Michael Brooks was stunned as he listened, and after quite a while, his face grew even paler. Words like "clearing," "massacre," or "trap" were simply unimaginable concepts for an ordinary young man like him, who could even be considered a useless small-time thug. He was completely at a loss for words.

However, the reality was not as bad as George Miller had imagined. Not long after, Brian Carter returned to the original spot with the rest of the team. They had not found any traps in the town, nor any lingering bacteria, nor were there large numbers of corpses. In fact, after searching the town, Brian Carter came across a fast food restaurant. When he finished searching the restaurant and walked out, he finally relaxed from his state of alert.

The food in the fast food restaurant had completely rotted; no one had been there for at least two months. In other words, the people of this small town had probably been relocated two months ago, likely because of its proximity to that secret base. To ensure the spaceship's launch would go unnoticed by the outside world, it was possible that the entire town's population had been moved away.

"The situation should be like this. Of course, we can't rule out the possibility that the people here were secretly cleared out, but that has nothing to do with us anymore. Let's go, cross the town, and get to that secret base as soon as possible. I can't shake this uneasy feeling, as if more trouble is waiting for us there."

Brian Carter ate some canned food he found in the town, wiping his mouth as he spoke.

The whole team had a simple dinner in the town. Without resting, they continued driving, heading toward the coordinates, following the road through the town. After several hours on the highway, they turned directly onto a road behind a military checkpoint. Of course, there were no soldiers left at this checkpoint. In this way, at around three in the morning, the team arrived at a deep mountain valley—a place not marked on any map. In fact, according to the American maps they carried, this area should have been a blank mountainous region, but what they saw was a small valley.

When the convoy passed through the final checkpoint, the scene before them made everyone's nerves tense up. On the concrete ground ahead, there were traces of explosions and gunfire everywhere, along with several corpses and the wreckage of some spherical machines. Judging by the freshness of the corpses, they had been left there within the past day or two.

"On alert! Eagle, get ready to snipe! Henry Clark and I will go in. George Miller, lead the squad and spread out for security! Black Iron, be ready to provide covering fire at any time!"

Brian Carter reacted the fastest. He leapt straight out of the car window, speaking as he carefully rushed to a corpse, reaching out to feel around on the body, then picked up some blood and sniffed it. A few seconds later, once the whole team was fully on alert, he cautiously walked over to one of the spherical machines to inspect it.

The team spread out, all extremely cautious. Henry Clark and another person took point, scouting ahead. Less than half a minute later, a sharp eagle cry suddenly came from up ahead. Everyone froze, aiming their weapons in that direction, but the sound quickly changed from an eagle's cry to a quail's call. Without hesitation, Brian Carter rushed toward the sound.

After running several hundred meters, Brian Carter found a gasping man beside a bunker. The man had thick eyebrows and big eyes, looking rugged and tough. His chest and abdomen were covered in bloodstains, and though he seemed to have done some simple bandaging, he had lost too much blood and was now unconscious—or perhaps dead.

Brian Carter's brow twitched—he recognized this man. He was the captain of the Longxing Special Forces, and also an old rival of his. Immediately, Brian Carter took a bottle of mineral water from his pack, grabbed the man's throat, and poured a few mouthfuls down. The man coughed a few times, then slowly opened his eyes in a daze, staring blankly at Brian Carter. After a long moment, his eyes finally focused.

"Yao, Brian Carter? How are you here? This is American ter... Oh, I get it. You got the information about this place from the higher-ups too, right? That's right, there really is a spaceship here—the last one. But it's so pathetic. They clearly wanted to get rid of us. This base is already under lockdown, completely sealed off. All the codes have been changed, and even the intelligent robots have been activated. My squad is finished, hahaha. We risked our lives for them, did so many unspeakable things, and in the end, we were betrayed and purged. Hahaha, Brian Carter, I'll be waiting for you underground, you Black... Star..."

The man was startled at first, then burst out laughing and shouting, but his voice grew weaker and weaker. Before he could finish, he finally succumbed to blood loss and lack of treatment, dying completely in the midst of his final outburst.