Chapter 562: Goal, Heart of the Scheme!

Meng Chao’s ears twitched. He heard rustling sounds outside the door of the shelter. It seemed like there were mutated rats scratching at the metal door.

Meng Chao pondered this for a while before he said, “Ms. Mulian, please heal Manager Song. He received a severe blow and has a pretty bad concussion. He also fainted twice, so he might not be in his best condition to handle what is going to happen next.

“There is some food and medicine here. Try to eat as much as you can and build up your strength. I’m going to go outside to check the location of our pursuers. I should be gone for at most fifteen minutes, and we should leave after that.”

“Where are we going?” Su Mulian and Song Jinbo asked at the same time.

Meng Chao thought about how he should answer the question. “We’ll know later.”

Once he left the shelter, he shut the door gently.

In the dark tunnel, the rustling sounds from the rats pointed him forward. It seemed like they were biting something.

Very soon, he discovered A’Ji behind a corner.

The boy had always had messy hair and looked dishevelled, but now, he looked even more unkempt and miserable than when he was in the village.

He was covered in blood, rust, and mud as if he had taken a roll in the trash dump, piles of corpses, and pipes that had not been maintained for years.

His face was covered in bruises, and he was heavily wounded. When he saw Meng Chao, he looked so aggrieved that he wanted to cry.

“Big Brother Chao, don’t you value your friends at all? How could you toss me to the side and run away with Ms. Mulian and Mr. Song? Well, we won’t talk about Ms. Mulian, but are you saying that I can’t even compare to Mr. Song?” A’Ji grumbled.

“Sorry, I was forced to retreat. At that time, I didn’t have time to wonder about where you were.” Meng Chao observed the boy and noticed that a lot of blood on his body was not his. The seemingly terrifying wounds were also just superficial.

Meng Chao was not surprised. He paused for a moment before he said, “Besides, their goal is me. As long as I lead the pursuers away, you would have the chance to run away. If I had insisted on looking for you, we might have ended up dead together.”

“That’s true.” A’Ji pondered this and smiled. “I knew that you value your friends, Big Brother Chao. You’d never cast me aside and ignore me.

“But I didn’t drag you or Ms. Mulian down either. I told you that I can take care of myself. Look, no matter how many pursuers there were, they could only dream about capturing me. Even if the underground maze was even more complicated, I could move through it at ease and return to where we were in the beginning!”

“Looks like Lady Luck is shining upon us with you in the operation.” Meng Chao smiled. “So, did you manage to figure out anything?”

“Of course I did.” A’Ji made a perfect snap with his fingers.

Then, as if he was offering a gift, he dragged forward two large tactical backpacks from behind him.

The backpacks were full of ammunition, gene medicine, high-calorie nutritional fluid, tools in emergency kits, the emblems of various gangs, had three poison filtration masks, and all sorts of strange-looking gadgets.

Based on the scratches and bloodstains on them, A’Ji stole them from the battlefield.

Who knew just how this boy who was as thin as a reed could steal so much stuff from a battlefield full of swords and bullets flying all around the place.

Meng Chao also did not understand how he managed to drag the two heavy backpacks for a few kilometers right under the pursuers’ noses. It was as if he was an ant moving houses.

However, with this equipment, Meng Chao’s plan would be even better than before. Its success rate would also become higher.

“Don’t worry, Big Brother Chao, I’ve already checked through them. They definitely don’t have any tracking or locating chips. Besides, the spirit energy magnetic field interference in the lair is really bad now. Even if there really were chips inside, it’d be very difficult for our location to be sent out. So, these resources are definitely clean!” A’ji said proudly.

“Not bad.” Meng Chao seemed to be surprised and praised him. He gave him a thumbs up and said, “If I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I’d really have a hard time believing that a young thief taught by an old thief in Leprosy Village would have such amazing abilities.”

A’Ji was stunned, then he immediately said, “The children of the poor become independent fast. The young thieves in Leprosy Village are naturally better than the adult thieves outside. If we weren’t skilled, how would we dare to go out and embarrass ourselves? We’d deserve it if we were beaten to death!

“Let’s not talk about that now, Big Brother Chao. I got these resources in passing, because I heard something really important from the pursuers while I was hiding under a pile of corpses!”

Meng Chao’s eyes sparkled, and he asked, “What is it?”

“The entire lair has entered the highest state of alarm and has been fortified. Most of the gang leaders have gathered at Mutual Gold Coliseum and are discussing their next course of action,” A’Ji said. “Mutual Gold Coliseum is the newest and largest coliseum in Golden Tooth Lair. It also has the most advanced equipment. The gangs invested in it and built it together. The word ‘Mutual Gold’ means that they worked together on it and will operate it together to make it flourish.

“Mutual Gold Coliseum’s largest investor is Golden Tooth, and it isn’t that far from Golden Tooth’s headquarters. I was thinking that Saber Jin Wanhao must be there to give orders, since we’re in a crucial situation right now.

“Isn’t our goal to look for Saber Jin Wanhao and explain things to him so that he can give the order for the villagers to come out and seek shelter? Then, as long as we go to Mutual Gold Coliseum, we’ll definitely be able to find him!”

Meng Chao’s mind raced, and he nodded slowly. “Makes sense, but I’ve been perceived as the monsters’ puppet and a murderer. If the people who have gathered in Mutual Gold Coliseum are the gang leaders who have members at their beck and call, the defense there will naturally be very tight. How should we get closer? We can’t just sashay our way in, right?

“I’m worried that before we even get close to Mutual Gold Coliseum, we’ll be discovered and shot full of holes.”

“Don’t worry, you have me around!” A’Ji slapped his chest and grinned. “I know a secret tunnel that can lead straight into Mutual Gold Coliseum!”

Meng Chao stared at A’Ji and patiently waited for his explanation.

“Last year, before Mutual Gold Coliseum was completed, I went there a few times,” A’Ji said swiftly. “There were all sorts of building materials over there and all sorts of people went in and out of the place, so it was the best chance for me to explore the place. I stayed at the incomplete Mutual Gold Coliseum for a few months, so I can confidently say that I am even more familiar with the plants and cracks there than the construction workers.

“Last time I was there, I got too greedy and my judgment became impaired, so I stole from a superhuman at Spirit Transformation Realm. Naturally, I was discovered and nearly killed with just one slap. Fortunately, I crept into a maintenance tunnel that was like a doghole. I took a few twists and turns in Mutual Gold Coliseum and discovered a secret path out, which would allow me to get into Mutual Gold Coliseum from the outside.

“So I started thinking, once Mutual Gold Coliseum officially opens for business, it will definitely be full of people, and gold will pour in day in and day out.

“This is a treasure generating trove. I could not let this God-given chance pass, so I left behind marks that only I understand around the secret path. If it were anyone else, no matter how good their eyes were, they’d at most think that those marks were left by ants or rats.

“When I returned to Leprosy Village, I was punished severely by Boss Feng because I made a mistake. I was angry, so I naturally didn’t tell him about the secret path.

“So, only I know about this path that leads straight into Mutual Gold Coliseum!

“…Big Brother Chao, why do you look so stoic? You don’t seem surprised or happy at all.”

“Because I’m so surprised and happy that I… don’t know what sort of expression I should have.” Meng Chao covered his face with a hand and smiled. “A’Ji, now that I’ve discovered that you’re so capable, I suddenly had a thought. Why don’t you continue staying apart from us and act alone in the dark? Perhaps that way, you’ll be even more useful.”

“That’s…” A’Ji also thought of something. “You’re not joking, right?”

“Yes,” Meng Chao said. “Right now, the enemy already knows that I’ve rushed out of Leprosy Village, and it also knows that Ms. Mulian has come with me. But it doesn’t know about you. So, you’re our greatest secret weapon.

“With you sharing your luck with us, I believe that we’ll be able to sneak into the Mutual Gold Coliseum smoothly and meet Saber Jin Wanhao!”

At the same time, deep within the Mutual Gold Coliseum were all sorts of monsters.

This coliseum was built by the gangs after they pooled all their investments into one place. It was the largest monster coliseum and had the grandest facilities. The monsters bred and modified here much fiercer than in other places and there was a great variety of them.

To increase the entertainment value and excitement of the fights, many of the monsters were biochemically modified, so they had alloy armor, alloy bones, alloy horns, and even firearms implanted into them.

Their appearances were even fiercer than of their wild counterparts.

And among all the monsters living in the coliseum, the Red Crowned Speed Dragon King could be considered the king at the top of the food chain.

Normal speed dragons were already nightmares that hunters did not want to meet in the wild due to their high speed.

Compared to normal speed dragons, the Red Crowned Speed Dragons had bloody red spikes on their head. They formed a circle that looked like a crown and was very destructive.

The crown could absorb spirit energy and create spirit energy magnetic fields to promote growth of the brain cells and central nervous system, so the creature’s speed, strength, and physical strength were greatly increased. Because of this, such dragons became one of the fiercest and most cunning speed dragons in the vast speed dragon family.

The Red Crowned Speed Dragon King was created on the basis of a normal Red Crowned Speed Dragon. It had a ferocious horn at the center of its crown and a red mark that looked like a bolt of lightning. It stretched from its head all the way to its tail, which allowed it to release destructive electricity at ease when it swung its tail.

Instead of saying that it was a monster, it would be more appropriate to say that it was a biomachine created to kill. The Red Crowned Speed Dragon King could not be kept together with other predators. Otherwise, no matter how big or brutal those monsters were, after one night, they would end up as bits of bone in the Red Crowned Speed Dragon King’s poop.

Once the abnormal beast and robbers had been discovered deep in the lair and the lair had entered the highest state of alarm, the three Red Crowned Speed Dragon Kings locked at the fourth basement floor of Mutual Gold Coliseum had not eaten anything for a long time. Now, they were really hungry.

They kept grinding their teeth and releasing bone-chilling growls while they used their crowns to crash against each other, which created piercing sparks.

At that moment, as a series of metallic clashes rang through the room, the food hatch above the three beasts slowly opened.