I'm having a blast in Marvel!

Page 19

Steve immediately gathered everyone together. He spread out a makeshift map he had seized from the Hydra soldiers and, by the dim moonlight, began to assign tasks. His voice was not loud, but it was steady and powerful, like a stabilizing force that brought immense peace of mind to everyone who heard it.

“The plan is as follows.” He drew on the map with the tip of his dagger. “Chu Hang, Logan, and I will form the first assault team. The three of us will infiltrate the factory through the drainage ditch. Our primary task is to locate the factory’s electrical room and cut off the power to the outer barbed wire fence. Then, we will find a way to open a side door from the inside to create conditions for the main force to enter.”

He raised his head, his gaze sharp as lightning, sweeping over the remaining team members.

“Dugan, you lead the rest of the team to form the second squad. Your mission is to circle around to the outskirts of the minefield on the west side of the factory and take cover. I will notify you via communicator after we cut off the power. At that time, you are responsible for storming in through the west gate we opened, heading straight for the prisoner-of-war camp marked on the map, and rescuing our brothers. Remember, keep a low profile and avoid engaging in firefights as much as possible before rescuing them.”

"Understood, Captain!" Dugen nodded emphatically.

“We’ll use this to contact you once we’re inside.” Steve pulled a captured Hydra communicator from his pocket and handed it to Dugan. “Remember, the communication signal is three short beeps. Once you hear the signal, act immediately. If… if we don’t send a signal within an hour, then we’ve failed.”

He paused, his voice becoming extremely serious: "When that time comes, you must retreat immediately, take Gabe with you and leave this place. Do not hesitate! This is an order!"

“Captain…” Dugan’s lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but looking at Steve’s unquestionable eyes, he ultimately didn’t say anything. He just gripped the communicator tightly in his hand and nodded heavily. “You guys, be very careful.”

Steve smiled, patted him on the shoulder, and then turned to look at Chu Hang and Logan.

"Are you ready?"

Logan licked his chapped lips, his knuckles cracking as he clenched his fists, his deep eyes filled with a bloodthirsty excitement, like a wild beast about to be released from its cage.

Chu Hang took a deep breath and nodded vigorously.

To be honest, he was still a little nervous. The thought of following Captain America and Wolverine to crawl through a stinking sewer and raid a heavily guarded Hydra base made him feel that it was just too damn surreal.

A few months ago, he was a corporate slave sitting in a cubicle every day, worrying so much about KPIs and his boss's mood that he was losing his hair. Now, he has to do the kind of work you only see in Hollywood blockbusters.

Life is more exciting than a movie.

With a low command from Steve, the three-man team, like three ghosts disappearing into the darkness, silently broke away from the main force. Under the cover of night, they were like three sharp daggers, plunging straight into the stinking riverbank.

The night wind carried a chilly chill as it blew across the reeds along the riverbank.

The three quickly located the massive drain outlet, partially obscured by dense weeds and thick silt. Before they even got close, an indescribable stench, mixed with cold, damp air, wafted from the dark pipe. The smell was like a mixture of rotting garbage, industrial waste, and some kind of biological excrement, fermented for months—extremely penetrating.

Logan's face turned green instantly, and he couldn't help but mutter a curse word from his hometown.

Steve frowned subconsciously, but without hesitation, he was the first to walk over and grab the massive, rusty iron fence. The muscles in his arms bulged instantly, veins popping out, and with a piercing creak, he managed to tear open a gap in the hundreds-of-pounds-heavy iron fence, enough for one person to squeeze through sideways.

A stronger, more foul stench, mixed with cold sewage, gushed out of the pipes.

Steve glanced back at the two of them, said nothing, but gestured with his eyes before bending down first and diving into the bottomless, foul-smelling darkness without hesitation.

Looking at the dark entrance, Chu Hang felt a churning in his stomach and almost vomited up the compressed biscuits he had eaten for dinner.

He glanced at Logan, who also looked constipated, sighed, and resignedly followed.

Okay, let's go with the sewer then.

After all, this was the sewers I went through with Captain America and Wolverine. If I survived that experience, I could brag about it for the rest of my life.

Chapter 25 This flavor is too addictive!

As Chu Hang plunged headfirst into the dark drainage pipe, he felt as if his entire life had turned gray.

My God, this flavor is so addictive!

If the smells outside were just an appetizer, now he felt like he had plunged headfirst into a biological weapon pool that had been fermenting for eight hundred years with a mixture of aged pickled cabbage and public toilet. The smell was penetrating every pore, choking him and bringing tears to his eyes.

He instinctively wanted to hold his breath, but then he remembered he was a super soldier now, with incredible lung capacity; he could hold his breath for ten minutes or more without getting out of breath. The problem was, even if he could hold his breath, he couldn't stop the smell from getting into his nose!

The icy, bone-chilling sewage reached above his calves, sticky and slimy, and he had no idea what good stuff was in it. Chu Hang felt his feet were soft and yielding, and occasionally he could feel something slippery swimming past his feet.

Just thinking about what that stuff might be made his stomach churn, and he almost vomited up the compressed biscuits he had eaten for lunch.

He forced himself to stay awake and looked up at Steve, who was walking at the front.

Good heavens, no wonder he's Captain America. Steve, holding a small waterproof flashlight in one hand and his prized shield in the other, stood ramrod straight, stepping into the sewage with barely a splash. His expression was as calm as if he were walking in his own backyard, infuriatingly so. It was as if the stench that could knock someone over was no different from the fresh air of the countryside to him.

Then look at Logan behind him; that guy's expression is much more interesting.

Logan's features were contorted in pain. His wild, instinctive sense of smell was practically a curse in this environment; he was probably suffering several times more mental pollution than Chu Hang. He had an unlit cigar dangling from his mouth, and he was making low, gurgling noises in his throat, like a wild bear ready to explode at any moment.

"Fuck... This place stinks even more than the bear dens I raided in the Canadian woods." Logan finally couldn't hold back and cursed in a hoarse voice.

Chu Hang felt a pang of sympathy. Indeed, this was practically no place for a human to live. In his past life, he'd watched movies and thought it was incredibly cool for the protagonists to crawl through ventilation ducts and sewers. But now that it was his turn, he realized the movies were all lies. The reality was that you not only had to endure the stench and claustrophobia, but you also had to constantly worry about stepping on something you shouldn't.

"Cheer up." Steve's steady and powerful voice came from the front, like a shot of adrenaline, clearing Chu Hang's mind, which was almost dizzy from the smoke. "Chu Hang, pay attention to the surroundings. We don't know where this pipe leads, or what might be inside."

"Understood." Chu Hang replied, forcing himself to shift his attention away from the nauseating smell and focus on his ears.

The enhanced hearing granted by the Super Soldier Serum came into play once again. He closed his eyes, and the nauseating smell around him seemed to lessen, as countless subtle sounds began to gather in his mind.

The sounds of flowing sewage, dripping water from the top of the pipe, and splashing water as the three of them stomped through the water.

Besides that, he heard some other things.

"There's something about fifty meters to the left front," Chu Hang said in a low voice.

Steve and Logan immediately stopped and looked warily in the direction he was pointing. The dim beam of the flashlight couldn't illuminate that far; ahead lay only deep darkness.

“What is it?” Steve asked.

“I heard a lot… a lot of soft crawling sounds, rustling sounds, and gnawing sounds.” Chu Hang frowned, trying to make out the sounds. “There were a lot of them. They sounded like… rats, and they were quite big.”

Logan sniffed hard, his face turning even uglier: "He's right, I can smell that stench. Damn, what a bunch of big bastards."

Steve frowned. Finding rats in the sewers wasn't unusual, but so many, and quite large, was a bit strange. Who knew what bizarre things they might concoct in a Hydra base?

"Is it possible to go around it?"

"I'm afraid that won't work." Chu Hang shook his head. "The sound is coming from the entire cross-section of the pipe; it seems like they've blocked the front."

Steve paused for a moment, then made his decision: "Go check it out, but be careful."

The three continued walking forward, and the further they went, the stronger the distinctive stench of rats became. Mixed with the stench of the sewers themselves, it created an even more indescribable and terrifying smell that could make an ordinary person faint on the spot.

Soon, the beam of Steve's flashlight illuminated the scene ahead.

Even though Chu Hang was mentally prepared, he still couldn't help but gasp when he saw what was happening in front of him.

The pipe ahead was teeming with countless black rats. These rats were several times larger than any Chu Hang had ever seen before, each one resembling a kitten. Their bright red eyes gleamed with a bloodthirsty and greedy light under the flashlight beam, like countless red gems.

They seemed to be gnawing on something, making a sickening "crunch" sound. In the center of the swarm, the skeleton of some unknown creature, almost completely gnawed away, could be vaguely seen.

"My God..." Chu Hang felt his scalp tingle. If he fell in, there probably wouldn't even be any bone fragments left.

"Fuck! These bastards!" Logan growled, seemingly harboring an innate aversion to these filthy creatures. The veins on the back of his hands bulged, as if he were about to unleash his claws.

"Don't be impulsive, Logan!" Steve grabbed his shoulder. "Making too much noise will attract the attention of the people upstairs."

Looking at the nauseating swarm of rats before him, he calmly analyzed, "They are just ordinary rats attracted by food, but their body shape may have mutated due to pollution from factory waste. They are afraid of fire."

As he spoke, he took a signal flare out of his tactical backpack and snapped it open.

With a soft sound, a dazzling red flame instantly ignited in the dark pipe, staining everything around it with an eerie crimson hue.

The rats, who had been baring their teeth and eager to pounce, instantly turned on their enemies upon seeing the flames, letting out terrified screams. The swarm erupted into chaos, countless rats surging like a tidal wave, frantically retreating towards the sides and top of the pipe, desperately trying to escape the terrifying flames.

Soon, a path wide enough for one person to pass through was cleared out from the rats.

Without the slightest hesitation, Steve, holding a burning signal flare, strode through the "path" made of rats.

Chu Hang and Logan followed closely behind.

Chu Hang walked in the middle, feeling like Moses parting the sea. Except, instead of seawater, he was surrounded by countless pairs of eyes flashing red, filled with resentment and greed. He could even feel the heat emanating from the rats and the fur standing on end in fear scraping against his trousers.

This feeling is fucking incredibly exciting.

After passing through the swarm of rats without incident, the three walked for another hundred meters or so before a fork in the road appeared ahead.

One to the left and one to the right.

"Which way?" Logan seemed a little impatient; he just wanted to get out of this hellhole as soon as possible.

Steve was also in a bit of a predicament; the map didn't show the structure of the sewers. Taking the wrong path would not only waste precious time but could also lead to unknown dangers.

"Chu Hang?" He once again pinned his hopes on Chu Hang.

Chu Hang nodded and closed his eyes again.

This time, he listened even more carefully.

The sound of water flowing seemed louder in the pipe on the left, and he could vaguely hear some strange "humming" sounds, like some kind of large fan turning.

And the pipe on the right...

Chu Hang's eyes snapped open.

“Right!” he said confidently, pointing to the fork in the road on the right. “I heard… footsteps! And the sound of metal clanging! It’s just above us, slightly to the right! That should be very close to the interior of the factory!”

“Okay! Let’s go to the right!” Steve decided immediately.

The three immediately turned and crawled into the pipe on the right.

This pipe was narrower and drier than the main pipe, and the stench seemed to have lessened considerably. The further Chu Hang walked, the clearer the sounds coming from above became.

He could hear the sound of uniform footsteps; it must be patrolling soldiers.

He could hear the heavy metal door being opened and then slammed shut.

He could even hear someone loudly reprimanding him in German.

They are getting closer and closer to their goal.

After walking about two hundred meters further, Steve, who was walking at the front, suddenly stopped.

"It's over."

Chu Hang peered out and saw a rusty metal ladder extending from the sewage all the way up to a square exit at the top of the pipe, sealed off by an iron fence.

Finally going out!

Chu Hang felt a surge of joy.

Steve made a shushing gesture, then, like a nimble cat, silently climbed up the ladder. He pressed himself against the cold pipe wall, bringing his ear close to the iron bars, listening intently to any sounds outside.

After a moment, he nodded slightly to the two people below and then mouthed: Safe.

He gripped the iron fence with both hands, his arm muscles bulging again. This time, he controlled his strength, making no loud noise. A sickening metallic twisting sound rang out as he forcefully pried the seemingly sturdy iron fence off the concrete.

A relatively fresh breath of air, carrying the smell of engine oil and rust, rushed in.

Chu Hang and Logan took a greedy drag, feeling as if they had come back to life.

Steve was the first to crawl out of the exit, followed by Chu Hang, and finally Logan.