36: Chapter 36 Flames Burn Away the Novice Village, Secret Passage

"Where does this lead?" Chen Mo looked at the black hole in front of him, which was only wide enough for one person to pass through. A stench mixed with rot, engine oil, and old sewage rushed into his face.

"It originally led to the subway maintenance shaft, but it was abandoned later."

George grabbed two heavy canvas bags from his stash of arms and tossed one to Chen Mo. "I've been digging away at it whenever I had nothing to do for the past ten years. Now, it leads straight to the sewage outlet by the Hudson River."

"Are you a reincarnated groundhog?" Chen Mo caught the bag; it was heavy in his hand, filled with C4 and ammunition.

"This is called planning ahead." George snorted and began placing explosives near the morgue's load-bearing pillars and the pile of chemical reagents.

"Get in quickly; this place is about to become an oven."

Chen Mo didn't waste any words. He holstered his pistol and ducked into the passage.

This could hardly be called a path.

All around were exposed steel bars and slippery concrete, and the ground was covered in standing water and rat droppings.

Drops of murky water fell from above from time to time, splashing onto Chen Mo's expensive suit.

But he couldn't concern himself with that now.

A loud crashing sound came from behind.

That sturdy metal door had finally reached the end of its life, forced open by the reinforcements outside.

"Over there! After them!"

The noisy shouting and the sound of tactical boots stomping on the ground traveled into the passage.

"Move faster, George!" Chen Mo urged in a low voice.

"Coming, coming, are you trying to rush me to my death?"

George's stout body squeezed in nimbly, clutching something that looked like a garage remote control in his hand.

He reached back and rigged a tripwire at the entrance, attaching an M67 fragmentation grenade.

"Leave a little surprise for those tag-alongs behind us." George smiled deviously.

The two of them trudged forward with difficulty in the darkness.

Chen Mo turned on the tactical flashlight he had scavenged from a Clean-up Worker. The beam of light flickered through the deep tunnel, illuminating countless pairs of small, glowing green eyes—they were startled rats.

"Turn left ahead, duck! That's a natural gas pipe!"

George directed him, panting from behind.

This stretch of road wasn't long, only about five hundred meters, but in such an oppressive environment, every second felt infinitely drawn out.

Chen Mo could hear the faint sound of an explosion behind them—the tripwire mine had gone off.

This was followed by a chorus of screams and curses.

"Boom!"

A grenade explosion in such a confined space creates a fatal shockwave.

"Looks like someone hit the jackpot." Chen Mo sneered.

"Don't get happy too soon. The exit is ahead, but we have to climb a thirty-meter shaft."

George's voice turned serious. "And I've set the main detonator to trigger the moment the exit is opened."

"What does that mean?"

"It means," George patted the remote, "that the moment we push open the manhole cover, this place will become the world's biggest firework."

Chen Mo picked up his pace.

Finally, a faint glimmer of light appeared ahead, along with the sound of moving air.

It was the shaft leading to the surface.

A rusty iron ladder was embedded in the wall, extending all the way to the circular exit overhead.

The two of them climbed up using both hands and feet. Although George was old and had a leg injury, his explosive power when fleeing was not inferior to any young man.

"Are you ready?" George held the ladder with one hand and raised the remote with the other, his thumb resting on the red button.

Chen Mo pushed open the heavy manhole cover.

Fresh air, carrying the scent of post-rain soil, instantly flooded his lungs.

That was the smell of freedom.

The two of them rolled out of the manhole and collapsed onto a patch of overgrown wasteland.

This was an abandoned factory area by the Hudson River, and the brilliant lights of Manhattan in the distance seemed exceptionally far away in the curtain of rain.

"Goodbye, my nursing home."

George looked at the pitch-black opening of the shaft, a complex emotion flashing in his eyes, and then he pressed the button hard.

"Rumble—!!!"

The earth shuddered violently.

Even through dozens of meters of soil, that muffled roar was still heart-stopping.

Immediately after, a pillar of fire shot into the sky from the direction of the distant police station building, tearing through the night.

The entire third underground level was completely overturned.

The ground collapsed, and black smoke billowed.

The morgue, along with the corpses inside, the evidence, and those few "Clean-up Workers" who hadn't managed to escape in time, were all reduced to ashes.

Chen Mo sat on the damp grass, watching the firelight redden half the sky.

That was where he had extracted his first entry from a robber's corpse, where he had memories of countless nights working overtime stitching up wounds, and it was also the starting point of his identity as the police officer "Robert Chen."

That was his "Starter Village."

Now, it was gone.

This feeling was strange. There was no regret, only a sense of relief after a shackle had been shattered, and... a bone-chilling coldness.

From this moment on, he was no longer that little detective hiding within the system, secretly looting corpses.

He was a ghost.

An avenger wanted by the Deep State, yet someone who officially didn't exist.

"Kid, how was that firework?" George panted heavily, pulling a flattened cigar from his pocket and lighting it with the burning dry grass nearby.

Chen Mo turned his head to look at the old man, who was covered in grease and looking utterly disheveled.

"Terrible." Chen Mo stood up and brushed the dirt off his body. "But it was loud."

He glanced at the ruins of the police station in the distance, which were already surrounded by the sounds of sirens, a cold smirk appearing at the corner of his mouth.

Ouroboros thought they had cleaned up the trash.

Little did they know, they had just unleashed a demon.

"Let's go, George." Chen Mo pulled up his collar to cover half his face. "This place will be cordoned off soon."

George took a deep drag of his cigarette and watched Chen Mo's back. The firelight cast the young man's shadow long, like a drawn blade.

"Where to?" the old man asked.

"Home." Chen Mo's voice was exceptionally clear in the night wind. "Back to our new home."