The leading guard noticed that there were fewer and fewer people in the underground passage, and suddenly felt a sense of unease in his heart.

"Old Eight, go out and see what's going on?" The leading guard looked at the Guardian who had just taken a silver bar from the middle, causing the entire Silver Mountain to collapse.

"Yes, Great Guardian." The Eight Guardian responded and jumped down to the bottom of Zhu Yuanzhang's tomb, then walked out through the earthen passage.

At this moment, Li Zhong was criticizing those people, while a few other warriors with temperature detectors quickly reported; "Director, there's a situation, someone powerful is approaching five hundred meters from inside, initially estimated to be above the tenth level of National Martial Arts."

"What?" Li Zhong's eyes widened, above the tenth level of National Martial Arts? Although his Fierce Tiger Group also had experts, the strongest was only at the fifth level of National Martial Arts. Now a person above the tenth level was coming out of the underground passage, how could he not be shocked?

"Above the tenth level..." Flying Fish mumbled and then said to Li Zhong: "Director Li, I think the tenth level might still be a conservative estimate. Better have your men ready to deploy and wait for this person to come out! Otherwise, if your soldiers are so sluggish, they might suffer heavy losses when that person below starts rampaging."

Flying Fish's words made Li Zhong nod, then he activated his communication device, ordered the snipers to take their positions, and had all the automatic rifles aimed at the passage entrance.

Some even had a few grenades in hand to prevent any sudden occurrences.

The Eight Guardian coming out from inside was actually not at the tenth level of National Martial Arts, but at the twelfth level. In the Assassin Alliance, only those who reached the twelfth level had the qualification to become a Guardian.

As he walked out from the passage, he was secretly alert, because the passage previously wasn't very crowded, but now it was different. On his way, he saw only a few lazy people, and none of the others.

The Eight Guardian circulated his Inner Breath to prepare for any unexpected events.

Above, Li Zhong and the others were all tense and focused, with hundreds of sniper rifles already aiming at the passage entrance.

With every step the Eight Guardian took out from the passage, his sense of danger heightened. When he reached nearly a hundred meters out, he paused.

He felt a severe danger from outside, as if he might be killed or captured if he stepped out.

But he couldn't turn back, because if he turned back, he would be reprimanded by the Great Guardian. So he decided to wait and see if there was any movement before proceeding.

After waiting for about a minute, with no one coming in from outside, and no one going out from inside, the Eight Guardian had to suppress his trepidation and walk straight out.

Just as Li Zhong and the others outside were about to relax their guard, the detector showed that the heat source inside had begun to move.

The few people monitoring the detector signaled to Li Zhong to maintain vigilance.

Li Zhong signaled to the snipers in the treetops to maintain vigilance, and those snipers slowly placed their fingers on the triggers, focusing intently through the scopes.

"Sizzle, sizzle!"

The footsteps fell on the moist soil, making a sizzling sound.

Li Zhong raised the HX-1, a new weapon that Ye Hao had provided to the military, which had already been equipped across all the major military districts' elite forces.

The Eight Guardian inside reached ten meters out, then suddenly crouched down. His strength at the twelfth level of National Martial Arts burst forth, and he charged straight out.

"Whoosh!"

A shadow swiftly swept through the passage, then appeared outside the passage.

The snipers in the trees saw a faint shadow, but it was too fast for them to aim before the target had already disappeared from their scope range.

Flying Fish quickly grabbed the HX-1 from Li Zhong; with his eighth-level National Martial Arts skills, he could quickly aim during the moment the twelfth-level Eight Guardian stopped, aided by his extensive experience handling firearms from his long stay on Wealth Island.

"Zap, zap, zap, zap!"

Flying Fish leapt into the air, shooting at the twelfth-level Eight Guardian.

Seeing this, Li Zhong shouted loudly, "Open fire..."

The snipers in the trees were even quicker than Li Zhong, as they had already aimed at the Eight Guardian.

"Bang, bang, bang!"

Three sniper shots narrowly hit the Eight Guardian's landing spot.

Among Flying Fish's four shots, one hit the Eight Guardian's thigh.

The Eight Guardian was completely shocked when he heard the gunshots, not expecting that the military had arrived with so many people, and he even saw a glance that there seemed to be people in the forest ahead.

So he swiftly adopted a zigzag pattern, but because the ground was too open without any cover, he could only rely on his innate situational awareness to dodge the perilously close bullets.

Seeing this, Flying Fish suggested to Li Zhong, "Director Li, your men's bullets are too concentrated, it's not needed. Better have them aim at the passage, in case some other expert comes out from inside."

Li Zhong nodded, redirecting four teams to aim at the passage and one team to continue shooting at the Eight Guardian.

"Bang!"

In the trees, a sharpshooter at the second level of National Martial Arts fired a preemptive shot at the Eight Guardian's next footing on his zigzag path.

The Eight Guardian couldn't dodge this shot, and his left leg instantly lost mobility.

He attempted to avoid more shots, but the next moment another bullet entered his right leg.

Seeing this, Flying Fish went over carefully. He was the strongest present, and others might be counterattacked by the Eight Guardian's dying blow. Even when he approached, he fired a few more shots to prevent the Eight Guardian from retaliating.

"Zap, zap!"

Flying Fish fired two more shots into the Eight Guardian's arm, rendering him completely immobile.

Flying Fish turned to Li Zhong and said, "Director Li, have them take him away!"

Li Zhong nodded, silently grateful to Ye Hao for sending him an expert. Without Flying Fish's help, subduing the Eight Guardian would've been quite challenging.

Li Zhong quickly contacted his superiors to request more experts; otherwise, if more people like the Eight Guardian emerged, they would suffer severe losses.

…

Meanwhile, inside Zhu Yuanzhang's tomb, the Great Guardian and others received a message.

"Leave the area discreetly immediately."

After seeing the message, they realized the situation might have been exposed, and the Eight Guardian had been gone for too long without returning…

"Looks like we've been discovered!" the leading Great Guardian said, his gaze turning cold as he looked at the message on his phone.

"Great Guardian, what do we do now?" the other Guardians asked.

"Let's go! Since the elders have advised us to leave discreetly, it means they know our strength may not be able to contend with those outside." The leading Great Guardian remarked.

"Let's at least take some more silver..."

"It's useless to have silver if we're dead." The leading Great Guardian snorted coldly.

Afterward, the Great Guardian led everyone out of Zhu Yuanzhang's tomb and tunneled their way through the passage's soil… (To be continued. If you like this work, feel free to vote for recommendations and monthly votes on Qidian (qidian.com). Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please read on m.qidian.com.)

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