As the last wisp of flame licked the end of the tunnel, the viscous promethium fuel finally ceased its eruption.
The entire side passage was unrecognizable, its walls scorched black, countless carbonized mushroom remnants clinging to them like black bas-reliefs.
The air was thick with the acrid smell of burnt protein, fungi, and plastic. The cultists who had attempted an ambush hadn't even left behind intact corpses.
The player holding the promethium flamer slowly lowered his weapon, its nozzle still radiating intense heat. He let out a long, satisfied sigh and, facing the now purified passage, yelled with all his might:
"Awesome!"
His shout echoed through the tunnel, filled with boundless exhilaration. He turned around, expecting admiring gazes from his teammates, only to find a peculiar sight—all the players, including Joker, had uniformly retreated a dozen meters away, looking at him with complex expressions.
His heart suddenly jumped.
It was well-known that in any work of fiction, such a scene signified extreme danger. Someone would be rampaging on the front lines, oblivious to a deadly enemy silently creeping up behind him.
He quickly spent several seconds laboriously rotating his heavy body, the joints of his full-body armor protesting with creaks. However, he clumsily spun a full circle, and besides his teammates, he couldn't see a single living hostile target in his vision.
The flamer operator fell into deep confusion. Through his thick helmet, he shouted, "What's going on? Why did you all run so far away?"
The players responded in unison, "It's too damn hot!"
It turned out that in the mere dozens of seconds the flamer operator had continuously held down the trigger, the temperature around him had skyrocketed to nearly seventy degrees Celsius, an environment completely uninhabitable for normal humans.
As for the side passage directly and repeatedly roasted by the fiery dragon... the walls and ground had begun to drip with molten liquid of unknown composition, and the air itself was distorted by the heat.
One player remarked with lingering fear, "My god, how long will it take for the temperature to drop..."
Another immediately poured cold water on the idea: "In such a narrow, enclosed environment, you want it to cool down naturally? Wait another ten thousand years."
"We probably just have to grit our teeth and go through," an apparently more experienced player analyzed.
"Fortunately, only the side passage was directly hit; the main passage's temperature is at most eighty degrees. We don't have to worry about another ambush from the side passage. If we move quickly and run through in one go, we shouldn't get scalded to death halfway."
At this moment, Joker stepped forward a few paces, enduring the heat to tell the flamer operator, "Buddy, lend your heat-resistant suit to our company commander. He can't afford to get hurt by the heat."
"No problem!" The flamer operator agreed without hesitation.
Joker nodded, then asked, "By the way, how many merit points did you get for burning all those mushrooms and cultists?"
Upon hearing this, the flamer operator immediately pulled up his system panel for a look, then painfully checked the merit points equivalent to the promethium fuel he had just consumed.
After a moment of calculation, he replied, "Hmm... it's probably about even with the consumption. Barely a small profit."
This result surprised everyone, but Joker seemed to have expected it. He concluded, "It seems that while the flamer operator's equipment can theoretically be operated by one person, to actually generate profit, it still depends on the collective merit rewards given by the system after completing the mission. In other words, to earn money, you still need to act as a group and cooperate."
One player shrugged and added, "So far in this game, we haven't found any way for an individual to get rich quickly. The more powerful the weapon, the more terrifying the maintenance and ammunition costs. This flamer, it's really cool, but it's also a real money sink."
Meanwhile, at the other end of this long Lower Hive passage, the cultists commander responsible for guarding the Mid-Hive elevator was on the verge of despair.
He sat in the elevator's control room, and on the tactical map before him, the red line representing his defensive front was collapsing backward at an incredible speed. He racked his brain but couldn't understand why these Astra Militarum would suddenly launch an assault under such circumstances?
"Madmen! They're all madmen!" He clutched his thinning hair, pacing back and forth in the cramped space.
"They just took the Chemical Refinery! They should be resting and consolidating their defenses!"
Ammunition consumption, casualties, rebuilding production lines... weren't these important? Didn't they need time to adjust and digest the gains of battle?! How dare they, with an unstable rear, advance so deep, far from their lines, to assault a damned elevator? Even if they captured it, what benefit would it bring them? This completely defied all military logic!
What made this cultists commander even more incredulous was how numerous these Astra Militarum were? Based on sporadic intelligence from the front, he had expected the enemy to deploy at most a company's strength.
With the tactical advantage of this tunnel's labyrinthine, narrow, and many-cornered terrain, he was absolutely confident he could wear down these arrogant Corpse Emperor's dogs, making them pay a bloody price for their recklessness!
Initially, things went smoothly, just as he had imagined. His subordinates constantly sent "good news" through crude communicators:
"Commander! We repelled another of their charges, taking out at least seven or eight!"
"They suffered heavy losses in Passage 4! We wiped out a squad with an explosive trap!"
"The enemy is pushing hard, but with every step forward, they leave behind bodies!"
Although the front line was constantly retreating, this was all within his expectations—trading space for casualties. At this rate, by the time the enemy was halfway, they should all be dead!
But as the fighting continued, he realized something was wrong.
He looked at the rapidly retreating red line on the map and compared it to the casualty reports recorded by the communications officer.
"You've reported killing at least dozens of Astra Militarum, so why hasn't the enemy's advance slowed down at all? Instead, it's getting faster and faster!" he roared into the communicator.
This cultists, of course, didn't know that players could revive. Under the huge information asymmetry and cognitive barrier, he used his own logic, based on the cult's low organizational capability and internal infighting, to arrive at the most probable conjecture:
The guys below, to stabilize themselves, to shirk responsibility, were submitting entirely fake battle reports!
"Liars! A bunch of damned idiotic liars!" He slammed his fist on the metal table, producing a dull thud.
Otherwise, there was no way to explain why his forces were always winning great victories in the battle reports, yet the front line was constantly collapsing backward! It must be those cowardly wretches who crumbled at the enemy's first charge, then fabricated false exp to deceive him!
To be honest, this time he truly wronged his subordinates.
His poor subordinates, used as cannon fodder, truly hadn't faked anything. They had indeed struck down charging enemies again and again, seeing those Astra Militarum Soldiers fall to bullets, some even blown to pieces.
They just couldn't know that those Helldivers, whom they had just killed with their own hands, would, moments later, rejoin the charging ranks completely unharmed.
These enemies seemed tireless, fearless of death, continuously assaulting without pause. And with each death and charge, they grew more familiar with the terrain, firing positions, and trap locations, making their attacks increasingly skillful, efficient, and effective.