The whole nation: You're put to survive on a desolate planet, you'll be running an alien b

The fog surged close to the ground, and the narrow path paved with talismanic light resembled a bridge suspended over a black sea. With each step, the muddy water made no echo, and even breathing felt like being covered by something wet.

Li Haotian walked in the middle of the line, his headset filled only with low-frequency noise and occasional short commands. The gravedigger was at the front, his wooden staff tapping the ground with a steady rhythm like a pendulum, the dim lights shining forward one by one, but the light did not expand outward, only illuminating the foot of ground at his feet.

"We've arrived." The gravedigger suddenly stopped.

The talismanic light ahead seemed to have collided with something, its edges trembled, and it was then compressed even thinner. The flame of the ghostly lamp also flickered, its core emitting a cold hue, as if it had been doused with ice water.

Li Haotian looked up and saw an inconspicuous crack in the shadow of the mountain—not the kind of crack formed by natural weathering, but a straight line carved out by human hands, its edges deliberately smoothed with soil and stones to disguise it as a fracture in the rock strata. The crack was dark and shiny, like some kind of moist throat.

"A hidden tunnel," Qin Yue whispered. "Someone explored it before us."

The tomb keeper didn't deny it, but simply placed his wooden staff across the entrance to the cave. A flash of light appeared on the staff's tip, and the "rock skin" at the entrance seemed to be torn open like a thin film, revealing a downward-sloping passage inside. There were traces of old wooden supports on the passage walls, all rotten, with only a few black splinters embedded in the mud.

The Dragon Shield personnel began switching to short guns and shields, compressing their formation. The confined space made it difficult to deploy firepower effectively, and no one dared to rely solely on firepower as a magic bullet.

Li Haotian glanced back at the direction of the isolation pod—the car couldn't get in, and Silver Cocoon was left on the outer perimeter, guarded by two groups of people. Liu Hu's confirmation came through the earpiece: "Outer perimeter stable, good signal. Be careful on your end."

"Hmm." Li Haotian withdrew his gaze. "Next."

The tunnel descended steeply, the mud beneath our feet slippery as oil. The dim light of the lamp clung to the tunnel walls, illuminating layers of engravings—not the marks of miners' pickaxes, but runes.

The runes were so dense they were chilling, covering almost every inch of the wall. The lines were as fine as hair, yet so deep they seemed to absorb light. In some places between the runes, black lines had eroded them, like torn blood vessels, crawling along the runes and gnawing gaps in the originally intact suppression structure.

Qin Yue swept a section with her tactical light, and when the light fell, the black lines faintly reflected light, as if they were covered with grease.

"Pollution from deathly energy." She frowned. "It's not natural accumulation; someone has introduced it."

The tomb keeper's voice was hoarse: "The original seal wasn't this thin. Someone stirred things up in the outer ring, which allowed the black lines to get in."

The Dragon Shield captain lowered his voice: "Can you fix it?"

The tomb keeper shook his head: "This is the throat of the tomb passage. To repair the array, we need to return to the main vein node. The only thing we can do now is—don't damage the runes. The more you damage them, the more you create openings."

Li Haotian hummed in agreement, his gaze lingering on the runes for two seconds. He wasn't a formation master, but he could recognize the "bitten" marks: the black lines specifically targeted the "turns" and "ends" of the runes, as if they understood their structure.

The group continued downwards, and the tomb raider's tunnel finally led to a real tomb passage. The tomb passage was wider than the tunnel, but only wide enough for two people to walk side by side. The ceiling was a dark blue stone arch, where dampness condensed into water droplets that dripped silently, leaving only dark spots on the ground that quickly disappeared.

The flickering flames of the ghostly lamps were even colder here, as if they were afraid of something. The wind blew from the depths, carrying the smell of stale rust and an indescribable "sweetness of old blood."

"The first gate is just ahead," the tomb keeper said. "There are guards at the gate."

"What are you guarding?" the Dragon Shield captain asked.

The tomb keeper paused for a moment: "The tomb keeper... is a soldier."

As soon as the words were spoken, a dark gold hue appeared at the end of the tomb passage. It wasn't a reflection of light, but rather the corner of a bronze door. The door was nearly three meters high, its surface covered with animal faces and cloud and thunder patterns. The gaps were sealed with talisman paper, but the talisman paper had long since turned gray, and the edges were seeped through with black lines, like pieces of moldy skin.

Scattered on the ground in front of the door were some irregular fragments, resembling bones or armor plates. When the dim light shone on them, the fragments trembled slightly, as if startled awake by the light.

The next second, the fragments snapped shut—joint to joint, the armor plates piecing together the spine. The wreckage on the ground seemed to be lifted up by invisible threads, standing upright.

One, two, three...

They wore ancient iron armor, rusted black yet still structurally intact. Inside their helmets were no faces, only a wisp of grayish-white death energy churning within the cavity, like smoke or mist, occasionally squeezing out a sharp, resentful glint that pierced the eardrums.

"Corpse-armored soldiers." The tomb keeper gripped his wooden staff, the runes on the tip of the staff suddenly gleaming. "Don't let them touch the door; the seal on the door is already thin."

The D.H.I.E.L.D. guns all rose to their feet, and the captain decisively ordered, "Suppressive fire! Don't use explosives!"

Gunshots rang out in the narrow tomb passage, but the echoes were swallowed up by the deathly aura, sounding like bullets hitting a thick cloth. The bullets shattered the ribs of the foremost armored soldier, scattering his skeleton across the ground, his armor clattering to the ground as if it had been broken apart.

But the next instant, the grayish-white death aura surged out from between the scattered bones, like a crushed worm crawling up, sliding along the ground, and rushing straight at the nearest shield bearer.

The shield bearer grunted, as if struck by an invisible hammer, his heels dragging two white tracks across the stone. Rapid breathing came from behind his mask, as if someone were sucking air from his lungs.

"Physical energy can shatter, but resentment can flow back!" Qin Yue grabbed the man by the back of his collar and forcefully pulled him back into the line. "Don't let that thing touch your face!"

The second round of fire broke the two armored corpses again, but the resentment, like a tide, dissipated each time it was broken, instead gathering stronger and stronger in the tomb passage, chilling as if it were growing from the very bones. The flame of the ghostly lamp was pressed almost to the edge of the lamp, as if it might go out at any moment.

The corpse soldiers moved faster and faster. They didn't rely on muscles, but on death energy to drive them. Each time their skeletons assembled, there was a grating grinding sound, like a knife being sharpened. They raised their rusty blades, and before the blades even touched the ground, their resentment arrived first—a sharp hatred crashed directly into one's mind, and unfamiliar battlefields, arrows flying everywhere, and piles of corpses would flash before one's eyes, like memories forcibly forced in.

"Don't look at their helmets!" the gravedigger roared. "Those are projections of resentment!"

The Dragon Shield captain's temple throbbed, and he gritted his teeth: "This won't hold. Mr. Li?"

Li Haotian didn't fire. He stared at the runes that the black lines had eroded—each time the resentment of the corpse soldiers flowed back, it was as if they were "feeding" the black lines, which writhed faster along the edges of the runes, as if they had been baited.

If this drags on any longer, the suppression before the gates are sealed will be completely exposed.

He raised his hand to press the earpiece, his voice calm: "Everyone back two steps, keep your guns low. Don't shoot at the walls anymore, don't sweep the doors."

The captain hesitated for half a second, then immediately obeyed: "Retreat! Low post!"

Li Haotian raised his other hand, his palm resting on the token at his waist, his fingertips lightly tracing the patterns on it. That familiar chill seeped into his bones through his skin, like something stirring within his blood.

"Come out," he whispered to the shadows behind him. "Swallow it all. Don't spray the acid on the walls, and don't touch the door."

The air suddenly became heavy.

A more primal sense of oppression filled the narrow tomb passage, like the arrival of a natural enemy. From the darkness came the soft sound of carapace scraping against each other, and then a dark shadow slid out close to the ground—the alien's head was lowered, its back arched, and its tail swept lightly across the ground, pushing aside the scattered bone fragments.

Unlike before, it didn't bite and gnaw randomly. Instead, it precisely pounced on the grayish-white aura of death that held the strongest resentment. When its mouthparts opened, there was no sound, only a kind of "sucking" that made one's teeth ache—like drawing fog down one's throat.

The skeleton of the Corpse Armor Soldier was only half-assembled when it crumbled like a puppet without its tether. The wisp of deathly energy tried to escape, sliding along the ground towards the crack in the door, but the alien's tail tip flicked up, flipping the armor and suppressing the mist.

The next second, the alien's chest swelled slightly, and it let out a very low gurgling sound, like swallowing. The grayish-white death energy was forcibly sucked into its body, and the flame of the ghostly lamp stabilized for a moment.

"Is it...eating resentment?" someone from D.H.I.E.L.D. murmured.

The tomb keeper stared at the alien with a complex expression. He had originally thought that such a thing would only destroy, tear, and pollute ancient artifacts, but at this moment its movements were as restrained as a locked knife, the blade only landing where it was supposed to.

Li Haotian offered no explanation. He continued to give the order: "Parasitic acid, target the skeletal joints. Don't splatter."

The alien seemed to understand. It tilted its head slightly and spat out a thin, almost invisible stream of acid from its mouthparts, precisely striking the armored soldier's knee joints, shoulder armor rivets, and spinal joints. The acid didn't splatter; only a barely audible white smoke rose from the point of contact. The bone and rusted armor quickly softened and collapsed, completely losing any possibility of being pieced back together.

The last two armored zombies charged simultaneously, their resentment, carried by their iron blades, piercing like needles into one's temple. The Dragon Shield agent instinctively raised his shield to meet the attack, but Li Haotian stopped him with a shout: "Don't take it head-on!"

The alien charged forward first. Instead of crashing head-on, it slid along the base of the wall, tripping the two armored soldiers with its tail. In the instant their skeletons lost their balance, the alien's mouthparts "sucked" down once more—its resentment was pulled out like smoke being drawn from a helmet.

The armored soldiers collapsed to the ground with a thud, turning back into a pile of ownerless remains.

The chilling hatred in the tomb passage quickly receded, and the writhing of the black lines slowed down, like a hungry mouth that hadn't eaten any meat, reluctantly retreating into the gaps in the runes.

Someone in the group let out a long breath, only to realize that they had been holding their breath the whole time.

The tomb keeper walked to Li Haotian's side, his gaze shifting from the alien to the runes before the sealed door. The runes, though corroded, were not broken. He said in a deep voice, "You can restrain it, preventing it from touching the runes or the door… that's not easy."

Li Haotian said calmly, "I brought it here, not to demolish a tomb."

The tomb keeper didn't argue further, only tapping his wooden staff on the ground. A talismanic light swept along the crack in the door, as if confirming how long the seal could hold. The bronze door was cold and heavy, but a deeper chill emanated from the crack, as if another fire was burning silently behind it.

"The first sealing gate is still there," the tomb keeper said, "but what's behind the gate... has already awakened a bit."

Qin Yue listened intently. There were no footsteps deep in the tomb passage, only a very light "rustling" sound, like cloth dragging across the stone surface, or like many fingertips touching the door.

Li Haotian raised his hand, signaling the team to gather together, and lowered his voice even further: "Replenishment check, wounded status report. We shouldn't stay here any longer."

The Dragon Shield captain nodded, but couldn't help glancing at the alien again—it was crouching beside the wreckage, its tail curled up, like a tethered black dog, unusually quiet.

The dim lamplight flickered, casting the cold light on the bronze door, making it appear like a silent face. The beast-face patterns on the door seemed to come alive in the light, their eyes deep in darkness.

Li Haotian gripped the token tightly, feeling the patterns on his fingertips seem even hotter than before—not in terms of temperature, but in a kind of "response".

He knew that the first door was just a reminder: they had already entered someone else's stomach.

"Before opening the door—check the talisman one more time," he told the tomb keeper. "I don't want to have my escape route blocked by their black lines in this tomb passage."

The tomb keeper nodded, raised his wooden staff, and the talismanic light spread out again, like illuminating a thin path to life in front of the bronze gate.

Behind the door, the silent rustling stopped for a moment, as if it were listening.