Chapter 1321 - 1011: Decision-Making_2

Chapter 1321: Chapter 1011: Decision-Making_2

A few minutes later, a barrage of crackling sounds rose from under their feet. The sprouting seeds sucked up the acid and Hell sediment and shot up, entering the scheduled phase of mutation. After rapidly growing roots tens of meters long, the buds that kept trying to bite people began to swell, and in the end turned into several crop stalks that looked just like corn.

All the Abyss sediment was concentrated in the outer leaves, while the inside was the part that could be eaten.

After Huai Shi processed it and removed the remaining toxins and residue, the taste was still atrocious, but at least in Hell they now had something they could put in their mouths.

Honestly, Huai Shi could’ve made something much tastier, but that glowy stuff... nobody really dared eat it, so he could only regretfully give up.

After a simple meal, no one let their guard down.

After observing the situation for two hours and confirming there was no trace of pursuers, Huai Shi finally breathed out. "Looks like we’re safe for the moment. Everyone can rest for a few hours first.

For sentry duty, Raymond and Mr. Foster will take turns, Mr. Gregory will rest, and Professor Anton and I will check the truck’s condition."

Everyone went to their posts.

After putting on his gas mask, Professor Anton took the Wind Lamp and strode out of the vehicle first to start his work.

Though he was already getting on in years, the old professor was still more agile than many youngsters—eight-pack abs, brimming with martial virtue, still serving as a judge for the Full Armor Fighting Club of the school. With a wrench and screwdriver in his hands, casually beating one or two Mutant Species to death wasn’t a problem.

Huai Shi followed behind him, not the least bit worried that the old professor would accidentally throw out his back or something.

He only needed to play assistant and hand over tools when asked, then he was done.

"Nothing major. The internal stress in the outer Armor layer has gotten a bit out of control and there are a few weak points. We can fix it later by recalibrating under high temperature. The tire wear is also much lighter than expected."

Behind the huge, bloodstained truck, Anton swept the Wind Lamp around once, then patted Red Dragon’s body. "This little guy is still in good health."

The chassis trembled slightly, as if responding to Professor Anton’s words.

No matter how badass the driver was, they wouldn’t dare offend their own Maintenance Craftsmen—much less Red Dragon itself, which was directly maintained by him. In front of the old professor, the truck absolutely didn’t dare get lippy.

Utterly well-behaved.

"We’d originally planned to do maintenance every four levels of depth. Judging from the current situation, things are much more optimistic. If we don’t get into high-intensity combat, our reserves are more than ample—but that kind of naive thinking is probably completely unrealistic."

After checking off all their supplies, Professor Anton turned back to him and said, "What we do next depends on your orders, Huai Shi."

"Cut off from support, fighting alone, pursuers behind us, no road ahead..." By the time he finished summing it up, Huai Shi couldn’t help sighing at himself. "Sounds downright miserable."

"Well, it is Hell. No matter how bad things get here, it’s nothing strange." Anton calmly watched the curtain of acid rain beyond the roof.

In this eternally barren world, aside from the light here, there wasn’t the slightest trace of civilization.

Above the Sky Dome was only eternal cloud. Even if you passed through it, there were no stars behind it—only a void leading into other Abysses.

They were already far from the Current Circumstances, in the remnants of worlds that had died countless ages ago.

Among the countless Hells, those that had any hint of life—or where you could even see something moving—were actually very few. Far more common were environments this treacherous and complex: empty, dead wilderness. Maybe some secret was buried underground, or maybe there was simply nothing at all.

Even if the next day everyone discovered that beneath the broken crust lay nothing but sheets of flesh and blood, no one would be surprised.

Whatever happens here is always to be expected.

This is Hell.

Sometimes you prepare ten times more than you’ll ever need, and still never get to use it—but if the time comes when you do need it, you’ll feel that you hadn’t prepared nearly enough.

The unknown is the most terrifying thing.

The problem in front of Huai Shi now wasn’t supplies, but the plan that had to be changed.

Because of the bounty posted by the Abyss Handlers, they’d been forced to break off from deep submergence too early and drifted off their planned route. They needed to correct it—or simply draw up a new route based on their current maps.

Otherwise, if they just wandered, they would only get lost in the Abyss.

The one stroke of luck in all this misfortune was that the Depth Tides and the Hell’s Ladder opened by Golden Dawn were making connections between countless Hells more and more tight.

They no longer needed to go through all the trouble of deep submergence; they could open a passage directly at the weak points of linkage. Sometimes several Hells would even join physically.

Which was exactly where the problem lay.

There wasn’t a single route that would let Huai Shi and the others quietly return to their original planned path.

In this Hell known as "Sweet Dew Paradise" and its surroundings, if they went up in depth, they’d be approaching the front lines of the War of the Realms—currently the most dangerous place.

And the three routes around them all led into the marching routes of various Rulers.

And if they went deeper down...

Heh. Any lower and they’d reach Hell·Thunderous Plains, currently being used as a huge transfer hub where countless Owners of the Great Mob were gathered!

Wolves ahead, tigers behind, cliffs on both sides dropping for miles, and sharks gliding through the deep waters below.

That was the situation they were facing now.

"Any way you look at it, it’s a dead end."

After their rest, at the impromptu meeting, Raymond rubbed the stubble on his chin and sighed helplessly. "Isn’t there any safe route we can sneak through?"

"Not unless you want to wait here another two weeks."

Captain Foster shook his head regretfully.

The Depth map was his responsibility; he calculated it by cross-referencing the Lighthouse signals. The real-time changes of countless Hells all lived in his brain. If he said there wasn’t a route, then there definitely wasn’t.

If he said two weeks, then it wouldn’t be even a day less.

But if they really waited here for two weeks... they’d probably be corpses by then. How would they still be able to travel?

Huai Shi pondered for a moment, then said bluntly, "If nothing else works, we can only go down."

For a second, everyone looked up at him.

The room went silent.

"Are you out of your mind?"

Raymond said, "We don’t have to walk ourselves right into a dead end. Who knows how many mobs there are on Thunderclap White Plains right now? With a truck this big, how the hell are we supposed to dodge all of them?"

"If we can’t dodge them, then we don’t dodge. If we can’t go around, then we don’t go around."

"No shit. If we don’t dodge or go around, are we supposed to swagger right... wait, no way."

Raymond seemed to catch on, his expression twitching violently.

He was numb.

And in the silence, Huai Shi rubbed his hands together, a smile spreading on his face—the smile of a true ’local’.