795: 786 Pit 795: 786 Pit Getting hit by a bullet sometimes doesn’t hurt immediately, it feels like being splashed with water when, in fact, blood has begun to flow.
After a quick glance failed to reveal where the bullet had come from, Gao Yang rolled over and then checked his waist, only to find that the wet feeling was indeed water—his water bottle had been punctured.
If he had been shot in the waist, he would have been done for.
Gao Yang finally breathed a sigh of relief, then began to concern himself with why he was being shot at in the first place.
Running continuously, after spraying bullets toward where it seemed the shots had originated from, Gao Yang quickly moved.
But just after he had moved about ten meters to the side, gunfire erupted from his flank, and at the same time, Gao Yang understood why his pursuers had caught up so quickly.
After moving about ten meters, between the trees, Gao Yang saw a narrow path, and along it, a string of adversaries were rushing toward him.
As Gao Yang ran towards the mountain top through the dense forest, the enemy took the path directly to the summit, clearly going to be much faster, and their first encounter less than twenty meters apart; fortunately, the enemy’s first shot missed him.
Unable to run directly, and after continuously firing at and killing all visible enemies, Gao Yang finally started to run headlong.
Being a hero comes at a cost; you don’t get killed if you don’t act recklessly.
But overall, Gao Yang had no regrets about his choices, just immensely frustrated with his luck.
Gao Yang thought his misfortune had passed, but it seemed bad luck hadn’t yet left him—tripping and injuring himself in the bathroom or being weakened by a toothache was nothing.
The heavens relentlessly pushed him to extremities and delivered him right in front of his pursuers, an ordeal almost unbearable.
Gao Yang felt like fate wasn’t going to let up until he was dead.
Hearing the urgent gunfire and footsteps behind him, Gao Yang could only occasionally glance back, as anything other than an outright sprint was impossible.
Running on a slope that was about a thirty-degree incline, Gao Yang either had to run downslope or sideways.
Running uphill was out of the question, not only would it slow him down, but Gao also didn’t know if the enemies coming up the path had already taken the highest point of the hill.
Running downhill was risky too, fearing that the pursuers might be waiting to ambush him below, so his only option was to run laterally.
As he ran, Gao Yang spotted a clump of bushes ahead.
Circling around them would take too long, so he chose a relatively sparse area to jump over, but when he landed on his right foot, he found the grassy ground not as solid as it should have been.
Instead, his foot broke through the surface.
It happened again; Gao Yang now fully understood that some deity, displeased with him, was thoroughly determined to end him.
Half of Gao Yang’s body was buried underground.
Although the hole caused by his collapsed right foot wasn’t deep, only over a meter, the fall was hard.
Still, Gao Yang swiftly curled his legs and rolled to disperse the impact, fortunately not breaking his leg.
As he attempted to roll forward, the ground he touched collapsed again and he found himself completely in a pit about one and a half meters deep.
Standing up and shaking his head, Gao Yang turned and saw his pursuers were almost upon him.
Without time to climb out, he used the shallow pit as cover, fired two shots, then ducked down, exposing only half of his head and shooting at any foe he saw.
Incredibly, he managed to kill several pursuers who were directly behind him.
Startled by Gao Yang’s continuous shooting, a man who was shot down shouted loudly a few times, halting the steps of the pursuers following him.
He could hear movements not far away, but Gao Yang could not see anyone.
Gao Yang couldn’t understand why there was suddenly a hole in what appeared to be solid ground that he had just stepped on.
Gao Yang wasn’t religious or superstitious, but now, he couldn’t help but let his mind wander wildly.
All the misfortunes and bizarre incidents happening one after another made him wonder if he really had offended some deity.
However, for Gao Yang, even if all the deities in heaven wanted him dead, he wasn’t just going to sit and wait for death.
Although there was no chance to leave the large pit, Gao still readied his gun.
If he couldn’t escape, he would keep fighting; either he would be killed, or he would kill every last one of his assailants.
Two men emerged, Gao Yang shot and killed one of them, and the other ducked back and bellowed, “He has cover, grenade, grenade, bomb him!”
Gao Yang widened his eyes as several dark figures flew overhead, then he quickly ducked his head, concealing his body in the pit.
As he never had a chance to properly examine the pit that plagued him, when he ducked his head to avoid the grenade and took advantage of the faint light, he discovered the pit he was hiding in was actually hollow, about two to three square meters in size, with a top layer of soil about twenty to thirty centimeters thick, surprisingly supported by several wooden beams.
After hearing several loud explosions, Gao Yang lifted his head and after shooting dead two people who came out to check the situation, he heard a frantic voice saying, “RPG!
Get the RPG!”
This completely ruined it!
Gao Yang tried to escape the large pit trapping him, but as soon as he pushed himself up, the ground where his arms were braced collapsed again.
Stabilizing himself once more, Gao Yang saw a Black man with an RPG appear before him.
Holding his gun horizontally, Gao Yang, holding his gun with one hand, sprayed bullets at the RPG shooter, but then he watched helplessly as two grenades flew towards him.
Desperate, he ducked back into the pit, and after the grenades exploded, although they didn’t land inside the pit making it unavoidable, Gao heard the sound of a rocket being launched, followed by a hissing sound, and then a muffled thud.
The pit was filled with dust, Gao waved his hand to clear it, only to find that the rocket had penetrated the soil of the pit roof and had exploded inside, but he didn’t feel the blast wave at all.
The rocket had made another hole in the roof of the pit; when Gao examined it closely, he finally understood why he hadn’t been killed.
The place that trapped Gao was a pit.
When the rocket penetrated the soil of the pit roof, the soil didn’t detonate the rocket, which then bored into the pit diagonally into the pit wall, and after penetrating another layer of soil, it exploded underground.
Gao’s mind was numb, he stared blankly at the small hole left by the rocket in the pit, then a light bulb went off, and he quickly crawled to the small hole left by the rocket, struck it with the butt of his gun and created a large cavern.
Inside the pit, there was a cave.
After widening the cave entrance enough to pass through, Gao dove into the cave.
The cave entrance was blocked by a not-so-thick layer of soil, behind which Gao encountered something that seemed like wood, and the height of the cave was higher than he’d expected—the drop from the entrance to the ground was about two meters, so Gao hit the ground hard.
Despite the harsh landing, Gao was glad.
He had no idea what the situation was on this side, and a bit of pain didn’t matter as long as he didn’t die.
In complete darkness, Gao could see nothing; he had a flashlight, but the enemies would surely follow him soon, so he immediately used his gun as a cane and felt his way forward.
Gao moved quickly, and while using one hand to probe with his gun, with the other he began to remove the camouflage from his body, waiting to get to his backpack where he then quickly retrieved the headlamp from it.
Turning on the headlamp, Gao could finally see what the cave looked like.
The cave was pitch-black, very round, but the floor was flat.
The entire cave was long and straight, about three meters in diameter, and unusually regular in shape.
The roof of the cave also had black stalactite-like formations, which made Gao’s first reaction to think that the cave was man-made, or at least modified by human effort to have such a smooth floor.
But after touching the cave walls and taking a close look, he quickly realized it was not something humans could have carved out.
All the walls were made of stone, black volcanic rock.
Gao immediately understood—it was a lava tube.
During a volcanic eruption, as liquid lava flowed, its surface cooled faster, forming a crust.
Beneath the hard crust, the hotter, faster-flowing magma kept moving, forming lava tubes.
When the volcano ceased eruption, the lava in the tubes continued to flow, eventually leaving empty lava caves behind.
Gao, who enjoyed science programs, felt a touch of emotion knowing what the cave was, thinking that there truly are no dead ends for those with perseverance.
After briefly pondering and understanding the situation, Gao quickly turned off the headlamp.
It was almost certain that the pursuers would follow him inside; keeping the light on would be like showing them where he was.
The cave was very flat and straight, so running in the dark was just as feasible.
After running forward for a while, Gao heard voices behind him.
The cave’s echo effect was very strong, so he immediately slowed down, fearing his footsteps would be heard.
At first, Gao was worried about not having enough air in the cave, but after staying a while, he didn’t feel suffocated and relaxed.
Considering that a typical lava tube has many small branches, it was possible that the cave he was in was just a small branch.
Listening as the noise behind him died down for a moment, Gao held no hope that his pursuers had retreated.
Without surprise, they would definitely be looking for the light source, and Gao also remembered that the enemy had night vision devices.
Gao kept counting his steps, estimating he had covered about three hundred twenty meters inside the cave.
Seizing a moment of quiet from behind, Gao briefly turned on his headlamp—the bright light reached into the darkness, but he could not see the end of the cave.
(To be continued.
If you like this work, please visit qidian.com to recommend and vote monthly.
Your support is my greatest motivation.
Mobile users please visit m.qidian.com to read.)