Chapter 695: Unknown Hazard!
Feng Luo pointed to the building covered in sand and said, "I've been thinking... That is probably the system's hint!"
Burnt And Run looked puzzled and asked, "Huh? That's the hint?"
Feng Luo nodded.
"The display on the recon meter showed that the monsters were not moving in a straight line or a curved line. Instead, they were moving polygonally in some of the areas. It looked as if they were moving upwards through something that might be staircases or something of that sort!"
"The recon meter's ruler also noted that they were located at a depth of 30 meters. This has already exceeded the theoretical height of the sand dune!"
Chairman Jiao's eyes lit up. "Brother Feng, what do you mean?"
Feng Luo then explained the reason he made that judgment.
"A military base would never consist only of a surface base. Most military bases would have constructed an underground section. Actually, due to safety reasons, the underground structures are usually a lot more important than the surface ones, and they are usually harder to damage or destroy!"
"Our mission is to find the A-2 research base, which is also an underground research base!"
"So that's how it is!"
The group understood what Feng Luo had meant.
Then, Burnt And Run asked with a puzzled face, "But Brother Feng, how do you know the height from the surface? Why did you say that the monsters have retreated to a location that is lower than the surface?"
Feng Luo answered, "The reason the large sand dune around us formed is probably due to the walls around the military base blocking the movement of the sand. Using the elevation that we experienced earlier, we can get a rough estimate of the position of the original surface military base!"
"Then, simply by comparing it with the info on the recon meter, you'll be able to get the answer!"
"Ah, this sounds very simple, but who'd pay attention to these things in a battle? Brother Feng, were you actually thinking about these things just now?"
Burnt And Run was now feeling convinced and utterly impressed.
Feng Luo shook his head and laughed gently. Then, he looked around the others and said, "Perhaps it is due to the 'evolution'!'"
"The lower levels of that building should be connected to the underground base of the military base. We should be able to find things related to the A-2 research base inside."
"That is why my suggestion is to go underground using that building first!"
No one objected to Feng Luo's suggestion.
Everyone felt that Feng Luo's deduction was very logical and made sense.
However, by the time they reached the front of that building, they were faced with another problem.
Although the building was not completely buried, it was still filled with sand.
If they wanted to enter, they had to get all the sand out from the building by digging their way through.
It was an incredibly annoying task. The group spent over a dozen minutes working on it but did not even finish three meters!
Rose Thorns opened her mouth and said, "Let's get our pets to help too!"
"Ah, that's right! We almost forgot about that!"
Everyone seemed quite speechless. They were baffled as to why they had not thought of that earlier.
The battles over the past few days had been against really high-level monsters. As such, pets would have easily died.
Moreover, the game system changed the setting such that players weren't able to summon or retrieve pets when they were in combat mode. As a result, none of them summoned their pets to fight in the battles.
However, they were not engaged in a battle right now. They were just digging through sand, and pets were naturally wonderful free labor!
"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh..."
White lights kept flashing as seven different pets appeared on the sand dune!
There were only two among them who did not summon their pets. One of them did not do so since the pet was too small and was not suited to doing this kind of work.
The other person was Feng Luo.
24K was still unconscious. Otherwise, summoning Collector Beetle Unify would make this task easy. It would need at most a minute to get through this pile of sand.
However, one of the pets that were summoned was also adept at digging holes through sand.
Dai's pet was, in fact, a snake. Its skin color was almost the same as the sand. It was a Desert Golden Rattlesnake over seven meters long!
Feng Luo was quite familiar with this type of snake. The reason was during the battle in the arena where Phoenix, Big Pineapple "Three Black," and himself battled against five others, one of the pets summoned by their opponents was a Desert Golden Rattlesnake!
However, that Desert Golden Rattlesnake was a Commander Grade pet while Dai's was only an Elite Grade pet!
The good thing was that an Elite Grade pet was sufficient.
With the addition of a creature local to the desert environment, the process of digging through the sand became a lot easier!
...
After half an hour, the group was already standing at the bottom level of the building. Under the illumination of some lighting devices, the group looked excitedly at a large corridor leading downwards!
"Brother Feng, color me impressed with your observation skills!"
Boss Feng was equipping armor. It was inevitable since he was too fat, and the hole they dug was not big enough. As such, he had to take off his armor before going through the hole.
The good thing was that the corridor was large enough. It was very tall and very wide.
The situation was just as Feng Luo had predicted. The bottom of the building was directly connected to the underground base. A hidden underground building like this would clearly not be much affected by the sand on the surface.
Everyone in the group could easily search for information regarding the position of the A-2 research base inside.
But of course, they had to solve a problem before this!
"Squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak!"
One after another, Mutant Meerkats with orange eyes charged quickly in the dark underground corridor towards the group while letting out angry roars!
Of course, this group of Level-30 to Level-40 Mutant Meerkats, as well as some adolescent ones that were below Level-20, did not really pose a big threat to the group.
...
After getting rid of that tiny hurdle at the underground base, Feng Luo's group succeeded in entering the underground corridor of the military base.
At that moment, the sky outside turned completely dark.
Even though it was completely dark right now, the Death Desert did not lose any of its colors!
Since the Death Desert had a type of gravel that contained a special kind of mineral, the surface of the entire desert was emanating a light red glow that provided sight to various nocturnal creatures.
In the depths of the Death Desert, the surface temperature in the day could reach as high as 70 Celsius.
Even desert creatures that were incredibly heat resistant would find it hard to bear a temperature that high.
As such, most animals only start moving and hunting at night or in the evening.
Once Feng Luo and the others stepped foot into the base...
After a minute, a giant black-purple eagle that was over ten meters large when it extended its wings in the sky suddenly charged downward!
Its large wings generated a strong gust of wind that rattled the entire desert. The sand that was blown away revealed over a dozen or so of the Mutant Meerkats corpses. The corpses had blood stains which had been quickly dried by the incredibly high temperature.
After that, the eagle extended its long neck and devoured the corpses one by one.
If Mu Zi's recon meter was still in range at the moment, it would be frantically sending out warning signals. It would also show a red dot, which signified that a Boss grade monster had appeared.
Purple Blood Falcon. Level-70 Quasi Boss!
There was no doubt that the Quasi Boss eagle's plate would have ten more humans on it if Feng Luo's group had been one step slower in entering the underground corridor.
Although they could defeat a Level-70 Commander Grade monster, they would have no chance of winning a Quasi Boss monster, which was only a grade higher on the monster tier. That is even if they had a backup of ten more people.