Near the entrance of the cave, Jiang Bai Mian stopped and turned back to Long Yuehong, who was wearing an exoskeleton device:

"You stay here and guard."

She thought for a moment and added:

"Keep an eye on the outside of the grove. If the jeep gets lost, Bai Chen and I won't care, but you'll have something to 'enjoy'. Humans can accept and adapt to many things if they come gradually, but if you throw them into hell difficulty all at once, most creatures will collapse."

"Yes, Team Leader!" Long Yuehong was not disappointed at being unable to enter Black Rat Town; on the contrary, he was relieved.

From the Black Rat Town residents who had died outside, he seemed to be able to foresee the tragic state inside the cave, and he suspected that it would cause a strong shock to his mind, leaving psychological shadows that needed treatment.

After instructing Long Yuehong, Jiang Bai Mian turned around, bent over, and walked into the cave, which was about 1.4 meters high.

Shang Jianyao and Bai Chen each held their weapons, one on the left and one on the right, following behind. One of them bent his back and knees more severely, making it difficult to walk, while the other was relatively better.

They did not do any outside observation or confirmation of the general situation before entering, as the training manual instructed. Instead, they fully trusted the team leader's ability to sense weak electrical signals.

In this regard, Jiang Bai Mian had already demonstrated sufficient credibility.

There was still daylight shining at the entrance of the cave, allowing people to barely see the surrounding situation. But the further inside, the darker it became until it was pitch black.

At this moment, Jiang Bai Mian took out a flashlight with a silver-white shell and obvious graininess and pushed the switch.

A yellowish beam of light shot out, illuminating a certain area in front, and in cooperation with the natural light near the entrance, allowed Shang Jianyao to initially see what the scene in front of him was like:

The cave was quite spacious, and the depths were still shrouded in darkness, with no end in sight.

Originally, there were natural stone pillars, but now they were all broken. A large amount of rock, moss, and dust had fallen from the ceiling and covered the ground.

With the center of Jiang Bai Mian's flashlight as the origin, traces of fire extended outward in a circular pattern on the ground.

In the innermost pit closest to the origin, there were no bones that could be called intact, only countless charred and reddish pieces of flesh and blood mixed with stones and soil.

In the middle circle outside the pit, one small corpse after another lay on the ground, their bodies charred, many of them incomplete, their deaths extremely tragic.

As Jiang Bai Mian moved the flashlight, Shang Jianyao also saw what the edge area near the cave walls, outside the middle circle, was like:

There were also corpses of Black Rat Town residents lying on the ground in various states, but their bodies were basically intact, with only some burning marks. In addition, there were some remnants of thick, dark hair.

Some of them had no obvious external injuries, while others had terrible wounds torn by bullets in their backs and chests, and many were without clothes.

And within the cave, as far as Shang Jianyao could see, nothing had been left behind except for broken pieces of porcelain bowls, pottery bowls, and mud bowls.

Without anyone needing to explain, Shang Jianyao and Bai Chen instantly understood a fact from this scene:

Black Rat Town had been completely massacred.

Jiang Bai Mian silently looked around and sighed:

"It was probably a thermobaric weapon fired from a shoulder-launched, man-portable system...

"Those who didn't die on the spot were also finished off with a shot.

"Very professional."

Thermobaric weapons are a combination of high-explosive bombs and fuel-air explosives, mainly used to kill enemies in confined spaces such as caves and underground bunkers.

After a thermobaric weapon explodes, it consumes all the oxygen in the surrounding area, releasing a large amount of energy and creating a rapidly expanding fireball. This fireball will sweep through the confined environment with a high-pressure shock wave, killing enemies and destroying equipment to the greatest extent.

For a place like Black Rat Town, where the entrance is only 1.4 meters high, it is obviously unwise to rush in and fight the residents who are adapted to this environment. The best way is to directly fire thermobaric weapons and various other bombs inside.

"Not many teams possess this kind of bomb. Some large organizations don't even have them," Bai Chen said, trying to calm herself down.

Although she was an experienced former wasteland wanderer who was used to fighting and killing, this was the first time she had personally witnessed the complete slaughter of a town or settlement.

Even though the corpses and minced meat belonged to sub-humans, they were still filled with unspeakable shock and horror.

In any case, the residents of Black Rat Town, apart from their height, nails, and body hair, were almost indistinguishable from normal humans.

-- Bai Chen had actually seen slaughtered settlements, but those were long after the tragedy had occurred. Except for a few remaining bones and uninhabited dilapidated houses, all other traces had long disappeared.

Jiang Bai Mian nodded:

"Take out your flashlights and split up to look for clues.

"Perhaps... perhaps there are still some survivors?"

Shang Jianyao immediately took the flashlight and a standard "Ice Moss" pistol from his tactical belt, illuminating with one hand and holding the gun in the other as he walked towards the edge area.

He did not believe that there would be any survivors in the center of the explosion or the surrounding areas.

As he checked the corpses one by one, Shang Jianyao saw a woman with her back to him, her body curled up.

She still had some clothes left, and her hands and feet were gathered as if she were tightly hugging something, pressing it under her body.

The back of this corpse, which faintly showed thick, dark hair, had a wound with coagulated dark red blood, which was obviously a gunshot wound.

Shang Jianyao, who was already bending over, squatted down and used the flashlight as a baton to turn the corpse of this Black Rat Town resident over.

In the shifting light, Shang Jianyao saw a little girl.

She was wearing an old white dress that was quite clean in some places. She was tightly hugged in the adult woman's chest and abdomen, and at first glance, she didn't seem to have suffered any harm.

Shang Jianyao put the flashlight on the ground and tried to check the little girl's condition, but he couldn't pry open the adult woman's hands no matter what he did.

After giving up this instinctive attempt, Shang Jianyao saw that the little girl's face was purplish-blue, and there were traces of dark red blood flowing from the place where she was tightly pressed against the adult woman's chest and abdomen.

He then used his fingers to test the other party's breath and feel her temperature.

After a few seconds, he slowly withdrew his palm.

Because the two corpses that were tightly hugged together had been turned over, Shang Jianyao quickly discovered, with the help of the flashlight's light, that there was a depression extending deep into the junction of the cave wall and the ground where they had originally fallen. There were obvious nail marks remaining on it.

Seeing this depression, Shang Jianyao seemed to see the scene at that time:

During the enemy's attack, a female resident of Black Rat Town was anxiously using her digging talent to create a shelter space for her child.

Unfortunately, it wasn't fast enough for the bomb.

Shang Jianyao reached out and touched the depression, and found that there was a naturally formed small cave, and there seemed to be a cold object of unknown origin inside the cave.

He took the object out and, with the help of the flashlight's light, found that it was a rectangular black object that was slightly taller than his middle finger.

This object had a small liquid crystal-like display screen near the top, several buttons in the middle, and a speaker covered with a grid at the bottom.

Shang Jianyao, who had studied electronics in college, naturally had no difficulty in identifying what this tattered, old-fashioned thing was.

It was an old-world voice recorder, repaired and modified by the residents of Black Rat Town.

Perhaps it had fallen into the hollow in the depression in advance, or perhaps it was quite far from the center of the explosion, and there was a human body blocking it, but this electronic device didn't have any signs of damage.

Shang Jianyao squatted on one knee, studied it briefly, and pressed a certain button:

Amidst the gunshots and various chaotic sounds, a tender voice asked, frightened and puzzled:

"Mommy, Mommy, why are they killing us?"

A slightly hoarse and trembling voice replied:

"Because... we are sub-humans."

The tender voice asked further:

"What are sub-humans?"

The slightly hoarse voice was silent for a few seconds before answering:

"That is... that is people who are sick."

The tender voice became even more puzzled:

"But, Mommy, just because we are sick, they want to kill us?

"I... I can fix electronic devices. I'm very useful..."

A gunshot suddenly became closer, as if it had arrived at the entrance of the cave, followed by the sound of something falling to the ground. The recording then stopped abruptly.

Shang Jianyao listened in silence and turned his gaze back to the two corpses:

Neither the adult woman nor the little girl had thick, dark hair on their faces. They had obviously been shaved, making them look clean.

This was the same as many female employees of "Pangu Biology."

This recording was loud enough that Jiang Bai Mian, who was walking deeper, and Bai Chen, who was on the other side, could hear it fairly clearly.

They also became unusually silent, and no one spoke or moved for a long time.

After a while, Jiang Bai Mian slowly exhaled:

"Continue searching for clues."

Shang Jianyao solemnly put the voice recorder into his pocket, then picked up the flashlight and stood up again, bending over.

As he moved the beam of light, he saw some writing on the cave wall.

These words were in Ashlands language and had obviously been there for many years. Many places were already blurred and unclear, so they were obviously not left by the residents of Black Rat Town when they were attacked.

Shang Jianyao brought the flashlight closer and carefully identified them for about ten seconds, finally recognizing some of the words:

"...was here..."

"...Jin He...Le will never be apart..."

At this moment, Jiang Bai Mian also seemed to see something similar. She shook her flashlight and said with some emotion:

"Before the destruction of the Old World, this seemed to be a scenic spot? It's so short, who would want to come?"

After speaking, she stared at the rock wall for a long time.

After a while, she finally shifted her gaze and began searching for possible clues.

More than ten minutes later, the three of them met again in the area near the cave entrance where there was natural light.

Jiang Bai Mian said with considerable regret:

"The people of Black Rat Town had previously dug out two backup escape routes, but unfortunately, the thermobaric weapon or other similar bombs came too quickly."

"And the attackers didn't leave any clues," Bai Chen responded.

Jiang Bai Mian shook her head:

"It's not that they didn't leave any, but that they deliberately took the time to deal with them after resolving the battle."

ps: Asking for recommendation tickets~