After I took down one person with my crossbow, I shouted behind me and then crept into the tunnel.

We must block the entrance, because those guys have guns. Once they break in, Song Laosan and the rest of us are no match for them.

To avoid revealing my location, I turned off my flashlight and groped my way toward the cave entrance. Just as I got close to the entrance, a powerful flashlight suddenly turned on in front of me.

I was still cocking the crossbow when I saw the flashlight beam shining towards me, so I swung the crossbow and smashed it.

Before my weapon could even hit the opponent, I felt like I'd been kicked in the chest, and then I heard a gunshot.

"Gulp!"

I was shot by the man in front of me and fell to the ground.

"Bang! Bang!"

The man kept sweeping his flashlight through the smoke, and based on his prediction, he started firing at my location. I could even hear the clang of bullets hitting the ground.

I knew this guy was going to finish me off with that shot, but I didn't even have the strength to get up. My chest was in excruciating pain, and even breathing was difficult.

The cave was already dark, and with a constant stream of thick smoke pouring in, the other party's flashlight couldn't shine very far; I could only see a point of light flickering in the air.

The man fired two shots at the ground, then started crawling forward, kicking my foot.

Then, the man shone his flashlight on my location.

It’s over!

I saw the other person's flashlight pointing at my location, and I knew he was going to finish me off, so I mustered all my strength and swung it horizontally at his leg.

I used a lot of force, but I hit nothing. In the dim light of the flashlight, I could see a huge figure pinning the gunman down.

It is Manjing.

I was saved by Manjing, and ignoring the pain in my chest, I scrambled to my feet and roared, "Song Laosan, detonate the explosives in the passage and stop them!"

Song Laosan's voice came from not far away: "Everyone, retreat! Anyone who can hear me, answer!"

The monkey's voice rang out first: "I heard that!"

"Bang!"

A muffled thud came from ahead. Manjing had knocked the person opposite him over and was calling out to those around him, "Brother, are you alright?"

"Let's go!"

I rushed to Manjing's side, grabbed his wrist, and started running deeper into the cave. But we couldn't see anything here. In my memory, this space was more than ten meters deep, but I only ran six or seven steps before I bumped into a pillar in the hall.

When Manjing saw me fall, he immediately reached out and groped his way towards me, asking, "Brother, what happened to you?"

"fine!"

Because I was wearing a gas mask, the impact wasn't too serious. Just as I was about to get up, I suddenly heard a loud "boom" behind me, and then the shockwave from the explosion threw me away.

The explosion at close range made me dizzy, and I vomited into my gas mask. I tried to push myself up twice with my hands, but I couldn't get up.

The strong blast from the explosion dispersed much of the smoke in the cave. I lay on the ground and could vaguely see lights flickering at the cave entrance, but for a moment I couldn't tell if they were our people or theirs.

Looking around, I realized that Manjing had disappeared. I wanted to call out Monkey's name, but the dizziness made me vomit again, and I couldn't speak at all.

Suddenly, a flashlight beam shone on my face, making me squint.

Immediately afterwards, a strange man, also wearing a gas mask, got up, carrying a long knife, and staggered toward me.

Seeing this person's movements, I tried to get up by supporting myself with my palms on the ground, but the shockwave from the explosion left me with no strength at all.

As the person drew closer, I grabbed the travel bag next to me, pulled out the Amy Nentech MS18 flashlight we had used in Jinji Cave, and turned it on.

"brush!"

The dim cave suddenly became bright, as if exposed to the blazing sun. The person in front of me screamed when I shone my flashlight on him, and then covered his eyes in pain.

Seeing that the person was affected by the bright light, I struggled to reach the crossbow half a meter away, preparing to take advantage of his blindness to launch a sneak attack.

Just as I touched the composite crossbow, a giant python suddenly appeared beside the person, opened its mouth, and roughly snatched him away.

When I first saw the giant python, I thought I was hallucinating because of a concussion, but when I looked at the pillars in the hall, my pupils shrank.

When we entered the main hall earlier, the stone pillars here were carved with two snakes spiraling upwards. Now those reliefs have been broken, and the only remaining fragments are stuck to the stone pillars like snake molts.

This is not a sculpture, but like the wax corpse in Ping'an Village, a real giant python is sealed with stone!

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that the stone carvings on the other pillars also showed signs of damage from the recent explosion.

"boom!"

As a stone carving cracked open, a huge snake head appeared in my field of vision.

"hiss!"

The giant snake seemed to be extremely disgusted by the powerful light in my hand, and it swayed as it charged towards me.

"call out!"

I pulled the trigger at the giant snake, and the crossbow bolt flew off, but it had absolutely no effect.

"Xiao Duan, get out of the way!"

Song Laosan's voice came from the other side. I saw him throw a piece of explosive over, and I don't know where he got the strength, but he pushed off the ground and rolled to the side.

"boom!"

Another explosion rang out, and the giant snake was thrown away by the force of the explosives, its body crashing into another stone pillar, blood spurting out.

I saw the other stone pillars also begin to shed soil, so I pulled out my adrenaline, stuck it in my leg, and then struggled to crawl toward the monkey lying motionless more than ten meters away.

"Snap!"

As I was crawling, I suddenly heard a cracking sound from beneath me, followed by a shaking of the ground and a visible crack that rapidly expanded and spread toward me.

"The ground beneath is hollow!"

I yelled at the crowd, trying to get them to take precautions, and at the same time I stood up and ran towards the monkey, but after only three or four steps, the ground beneath my feet completely shattered.

The sudden feeling of falling made me lose control of my body, and the flashlight slipped from my hand.

A feeling of despair was amplified infinitely in my heart.

The ground beneath our feet collapsed, which means the pillars in the hall will also fall.

Given the scale of the collapse, even if the depth below isn't particularly deep, falling rocks would pose a deadly danger to us.