Delta: Who are you saying has suffered a loss of strength?

In the end, only the captains of Teams A and B, and one member of Team A, a total of three people, escaped from the iron gate of that prison area.

After rushing through the iron gate, the three of them did not stop immediately.

He ran along the outside corridor for a while until he turned a corner and confirmed that there was no one chasing him behind him, then leaned against the wall and gasped for breath.

This group of guys, wearing heavy level 5 helmets and armor, haven't killed a single one since entering Tidal Prison; they've been constantly getting beaten up and running away.

As they are not part of the regular army, the Bald Eagle Association naturally wouldn't provide them with stamina boosters or performance-enhancing drugs.

It's purely to increase the intensity of the lungs.

"Were those prison guards just now? How many were there?" Team B's captain asked incredulously, panting heavily.

"I don't know, I feel like there are bullets everywhere!" The A team member's face was pale, and his voice sounded a little unsteady. "Didn't they say there wouldn't be a map boss this time? The prison guards' marksmanship is on a completely different level from the NPCs we encountered at the beginning."

Captain B glanced down at his bulletproof vest, which had several bullet holes. Although they hadn't penetrated yet, the dents and cracks left by the bullet impacts looked shocking.

"Their bullets were high-grade," his voice trembled slightly, "probably level 5 rounds. My level 5 armor only withstood a few shots and I'm already like this..."

"What?! How come an NPC is using level 5 ammunition? This isn't what we were told!"

The brief encounter in the cell area, lasting less than a minute, was like a nightmare. From the sounding of the whistle to the three men falling, the whole process was too fast to react to.

It was completely different from when we faced machine gunners before. Back then, although we were also in a sorry state, we managed to escape unscathed thanks to the protection of our level 5 armor, and no one fell down.

But the crossfire from above was so precise it was like it had eyes; the team members were killed before they could even finish their basic dodge maneuvers. The difference in skill was overwhelming.

Captain B was silent for a moment, then glanced at Captain A, his tone becoming sharper. "We were fine when we were dodging the machine gunners, but now it's just the three of us. What do we do next?"

"If you hadn't insisted on searching the prison area, so many of us wouldn't have died. We could have just bypassed those cells and evacuated directly."

His dissatisfaction was completely undisguised, and his tone was noticeably impolite, as if he was waiting to see how Captain A would respond, shifting all the blame onto him.

Captain A, who had been silent all along, now had veins bulging on his forehead. This sudden change in the cell area had caught him completely off guard.

Being blamed by his teammates at this point only fueled his anger. After a few heavy breaths, he finally gritted his teeth and said, "Tell Team C to retreat? Where the hell did they retreat to? Did they just withdraw?"

Only then did the three of them simultaneously remember the existence of Team C.

They each accessed their brain-computer interfaces to view information. Although the low-end version of the brain-computer interface could not display the team members' real-time status, it could at least show the number of people online.

The number on the screen made all three of them's eyes light up simultaneously—6 people were online.

This is great news!

This means that the three members of Squad C are still in Tidal Prison. They have neither evacuated nor been killed. They are still alive, and there is still hope if they can reunite.

Team A immediately pressed their earpiece and called into the public channel, "Team C! Team C! This is Team A, you've received a response!"

However, there was only silence in the headphones; no one responded.

He shouted again, "Team C! Where are you? Answer me!"

Team A members looked at the lit online status indicator on their brain-computer interfaces, their voices filled with confusion, "What's going on? Their brain-computer signals are fine, the online status is on, why aren't they responding?"

Squeak...

A short, sharp static noise suddenly came through the communication channel.

The sound was like someone pressing and immediately releasing the transmit button on a walkie-talkie, letting out a brief burst of noise before returning to silence.

"Hey? Team C?" A Team member leaned closer to the headset and called out.

There has still been no response.

thump.

A muffled thud came from not far away, as if something had been knocked over or fallen to the ground.

The three of them turned to look in that direction at the same time, their gazes following the corridor to a small, half-open door.

The door wasn't big; it looked like a fire door or the entrance to an equipment room, and no light could get through the cracks.

"What the hell? Team C is over there?" Team A members looked towards the dark doorway of the room.

Captain B slapped his forehead, as if suddenly realizing something: "Isn't that where we were just heading? We were planning to retreat that way when the machine gunners were chasing us. Is Squad C already there, waiting for us?"

The captain of Team A hesitated; he felt something was off.

Seeing his hesitant look, Captain B's face immediately fell, and he said impatiently, "Let's hurry up and go! If they run into any trouble, we can lend a hand. If we keep dawdling and wait for the others to catch up, the three of us won't be able to escape either."

"If we hadn't had to go to the prison area, we would have met up long ago, and so many people wouldn't have died..." Captain B muttered the last part, but it still reached Captain A's ears.

That last sentence was like a thorn stuck in Captain A's ear.

His brows were furrowed, and he glared at Captain B. His lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but in the end he just bit off the words and swallowed them back.

Seeing the tension between the two men escalating again, a member of Team A quickly stepped in to smooth things over, "Captains, please stop arguing. The intersection outside is too open; we can't stand here!"

"Whether it's the machine gunners or those guys with good marksmanship, we can't hold out in our current condition." He pointed to both ends of the corridor. "Make up your mind quickly."

Captain A was silent for a moment, then glared fiercely at Captain B, and snorted coldly, "Let's go check over there first."

After saying that, he stopped looking at the two people behind him, picked up his gun, and strode toward the half-open door.

Captain B glanced at the members of Team A from behind, his expression a mix of anger and disdain.

The Team A members gave him an awkward smile, then quickly followed their captain's retreating figure.

Captain B, lagging behind, rolled his eyes at the backs of the two men ahead of him and muttered something under his breath, "Damn it, what are they so smug about? Just because they have command doesn't mean they're so great. Let's see if they get killed by their superiors this time!"

After cursing in his heart, he looked around and finally jogged a few steps to catch up with the group.