from his wrist and struck the stone wall at the cave entrance with a "snap." It turned out that he had used the steel wire ball function of his equipment. The steel ball shot into the rock with great force, and then countless barbs automatically popped out from the steel ball, naturally gripping the stone wall firmly. Then, Wu Dongping clenched his hand again, and the extended steel wire began to retract automatically, instantly pulling Wu Dongping's body back towards the dark cave entrance.
Seeing this, Zhou Ziwei nodded to himself, realizing that although Wu Dongping was not very broad-minded, he was still quite clever, as he had guessed that the danger at the cave entrance could only be resolved by passing through quickly.
And this equipment was indeed very powerful, allowing people to cross the more than ten-meter-wide pool in one go. Otherwise, if one were to swim across the pool in the normal way and then climb up the stone wall to the two-meter-high opening, it would definitely take a lot of time. Moreover, once one had crossed halfway across the pool, the soul power in one's body would probably be pulled out of the body by that strange force. In that case, by the time one climbed up to the opening, one would probably have already lost most of one's life.
However, people like Wu Dongping have minimized this process to the greatest extent possible, which naturally increases their chances of survival.
Using the steel wire and marbles, Wu Dongping quickly climbed onto the dark cave entrance. His body swayed slightly, whether from the excessive strain on his body during the aerial flight or from sensing the loss of his life force, it was unclear.
However, Wu Dongping did not hesitate at all. After reaching the cave entrance, he immediately flicked his wrist and retrieved the steel ball that had been shot into the stone wall.
Then he stretched out a hand, waved behind him, and then vanished completely into the dark cave.
Zhou Ziwei didn't know what methods Old M's men used to enter this mysterious inner cave the previous two times, but he was certain that no one would make such thorough preparations beforehand.
Since ordinary people who are not well prepared have a chance to pass through here alive, Zhou Ziwei is almost certain that if nothing goes wrong, their expedition team should be able to pass through this first life-or-death challenge safely!
Volume 2, The Assassin's Nightmare, Chapter 375: The Black Hole, It Really Was a Black Hole
Following Wu Dongping, all the members of the expedition team followed suit, using steel wire marbles to help them leap onto the dark cave entrance that was suspended more than two meters high.
Zhou Ziwei didn't know how they had arranged the order beforehand, and Wu Dongping hadn't told him either, so he had no choice but to obediently stay at the back. He figured it would be fine to wait until all twelve members of the expedition team had entered before he and Wang Xuewei went in.
However, just when Zhou Ziwei thought that all the members of the expedition team would safely cross the first life-or-death hurdle of entering the mysterious cave, the twelfth member of the expedition team, after successfully climbing onto the dark cave entrance and retrieving the steel ball that had been shot into the rock, suddenly slipped and fell down from the cave entrance with a "plop" into the water.
From the person's figure, Zhou Ziwei could tell that this person should be one of the two female members of the expedition team, who seemed to be a medic named Chu Qiutang.
Chu Qiutang was also a former special forces soldier, and now she seems to be working at a medical research institute in a military region. Her main role in joining the expedition team is to provide medical care for the team members, as well as to record and collect various medicinal specimens after entering the new environment inside the cave.
Of all twelve members of the expedition team, she was probably the least skilled, of course... this excludes Wang Xuewei, who is not a member of the military.
It seems that Captain Wu is a very pragmatic guy. He probably thought that with Chu Qiutang's skills, she might become a burden to others after entering the dangerous area, so he deliberately placed her last. That way, even if something happened to her, it wouldn't delay the progress of the other team members.
In Wu Dongping's view, Chu Qiutang's joining was to help others. If she herself still needed help from others, then her presence or absence would not make much sense.
The addition of Zhou Ziwei and Wang Xuewei made Chu Qiutang, who should have been last in line, the third to last to enter. When Zhou Ziwei and Wang Xuewei saw Chu Qiutang slip and fall into the pool, they were both shocked. Then they saw Chu Qiutang struggling frantically in the water, forgetting to launch the steel wire marble again to pull herself out of the water.
Wang Xuewei panicked and grabbed Zhou Ziwei's arm, murmuring, "What should we do... Can we... can we get her out first... Will she drown in there!"
Upon hearing this, Zhou Ziwei couldn't help but roll his eyes. This set of top-of-the-line equipment, worth millions of US dollars, has powerful diving capabilities. Let alone falling into a pool that is only two or three meters deep, even if you fall into the Pacific Ocean, you won't drown so easily.
However, the problem is that Chu Qiutang's current location has already entered the range of that mysterious force field, and her soul power must be constantly being lost. So if she is allowed to frantically struggle there for a while, although she will not drown, she will not survive either.
In such a situation, every second counts. Every second wasted could reduce Chu Qiutang's chances of survival. Zhou Ziwei hesitated only slightly before deciding to rescue this poor girl who had been abandoned by the team.
After all, saving Chu Qiutang wouldn't take up much of Zhou Ziwei's time, and Chu Qiutang was a good friend of Wang Xuewei. If he just watched Chu Qiutang die here without offering any help, he probably wouldn't be able to live with himself.
Therefore, after Wang Xuewei finished asking her question, Zhou Ziwei nodded heavily and then whispered to her, "I'll take you with me. Remember... once we enter that black hole, go in alone as fast as you can. Don't delay. I'll pull Chu Qiutang up first, and then I'll catch up with you right away, understand?"
When Wang Xuewei heard that she would be separated from Zhou Ziwei for a while, she couldn't help but feel a little scared. However, when she thought about Zhou Ziwei going to rescue Chu Qiutang, she naturally felt embarrassed to say anything. She couldn't very well tell Zhou Ziwei not to save someone just because she was scared, could she? The kind-hearted Wang Xuewei would never do such a thing.
"Okay... be careful yourself!" Wang Xuewei nodded gently.
Before she could finish her sentence, Zhou Ziwei stretched out his left arm and launched the steel wire ball from his wrist. Then she felt a tightness around her waist as Zhou Ziwei pulled her into a hug.
"Ah..." Wang Xuewei let out a soft cry, and felt her body suddenly lose weight, as if she had been launched into the air like a cannonball. The scenery in front of her kept receding, and everything became extremely blurry.
Almost in the blink of an eye, Wang Xuewei felt her body suddenly stop again, and she found herself with her feet firmly on solid ground. Looking around, she realized that she was now in the extremely dark cave entrance.
The arm around her slender waist loosened slightly, and then Wang Xuewei felt a gentle pat on her back. That familiar voice rang in her ear: "Hurry up... don't stop for even a second!"
After landing at the entrance of the dark hole, Wang Xuewei immediately felt a slight dizziness. In short, she felt very uncomfortable. No wonder Chu Qiutang had successfully jumped onto the entrance earlier but still fell back down. Knowing that staying in this place for too long was not good, she softly responded with an "Mmm," then gritted her teeth, mustered her courage, and rushed quickly into the dark world ahead.
Meanwhile, Zhou Ziwei had already sprang backward and fallen into the deep pool of water below the cave.
If Chu Qiutang hadn't been a woman, and not a particularly unpleasant one at that, Zhou Ziwei might not have necessarily offered her a helping hand in this life-or-death situation where life was extremely fragile.
This time, Zhou Ziwei only used a little bit of his soul power to inject into the force field space to help himself and Wang Xuewei bounce over and increase their speed. However, he still managed to consume hundreds of units of soul power in a short period of time.
The level of soul power consumption was truly terrifying. Fortunately, Zhou Ziwei discovered that ordinary people's soul power would not be consumed in such a way; otherwise, probably no one would have been able to enter this cave alive.
You should know that an ordinary person's soul power is at most around a dozen or so. If it were to be consumed in a single moment, then they would probably die instantly as soon as they got close to this cave entrance.
Sure enough, once Zhou Ziwei withdrew the soul power in the force field space, he could hardly feel how much soul power had escaped. In other words,... a normal person's soul power is tightly wrapped in the physical body and hidden in the sea of soul, so the effect of that invisible suction force is naturally much weaker. Although the soul power will also be lost, the speed is much slower.
Someone like Zhou Ziwei, who blatantly exposes his soul power, will naturally have countless times more of it absorbed.
Fortunately, Zhou Ziwei's soul power was about to break through the 100,000 mark, which was unprecedentedly abundant. Occasionally losing some was negligible.
When Zhou Ziwei jumped towards the cave entrance, he didn't need to use the force field space for assistance. However, in order to save Wang Xuewei as much time as possible from being in danger, he activated the ability without hesitation. This made him and Wang Xuewei fly several times faster, saving about two seconds in the air.
Don't underestimate these two seconds. According to Zhou Ziwei's guess, around this cave entrance, ordinary people would lose their soul power at a rate of one remnant soul power per second due to the strange suction force. Since a normal person's soul power is between ten and twenty, saving two seconds would increase Wang Xuewei's chances of survival by ten to twenty percent.
With a push from behind, and seeing that Wang Xuewei had obediently stepped into the vast darkness, Zhou Ziwei did not hesitate any longer. He jumped into the pool and grabbed Chu Qiutang around the waist. Then, instead of activating the wire marble function, he refilled the force field space with a large amount of soul power, which lifted the two of them out of the water.
However, General Liu and several special forces soldiers were watching from the opposite side of the pool. Zhou Ziwei didn't want to appear too amazing in their eyes, so during his ascent, he moved his feet on the bare stone wall as if he were using the stone wall as leverage to climb up step by step.
Although Zhou Ziwei had tried his best to keep a low profile, even his seemingly effortless skill, which appeared to be like walking on a stone wall, almost made the eyes of the people behind him pop out.
Keep in mind that Zhou Ziwei was carrying someone in his arms at this moment, yet he calmly and confidently ran up the stone wall that was perpendicular to the ground. The way he did it was even more spectacular than the special effects in a martial arts blockbuster.
But the group clearly saw that neither Zhou Ziwei nor Chu Qiutang launched the wire marbles...
"Wow, that's so cool... It looks like the Wudang's Cloud Ladder Leap!"
"What?! It's clearly the Lingbo Weibu (a martial arts technique)!"
The special forces soldiers only closed their gaping mouths after Zhou Ziwei and Chu Qiutang's figures had completely disappeared into the dark cave entrance. They then began to discuss among themselves, and in no time, Zhou Ziwei had been elevated to the status of a peerless martial arts master in their minds...
Zhou Ziwei had no time to pay attention to the discussions behind him. After carrying Chu Qiutang back up to the cave entrance, he noticed that the poor girl looked somewhat listless, obviously because a lot of her soul power had been absorbed.
Seeing this, Zhou Ziwei naturally dared not delay any longer. Without even stopping for a moment, as soon as he reached the cave entrance, Zhou Ziwei immediately withdrew his soul power back into his body. Then, he simply picked up Chu Qiutang and carried her in his arms. He then moved quickly and ran straight into the dark depths of the cave.
The cave was too dark, and Zhou Ziwei dared not recklessly release his soul power to explore in this eerie place. So he could only continue running forward, stumbling along, while using one hand to turn on the light on his tactical helmet.
The beam of light from his helmet could normally reach over fifty meters, with a brightness of ten lux, making it a fairly advanced device. However, when Zhou Ziwei turned on the light, he was horrified to find that the light was shockingly dim, as if the battery was about to run out of power. Furthermore, the dim light didn't travel in a straight line; instead, it began to distort strangely less than three meters away before quickly fading away…
The distorted light seemed to be drawn by some force, drifting away along a strange trajectory...
Damn it... This... This cave seems to draw out not only people's souls, but also electricity and light... My God, is this... Could this place be a black hole?
Upon seeing this, Zhou Ziwei was immediately filled with shock. He had originally thought that the danger at the entrance of the cave was mainly because the soul power of those who passed through here would be sucked away by some unknown force, and they would eventually die from exhaustion of their soul power. That's why he thought that he was completely safe. But little did he know that this place was not only about soul power being sucked away, but it seemed that everything was attracted by that mysterious force.
Zhou Ziwei had only carried Chu Qiutang for less than five meters when he began to feel that not only was his soul power slowly draining away, but his physical strength was also being rapidly depleted. It was only a short distance of five steps, but he felt as exhausted as if he had run a five-thousand-meter race.
What to do? This situation has completely exceeded Zhou Ziwei's expectations. If they continue to go deeper, there will be many dangers. If he is not careful, even he may not be able to save his life here.
If there really is a black hole here, then...
It has to be said that letting Wang Xuewei run in alone was a fatal mistake. If Zhou Ziwei were holding Wang Xuewei instead of Chu Qiutang, he probably would have already carried her back the way he came without hesitation.
Even though returning empty-handed, like a soldier deserting in the face of battle, would likely invite ridicule from General Liu and those familiar with the operation, Zhou Ziwei believed that nothing was more important than his own life. What was face worth anyway?
However, it's no longer just a matter of his own life. Wang Xuewei is still ahead of him. If he escapes alone, it won't just be a matter of losing face; he'll likely be left with a permanent shadow in his heart for the rest of his life.
If someone abandons another and leaves them to fend for themselves, that's one thing, but Wang Xuewei is Zhou Ziwei's nominal wife now... If he can even disregard his own wife... then does he deserve to be called a man?
With a helpless sigh, Zhou Ziwei not only did not retreat, but quickened his pace and desperately chased after her. He believed that with Wang Xuewei's abilities, even though her body had just been modified by him with three drops of Reincarnation Water yesterday, her physique was no weaker than that of an ordinary special forces soldier. However, because she was thinking of him, she would not run too fast.
So catching up with Wang Xuewei shouldn't be too difficult for him. And once he catches up with her, he should retreat first! This place is really terrifying; there's nothing fun about it.
Zhou Ziwei had originally thought that there might be some kind of treasure in the cave that could automatically absorb soul power. If he could get that treasure, wouldn't he have a continuous source of soul power?
His initial decision to enter this place was likely driven by greed, and now it seems there's no treasure here, but there is a black hole.
Could he take that black hole with him? Even if he could, would he dare to take it?
Feeling his energy draining away bit by bit, while the space inside the cave suddenly seemed incredibly vast, the vastness meant there were multiple possible directions. Whether he and Wang Xuewei were truly heading in the same direction was unknown. Continuing to search like this...
Zhou Ziwei's face grew increasingly grim, but his pace quickened instead of slowing down. No matter what, he could only run straight down the dark road, hoping that he and Wang Xuewei were in sync and running in the same direction!
"You... thank you..." A low voice suddenly sounded in his ear. It was Chu Qiutang thanking him. However, although the voice was clearly right next to his ear, it sounded somewhat ethereal to Zhou Ziwei. Moreover, each syllable was gradually drawn out before abruptly stopping...