The temperature around the cave entrance has already dropped to less than eighty degrees Celsius, which for ordinary people is entirely bearable, but no one feels any joy about it.
Less than five ters away from the cave entrance is the four-thousand-degree high-temperature magma, with the surrounding air heated to the point where a cracked egg at a height of one ter will congeal into a fried egg before the egg white and yolk hit the ground.
This eerie low-temperature zone seems like a trap specially set up by Chira 17, waiting for the prey to deliver themselves right to its door.
But, will soone really fall for such an obvious trap?
Yes.
Because the prey have no choice.
Or rather, the prey do not consider themselves prey; they are hunters, here to hunt... The one who set this trap, it is the prey.
In nature, the relationship between hunters and prey is constantly changing; strength, skill, strategy, and even luck can be the key factors determining life and death... As for whether such a thing belongs to nature, there is still no conclusion.
The talkative hunter took a deep breath, tightened the Velcro on the sleeve of his combat suit, and gritted his teeth before following along.
Following him were two expressionless mass-produced hunters.
"Let's go." Sun Hang took Shinkata Misaki's hand and stepped into the cave as well.
The cave was dark inside, and the dragon's fla on Wang Xiyi's tail, who walked at the front, beca the most noticeable light source here. Behind her, the hunters held weapons in one hand, and the other gripped powerful flashlights, warily scanning their surroundings.
Rather than calling it a cave, using the term tunnel to describe this place seems more appropriate... The group continued walking forward for about two hundred ters. The width of the tunnel had not undergone any significant changes, yet the temperature had dropped to the teens, leading even Shinkata Misaki to remove her helt, her blue-glowing right eye sweeping back and forth along the tunnel walls.
"By the way, we've been walking a straight path, right?" said the hunter walking second. "I don't have a great sense of space, especially in such a dark environnt... Did any of you notice any signs of us turning?"
"No," another hunter replied. "We're walking a straight route."
"Then if we keep going, won't we co out the other side of the giant cocoon?" this hunter muttered.
"Hard to say."
Just then, his flashlight flickered a few tis, and the light quickly dimd.
"Damn it! Why is there a malfunction at this ti!" cursed the hunter, hurriedly lowering his head to check his flashlight.
However, he soon discovered that it wasn't the flashlight malfunctioning, but the battery was depleted.
"Was it not fully charged before departure, or is there a leakage? What is the logistics departnt doing... How could such a basic mistake happen?" The hunter couldn't help complaining.
But another hunter imdiately spoke, "Strange... My flashlight is also out of battery, this isn't right..."
Two more flashlights went dark.
"It seems like inside this tunnel, the battery consumption speed becos particularly fast," Shinkata Misaki said. She raised her wrist, where a handheld computer was fixed on the wrist of her combat suit... Sun Hang rembered clearly, when Shinkata Misaki erged from that tal cylinder, the handheld computer still had 98% battery, but now, it had automatically shut down due to depletion.
"Earpiece battery low," a deep warning sound ca from his ear. Sun Hang removed his communication earpiece, only to see the power indicator light on the earpiece side turned red from yellow in just a few seconds, and then went completely dark after flickering a few tis.
The squad communication channel fell dead silent.
These communication earpieces are custom-made, even after the low battery warning sound, they can normally be used for around two hours, yet now forget two hours, the remaining battery didn't even last two minutes.
"Should we... retreat?" a hunter suggested. "This seems... a bit eerie..."
"We're inside the creature now. If nothing odd happens, that's the real oddity," another, slightly bolder hunter said. "I think these anomalies don't matter, it's just the battery consumption rate increasing, at least it doesn't pose a direct threat to us."
He took a glow stick out of his backpack, twisted it hard, and with a subtle sound of shattering glass, the two chemical liquids inside the glow stick mixed and emitted a faint green light.
"But I feel uneasy," the hunter who suggested retreating also took out a glow stick and twisted it to light it up.
"If you're scared, just say so, no need to hide it," the previous hunter said again. "To be honest, I'm scared too, but retreating would an our mission failed, wouldn't it? It's just the battery consumption rate acting strange, we have no way to fix this anomaly, retreating is pointless..."
"True... We'll just have to grit our teeth and keep going forward."
Everyone continued moving forward.
Sun Hang could feel the hand he held from Shinkata Misaki trembling slightly—she had been using her abilities all along. Although Sun Hang wasn't sure how draining the 'Deathly Eye' was, the pallor on Shinkata Misaki's face and the sweat dripping from her temples were certainly not fake.
Just as Sun Hang pondered whether to stop for a while to let Shinkata Misaki rest, he faintly heard the sound of wind coming from the depths of the tunnel.
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