Chapter 168: Chapter 165: A Special Delivery, Signed for With Your Life!

All they had to do was slam this stuff on the table in front of the Council, or one of those major conglomerates.

And just like that, they—a handful of mercenaries who lived on a knife’s edge, never knowing where their next meal would come from—would have it made.

They’d get residency in the Inner City.

They might even snag a cushy sinecure for life, never having to worry about food or drink again.

"We’re rich... We’re fuckin’ rich this time..."

One of the mercenaries’ Adam’s apples bobbed violently as he greedily gulped down his spit.

"The Suspended Mountain Secret Realm has been picked clean countless times, yet there’s still a pristine, untouched ruin like this!"

"It must have been the spatial Vibration a few days ago. It probably shook the buried entrance free."

The burly man forced his heart, which was threatening to beat out of his chest, to calm down.

He stared intently at the stone steps leading underground, his breathing growing ragged.

This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

After this score, who would want to go back to some godforsaken wasteland to risk their lives fighting those animals?

Wouldn’t it be better to spend every day in an Inner City club with a woman on each arm? Isn’t that a happier life?

"Boss, are we... going in?"

The man nicknamed ’Skinny Monkey’ rubbed his hands, looking so antsy he seemed ready to slide right down the steps that very second.

"Go in? My ass! You want to die?"

The burly man was green with envy, but he hadn’t completely lost his mind.

He jutted his chin toward the gloomy passage below.

"Don’t forget who went in first."

At his words, the mercenaries, who had been swept up in the excitement, shuddered as if doused with cold water.

That kid with the gun.

The monster who’d blown a Tier Two Middle Stage Demon Beast’s head into a smashed watermelon with a single shot.

"That kid’s gun is just too damn strange."

The burly man gritted his teeth, his expression flickering between greed and fear.

"This damn place is narrow as a coffin. If we charge down there, he can just wait at the bottom and pick us off. He’ll have us all skewered like candied fruit on a stick."

In an underground passage that could only fit two or three people abreast, firepower was the law of the land.

And Han Feng’s terrifyingly powerful pistol was the Grim Reaper’s scythe.

"Then what do we do? Just stand here and watch?"

Someone said anxiously, his face etched with frustration.

"Wait for them to come out after they’ve looted everything? We won’t even get the scraps by then!"

"Yeah, Boss! Fortune favors the bold!"

A vicious glint flashed in Skinny Monkey’s eyes as he discreetly made a throat-slitting gesture.

"There’s only two of them. That big guy looks like a dumb meat shield. All we have to do is move fast, catch them when they’re distracted by the Treasure..."

The burly man lowered his voice and asked, "How long have those two been inside?"

"Less than twenty minutes."

Skinny Monkey glanced at his tactical watch.

"Even if they’ve found something, they haven’t had it long."

"Let’s do it!"

A fleshy-faced mercenary beside them growled and drew the short blade at his waist.

"Boss, what are we waiting for? We charge in, block the entrance, and those two will be trapped like rats in a cage!"

"As long as we’re clean about it, this ruin will have been discovered by our Blazing Fire Corps!"

The others’ eyes glinted menacingly as well.

In the face of a temptation that could change their destinies, rules and morals were nothing but bullshit.

The burly man took another deep breath, the greed in his eyes finally crushing his last sliver of reason.

"Old Third, get the ’Mind-Bending Smoke’ from your bag," he said suddenly, his voice laced with a bone-chilling cold.

At his words, his men’s expressions changed.

"Boss, that’s what we were saving to ambush a Tier Two Late Stage Demon Beast. One canister costs eight hundred Spirit Coins..."

"Cut the crap!" the burly man roared, sending spit flying.

"After we kill those two kids, a single hair off anything inside will be worth more than this thing!"

The mercenary known as Old Third didn’t dare say another word. He scrambled to pull a palm-sized black metal canister from the depths of his pack.

Black Market contraband.

When ignited, it releases a colorless, odorless, and highly potent neurotoxin capable of paralyzing a living being’s nerves, causing both paralysis and hallucinations.

In an enclosed space, its effects were doubled.

"Listen up," the scarred man said as he took the canister. He weighed it in his hand, the flesh on his face twitching as he broke into a ghastly grin.

"The kid’s got a gun. We can’t charge in blindly."

"In a moment, I’ll throw this thing in, and we’ll block half the entrance."

"The smoke sinks, so this hole will become a natural gas chamber."

"We wait fifteen minutes. Even if that kid’s made of iron, he’ll be down on the ground, surrendering to me."

"Then we’ll put on our gas masks and go down to comfortably collect the bodies."

The mercenaries’ eyes all lit up at the plan.

’The plan was both vicious and foolproof!’

"Brilliant, Boss!"

Skinny Monkey immediately started kissing up, hurriedly pulling gas masks from his bag and handing them out.

The scarred man grinned viciously. With a CLICK of his thumb, he pulled the pin on the metal canister and tossed it casually into the entrance.

The black metal canister clattered and bounced down the steps, tumbling deep into the corridor.

HSSSS—

A piercing hiss of venting gas rang out.

A thick, yellowish-brown smoke instantly billowed from the canister, lunging viciously toward the half-open stone door.

From the shadows of the stone chamber, Han Feng didn’t even twitch an eyelid.

He had already been planning to circulate his Sword Essence to seal his pores and just tough out the poison smoke.

But what he saw next through his Spiritual Vision almost made him laugh.

The yellowish-brown smoke particles surged into the corridor and slammed head-on into a thin layer of white mist that was already there, one that had a mind-interfering effect.

The smoke didn’t diffuse as expected.

The invisible Force Field of the Enchanting Array was acting like an intangible wall of air.

Or like a high-density filter screen.

The poison smoke was held fast, blocked from entering the stone chamber.

It billowed madly in the corridor, constantly accumulating but completely unable to cross the invisible boundary. It couldn’t advance a single inch.

Instead, the once-thin and transparent white mist became sharply outlined as it was filled with the colored poison gas.

It had become a true ’poison gas tunnel’.

’Heh, they actually did me a favor.’

A playful smirk touched Han Feng’s lips.

’These idiots. Not only did they fail to flush me out, but they personally gave this fading Enchanting Array a manual upgrade.’

’Now, that corridor truly has become the Ghost Gate—a point of no return.’

Han Feng turned his head and glanced at Wang Meng, who was still on the ground hugging a rock and laughing foolishly.

The man was lost in a daydream about getting rich, muttering something about "big gold chains and little watches."

To prevent the man from making a sound and disturbing the "guests" outside who were getting ready to come down and offer up their lives...

Han Feng walked up behind him.

He formed his hand into a blade and brought it down in a clean, sharp chop to the back of his neck.

"Ugh..."

Wang Meng’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed, out cold.

’Finally, some peace and quiet.’

Han Feng grabbed Wang Meng by the ankles and, as if dragging a dead dog, pulled him into the farthest corner of the stone chamber and stashed him there.

Then, he returned to the shadows behind the stone door and crouched.

The Sand Python pistol felt cold and metallic against his palm.

The safety was already off.

The dark, gaping muzzle pointed toward the ground, like a coiled viper waiting to strike.

His Perception Field spread out silently.

His consciousness stretched up the steps like an invisible eye,

locking firmly onto the five points of life-light on the ground above, their clocks already ticking down.