19: Flight routes in ghost stories

The pioneer-3 modified advanced less than fifty meters in the "safe" middle tunnel before coming to a sudden halt with a dull mechanical hydraulic sound.

"Boss...?" Ma Liu's voice sounded like it was squeezed from his throat, carrying the relief of a survivor and a hint of flattery. "Did we... shake them off?"

Chen Feng did not answer.

He just watched the screen quietly as the light point of that patrol squad completely disappeared into the depths of another fork in the road.

"Very good."

He spat out those two words, and then, under Ma Liu's terrified gaze, he suddenly pulled the control lever.

"Boom—"

The mining robot, weighing dozens of tons, let out a loud protest-like noise and clumsily turned its massive body. Its treads screeched against the rocky ground, aiming precisely at the leftmost tunnel they had just abandoned.

"No... No! Boss! What are you doing?!" Ma Liu's face instantly lost all color. He pointed at the cave entrance that was so black it seemed capable of swallowing everything, his voice sharp and distorted. "That's a dead end! It's the Gate of Hell!"

"The Gate of Hell?" A cold arc curled at the corner of Chen Feng's mouth. He turned his head; inside the dim cockpit, his gaze was even more chilling than the darkness outside. "Very good, I happen to need a ghost story. Ma Liu, tell me every legend you've heard about this left tunnel, word for word."

"I... I can't say it... there..."

"Speak," Chen Feng's voice wasn't loud, but it carried an unquestionable sense of command. "Or I'll throw you out and let you verify the truth of those stories yourself."

Fear instantly extinguished all of Ma Liu's resistance. Shivering, he began to incoherently recount the terrifying rumors that had circulated among the Mine Slaves countless times.

"They say... the walls there eat light... no light can shine in..."

"They also say... you can hear... hear many, many people whispering in your ear, but when you look back, you see nothing..."

"The miners who go in... none of them come out normal! They all go crazy! They're crazy, Boss!"

Chen Feng listened quietly, his fingers tapping rapidly on the virtual keyboard of the console.

"Swallowing light..." he whispered to himself. "It might be some kind of highly efficient Light-Absorbing Mineral Layer."

"Ghostly whispers..." His gaze fell on the ripple of "harmonic noise" he had just recorded. "Mental Pollution, or rather, high-frequency Soul Reverberation."

"Going crazy upon entry..." He sneered. "It matches perfectly. The concentration of Soul Reverberation is high enough to destroy an ordinary person's mind."

He marked these deductions one by one on the fake map Bachm had given him. A terrifying truth emerged.

All the "haunted" areas were marked on the map as the safest "ordinary rock layers." Meanwhile, the source of the weak signal he had detected earlier pointed exactly to the core intersection of all these "ghost stories"!

"Ha, Bachm." Chen Feng's voice was full of contempt. "You indeed prepared a 'main road' for me, a main road leading straight into your trap."

"Boss, you... what do you mean?" Ma Liu didn't dare think further.

"I mean," Chen Feng looked up, staring straight into the pitch-black "ghost road," his tone terrifyingly calm, "the most dangerous places have the weakest defenses. Let's go."

"No! Please! Boss! I don't want to die!"

Ma Liu's wails were completely drowned out by the roar of the robot's engine.

The pioneer-3 modified, like a steel beast, plunged resolutely into the absolute darkness that could swallow even light.

As soon as the high-power searchlights in the cockpit lit up, the beams were cut off as if by an invisible black cloth, only illuminating a distance of less than ten meters ahead. The rock walls on both sides took on a bizarre, ink-like texture, as if they weren't solid but some kind of viscous, squirming darkness.

"Buzz..."

A faint but omnipresent whispering began to linger in the cockpit. It sounded like hundreds or thousands of people whispering from a great distance; the content was indistinguishable, but it could bore directly into one's brain, stirring up the deepest fears.

"Ah—! Stop talking! Stop talking!"

The intense Mental Pollution instantly shattered Ma Liu's already fragile nerves. He clutched his head, letting out a beast-like scream of terror, his eyes bloodshot as he began to struggle frantically in his seat.

At the same time, Chen Feng's body also shuddered violently.

The sharp pain hidden deep within his nerves was instantly triggered and amplified by this high-concentration Soul Reverberation!

The bone-piercing pain was like red-hot steel needles stabbing ruthlessly into his brain. His vision went dark, and the hand holding the control lever instantly lost its strength.

"Bang!"

The out-of-control robot slammed into the rock wall on one side, the massive impact sending a violent tremor through the entire cockpit.

"Ugh!"

Chen Feng bit his tongue hard. The metallic taste of blood and the sharp pain allowed him to force a sliver of clarity from the darkness.

He didn't look at the now-frenzied Ma Liu. Instead, using his last bit of willpower, he fumbled a high-concentration nutrient solution out of the storage compartment and, without looking, stabbed the thick needle ruthlessly into Ma Liu's neck!

"Ugh..."

Ma Liu's scream stopped abruptly. His body stiffened before he slumped into a faint like a puddle of mud.

After doing all this, Chen Feng himself was nearly exhausted. He leaned back against the seat, sweat soaking his clothes, his chest heaving. Enduring the waves of sharp pain in his head, he grabbed the control lever again and stabilized the tottering robot.

Just then, the signal point that had been maintaining a connection with the outside world flickered on the screen a few times before going out completely.

They had entered the "Strong Magnetic Interference Zone" marked on the map.

Meanwhile, far away in the mining area's Monitoring Center.

Bachm was leaning back comfortably in the Commander's chair, savoring a glass of high-end Synthetic Drink.

"Reporting to the Manager, the signal for target 734's light point has disappeared in Area A-7-L," a subordinate reported.

Bachm looked at the last flickering position on the screen, a cruel sneer appearing on his lips.

"Strong Magnetic Interference Zone? Heh, fool, he finally entered the dead end." He set down his glass and said slowly, "Don't worry about him. Once he's trapped inside with nowhere to go, he'll naturally come crying back to the 'main road' I prepared for him. Order the men to keep a close watch on the exits of the 'main road'! Not even a fly is allowed to escape!"

"Yes!"

Bachm had no idea that the "fool" in his eyes was currently passing through the magnetic field area that could block all prying eyes.

Chen Feng let out a long sigh of relief. The sense of ease from temporarily escaping surveillance was fleeting.

Because, inside the cockpit, the signal representing "harmonic noise" suddenly became incredibly clear and sharp, as if it were right in his ear!

He suddenly looked up.

In the darkness ahead, at the end of the searchlight beam, one pair, two pairs, three pairs... a dense, uncountable number of eerie green "eyes" lit up.