Steel steam and flame

"Earthquake!" A few people walking past stopped in front, looked over and yelled, "It seems like there's an earthquake!"

Trinya stood up, took the umbrella from her colleague, and waved to show that there was no problem on her side. The ground only shook slightly, not strongly, not even as big as the vibration caused by the explosion of the No. 3 furnace in the Steam Tower more than ten years ago.

"Go to the open area!" The roar came again. Trinya and her colleagues nodded in response, and the sample collection work was temporarily suspended. She and her colleagues walked forward and left the shelter of the building nearby. The big umbrella suddenly made a "clack" sound under the heavy rain, and a lot of force was concentrated on the umbrella handle and passed to the hand.

There was also a splashing sound on the four-lane road next to it. There was a layer of flowing rainwater flowing on the slightly arched road, all collected under the sidewalk steps, and along the edge to the sewer entrances covered by metal grids. The rainwater collects and flows in there, occasionally sucking and pulling out small whirlpools. The "sizzling" sucking sound means that there seems to be a huge attraction below.

"I still can't understand how powerful and developed the underground sewer network of Minkfas City is. It has been raining heavily for several months, and it is almost unheard of that there is any place flooded by rainwater in the whole city." Trinya was filled with enthusiasm. Out of curiosity, due to work, she had seen several drawings of underground sewer networks. The dense lines and markings were like a dozen overlapping spider webs, complex and full of engineering beauty.

In the past, the image of underground waterways in her mind was all rotten and dark. In the past few months, the negative image has changed a bit, and it has become more powerful and developed.

"It's different from the underground world on the ground. I heard it from several workers I've come into contact with." My colleague replied with a smile, "Occasionally, I actually want to go in and have a look, but I never have the chance. Workers It is said that the main roads in some underground waterways are as big as roads on the ground, and vehicles can drive normally in them. I don’t know if it is true. But they also said that people like us should not go in, because the inside The smell really isn’t very fresh.”

Trinya smiled, "When you really want to go in, remember to call me and we will go take a look together."

"There should be no chance." The colleague on the side replied, and then changed the topic, "It is indeed getting weirder. There are continuous heavy rains and earthquakes. I don't know what else will happen in the future. There was a muffled sound just now. , did you hear it? There should be no such sound in an earthquake."

"Could it be that something buried underground exploded? After all, it's been raining heavily for several months." Trinya nodded, she also felt strange. As she spoke, she looked to the side of the road, where the rainwater was flowing on the sidewalk steps on both sides. She didn't know when a vibration pattern appeared on it.

She quickly patted her colleague with her hand. In just a short period of time when she pointed her finger to the ground, the vibration patterns suddenly intensified, and the rainwater on the road instantly turned into a "boiling" shape due to the vibration. The shock was transmitted from the ground to her body at the same time. She shook a few times before steadying herself, and was about to squat down to reduce the impact, when a frightened roar came from in front of her——

"Run! The road is collapsing! Run!"

Several male colleagues and store owners in front had already thrown their umbrellas and sprinted with all their strength in the rain. Behind them, a dark hollow appeared, and a section of the road collapsed along with the sidewalks on both sides.

Trinya and her colleagues beside her were stunned for a moment, and they didn't react until the next moment. Just as they turned around, they were chased by a series of rumbling sounds. The dark hole quickly expanded, and in the blink of an eye they caught up with their colleagues who were sprinting with all their strength in front of them less than ten meters away.

Seeing several running colleagues fall down due to the shock, and then falling into the collapsed cavity along with the road, panic and fear instantly struck Trinya. Her heart was beating violently. She didn't understand what was happening, but she knew she had to run away. But then he turned around, and a few meters ahead, a crack more than ten centimeters wide stretched across the entire road, becoming a terrifying isolation line.

"Run!" There was an idea in my head, but my body couldn't keep up. The next moment, the ground ahead rose rapidly in Trinya's sight. When she realized that the actual situation was that she had fallen along with the collapsed road, a huge force came from below. She felt no pain, and with the muffled sound of "clang", she felt her head was shaken, her consciousness dispersed, and when she was about to pass out, the rumble turned into a loud explosion, which came from the front.

,,,,,,

"Run! The road collapsed, run quickly!" The consciousness stopped at a certain moment, and after restarting, the thoughts continued. When thinking that she had fallen with the collapsed road, fear and fear surged out, impacting Trinya. .

"Ah!" The next moment, Trinya opened her eyes with an exclamation. Her violently beating heart made her breathing rapid. She opened her mouth and took a big breath, and the collected rainwater flowed down from above. She choked on a big mouth at once. The rain goes down. His breathing suddenly turned into a violent cough.

Not knowing her surroundings, Trinya had time to observe after her coughing subsided and her breathing became smoother.

She tilted her head away from where the rainwater had collected. The heavy rain continued, but something above helped block most of it, and not many raindrops actually fell on me. After blinking her painful eyes a dozen times and her vision recovered a lot, she realized that the thing blocking her body turned out to be a twisted tree root-like thing. The twisted shape does indeed look like a tree root, but on it, there are some branches and leaf-like things growing out. Perhaps it is because there is no sunlight. The branches and tree root-like things all look like a tree. Slightly sticky off-white color.

Trinya immediately thought of that small piece of gray-white bud, whose color and state perfectly matched it.

The slight pain coming from her left leg made her sit up slightly and check her condition. He was lying on a pipe-like object, his raincoat was lifted, and he could see a steel rod with a concrete block piercing the side of his left leg. The strange thing was that she didn't feel the paralyzing pain, and even though she saw it in person, the pain didn't get worse. There didn't seem to be much bleeding, and no blood could be seen under the left leg. Looking through the torn pants, the wound turned white due to rain or other reasons. The wound and the surrounding area were strangely gray.

Shaking her head, Trinya took a deep breath to calm down, but found that her strength had not been restored and her body could not move, so she could only observe her surroundings.

Looking around, she suddenly realized her situation - she had indeed fallen with the collapsing road surface. But somehow he was favored by the goddess of luck, and he landed on a twisted and huge tree root-like object. The root of this tree is like a huge tree growing sideways, and its growth direction is exactly parallel to the four-lane road. The few twisted branches are not limited by space and gravity. They use this root as the center line and spread out.

The ground actually collapsed to a depth of nearly ten meters. This tree root grew horizontally about five or six meters above the ground, hanging in the center of the collapse.

A few meters ahead, with the cross-cutting crack in my memory as the limit, the roadside did not continue to collapse. There became a section, like a wall, blocking the front. But the tree roots were not affected and penetrated directly into the soil that made up the wall. They did not stop growing until they reached an unknown location. On this section, Trinya found traces of manual excavation.

She turned her head and looked down. On this entire section of the collapsed road, similar obvious traces of excavation could be seen everywhere.

"Did someone dig out the bottom of this section of the road and then collapse?" There was a question in his head, but he hadn't thought about it yet. Below, in the rainwater that had accumulated into a puddle, Trinya saw a large collapsed piece. The road, and my colleagues who were soaked in the rain with only half their heads exposed.

That is already the performance of the corpse.

"Ah!" Trinya screamed in fear, and then cried, "Help! Help! Is there anyone there?"

She shouted, and after a few breaths, there was a sound from the side. She lowered her cry, suppressed her trembling body and looked over. There was a rectangular black hole on the high side. Rainwater flowed out from there, creating a turbid waterfall.

It was a branch of the underground sewer network beneath the ground that was supposed to join the main network under the road. After the pavement collapsed, a section was formed.

The sound came from there, the sound of rapid running.

As the sound got closer and closer, and it was determined to be the sound of footsteps wading in the water, Trinya immediately raised her voice and shouted. But when those bright red eyes shone in the dim light, the shouts disappeared immediately.

A man with golden and bright red eyes stood at the cross section. His clothes were soaked and full of tears, with a look of pain and weakness on his face. The man was gasping for air, holding what was obviously a pistol in his left hand, and covering his neck with his right hand. A gray-white putrid juice-like liquid was gushing out from between his fingers.