Zhou Ziwei clearly understood Zidan's predicament, so without saying a word, when he saw Zidan turn her wheelchair to the window, he turned and jumped out again. Then, with one hand grabbing the back of the wheelchair, he suddenly lifted and swung her, and Zidan felt as if she were flying through the clouds. She flew accurately through the shattered window and then gently and slowly landed on the ground, as if... there was an invisible hand holding her body and the wheelchair beneath her, carefully placing her on the ground.
When Zhou Ziwei leaped into the building a second time, he turned around and saw Leopard and Mada had also crossed the more than 300-meter-long square and arrived in front of the building. They still seemed to disdain jumping out of the window and charged straight toward the door...
Zhou Ziwei shook his head helplessly. He could remind others once or twice, but he couldn't possibly stand here and remind everyone one by one indefinitely, could he? Besides... for some people, they might not actually listen to what Zhou Ziwei said.
So Zhou Ziwei simply pulled out a small, exquisite pistol that had been assigned to him with the bullets, and then his figure flashed as he approached the area near the gate from inside the small building. The guys who had just been planting landmines here were probably afraid of being exposed, so after planting the landmines, they immediately disappeared without a trace, even faster than rabbits.
Zhou Ziwei shook his head slightly, then raised his gun and fired several shots at the paving stones where landmines were buried.
The impact of a pistol bullet is indeed considerable, but it is still no match for the weight of a living person. Therefore, if Zhou Ziwei only fired one shot, it would be completely ineffective, and the landmine under the paving stones would not explode.
Therefore, Zhou Ziwei's shots almost indiscriminately hit one of the loose floor tiles, causing the tile to be hit again with new force before the old force could dissipate, making the entire tile fall lower and lower...
Finally… a deafening roar came from beneath the constantly riddled floor tiles, followed by a blinding flash of light that erupted from the ground, instantly engulfing the dozen or so landmines buried around them. A deafening explosion resounded throughout the entire building, and the seemingly sturdy main door instantly shattered into countless fragments amidst the sudden roar, scattering them everywhere. Leopard and Mada, who were about to rush over and smash the door, were caught off guard and cried out in pain.
However, when they saw the scene inside the door, which had been blown up in an instant, as if the ground had been dug up three feet deep and the surrounding area was like hell, they were shocked. They realized that if the door hadn't suddenly exploded on its own, the two of them would have been blown to bits by now if they had rushed in.
Volume 3, King of the City, Chapter 523: Sinking
Zhou Ziwei detonated the landmine at the main entrance of the building with a few shots, and then without hesitation, he ran towards the elevator at the back of the building.
I don't know if it's because humans inherently possess a dark side, or if everyone subconsciously feels that only things buried deep underground are truly secret and safe.
In short, all the secret research institutions or mysterious organizations that Zhou Ziwei had ever met were accustomed to building their bases underground, and each one hid deeper than the last, as if they wished they could dig their bases all the way to the Earth's core.
This research base of a famous multinational corporation in Country M was no exception, and it was probably the most well-hidden base Zhou Ziwei had ever seen.
Don't be fooled by the fact that this is just an unassuming three-story building; there's a whole different world underneath.
The actual research base is built beneath this lake. The basement is a full 150 meters below the building above. The entire underground base is divided into six levels, with the lowest level reaching more than 220 meters below the ground. If it were any deeper, even Zhou Ziwei's soul power might not be able to scan it.
What does it mean to be rich and powerful? This guy is just bored out of his mind... To dig such a huge hole under such a lake and build such a large underground base, how much manpower and resources must have been wasted... I really don't know if the boss of this multinational corporation has lost his mind, to do such a pointless thing.
Given this company's level of security, even if you set up this research base on the ground, do you think ordinary citizens could break in? And if you encounter special forces like Zhou Ziwei's, do you think you can hide underground and no one will be able to find you?
When Zhou Ziwei, Jiang Chunshui, and Zidan rushed to the elevator, they saw five or six of them scrambling into the elevator, about to run to the basement... They looked like the same guys who had insidiously planted landmines at the main entrance of the building earlier.
Just as the elevator doors were about to close, Zhou Ziwei gave a soft shout and threw the empty pistol in his hand. With a "snap," it accurately caught on the closing elevator doors, and immediately a series of "beep beep..." alarm sounds rang out inside the elevator.
Zhou Ziwei leaped forward, and just as a black man inside used all his strength, he finally managed to pull the pistol out. Before the elevator doors could completely close, Zhou Ziwei had already reached the elevator and narrowly inserted his hand into the elevator door, which was now only a very narrow gap.
Normally, elevator doors are equipped with sensor switches, which automatically reopen when an object is detected at the door.
But this time... it was clear that the automatic sensing function of the elevator door had been deliberately turned off or was already broken. Zhou Ziwei inserted his hand into the gap, but the elevator door did not reopen. Instead, it creaked and groaned as it closed forcefully.
The elevator door was incredibly strong; you could tell just by looking at how twisted and mangled the pistol that Zhou Ziwei had thrown was now stuck in the door's gap.
A pistol made entirely of steel was squeezed into a twisted shape, so what would happen to a child's hand, made of flesh and blood, trapped in the elevator door? The people in the elevator couldn't help but reveal a cruel smile.
However, Zhou Ziwei wasn't that stupid. As soon as he put his hand into the narrow gap, he swiftly stretched out his alloy suit, completely covering his hand inside.
With a loud "bang," the elevator door slammed shut, trapping Zhou Ziwei's hand. However, the immense force was immediately dispersed by the alloy suit's unique ability to distribute force, spreading the squeezing power throughout the entire suit. In this way, it was as if Zhou Ziwei had borne the squeezing force of the elevator door with his entire body, thus posing no further threat to him.
Then Zhou Ziwei forcefully pulled with one hand, and a massive amount of earth energy, as heavy as a mountain, burst forth from his palm. Under this powerful impact, the tightly closed elevator door suddenly opened with a "whoosh".
"That works too." The six people in the elevator were shocked to see a five or six-year-old child reach into the elevator door and easily break it open.
If this had been done by someone with the build of a marble or a cannon, people would at most marvel at their strength. But since it was done by a small, seemingly short child, their reaction was far more complex than simply marveling.
These guys were all highly trained elites, and after a brief moment of surprise, they immediately realized what was happening and raised their guns to shoot Zhou Ziwei.
In their dictionary, there is no concept of not being able to bully the weak. Anyone who gets in their way, regardless of age or gender, will be killed without hesitation. Moreover... although this child in front of them is relatively small, he is ten times more ferocious than these grown men. How can you tell that he is weak?
However, they were still a beat too slow. Just as Zhou Ziwei forcefully pushed open the elevator door, the person in the wheelchair behind them simultaneously raised two silver pistols.
"Bang bang bang..." Several gunshots rang out in quick succession, blending into a long, drawn-out blast. The men who had just raised their guns froze and fell backward. Without exception, each of them was shot right between the eyebrows. If someone were to measure it with a ruler, they would find that the shots were all hit precisely, with a deviation of no more than one millimeter.
Although Zhou Ziwei was blocking the elevator entrance, he was less than 1.2 meters tall and would not pose any obstacle to the bullets.
Zhou Ziwei slipped into the elevator and then, as if throwing away trash, tossed the six people out one by one, piling them up like a human pyramid.
Just as he was throwing the last person, Zhou Ziwei had a sudden thought. With a slight flick of his wrist, an extremely sharp dagger appeared.
With a "whoosh," the dagger slashed down lightly, instantly severing the last corpse's hand completely.
Then he kicked the body away as well.
When Zhou Ziwei and his men had completely seized control of the elevator, Paotong, Leopard, and most of the others rushed in.
As he followed the cannon into the elevator, he muttered with suspicion, "That's strange... There are so many brand-new weapons brought out outside, why hasn't anyone replaced the old guns on the wall firing positions for so long? Uh... If they had been quick enough, I believe at least half of us would have been taken down in the square just now. Did these guys suddenly have a change of heart, or... is there some kind of conspiracy here?"
The others nodded in agreement, all feeling that something seemed amiss.
Little did they know that before Zhou Ziwei even entered the building, he had already released all three butterfly darts he carried. Under the control of his abundant soul power, the three butterfly darts swept through the entire three floors like a streak of light. However, Zhou Ziwei did not kill a single person; he simply destroyed all the firearms that could be found in the building.
With the sharpness of the butterfly dart, it only scratched some important parts of the gun, and unless you looked very closely, you couldn't even see it. At this time, those American devils were also wondering why none of the many new guns they had were any good...
When seven people had already entered the elevator, Bullet decisively ordered, "Alright... no one else should come in. There are still over a hundred enemies in this building. The rest of you should stay here and clear them out! Otherwise, we might be cut off from our retreat after we go down... Also, Cannon and Ball can switch places... you stay outside and keep an eye on the island's perimeter. See if any ships suddenly emerge from the water. If you see a ship... sink it as soon as you see one. We absolutely cannot let a single enemy escape."
This research base is located deep underground, with a lake above it. Given the base's secrecy and importance, it shouldn't have just one entrance. If there are other exits in the underground base, they would likely be small submarines or similar vehicles. Otherwise, if a second exit were built that leads all the way to the lake shore, the project would be far too large, almost like an underwater tunnel.
That's why bullets leave cannons on the ground to monitor the water. As soon as a boat emerges from the water, they try to sink it. As for how the cannons will sink the boats on the lake... that's the cannons' job. Their specialty is assembling and piecing together weapons. There are quite a few tools available in this small building, so the cannons should have a way to do it!
Just as the bullets were issuing commands and drawing everyone's attention, Zhou Ziwei, with a thought, retrieved the three butterfly darts and carefully placed them into his alloy suit.
"What...it seems like something flew in."
Hawkeye truly lived up to his name; his eyesight was indeed extraordinary. Although Zhou Ziwei's three butterfly darts were moving at speeds approaching the speed of light and were very small, they would likely be invisible to most people even if they stared intently. However, Hawkeye's eyesight was like a knife. Even though his gaze was fixed on Bullet's face for a moment, he still caught a glimpse of light out of the corner of his eye. Startled, he looked around but found nothing in the elevator that would bother him, leaving him puzzled.
Zidan had obviously noticed something as well. Upon hearing this, he also looked around and finally cast a questioning glance at Zhou Ziwei.
Seeing that both Bullet and Eagle Eye's gazes were focused on him, Zhou Ziwei couldn't help but smile bitterly to himself, thinking that hiding his secret in front of these monsters was indeed not an easy task.
Anyway, it's not a big deal. If it really comes down to it, let them see it. At worst, I'll just tell the old leader not to reveal my secrets to these guys. I think it doesn't matter if the old leader finds out. As long as he hears about it and stops, my secrets won't be exposed anymore.
"Where is there anything? Are you seeing things? I didn't hear anything!"
Just as Zhou Ziwei was considering whether or not to confess, he heard the blind boy coldly defending him.
Blind children's ears are definitely better than other people's eyes. In this world, people's eyes are often deceived by illusions, but it is difficult to deceive blind children's ears. Blind children's hearing is recognized as strong in the Dragon Group. Since even blind children say that they did not hear anything, then of course nothing really flew in. Otherwise, how could blind children not hear anything?
Eagle Eye saw that several searchlights were still swaying wildly outside, and beams of light were occasionally shining through the wrecked gate. He immediately felt relieved, thinking that the beams of light were probably affecting his eyes!
Bullet's eyes still held some doubt, but he didn't say anything more. Seeing that Cannon had replaced Fat Bullet Ball, he waved his hand lightly and said, "Let's get ready to go! Bullet Ball... see if you can control this elevator. What if the power is cut off halfway through the journey? Otherwise, we might be trapped in here."
Pinball agreed, then quickly opened his laptop, sat down on the floor, and started typing away. Groups of data seemed to flow from the laptop's LCD screen like water, giving it a bit of the feel of The Matrix.
"OK... Successfully hacked into the underground base's internal systems... Successfully gained access to the main power control system..."
While excitedly shouting, the ball's hands didn't stop for a moment. Its ten short, thick fingers bounced up and down like ten boneless sticks. After a few seconds, it let out a strange "Oh!" and said, "Successfully controlled the elevator control system at the entrance and exit..."
With the sound of the pinball, the elevator door, which had been open, immediately made a soft "beep" and slowly closed. Then, the buttons for the basement floor on the elevator control panel, which no one had pressed, lit up automatically.
However, to everyone's surprise, although the button lit up, the elevator remained stationary and showed no sign of descending.
The ball's entire body of fat trembled violently, and it glared at the ground, cursing, "Damn it... this lousy elevator actually requires palm print verification to start... what a piece of junk... uh... wait a minute, let me see if I can steal a ready-made palm print image from the underground base's internal system and connect it to him. Cracking this kind of verification code is quite difficult..."
“No need, I have a verification code right here…” Zhou Ziwei said, raising the hand he had cut off from the corpse and placing it on an electronic recognition screen on the elevator control panel. The originally dark recognition screen immediately lit up, a blue line scanned from left to right, and then emitted a soft “ding” sound. Afterwards, everyone felt the elevator begin to sway slightly and then began to sink downwards at a steady speed.
"Holy crap... You little monster, you even prepared this."
Seeing this, Danqiu chuckled and then rolled his eyes at Zhou Ziwei. He had to admit that Zhou Ziwei's method was more direct and effective than he had thought. Just chopping off a hand would be enough; there was no need to waste so much time and effort cracking any codes.
But... something still felt off. This palmprint recognition password sounded sophisticated, but it was also easy to crack. Just capture a staff member at an underground base, cut off their hand, and they could use it as a key... Surely the person who designed this security system wouldn't be that stupid! There should have been an even more complex security verification procedure...
However, after searching through the entire control program of the elevator that he had already taken control of, the pinball player couldn't find any other clues. He could only curse the program designer as an idiot.
Little did the ball know that the moment Zhou Ziwei stepped onto the elevator, Xiao Xin had already swiftly hacked into the underground base's internal system, seizing control of the elevator long before the ball could even board it, and even modifying the identity verification process.
When the ball started hacking using the laptop, Zhou Ziwei handed over control to the ball. Otherwise... even if the ball was eventually able to complete the hack, it would probably take a lot of time.
The elevator descended at a very steady pace, but it didn't stop for quite some time. The Dragon Group members hadn't expected the distance between the basement and the main floor to be so vast, and they couldn't help but feel a little anxious. If they hadn't clearly felt that the elevator was still moving non-stop, they probably would have already started to wonder if the elevator had stopped in mid-air.
With a loud "boom," the elevator car shook violently, and then everyone could clearly smell a pungent gunpowder odor.
Volume 3, King of the City, Chapter 524: Mass Suicide
The elevator car shook violently a few times, then surprisingly resumed its original speed and slowly descended.
Everyone in the elevator breathed a slight sigh of relief and turned to look at the ball, only to see that it was covered in cold sweat, frantically typing on the keyboard while muttering to itself, "These guys are too cunning. They can't beat me in computer skills, so they resort to brute force... Damn it, they must have blown up the elevator door on the basement level... and even blew up the car's support frame in that section. Oh no... when we get there, the elevator will probably go out of control and plummet."
Upon hearing this, Long Wu said anxiously, "Then... what should we do? If all else fails, I... I'll break through the elevator car right now, climb out of the elevator, and climb down the surrounding car support frame! Otherwise, when the elevator completely goes out of control, we won't be able to escape."
"That probably won't work..." Ball shook his chubby head vigorously, his face contorted in a grimace. "The elevator is about to reach the basement... In just a few seconds, how many of us can escape? Don't worry... Let me see if I can find a way to stop the elevator..."
"There are only a dozen seconds left, damn it... Why didn't you say so earlier? Aren't we worried? How can we not be worried at a time like this?" Long Wu roared angrily, raised his head and raised his fist, wanting to use brute force to break the sedan chair open. Since they knew that falling any further would mean certain death, they might as well risk their lives to escape. Every person who could escape would be saved!
With a "whoosh," Long Wu's knees sprang up, and he leaped more than a meter into the air. His tightly clenched fist slammed hard into the ceiling above the elevator.
With a crisp "crack," the ceiling, which looked like an ordinary decorative panel, shattered instantly, and all sorts of decorative materials fell from the ceiling. However, Long Wu's punch still had momentum, and he slammed it hard into a car body panel made of pure metal.
With a loud "boom," the entire sedan chair shook violently a few more times. The bright white exterior of the sedan chair was dented by Long Wu's punch, but it did not break. Instead, Long Wu's hand was shaken until it bled profusely.
Long Wu grunted, his momentum waning, and he fell back down. He roared, about to leap up again to continue his attack, when he heard the blind boy cry out in alarm, "Oh no... someone's aiming a rocket launcher at us down below..."
"What... those bastards with rocket launchers, I'll fight them to the death."
Hawkeye reached out and took the heavy sniper rifle off his back, slamming the muzzle heavily onto the elevator floor with a "bang." Then, his eyes gleaming with malice, he said to Blind Boy, "Blind Boy... help me pinpoint that guy's location. I'll blow his head off so he can ambush us."
The blind girl nodded upon hearing this, and having already determined the angle at which Hawkeye's heavy sniper rifle was aimed from the sound of his gun hitting the floor, she immediately gave instructions: "Turn the muzzle a little to the left... move it forward three inches... move it forward a little more... Ah... no need... that person... that person accidentally dropped the rocket launcher below, he... he's gone, we're safe for now."
Just as the blind girl was anxiously directing Hawkeye to adjust the direction of the heavy sniper rifle, she suddenly heard a strange sound from the side, as if a steel point had been deeply pierced into a piece of cream. Then... a gust of wind rushed down from the elevator car, and the blind girl clearly heard the guy who was about to fire the rocket launcher suddenly have his two hands and his head separated from his body. A perfectly healthy person suddenly became fragmented, and then, along with the heavy rocket launcher, he was broken into several pieces, rolling and falling straight down the dark elevator shaft.
The blind child's large, dull eyes twitched slightly. This wasn't the first time she had heard the sound of Zhou Ziwei's mysterious weapon firing. However, despite hearing it many times, the blind child still couldn't determine what kind of monstrous weapon Zhou Ziwei was using, or how it could have such terrifying speed and power.
The elevator car floor was so thick, yet that thing passed through it as easily as cutting through tofu. And after detaching from the body, it could fly back and forth at will. What... what could that thing be? Was it alive or dead? If it was alive, how could it be so sharp? I've never heard of any tiny creature in this world possessing the power to smash through steel plates. And if it was dead, how could it fly back and forth in the air?
The blind child was genuinely curious, but since Zhou Ziwei hadn't brought it up with her, she could only bury her curiosity deep in her heart and would never ask aloud, much less reveal it in front of others.
She knew Zhou Ziwei didn't want others to know these things, so she had no choice but to keep it a secret for him.
Sigh... She's a little girl who never lies, but now, for Zhou Ziwei's sake... she has to lie again and again.
The elevator continued its steady descent. Long Wu was startled by the blind boy's words and forgot to continue smashing the elevator ceiling. However, several more seconds had passed, and he figured it was pointless to keep smashing it. He could only place all his hopes for survival on the marble.
The latter remained seated on the floor, oblivious to everyone around him, his chubby hands dancing across the keyboard. After he typed in a series of commands, an electronic simulation suddenly appeared on the computer screen. The simulation clearly showed the elevator shaft in front of them, with a red line cutting across it at one point, emitting a series of dangerous warnings. On the image representing the elevator shaft, a rectangular object was rapidly descending, obviously representing the elevator they were currently riding in.
Next to this graphic, there was another row of messy function options. At this moment, the fat man was holding the external mouse of his laptop and hovering the mouse cursor over a red box marked "Emergency Stop".
"Everyone get ready... It's best to sit close to the wall, the elevator is about to stop... Three, two, one... Stop."