Chapter 186: NPCs Are Just Pretentious (Revised)

Luo Jinyou's face turned even paler, not just from the huge energy drain of the recent explosion, but also because their situation had grown more dire.

"The passage is completely blocked, airflow is terrible, the oxygen level here is already low—if we're trapped here too long..."

He didn't continue, but everyone understood what he meant.

Shen Zexi frowned again, knowing he himself wouldn't come to harm, but the situation before them was truly grim.

"Could we try using Aberrant Arts to slowly shift some debris? Even just opening a vent would help."

Luo Jinyou walked to the base of the blocked passage, pushed at the piled rocks, and shook his head.

"It's hard; the explosion triggered a small-scale chain collapse, we lack professional equipment for detection, and forcibly moving the rocks could cause a larger collapse above, burying us completely."

As soon as he said that, everyone's faces grew even grimmer.

Could it be that they're really going to die trapped in this lightless underground?

While the others discussed, Ying Duo idly wandered around the cramped sealed space, looking for interaction points.

As for oxygen?

Players don't have an oxygen gauge.

【There seems to be a faint energy fluctuation nearby, as if coming from far away......】

The familiar System Prompt popped up, and Ying Duo began hopping left and right in the small space, eventually determining the general direction of the energy fluctuation.

Ying Duo tapped the rock wall before him; the energy fluctuation lay in the exact opposite direction from the passage just blown, so this side's strata remained solid.

"Then let's blast a tunnel out with explosives."

Although he had brought the pickaxe from the mine entrance just now, aren't explosives far more efficient than a pickaxe?

"What?"

"No way!"

Qi Hengyu and Shen Zexi objected in unison.

Luo Jinyou also tried to reason with Ying Duo: "We just experienced an explosion; the tremors could trigger a secondary collapse—doing this is too risky."

Ying Duo merely shook his head stubbornly: "My explosives can do directed blasting, and your reaction times are fast—I trust you."

Simply put, he trusts his teammates; if anything goes wrong, he believes he can protect himself in time.

Shen Zexi caught his implication and immediately darkened his face.

At a time like this, he actually wishes Ying Duo wouldn't trust him so much.

Qi Hengyu, however, felt a bit tempted—surely they can't just wait here to die?

"A miserable life is just for living it!"

But seeing Shen Zexi and Luo Jinyou's firm opposition, and recalling Ying Duo's past record, he swallowed his words and silently stood beside Shen Zexi.

Shen Zexi, feeling a bit headache, glanced around at everyone, then simply had Chen Mo Zhi, who didn't want to join the discussion, keep an eye on Ying Duo while they continued to seek a solution.

Chen Mo Zhi:......

Huh?

Watch Ying Duo? Who? Him?

But after Ying Duo's proposal was rejected, he just stared blankly at the wall, doing nothing else.

Chen Mo Zhi secretly breathed a sigh of relief, though he didn't quite understand why they were so afraid Ying Duo would cause a disaster.

But if Ying Duo were really that prone to losing control, they wouldn't have teamed up with him, would they?

He only excels at researching poison and potions; he probably can't help much with these issues.

Time ticked by second by second, the air seemed to truly grow thin, and Shen Zexi's brows knotted tightly.

He knew he himself could definitely get out; he worried about his teammates' safety, especially Luo Jinyou's poor condition, and Ying Duo was practically a time bomb...

"Luo Jinyou."

Ying Duo suddenly walked up behind Luo Jinyou, while Chen Mo Zhi quietly watched him—after all, Ying Duo hadn't done anything over the top...

Yeah right.

Luo Jinyou was concentrating hard on a countermeasure, just snapped back to attention, and heard Ying Duo utter two more words.

"Open shield."

"Wh......"

Luo Jinyou hadn't even reacted, and Chen Mo Zhi watched wide-eyed as Ying Duo flipped his hand and produced a long metal tube.

Couldn't stop it, absolutely couldn't stop it.

As soon as Ying Duo's words fell, he tossed a tubular directed bomb like trash onto the spot where he had just stood.

"Ying Duo!!!"

"Boom——!"

Shen Zexi's and Qi Hengyu's cries of alarm rang out almost simultaneously with the blast, and firelight instantly engulfed that rock face.

Luo Jinyou almost instinctively, upon hearing Ying Duo's two words "open shield," instantly mobilized all his energy—without even having time to control the rocks—as a thick energy shield sprang up before everyone.

"Crackle——!"

The explosion's shrapnel rained down on the energy shield like raindrops; it merely seemed louder, but the shield suffered no damage.

As the smoke and dust drifted away, the rock wall there truly had a half‑meter‑diameter hole blasted by Ying Duo, and aside from the point of directed blasting, the surrounding walls were unharmed.

After realizing Shen Zexi and Qi Hengyu would just keep repeating those few lines, Ying Duo simply ignored the two NPCs' repetitive banter and solved it his own way.

NPCs are just pretentious.

The hole was filled with assorted rubble; Ying Duo acted like a giant vacuum cleaner, making any stone he touched vanish.

Shen Zexi stared agape, wanting to stop him, but the words caught in his throat.

Though hard to believe, this might actually be a way out.

Under everyone's watch, Ying Duo proceeded on his own, using up several more directed‑blast devices.

Luo Jinyou had already gone completely numb; only after Ying Duo had prepared did he raise an energy shield to block the flying debris, and considering the energy consumption, the others would still swap positions with him.

Later on, Shen Zexi and the others merely followed numb behind Ying Duo, watching their regiment leader Ying Guang Lu, like a professional mole, use bombs to gnaw out a path for them.

Until—

"Thud!"

After a somewhat duller explosion sound compared to before, once the smoke and dust cleared, Ying Duo cleared away the debris, revealing before them a wall of alloy covered in thick rust.

It appeared to have been buried underground for a long time, and even the originally sturdy alloy could not withstand the erosion of time.

Ying Duo simply silently added a few more directional explosive devices to that metal wall as a sign of respect.

"Boom——!!!"

A suddenly louder roar than before erupted, and an irregular-edged hole was blasted open in that thick metal wall.

Beyond the opening, it was no longer rough rock, but a metal passage covered in rust.