In a tunnel wide enough for only one person, the four of them moved in a single-file line.
"Nervous?" Hans, walking second, tilted his head and asked Bella and Carmine behind him.
"A little." Bella pulled the sniper rifle in her arms closer to her chest.
"I'm alright," Carmine's voice sounded relatively calm.
David, walking at the very front, looked up and tapped twice on the soil layer above his head.
With a soft "puff," air began to flow down from above.
David put away his pickaxe, jumped up, grabbed the edge of the opening with both hands, and performed a clean pull-up.
He scanned the surroundings, and after confirming it was safe, reached his hand back down.
"Come on."
Hans grabbed his hand, and David pulled him up with some effort.
Then came Bella and Carmine; pulling those two up was much easier.
They were in an indoor room with a layer of dust accumulated on the floor.
David crouched down, picked up a blocky object near his feet, and squeezed it. White powder crumbled and fell.
"Chalk." His gaze swept across the room.
This was a classroom. Several rows of desks and chairs were crooked, some already broken.
At the very front was a blackboard, shattered in two and hanging limply on the wall.
"Do not waste your tears; you were not born to watch this world come to an end."
Hans read the sentence on the blackboard, his eyes momentarily dazed.
Scenes from the past surfaced before his eyes: young cadet soldiers sitting bolt upright, Boyz bragging in low voices by the wall, and that annoying drill instructor.
Everything was gone, leaving only this classroom.
"It's been over ten years, hasn't it? I remember learning this sentence in the training camp when I was a kid," Carmine said, breaking the heavy atmosphere.
"Isn't that the truth?" Bella chimed in. "When I was doing basic training at another bastion, this sentence was posted on the wall too."
"So you're saying your textbooks are printed uniformly nationwide and haven't been updated in over a decade?" David quipped.
He walked over, pushed the two halves of the blackboard together, and straightened them.
The conversation of his companions pulled Hans back to reality.
"There are no bloodstains around, and no signs of the desks and chairs being overturned," Carmine began her observation.
"The children should have evacuated in an orderly manner according to plan. I hope they are all safe."
Hans nodded heavily.
"By the way, David," Carmine looked at David, who was checking outside the window, "Where exactly are you from? You're definitely not a native of Cadia, right?"
"Me?" David turned around, leaned against the windowsill, and thought for a moment. "I'm from Earth."
Carmine reacted quickly, "You mean Terra? The homeworld of the Imperium of Man, Holy Terra?"
"Uh, close enough," David replied vaguely, not intending to explain the subtle differences that might exist between the two Earths.
Terra in the 2K era was still Terra.
Looking out from the window, David could only see buildings and rooftops packed tightly together.
"The visibility here is too poor," David said. "Let's go up and take a look."
David turned and walked out of the small classroom, climbing two more floors up the stairs to reach the top floor of the building.
The view here was finally open; he could see past the nearby buildings and look further into the distance.
"Look over there." David pointed to a conspicuous gap in the distant cluster of buildings.
A heart-palpitating blood-red glow emanated from that spot.
"It's the Memorial Plaza in front of the Banquet Hall." Carmine identified the location, took out a monocular Telescope, and handed it to David.
[Telescope] x1
David took it and brought it to his eye.
It was indeed a relatively open plaza.
In the center of the plaza stood a statue with only half of its base remaining.
Behind the statue was a large hall, which should be the Banquet Hall where the welcome feast was held.
The hall's originally magnificent doors were long gone, blocked tightly from the inside with vehicles and debris.
Between the statue and the hall's entrance was a pit.
Due to the angle and distance, David couldn't see exactly what was at the bottom of the pit, only that a blood-red light was shining out from it.
Voskani traitors were everywhere in the plaza, using sandbags to build simple fortifications. With mounted Stubber Machine Guns and Mortars, all their firepower was aimed at the Banquet Hall.
"The remaining resistance forces in Pylon are likely trapped behind that Banquet Hall."
Even without the Telescope, Bella could see further and more clearly than an average person. "They are resisting tenaciously."
"Pull the lens back a bit, look inside the fortifications," Bella reminded David.
David adjusted the focus of the Telescope slightly and saw a person wearing voluminous black robes.
Even through the distance and the Telescope, David could feel a sense of extreme dissonance and strangeness.
The figure in the black robes looked thin, and their limbs should be slender, yet the black robes were stuffed bulgingly full, as if something was packed inside.
The distance was too great, and the system did not display the name or information of that unit.
"What do you think," David stood up and pointed toward the plaza, "about opening our tunnel exit there?"
He handed the Telescope to Hans and the others, letting each of them take turns observing.
Hans took it and looked. "That plaza is open, with enough space for our tanks to deploy and maneuver. It'll work."
Bella also nodded in agreement. "Once we appear and clear out those traitors, we can immediately rendezvous with the friendly forces trapped in the Banquet Hall."
Carmine also agreed, "I suggest we move a bit closer to get more specific information."
The four reached a consensus and began heading downstairs toward the plaza.
It was only when he truly stepped into the streets and alleys inside Pylon that David deeply understood what Hans meant by a 'labyrinth'.
Looking down from a height, it just seemed like dense buildings, but once truly inside, he found it was a three-dimensional maze meticulously constructed from countless rooms.
The paths between buildings wound and stretched with numerous forks; often, a single turn would present several nearly identical choices.
"This is the internal defensive philosophy of Tyrok Bastion."
"By using dense buildings and complex passages to segment the space, it's impossible for someone unfamiliar with the area to pass through."
Before Hans could finish, he heard a light 'clang' from beside him.
David had already pulled out his iron pickaxe, dug an opening large enough for a person to pass through, and crawled inside.
The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Solved.
"Um, Hans, what were you saying just now?" David poked his head out from the hole and asked curiously.
Hans: "..."
He looked at the passage and swallowed the second half of his sentence.
"By the way," David's voice came from the other side of the wall, "does this count as property damage? Your Cadian residents won't mind, will they?"
"Wartime regulations. All civilian buildings can be requisitioned when necessary." Carmine also followed him through.
That being said, after everyone had entered the house, David turned around and plugged the hole back up.
The interior of the Cadian residence was incredibly simple.
Hearing Hans' description wasn't enough; seeing it with his own eyes was truly shocking.
There were no decorations, only a few of the most basic pieces of furniture.
David found a piece of Flint inside a box in the house.
[Flint] x1
It could be used as a fire striker, so David pocketed it.
His gaze then fell on the hardboard bed. He walked over and swept his hand over the thin blanket spread across it.
[Bed] x1
Hey, a ready-made bed. David put it away.
Now, the house was truly stripped bare to the four walls.
David swung his pickaxe and began a straight-line demolition.
His efficiency was extremely high, and he soon penetrated several houses, getting closer and closer to the plaza.
Voices came from the other side of the wall.
David stopped his movements and signaled the three behind him to be quiet.
"Hey, with so many of us surrounding them for so many days, why haven't we cracked those tough nuts inside yet?" a complaining voice said.
"Nonsense, do you even know who's leading them in there?" another voice said with a tremble. "It's Usagi Kreed!"
"It's him... then can we even win?"
"Idiot, the advantage is on our side." The second traitor was psyching himself up, his voice rising a bit again.
"We've had them trapped in there for days. They have no supplies; we can just starve them out. Besides, isn't the ritual also underway?"
"But I heard that our numbers are getting smaller and smaller, and we won't be able to hold them off for much longer."
The voices gradually faded away.
"General Kreed, it's him!?" A look of admiration appeared in Hans' eyes.
Carmine murmured, "When I was a kid, the thing I heard most was 'look at Kreed'."
The sound of footsteps gradually faded, and David dug through the final wall.