In the video, one could see the iron sewer covers, each weighing dozens of pounds, shooting up like skyrockets following a huge explosion.
Their heights instantly surpassed the surrounding street buildings, reaching about as high as a ten-story building before their momentum was exhausted, and then they fell back down, smashing into the hard concrete of the street and creating a large crater.
"Could it be that someone set off explosives in the sewers?" the young officer murmured softly.
That was the only explanation he could think of.
Xiao Hua silently finished watching the video clip, then walked over to a sewer cover and crouched down to take a look.
There were no signs of an explosion, but there was a quite noticeable dent on the cover.
"It wasn't explosives. It was directly pushed up by some kind of mutated beings," Xiao Hua concluded, feeling a bit of dryness in his throat.
The young officer opened his mouth in astonishment, finally managing to say, "How is that possible! It would require an impact of at least a ton to achieve that effect!"
"At least it's one of the Mutated Beings in the top 50 of the danger list! With such a huge size, how could they silently make their way into our city center?"
Xiao Hua's expression was more solemn than ever, "I'm not sure either, so tell the brothers from the City Guard Team to go down to the sewers and take a look. Remember to bring heavy firepower weapons."
"Yes, sir," the young policeman left in a hurry.
Before long, two elite teams from the City Guard Team rushed over here in a hurry.
"Vice Director Xiao Hua, is the information you provided accurate?" the leading middle-aged man asked in a deep voice.
His name was Li Yongming, and he was one of the two chief officers who came to support.
"Here's the video. Take a look for yourself, Captain Li," said Xiao Hua, handing over the device without further ado and queuing up the video.
After just a moment, Li Yongming's expression became unprecedentedly solemn.
"This has to be a Mutated Being with a danger level of at least three, and the fact that it could silently come to the city center proves it also has terrifying stealth abilities."
Li Yongming took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, saying gravely, "We may have encountered big trouble."
Such a terrifying Mutated Being hidden within the city, if not cleared out in time, would be like a ticking time bomb, and no one knew when it might be triggered.
By then, it might not just cause a disturbance on a few streets as it had been lucky this time.
"I'll lead a team down to take a look personally," Li Yongming eventually decided.
"Captain Li, isn't that too dangerous? Is it really appropriate for you to go down personally?" Xiao Hua asked, taken aback.
"Who wouldn't be in danger going down there? As the chief officer, I should lead the charge," Li Yongming dismissed with a wave of his hand.
He then looked at a member of the team beside him and instructed, "Xiao Liu, send a message to headquarters. I need two armed helicopters equipped with Earth-penetrating Bombs dispatched here."
"Yes, chief officer," the City Guard Team member responded promptly.
Before long, Li Yongming led two elite teams into the sewer through an opened cover.
"It's too quiet," Li Yongming observed as soon as he entered the sewer, sensing something was amiss.
He had been in the city's sewers before; it was essentially the territory of Mutated Beings like rats, cockroaches, flies, and mosquitoes.
Normally, upon entering, one would encounter such creatures everywhere, and the chances of direct combat were quite high.
Now, although the environment in the sewer was the same as before, with sewage flowing and a foul stench pervading, there were no creatures in sight.
"Everyone, be careful and maintain a defensive formation as we move forward," Li Yongming flicked on his portable light source, raised his gun, and advanced with cautious steps.
The rest of the squad members hurried to keep up.
However, they became increasingly astonished as they went along because they couldn't spot a single mutated being on their path.
"Captain, could it be due to the residual smell?" a member asked in a low voice.
"Hmm! All animals have a sense of territory, and they haven't lost that after mutating; in fact, it could even be said to have become more terrifying," replied the captain.
"According to our research, some powerful creatures can even emit a deterrence that subjugates other mutated beings," Li Yongming explained while continuing to walk forward.
Soon, he stopped in his tracks and reached out to touch a wall.
There was a discernable scratch mark on the cement board.
"Usually, when creatures leave scratch marks, they're rough, but how come this is so smooth?" he murmured as he caressed the cement, which felt as though it had been polished anew.
Unfortunately, no one could answer his question, so he could only continue to cautiously lead the team forward.
Before long, they arrived at the first location they were searching for.
If the authorities were aware of the threat posed by Mutated Mouse, how could they possibly be unprepared?
Earlier, during several "Extermination of Four Pests" campaigns, they had installed surveillance equipment in some hidden areas of the sewer system.
"Captain, the wire mesh has been chewed through, and the surveillance equipment inside is damaged," a technician reported with a sigh after a quick check.
"Is the memory card damaged?" asked Li Yongming.
"It's intact, but the problem is, this surveillance device stopped working a long time ago. The most recent records are from a month ago," the team member said with a sense of helplessness.
"No matter, we'll head to the next location. There is a disguised recorder there that should be undamaged," Li Yongming said, glancing at his phone's map.
It was a sewer map with markers for all the equipment installation sites.
The team continued on, encountering no danger, or rather, it was quite peaceful as they reached the location of the hidden recorder.
This hidden recorder was almost indistinguishable from an ordinary cement board, embedded directly into the wall, with the only difference being the three inconspicuous pinhole cameras.
Even the pinhole cameras were camouflaged in color, hardly noticeable unless looked at closely.
As expected, this recorder was undamaged.
A smile crept onto Li Yongming's face as he immediately asked the technician to connect the device.
But as they took a closer look, his smile froze on his face.
All three pinhole cameras were covered with an unknown black adhesive substance, completely obscuring the lenses.
Clutching onto his last shred of hope, he had the technician connect to the recorder, and pulled up the surveillance video on his phone.
But unsurprisingly, it was pitch black.
"Let's move on to the next spot," he said, taking a deep breath to suppress the frustration inside him.
They then visited five more places with installed surveillance equipment, and without exception, all were damaged.
It wasn't until they reached a neighboring street that they found a surveillance device that was undamaged and whose camera wasn't obstructed.
"Quickly export the video," Li Yongming excitedly told the member who was operating the device.