"From a certain perspective, we... should be safe for the time being." Ke Lan said, "These monsters have focused their attack on the human base on the ground. We must take this opportunity to escape quickly."

"Hey... that old man wanted to trap us to death in the mine, but I didn't expect these monsters to run into his lair... hehe..." The Hound sneered, "This is called fucking retribution in this life, it's fucking satisfying!"

"Layton, how long will it take you?"

"About twenty minutes. This pump is too old and has a lot of problems. It's probably thrown here because it's about to be scrapped." Leighton said as he used a welding gun to cut open the entire shell of the pump. "It seems that I can only transform this thing into a disposable item."

"As long as you can hold on until the tunnel is dug through." Ke Lan nodded to him and walked over. "I'll give you a hand."

"Okay, then help me fix this rotor. Be careful not to let it come into direct contact with your skin, or you will get burned." Leighton said, bending down, tilting his head, and inserting the front end of the welding gun into the interior of the machine.

…

At the same time, inside the Soma Consortium’s mining base, on top of the sixth sentry tower—

"Karen! Fire, fire! Those monsters are about to rush over!" An officer covered in blood rushed up from the bottom of the tower and shouted at the gunners who were stunned behind the heavy machine gun.

"But...but our people are over there too. If we open fire, it will..."

"They are all dead! All dead! Do you understand the current situation?! Idiot! Whether you open fire or not, we will die!" The officer roared with red eyes, and then he simply kicked the machine gunner named Karen to the ground, grabbed the handle of the heavy machine gun himself, and started firing at the bottom of the watchtower.

As the heavy machine gun roared, hundreds of shell casings fell at the officers' feet...

…

Karen is a young mercenary employed by the Soma Consortium. He bribed a senior executive of the consortium with his five-year savings to be assigned to the Leviathan base, where he has been a machine gunner for two years. However, in these two years, he has never pulled the trigger.

There is an old saying in their industry: If there is any safest place on Alpha Planet, besides the Ark, it is Leviathan.

There is no harsh natural climate here, and no indigenous creatures that are so powerful that they require a fleet to fight against them. Even except for the inside of the mine, the radiation in other places is much lower than the average on Alpha. Except for going down the mine once a week, they don't even need to wear bulky protective clothing.

Eating, sleeping, standing guard, playing cards or watching TV, this is the life of Karen and his teammates in the past two years. Although it is a bit boring, it is leisurely, and the income is no less than those of their colleagues who have been through life and death.

Karen once thought that if Alpha went to heaven, it would probably be here.

But it often only takes a moment for heaven to turn into hell.

"Karen! Karen! Reload!" the officer shouted without turning his head, but he got no response after shouting several times. When he turned around, he found that the machine gunner who was usually honest had disappeared.

"Bastard! Coward! Coward! Damn deserter!" Curses kept coming out of the officer's mouth. Just when he was about to move the box of ammunition next to him by himself, a sea anemone head had already climbed to the top of the tower along the vertical wall and came face to face with the officer.

"Fuck!" The officer subconsciously tried to pull out the pistol from his waist, but Anemone Head was much faster than him. His strong forearm had penetrated through the officer's back in the blink of an eye, and between his five fingers, he was tightly grasping a still beating heart.

…

As for the disappeared Karen, she had already escaped from the watchtower and ran towards the main control building in the center of the base.

"It's over... the base is over... everything is over... I don't want to die..."

He threw away all his equipment just to run faster - he knew that those things were just a burden. He saw with his own eyes that the soldiers wearing power armor couldn't withstand a single attack from those monsters; and the officer who grabbed the machine gun killed all those who didn't have time to retreat. As for the monsters... the 12.7mm armor-piercing bullets couldn't even tear their skin...

He didn't know where those monsters came from... The defenses outside the base were breached almost instantly. Although the energy shield covering the base burned the monsters' skin and flesh, it couldn't cause fatal damage. From the time the alarm sounded, less than twenty-five minutes had passed before the monsters had already killed their way into the inner side of the wall.

Karen remembered that there were several vertical take-off and landing aircraft parked on the roof of the main control building all year round. This might be his only means of escape.

The gunfire from the sixth sentry tower had stopped, but Karen didn't dare to look back... He knew that this meant that his team had been wiped out except for him...

Everyone was dead, but at least he was alive now.

"As long as we can escape to the helipad on the roof of the main control building, we can definitely leave here!"

It was less than a hundred meters away from the main control building. Usually, this place was full of guards - those guards were different from the contracted mercenaries like them. They were the direct armed forces of the Soma Group. Not only were their equipment and combat effectiveness far superior to those of the mercenaries, their loyalty to the group was also unmatched by those of them who worked for money.

In the past, if Karen dared to approach the main control building, she would have been beaten out by the guards with rubber sticks. But now, the guards around the main control building have disappeared, and all the sentries are in an unguarded state.

"This group of guys...could they let us mercenaries stay here to die while they escape first?" Karen thought to herself.

"Almost there, almost there... as long as we can catch up..." Karen kept recalling the vertical lift driving tutorial she had learned before - although this is an elective course that most mercenaries will take, there are only a few people who have actual driving experience, including Karen.

But no matter what, as long as the plane can be started, the worst that can happen is that we can choose to abandon the plane and parachute after flying away from Leviathan.

Just as Karen climbed over the railing, a team of soldiers in purple and black combat uniforms suddenly ran out of the main control building in a panic. These people were the direct troops of the consortium mentioned earlier. At this time, many of them were covered in blood, obviously having just experienced a fierce battle.

Seeing these people, Karen quickly hid behind the sentry box, thinking to herself, "Could it be that... those monsters have already entered the main control building?"

If this is true, then for him to enter the building would be like a sheep walking into a tiger's mouth.

Or should he wait until these people lead the monster away before going in? But what if there is more than one monster in the building?

While Karen was still struggling, a dark shadow suddenly broke out from the window of the main control building and landed right in the center of the consortium guards.

This is a man in a black robe, with cyber-style biochemical armor embedded on half of his exposed chest and right arm. There is a flowing purple light path on the surface of the armor. There are no eyes on his face, but instead linear electronic eyepieces - it is difficult to figure out whether this is a complete simulation robot or a highly modified cyborg.

The man in black robe had already drawn out the long sword from the sheath before he landed on the ground, drawing a circular sword light of exactly 360 degrees in the air!

When the long sword returned to its sheath, the Soma Group guards who were frozen in place fell to the ground one after another, and blood spurted out.

"This guy is so strong!" Karen didn't even dare to breathe after seeing this scene... Although the ones chasing these guards were not the monsters with tentacles, the man in black robe in front of him was more terrifying than those monsters.

"I should wait until this guy leaves before taking action." Karen thought so, but the man in black robe walked straight towards him after killing the man.

Damn it! This guy's electronic eyes have heat-sensing vision, and he was discovered!

The hair on Karen's head stood up immediately. He felt like he was being treated as prey and wanted to run away... But his reason told him that he could never outrun the opponent's advanced prosthetic body with just his own legs...

"Hey! Hey! Don't do it! Don't do it!" Karen made up her mind and walked out from her hiding place with her hands raised. "I am not in the same group with those people, please don't kill me. My contract with the Soma Group has been terminated. The contract was terminated just now. I am not a member of the Soma Group... Of course, if you need me for anything, please feel free to ask... But don't kill me..."

The man in black robe did not say anything. A purple light flashed in his electronic eyes, and then he rushed towards Karen quickly.

"Oops!" Karen stretched out his hand to draw his gun, but found nothing - he had discarded his weapon when he ran away!

He couldn't even see the other party's attack clearly, and he felt his body suddenly lighten, and then his vision began to blur... He felt as if he was flying. He moved his eyes with some effort to look down, but he saw his headless body standing on the ground, and blood was gushing out from the broken neck...

Faintly, he seemed to see a badge on the back of the opponent's neck. It was a white diamond printed on a black armor plate. In the center of the diamond, there were three horizontal lines of equal length.

"Three... the emblem of the Mitsui Group?" This was the last thought that flashed through Karen's mind.

…

…

Inside Leviathan, Mine No. 7.

"Okay, it's finally done." Layton clapped his hands excitedly. In front of him was a gadget that looked like a tractor - in order to make the machine move, Layton even installed a pair of large wheels with a diameter of one meter.

At the place where the water pump should have been, there was a thermal heavy sword that served as a drill bit welded. The energy of the heavy sword was provided by the crystal engine of the water pump itself. When the engine of the water pump was started, the heavy sword would rotate at high speed driven by the rotor, and the high-temperature blade would cut the rock as easily as cutting tofu.

"Can this thing really dig through the tunnel?" The Hound looked at the pump, which was now completely unrecognizable, and asked with some doubt, "Using a sword blade as a drill bit, isn't it a bit too flimsy?"

"Not at all!" Layton patted his chest and said, "The thermal heavy sword doesn't rely on sharpness to cut things, but on the high temperature of the blade. Even if the blade breaks, the efficiency won't drop significantly. If I only use it this once, it's completely enough."

As he said this, he pushed the "tractor" to the blocked part of the tunnel and stuffed the two crystals into the entrance of the converter.

The blade of the heavy sword turned dark red again, and then began to rotate.

"It feels good." Leighton pushed the "tractor" forward one meter. There was almost no obstruction. The rocks blocking the tunnel were cut into fist-sized pieces and rolled to the ground along the channels reserved on both sides of the drill bit.

"Help me clear the cut gravel to the back! Be careful! Don't get hit on the head!" The drill made a lot of noise, and Layton almost shouted at the top of his voice.

"No need for you to tell me! We're working on it!" The hound replied with a roar of the same volume.

…

As the drill continued to advance, they were getting closer and closer to the entrance. When there were only about three meters left, Ke Lan walked forward, patted Layton on the shoulder, and asked him to stop the machine.

"What's wrong? We will be able to get out soon. I can even feel the fresh air coming through the cracks in the rocks." Leighton said with some confusion.

"It's the last few meters, don't worry." Ke Lan said, "The situation outside now... is much more dangerous than in the mine."

"Ke Lan is right. You said you felt the fresh air outside, but I smelled a hint of blood in the fresh air." The hound frowned and said, "If we go out like this, we might run into some monsters, and then we'll be finished."

"The nearby gunfire has stopped. It seems that the battle outside the mine is over." Ke Lan said. As for the outcome of the battle, it can be guessed without further explanation... If there are really hundreds of those "anemone heads", they will be slaughtered with only the defensive strength in the camp.

"It's a pity that Asano Akira hasn't woken up yet. His ears are much better than those of us who are not blind." The hound said, looking at Asano Akira, who was still unconscious and was carried on Zhuo Ligetu's back,

"Leaton, can you control the size of the hole drilled by this machine? We can make a smaller observation hole first and then go out after making sure there is no danger outside." Ke Lan said.

"It should be possible. Just remove half of the heavy sword's blade." Leighton nodded and immediately started working.