30: sacrificial lamb

The sky was just beginning to brighten, and the morning mist had not yet dissipated.

Outside Chen Feng's repair shop, a crowd had already gathered.

"Is this the place?" Kruger asked Fisk beside him, looking at the tightly closed door.

"That's right, Big Brother!" Fisk grinned hideously. "My men watched all night; the lights didn't go out until late, but no one ever came out. This kid must have slipped out through some tunnel!"

"Hmph, just as I expected." A trace of disdain flashed in Kruger's eyes. "A Mine Slave is a Mine Slave, always fond of playing these petty, underhanded tricks."

Behind him, over a dozen burly thugs held electric batons and short-handled axes, each wearing a fierce expression; these were all he and Fisk's confidants.

"Big Brother, the door is locked from the inside." A subordinate stepped forward to try the door handle and turned back to report.

"Locked?" Fisk sneered. "That only proves he's hiding something!"

"Get out of the way!"

He didn't even bother wasting time; he took two steps back and then slammed a heavy kick into the door!

*Bang!*

With a loud crash, the door panel made of low-grade alloy instantly deformed, and the lock was sent flying.

The group swarmed inside.

"Where is he?"

"Nobody's here!"

The repair shop was empty, containing only cold machinery and scattered parts; a lingering scent of machine oil and metal dust hung in the air.

"Dammit, he really escaped!" Fisk cursed.

"Big Brother, look at this." A sharp-eyed thug suddenly pointed at the workbench.

Everyone's gaze converged on it.

On the workbench, a crumpled, simple map was held down by a wrench, as if the owner had left in too much of a hurry to take it. The map used crude lines to outline part of Area B's terrain and marked a spot deep inside with a glittering ore vein symbol in red pen.

"Deep in Area B... Hehehe!" Kruger picked up the map, the fat on his face squeezing together as he laughed. "This idiot even prepared a treasure map for us! Who does he think he is? A treasure-hunting expert?"

"Hahaha! Big Brother, this kid is a real character!" Fisk also laughed loudly. "He probably wanted to wait until things cooled down before sneaking back to get it. Little does he know, we've been watching him like hawks!"

"With this map, do we still need him?" a thug asked flatteringly.

"Of course we do!" Kruger tucked the map into his chest, his gaze turning cold. "We'll take the ore vein, and we'll catch the man! I want him found, dead or alive! If I don't crush his face under my boot, I won't be satisfied!"

"Big Brother is right!"

"Let's go!" Kruger waved his hand grandly, full of high spirits. "To Area B! Move out!"

He didn't know that the moment they broke into the repair shop, Chen Feng was coldly watching everything through a pinhole camera from inside a ventilation duct deep in the mining area.

"Decent acting, but a pity about the brains," Chen Feng silently commented to himself and closed the video feed.

Before the massive, rust-stained steel gate at the entrance of Area B.

Kruger stopped, turning to face his confidants.

"Brothers!" He cleared his throat and said in a low voice, "The next operation is a secret mission personally ordered by Steward Bachmu!"

Hearing this, the thugs' faces showed expressions of surprise and excitement.

"Mine Slave 734, that Chen Feng, stole important company property and hid in Area B!" Kruger lied with a stern voice. "The Steward has ordered his capture alive at all costs! Whoever catches him first will be rewarded with three high-purity energy blocks! Everyone participating will be rewarded once it's done!"

"Long live the Steward!"

"Catch Chen Feng!"

Greed instantly overcame the fear of the unknown in Area B. In the eyes of these desperadoes, Area B was no longer a forbidden zone but a gold mountain piled with treasure.

"Open the gate!"

At Kruger's command, several thugs worked together to turn the windlass. The heavy gate let out a tooth-gritting screech as it slowly rose, revealing a dark tunnel behind it like a giant abyssal maw.

A cold draft, thick with decay and silence, blew toward them.

"Go! Stay close!"

Kruger led the way, and this greed-driven squad excitedly stepped into the grave prepared for them.

Following Chen Feng's forged personal terminal signal and the fake map, the team advanced through the intricate mine tunnels.

"Big Brother, this place... why is it so creepy?" A young thug shrunk his neck, his flashlight beam sweeping across rock walls covered in strange crystals as he spoke in a low voice.

"Yeah, it's a bit too quiet; you can't even see a rat."

"Shut your traps!" Fisk turned back and barked. "If you're afraid of dying, get lost now, and don't expect a single cent of the reward!"

At the mention of the reward, all chatter stopped. They gripped their weapons tighter and continued deeper into the darkness.

Inside the narrow, dust-filled ventilation duct.

Chen Feng lay motionless like a dormant python.

Before him floated a crude light screen, the display interface for the "Wide-Area Life Signal Detector" he had just exchanged 5 credit points for at the Exchange.

On the screen, over a dozen bright dots were clustered together, moving slowly but steadily toward the death zone he had preset. Each dot represented a living life.

"Soon..."

Chen Feng's gaze remained calm, as if he were looking at a dull financial report.

Finally, the Supervisor squad arrived at the "rich ore" location marked on the map.

But what they saw was not a glittering ore vein, but a massive, empty, and terrifyingly silent cavern. The center of the cavern was bare; far from having ore, there wasn't even a decent rock.

"Dammit..." Fisk was stunned. "Where's the ore?!"

"We've... been tricked!" Kruger's face turned pale instantly, a chill rushing from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. He finally realized that starting from that "high-grade associated ore," he had stepped into a trap meticulously woven by that Mine Slave!

"Retreat! Retreat now!" he let out a hysterical roar.

But it was already too late.

Inside the ventilation duct, Chen Feng watched the detector screen as those dozen or so dots completely entered the central area of the "high-stress resonance point" highlighted in red.

They were like a flock of lambs driven into a slaughterhouse, crowded together, bewildered and desperate.

Chen Feng took the final "trigger" from his chest.

It was a black device the size of a matchbox, with only an inconspicuous red button on its surface.

【One-time Infrasonic Pulse Generator】, credit points: 10.

He took one last look at the dozen or so clustered glimmers representing life on the screen, then pressed the start button with the same casualness as stubbing out a cigarette butt.

There was no sound, no light.

An invisible ripple of death, imperceptible to humans, instantly radiated outward with him as the center.

Outside, the massive Area B mine began to emit a dull, tooth-gritting groan.

A meticulously planned live burial was about to begin.