133: Scary

A cold wind blew, and the five of them shivered simultaneously, their backs turning cold.

None of the five had expected that this arduous battle would actually be against the weakest team of contestants from Adam City.

The grand competition held every five years! Now it seemed they were just a joke.

Five years ago, although Pangu City and Nüwa City lost, the gap was never as large as it was today. Five years later, one could no longer see how far the technological development of Adam City had progressed; if not for Xu Jingzhe taking the risk to lure out the enemy sniper...

It would be hard to say who would have won or lost.

Even if the Qin Family won, it was a pyrrhic victory.

"What about these five?" Zheng Peng asked in a grave voice.

"Kill them, and take any items that are useful to us." Qin Shuang looked into the distance, rubbed her chest, and said calmly.

"Heh... hehe..."

Suddenly, Yakos laughed coldly without stopping, his normal left eye filled with endless resentment and coldness.

The light in his mechanical right eye flickered rapidly and extremely irregularly.

A casual glance from Xu Jingzhe immediately triggered a sense of alarm, his eyelids twitching uncontrollably.

His instinct told him there was danger!

"Run!" Xu Jingzhe roared.

"Too, too late, hahahahaha, it's, it's too late." Yakos was nearly insane.

When the four of them heard Xu Jingzhe's roar, only Qin Shuang chose to trust him unconditionally, and she was already hundreds of meters away.

"Boom!"

The bomb exploded, releasing massive power as rolling heat waves spread in all directions.

Almost simultaneously, Xu Jingzhe activated Time Stop, but it only lasted for two seconds and covered a radius of only two meters.

He used the energy within the Golden Contamination Core; the Golden Contamination Core was nearly burning up as he reached the current limit of his physical speed.

From Qin Shuang's perspective, as she ran while looking back, the site of the explosion became slow motion.

Only Xu Jingzhe was moving. With one hand grabbing Zheng Peng and the other dragging Yang Shuang, he performed a 360-degree invincible spin and threw them out with great force.

Within the two-meter radius around Xu Jingzhe, the energy from the explosion could not penetrate for the moment. By the time he threw the two of them into the distance and turned back to lunge toward Bai Binger, some of the energy had already reached her.

She was lifted high by the immense energy, and the clothes on her body were instantly incinerated.

In 0.01 seconds, Xu Jingzhe pressed Bai Binger underneath him, using his own body to forge a wall of safety for her.

A minute later, this area returned to silence.

A crater fifty meters long and twenty meters deep appeared; white smoke rose from the pit, with sparks occasionally flashing within the smoke.

"Cough..."

Qin Shuang crawled out of the dirt, spat out a mouthful of mud and sand, her head still in a daze.

Her whole body ached. It felt like several of her bones had cracked. After recovering for about half a minute, she suddenly looked toward the direction of the explosion, her heart contracting sharply—what a tragic scene!

"Lu, Lu Fei!"

"Binger!"

Qin Shuang panicked, stood up with effort, and stumbled forward.

However, after running only two steps, she fell to the ground. The heart-wrenching pain made her realize her right leg was broken.

She didn't have time to check her injuries; she took out a medicine vial and injected it into her body. Before long, the broken bones began to knit together.

Ten minutes later, Qin Shuang got up again, ran to the edge of the crater, and looked down.

Apart from some rubble and a few metal fragments, there was nothing.

She stood there, looking around, feeling lost.

Under the moonlight, only her own shadow was stretched very, very long...

"Lu Fei!"

"Binger!"

"Zheng Peng!"

"Yang Shuang!"

"Where are you all!"

Qin Shuang was tearful, lying on a pile of rubble and ruins, moving the broken stones one by one, searching for the figures of the others.

"Lu Fei!"

"Lu Fei!"

...

The Adam Five had just finished dealing with a twenty-year-level Contaminator when Caesar's expression paused, and he tapped his right arm. A blue LCD screen appeared before the five of them, beeping incessantly.

The LCD screen flickered on and off; the signal was very unstable.

On the screen, the scene of the explosion appeared, lasting only three seconds.

It played on a loop.

Caesar was expressionless, analyzing the three-second explosion footage on the LCD screen frame by frame.

"Stop!"

Poseidon's eyes glowed with an aquamarine light. In his field of vision, the explosion scene was slowed down countless times. The chaotic, moving elements were magnified in his eyes, while irrelevant molecules were automatically ignored.

A blurred figure appeared in his pupils, running at high speed amidst the explosion.

"The seed from Nüwa City... is not simple!"

"Poseidon, what did you see?" Caesar asked.

"Yakos and his team were carrying T-25 small bombs. Although the explosion distance of this type of bomb isn't large, the area is very concentrated, and the energy released at the center of the explosion is immense. Furthermore, the explosion speed is very fast; within a one-kilometer radius, the erupting energy can fully cover the area in four seconds."

"At such a close distance, none of us would be able to escape safely, and ordinary people wouldn't even be able to react in time. Yet, the seed from Nüwa City reacted and was even running away."

"Go back and kill him," said the red-haired Bruce.

"Don't waste time; we have more important things to do. Whether Blue Star's civilization level can advance further depends on whether we succeed." Caesar put away the LCD screen, his golden eyes very calm, and the five of them continued to advance deeper.

...

Two kilometers away from the explosion range, Qin Shuang found Zheng Peng. His head had struck a large rock; he was bloodied and unconscious.

The Second-level Alloy Battle Suit helped him withstand a large amount of the bomb's shockwave energy, so his injuries were not too severe.

After a simple check of his breathing and heartbeat, Qin Shuang took out a small blue pill and stuffed it into his mouth.

Two minutes later, Zheng Peng woke up.

He exhaled a breath of turbid air; his internal organs felt a bit congested.

"Qin Shuang, are you alright?" Zheng Peng asked with concern.

Qin Shuang shook her head and said, "We need to find the other three."

Zheng Peng's expression suddenly became heavy. At the moment of the explosion, his brain had stopped functioning. He only remembered being thrown away by a massive force, and then his body felt a second massive force, like Mount Tai crushing down on him.

After that, he didn't know anything else.

Five hundred meters away from Zheng Peng, they found Yang Shuang under a pile of rubble. He was also not seriously injured and soon woke up.

The three of them searched carefully through the ruins for Xu Jingzhe and Bai Binger, all of them heavy-hearted and silent.

A silver fragment reflecting the moonlight flashed into their eyes; Qin Shuang rushed over and picked it up.

Tears fell pitter-patter.

It was... a fragment of the Qin Family's Second-level Alloy Battle Suit. The battle suit had shattered; none of them dared to imagine what their fate might be.

They found a few more pieces in the eastward direction. After picking up the fragments and continuing for several thousand meters, the three of them stopped simultaneously.

On the branches of a broken ancient tree, two people were hanging.

Who else could it be but Xu Jingzhe and Bai Binger!