Sewers were last repaired at least three hundred years ago. It was dark and the air was rancid. From time to time iron cans would touch concrete echoed out low sounds.
Linda suppressed her breathing, inhaling and exhaling slowly. She tried to reduce motions too. Her eyes looked around in alert as the years of hunting experience had taught her that not only 'bone rats' but other monsters preferred to hide in sewers.
Because of darkness, her vision was limited. She could see the outline of things only within five meters of distance. If Dudian would be here he would be surprised to find that the vision in the darkness was not shared by all hunters. It was one of the unique abilities that had come with his magic marks.
Linda's ears were erect as to detect the slightest and subtle movement around because of potential danger lurking in her surroundings.
Creak!
A 'bone rats' screaming echoed out from twenty meters away. It was an extremely painful sound but soon was stopped. At the same time water burst and sprayed into a wave.
Linda was not sure if it was a fight between rats for food or something else had attacked the rat. However, she didn't leave as she knew that rats wouldn't be a threat to her and if it was something else then the monster wasn't something dangerous as it fed on rats. As long as she was careful, nothing would go wrong.
She leaned against the side of the wall and gentle walked in a slow pace. She was vigilant and alert at all times as to avoid any beast that could leap out and drag her into the stream.
She had explored around a hundred meters or so when she found an opening in the corner. The light dimly shone and the rancid smell was dispersed.
Linda crawled out from the sewers along the rocky hole. She took a deep breath as the fresh air was blowing to her face. She looked around and saw that brainpeckers hadn't chased her. She was relieved as she quickly went to nearby building.
As she closed to the building Linda saw few undeads roar and rush towards her. With a sudden twist, her body turned like a whirlwind and the heads of undeads were cut off from their bodies as if autumn leaves fall of a tree.
She found a stable place to sit. Her stomach gurgled and she thought of her luggage which she had discarded previously. Her face was gloomy as she thought about Dudian. Her heart burned in anger: " The kid should have sense my smell and knows that I'm not dead. He will come after me... That's when he will face death!"
She thought of dead Nick, Rona and Reid. She couldn't help but clench her palm into fist: "I will help you to avenge your death! Afterwards, I'll get your ashes to be buried in hunter cemetery..."
She gradually restrained her hatred to think up calmly, : "This little devil is bound to appear again. However he will be back with new insidious ways. If he uses the monsters then I'll hide in sewer or I can move to adjacent area no 9." But he won't be able to use brainpackers as they don't eat undeads and he has smeared undead powder. Moreover, he was successful in leading them the first time but it doesn't mean that he will be able to do so the second time."
"If he doesn't use monsters but traps alone... He isn't capable of making traps that could kill me. Previously, he killed Gale because of surprise attack and it was a pure luck."
"Additionally, I can see that his effective range is merely 100 meters!"
She had noticed that Dudian's range of attack with the bow was limited. Even if he wanted to improve his range, it couldn't be done in three or five days of training. Especially, Linda thought that his arrows should be limited so even if he trained the efficiency would be low.
"Hundred meters... If it's within hundred meters and he tried to attack me again, I'll need three to five second to catch up with him and beheaded for good! He should know that I was seriously injured because of the brainpecker herd so he will attack for sure!
There was a trace of remorse in her mind, but she changed her mind, " He can't do anything. Unless he is foolish enough to believe that he can shoot me with an arrow. So I will wait for him to attack and when he comes out the initiative will be in my hands. He had used Gale's sense of smell and blurred Gale's judgement... But tactics such as that won't work on me..."
Thinking of everything a plan surfaced in her mind.
...
...
Whoosh!
Dudian rapidly ran through the street looking for police station. Occasionally he would sense the smell of monsters and make a detour to avoid the beasts.
"I've been to a dozen or more streets. Isn't there any police station in this area?" Dudian frowned. However, he soon found a place that had high barrier of three or four meters high covering it. It was hundreds of meters long and the middle part had collapsed. He didn't know whether it was work of corrosion from rain and radiation or was the baptism of war.
"Fortress?" Dudian was surprised.
Even though the wall was covered in vines but he still was impressed by the structure.
Three hundred years ago, after the outbreak of the disaster globally refuge cities were built as a defensive fortress to protect people. These fortresses were located in various parts of the city and were used as a second line of defense from undeads.
Dudian was silent for a moment but thought of a matter and quickly ran towards the fortress.
Near the fortress there were traces of detonated bombs and dense pile of bones. There was a skeleton which had a machine gun while his green military clothing had long faded its color.
Machine gun has become rusty and erosed because of rain. Although the machine gun itself is made from rust-proof steel but the nuclear radiation had affected the rain too. The other components of steel had long been damaged or deformed.
Dudian was surprised as he saw the machine gun. This defensive fortress should have lots of firearms!
He picked up the machine gun and gently broke it off. He was after the bullets. He quickly unscrewed the cap of the bullet. There was dark gunpowder inside but it didn't come out as moisture had intrused and hardened it.
There was regret in his heart as he dropped this string of bullets and moved forward and went inside the fortress.
Along the way, he saw accumulation of bones all around. There were small monsters which seemed had mutated from snakes that moved through the bones. Once in a while their tails from be exposed from the rib part of bones.
"Tank?" Dudian was impressed to see a tank. It was covered in moss and vines but it's long barrel was still visible. It was rolled over so it wasn't difficult to imagine the intense fight that had broken by it.