Chapter 453: Mysterious Object's Ambush

The explosion was extremely terrifying; a large fiery red cloud shot into the air, the flames of the explosion were very high, and many objects were hurled directly into the sky, landing all around with sparks.

"Gasoline, the generator was blown up," Fatty said. "They're screwed now."

"How could it explode?" Pibao asked, holding a shovel. "There's no way those big cats could have bitten the generator into an explosion."

As soon as he finished speaking, there was another explosion from that direction. This one was slightly less powerful, but it still sent the foreigners tumbling.

Fatty's face went pale, and he looked toward another direction—the forest to the left of the foreign camp: "No way, damn it, that was—"

"What was that?" Fatty also looked incredulous, but he still pricked up his ears, hoping to hear the next sound.

I looked over at Jude Kao's side, but there were no more explosions. The attack there seemed to have ended too. Aside from the blazing craters, everything else was silent, as if everyone had been blown to death.

Fatty listened, then suddenly started cursing. He turned to look at the campfire behind us and roared, "Pibao, put out the campfire!"

Before he even finished, a small flash of fire appeared in the dark forest, and with a small cannon report, Fatty immediately shouted, "Hit the ground!"

I grabbed Yajie and Xiuxiu and threw myself onto the riverbank. An explosion went off behind us. My ears rang, my body was lifted several feet into the air, and a scorching hot blast wrapped up from my feet. The whole stone beach was showered with falling debris like rain.

When the stones had all fallen, Fatty shouted, "Son of a bitch!" He looked back and saw our campfire had been blown out; only scattered embers remained everywhere.

"Guerrilla tactics—use beasts to drive people to the campfire, then use a cannon to precisely hit the fire," Fatty said.

"You even know about that?" I asked.

Fatty said, "Third Master, you can't analyze it? How did you become just like your nephew? Any fool can see what this tactic is just by looking."

I cursed inwardly, and he continued, "But there's only one person on the other side."

"How can you tell?" Xiuxiu asked, her face covered in ash.

"The fact that we're still alive is proof enough. If someone had sniped us before the shells landed, we'd be dead. But this guy is an expert—these shots were flawless. He has an incredible sense of distance. We absolutely can't stick our heads out, or we'll get shelled again."

"Then we sneak over in the dark," Pibao said.

I shook my head: "The foreigners are probably in the same situation as us. They'll try sneaking over too. If we run into them, there could be friendly fire. For now, we can only wait and see."

Just after I said that, a flash of fire and a muffled cannon sound came from the forest ahead.

All of us instinctively ducked our heads, thinking, Damn, where are they going to hit now? Then we heard a faint whistling through the air—and it was heading straight toward us.

Was he going to fire another shell at the same spot? I cursed inwardly. But this explosion wasn't right next to us; it was in the forest a few hundred meters away. It was far enough that the shockwave wasn't strong, but the area immediately caught fire.

Fatty and I looked over there, and he asked me, "What's over there?"

I watched, and almost instantly, another shell landed in the same place.

I immediately realized what he was attacking, and I knew it was over.

"The crevice!" I yelled. "He's bombing the crevice!"

"Which one?"

"The one you were pulled out of!" I cursed and charged over, running all the way into the forest, tripping over bushes until I reached the mountainside. Then I knew it was completely finished. The entire slope had been blown apart, and the crevice was buried underneath. The people guarding the crevice were probably dead or injured, trapped under the rubble. And Xiao Hua and Panzi… they would likely never be able to come out through this opening again.

I rushed forward, trying to move the rubble, but Fatty grabbed me and pulled me back. Almost at the same time, another shell hit the cliff, sending down a rain of stones as big as schoolbags.

Everyone suffered heavy losses in that night's attack. I watched helplessly as more than a dozen shells landed precisely on the cliff, completely destroying the entire crevice.

Those shells weren't fired from the same direction. Obviously, the gunner was constantly moving, but he was too familiar with the terrain. In such a dark night, he could accurately fire from different positions and hit that crevice.

After dawn, we regrouped and crept over to Jude Kao's camp. We found they were worse off than we were—seven dead, most of them shot by their own men in the chaos. There were countless wounded, and almost everyone was injured.

The lynxes had come across the lake. Both my sentries and Jude Kao's were positioned facing the forest; we never expected an attack from the lake. And then there was such a bizarre heavy-weapon assault—no one could have escaped unscathed.

Those lynxes seemed to have been trained. Could the person attacking us actually control the animals' behavior? We had no time to think about that in depth. What crushed me was that the crevice had been sealed off. Not only could we not rescue anyone, but Xiao Hua and Panzi were gone for good.

"What do we do?" That question filled my mind. Everyone was looking at me. I had to give an answer, or I'd have to say, "Let's just go home."

I couldn't go home. I'd gotten back one Fatty but lost Panzi and Xiao Hua. That trade wasn't worth it. I was still taking a loss.

Fatty was very dejected, because the drawings tattooed on his stomach suddenly lost all their value. We sat on the rocks, silently eating noodles that still smelled of gunpowder. Xiuxiu spoke up: "Third Master, you need to make a decision."

I sighed. I knew I had only one choice left, so I said to them, "The plan hasn't changed, but we have to take a different route now. The crevices here are like a maze; maybe we can find another entrance."

Fatty shook his head: "Impossible. We don't have that much time. The only way now is to go back to the original entrance and try to deal with that unbelievable corridor again."

The original entrance was the only option. Even though we didn't know what would happen, it was still faster than digging rocks here.