Confrontation

Wiping the rainwater from his mask, Liam pretended to shake his head, inadvertently glancing over again. This time, he saw it clearly! It was a human footprint! And it wasn't his!

These two thoughts quickly surfaced, and Liam frowned, his face darkening. There was someone near the shelter!

These past few days, Liam had dreamt of having neighbors nearby, working together to create a harmonious home. However, when real human traces appeared near his shelter, Liam's heart was filled with unease.

He didn't know where this person was hiding, nor did he know their purpose. In this apocalypse, humans were humans' worst enemies!

"Store grain, not guns, and your home is a granary. Store guns, not grain, and everywhere is a granary!"

In this extreme disaster, it was only natural for some people to go crazy for resources.

Liam didn't linger any longer. He opened the shelter door and slipped back inside. The rain on the plains began to erase all traces he had left behind.

Standing in a corner of the shelter, Liam spread his arms, waiting for the raincoat to air dry before taking it off. The heavy rain masked any scents, which was why Oreo hadn't raised the alarm.

After days of complacency, the sudden discovery of human presence sent a chill down Liam's spine as he carefully replayed the events in his mind.

"I just saw them saying that there were wasteland wanderers attacking ordinary civilians everywhere, but I didn't expect them to actually find their way to me."

"No wonder, my drainage channels are too conspicuous in this wilderness. I wonder if this person saw me upgrading the drainage system yesterday..."

"No, I can't just sit here and wait for death."

Sitting on a stool, Liam took a deep breath to suppress his unease, his eyes hardening with determination.

"Oreo, come here."

He called Oreo, who was sleeping soundly in the corner, and gently rubbed his soft head.

"Use your sixth sense and sense if there is any danger nearby."

Oreo understood the command, lay down, pricked up his ears, and began to listen carefully.

After a minute or two, Oreo's expression changed. He began to sniff around on the ground, finally barking in the direction of the southwest corner of the base.

"Are you saying there is danger in this direction?"

Seeing Oreo nod his dog head, Liam quickly began to recall the scene he had seen in the southwest.

It was the direction of the base's drainage channel, with a small lake accumulated behind it. Further on... was a bush forest, and the color of the forest was very green...

The more he recalled, the more Liam examined the scene from a third-person perspective.

Black! A touch of black!

Suddenly, Liam thought of the black in the forest. It was a black different from the color of the trees. If he hadn't been alerted, he certainly wouldn't have paid attention to it.

Now that he was vigilant, he immediately discovered the clue.

That black shadow was about a hundred meters away from me just now. I didn't see him, but he must have seen me.

This is bad!

Liam slapped his thigh and subconsciously wanted to put on his equipment and go out for a "friendly exchange."

This person must have discovered that he was alone.

Being able to build a safe underground shelter and have such a large-scale drainage system...

"I'm afraid I'm already a fat sheep in others' eyes, waiting to be slaughtered!"

Taking out the crossbow placed in the inventory, Liam laughed at himself.

The black crossbow seemed to exude a murderous aura, revealing a dark light under the reflection of the light.

"I didn't expect that the first creature my crossbow would face would actually be my fellow man."

"If you don't provoke me, I'll let you go, but if you dare to come..."

Standing up and rubbing his eyebrows, Liam walked to the bedside and placed the crossbow on the bedside table.

The left side of the bed was about a meter away from the stone wall.

Summoning the manufacturing page.

[Iron Pickaxe (Normal): Iron Block 2/2, Wood 1/1]

Materials satisfied.

Select Iron Pickaxe.

Confirm crafting!

[Record]: Iron Block -2, Wood -2

[Record]: Iron Pickaxe (Normal) successfully crafted.

An ordinary-looking but extremely practical iron pickaxe appeared in Liam's hand.

After swinging it a few times, Liam began to vigorously strike the stone wall near the bed.

It was difficult to go from the outside to the inside, but easy to go from the inside to the outside.

In no time, the originally smooth stone surface was chiseled open, and as time passed, it gradually turned into a half-human-tall hole.

Silently chanting "survival system" in his heart, Liam focused his attention on the big hole.

[Entrance and Exit Tunnel]

Description: An entrance and exit tunnel that has not been fully opened.

Upgrade direction: Safe Passage

Branches: Expand (5), Open (60), Material (40), Strength (200), Tunnel Door (40)

Introduction: A cunning rabbit has three burrows!

"If you want to ambush me, you'll have to pay the price in blood."

Seeing the attributes of the tunnel, Liam couldn't help but smile.

Since his position had already been exposed, rashly going out through the main entrance would undoubtedly be like delivering himself to the enemy.

If they had an ambush, he would probably be stabbed into a porcupine the moment he opened the door.

Thanks to his wild imagination, Liam thought of the clumsy method of opening a second path in the underground base.

Relaxing his gaze, the upgrade options disappeared.

It wasn't time for a final showdown yet.

Liam still maintained his bottom line when it came to his fellow humans.

He wouldn't offend others unless they offended him first.

At the same time, he also held out hope that they could avoid a violent confrontation, encourage each other, and overcome the difficulties of the apocalypse together.

Looking at Oreo still restlessly pacing back and forth in the base, occasionally pricking up his ears to listen, and then lying on the ground to sniff, Liam felt both distressed and sorry for him.

"Good boy, if there's anything unusual, wake me up. I'll sleep for a while!"

After buying two pieces of mutant beast meat from the trading market, putting them in Oreo's bowl, and adding some M-energy water, Liam went back to bed and fell asleep fully clothed.

The daytime wasn't scary.

Night was the time when the bloody horn would sound.

He had to maintain his best condition, keeping watch at night to guard against sneak attacks.

The heavy rain continued to pour down, as if trying to submerge the entire world, carrying out an act of destruction.

Between the entire world, under the cover of the rain, there was no other sound.

"Squeak~"

In his half-asleep state, Liam vaguely dreamt that today was just a false alarm, that no one would come to covet his shelter, and no one would plot against him.

Gradually, the sky outside began to darken, the sun began to set, and from the horizon, darkness gradually crept in.

Under the cover of night, someone came.

Five dark figures stealthily climbed up from the south of the shelter, the direction of the drainage channel.

Stepping on the stone drainage channel, the five people cursed in low voices as they walked:

"Damn it, this guy is really lucky. I don't know where he got such a design drawing, lying in the shelter and sleeping soundly. Why don't I have such good luck?"

"Keep your voice down, Momo, don't expose us."

"What's there to be afraid of? Just a young man with some luck. If he dares to come out, I'll be the first to take him down."

The man called Momo not only didn't restrain himself, but his arrogance grew even more.

"But if he doesn't come out, there's nothing we can do!"

Peri, the short man with a crew cut on the far left, saw the predicament they were in and pointed it out.

Liam's shelter was too strong!

So strong that the five of them were shocked when they first saw it!

The stone gate was engraved with simple patterns, looking completely natural, embedded in the earth.

The drainage channels, scattered up and down the hillside, were all made of stone, giving the five people an unparalleled shock.

"BOSS John, do you think it's a bit dishonorable for us to do this? How about we knock on the door and ask him to give us the supplies, and we'll continue to wander?"

The bespectacled man at the back of the team looked around as he walked, his face gentle, but his words were quite fierce.

"Four Eyes, I thought you didn't even flinch when you were chopping people up before, and now you're panicking? Scared?"

"Momo scouted it out today. There's only one softie in this shelter, relying on good luck to live in there. As long as we can get him to open the door, we'll go in and this place will be ours!"

The leader, BOSS John, smiled contemptuously, and with the half-human-tall spiked mace in his hand, he could make a child stop crying at night.

"It takes us a lot of effort to kill mutant beasts every day for just a little bit of supplies. Have you forgotten how many supplies we got from robbing people these past two days? Use your brain to calculate this account!"

"Can this person be harder to kill than a mutant beast?"

In the shelter, Liam had also been woken up from his sleep by Oreo. 

Within a few breaths, Liam was fully awake and rolled out of bed.

He drank the M-energy water on his bedside table in one gulp, grabbed the crossbow, and entered combat mode in an instant.