Li Chuan led the team into an abandoned warehouse, shutting the door behind them. The moment the heavy metal door clanged shut, silence fell over the group. Shen Qiu quickly operated his device, attempting to track the enemy's movements, but the screen only showed a grim reality—their escape route was already covered with red warning marks.
Those were lockdown indicators.
Su Man leaned against the wall, checking the magazine of her firearm. Her voice was cold. "Looks like we're completely surrounded."
"The way they're operating… This isn't just Falcon. There's a higher intelligence system at play here." Cheng Mo absentmindedly ran his fingers over the handle of his knife. "Has Nightfall finally made their move?"
Shen Qiu took a deep breath, his eyes locked on the rapidly shifting lines of code on his screen. "Almost certainly. Their system is too sophisticated for an ordinary mercenary group."
"But the real question is…" Li Chuan's gaze was sharp as he scanned the group. "How did they lock onto us so quickly? The Falcon captain just died, and Nightfall acted immediately. That means they weren't just receiving information passively. They've been watching everything from the shadows."
Su Man frowned. "Are you saying… there's a mole in our team?"
A heavy silence filled the room.
Shen Qiu paused his typing. Cheng Mo's expression flickered. Su Man instinctively tightened her grip on her gun. The air was thick with tension.
Li Chuan's voice remained calm but carried an undeniable authority. "I trust every one of you, but we cannot ignore this possibility."
"Or—" Shen Qiu's voice dropped as he contemplated something. "Maybe they didn't need a mole. Maybe they planted a tracking device on us."
Shen Qiu immediately pulled up a detailed scan of their team's devices. His fingers flew across the keyboard. Moments later, his expression darkened.
"…There's an anomaly."
Li Chuan's gaze sharpened. "Where?"
Shen Qiu pointed at the screen. "Cheng Mo's communicator sent out a low-frequency signal about ten minutes ago."
Silence.
Cheng Mo's eyes narrowed as he reached up, removing his earpiece. He inspected it closely before scoffing. "I never sent any signals."
Shen Qiu continued working. "It wasn't manually sent. This was a remotely triggered transmission. In other words—someone tampered with your gear."
Cheng Mo's face turned ice-cold. He carefully dismantled his communicator, and sure enough, hidden within the device was a nearly invisible microchip, seamlessly embedded among the original components. If not for Shen Qiu's precise data scan, they never would have noticed it.
"Damn it…" Cheng Mo's voice was laced with fury. "Who planted this?"
Shen Qiu analyzed the data and quickly identified a suspicious transmission route. "This signal… it likely originated from the Falcon captain we captured earlier."
Su Man's pupils constricted. "He set us up before he died?"
"To be more precise, his communicator was rigged before we even caught him," Shen Qiu muttered, his fingers tightening around the keyboard. "The moment he was captured, this program activated automatically. Then, it used one of our own devices to broadcast a signal."
Cheng Mo let out a cold chuckle and crushed the compromised communicator in his palm. "So we were walking into a trap from the very beginning."
"The real question now is—how do we escape?" Su Man turned to Li Chuan. "Staying here means waiting for death."
Li Chuan was silent for a moment before murmuring, "An operation of this scale… There has to be a weak point."
Shen Qiu nodded. "If Nightfall is behind this, they won't deploy a large force for a head-on assault. That's not their style. They prefer precision kills, not brute-force engagements."
"Which means they won't completely seal every exit. They'll leave a path open—one that leads us straight into a death trap," Li Chuan concluded, his eyes cold. "We need to find that trap… and turn it against them."
Cheng Mo's lips curled into a sinister grin. "If they want to hunt us, let's see how they like being hunted."
Shen Qiu quickly accessed the city's underground infrastructure and pinpointed a possible escape route. "There's an abandoned subway tunnel beneath this warehouse. If we navigate through it, we might bypass most of the lockdown zones."
Li Chuan nodded. "Move out."
The team swiftly gathered their gear and used the warehouse's ventilation ducts to descend into the underground drainage system. They moved carefully through the damp tunnels, following the mapped-out route. However, just as they neared the abandoned subway line, Shen Qiu's device flashed a warning.
"Hostiles ahead."
Li Chuan immediately raised his hand, signaling the team to halt. Su Man readied her sniper rifle, Cheng Mo gripped his combat knife, and the group braced for confrontation.
A faint light appeared at the far end of the subway tunnel. Then, a figure emerged from the shadows.
Dressed in black tactical gear, the man wore a silver-white mask. His voice was low and chilling. "You reacted faster than I expected."
Li Chuan's gaze darkened. "Nightfall?"
"Correct." The masked man slowly raised a silenced pistol, aiming directly at Li Chuan. "You've reached the end of the line."
Su Man fired first. Her shot was precise, but the bullet stopped mid-air, repelled by a transparent energy field.
"A magnetic defense barrier?" Shen Qiu muttered in shock. "Their tech is this advanced…?"
The masked man chuckled, his gun lowering slightly. "I was going to give you a quick death. But since you enjoy resisting… I'll handle you one by one."
Li Chuan's expression remained unreadable as he looked at the masked man. "You're confident."
"Of course. You have no way out." The masked man's finger tightened on the trigger.
But—
"Who told you… this was our only escape route?"
Li Chuan's lips curved into a cold smile.
At that moment, the entire subway tunnel was plunged into darkness. The emergency lighting system flickered off. Then, a faint red glow blinked in the distance.
Su Man fired again—not at the masked man, but at—
The structural support beams above.
Boom!
A deafening explosion rocked the tunnel as steel beams snapped and concrete collapsed, burying half the passage in rubble.
The masked man's smirk vanished. He swiftly retreated, but his escape route was already sealed by the debris.
Standing in the shadows, Li Chuan's voice was cold as ice.
"Now, we're the hunters."