I crouched low behind the sand dune, oil lamp extinguished in an instant, letting myself melt completely into the darkness of the wasteland night. The cold sand seeped through my tattered clothes and stuck to my skin, bringing a sharp chill that made me shiver slightly. My arm, which had been scratched by the mutated wild dogs earlier, was throbbing nonstop, as if tiny needles were piercing the wound repeatedly, a constant reminder that I was already injured and in no condition to fight a tough battle.
Every breath I took was light and slow, as if I was afraid that even a little heavier exhale would trigger some hidden alarm in the Black Fort. I narrowed my eyes and stared intently at the towering, silent fortress in front of me, and the strange, deathly quiet made my hair stand on end. This was by no means the scene of an abandoned stronghold left in chaos after a storm. There were no scattered supplies, no broken facilities left unattended, no traces of random passing creatures—only a suffocating stillness, like a predator holding its breath, waiting for its prey to take the bait.
I held the rusted crowbar in my hand tighter, my palms slightly sweaty. Years of scavenging life in the wasteland had given me an extremely keen intuition for danger, and every nerve in my body was screaming at me to turn around and run, to stay away from this terrifying place as far as possible. But my empty stomach growled softly, and the almost dry water bag hanging on my waist reminded me cruelly that I had no way out. If I gave up on the Black Fort, I would still die slowly from hunger and thirst in the desolate wilderness, with no better ending at all.
I took a deep breath, suppressed the fear and hesitation in my heart, and began to move slowly along the sand dune, planning to circle around to the side of the Black Fort to find a weak point or a broken entrance that was not guarded. Every step I took was extremely careful, my feet gently lifting and falling, avoiding the gravel that would make a crisp sound when stepped on. My eyes scanned every corner, from the collapsed ruins on the ground to the shadowy gaps in the fortress walls, not missing any suspicious movement or light.
After walking about a hundred meters, a faint, almost imperceptible blue light suddenly flashed from a pile of rubble not far ahead.
My body froze instantly, and I lay down on the sand almost reflexively, not daring to move a muscle.
It was the indicator light of an old-world mechanical device.
I held my breath and observed carefully through the gaps in the sand. Half-buried in the rubble was a small, well-hidden sensor, its surface covered with dust, almost blending in with the surrounding ruins. Thin, broken wires extended from the bottom of the sensor, leading straight into the depths of the Black Fort, connecting to an unknown and dangerous mechanism.
This was no accidental leftover equipment—it was a deliberately arranged warning trap.
Before I could calm my pounding heart, a low, buzzing sound came from the direction of the Black Fort, faint at first, but getting closer and clearer. The ground under me began to tremble slightly, a vibration unique to mechanical operation.
My heart sank to the bottom in an instant.
They had patrol machines.
I quickly grabbed a handful of fine sand and scattered it on my body, trying to use the color of the sand to cover my figure, and lay motionless on the ground, only daring to turn my eyes slightly to look in the direction of the sound. A black, streamlined mechanical patrol unit slowly drove out from the shadow of the fortress wall, its metal shell glinting coldly in the dark, and a red scanning light swept back and forth on the ground, like the eyes of a ruthless hunter.
The red light swept over the sand dune where I was hiding, inch by inch, slow and merciless.
I held my breath completely, my whole body stiff, and the hand holding the crowbar was already soaked with cold sweat.
In this wasteland, intruders who broke into the Black Fort had only one end—being eliminated on the spot, turning into a cold corpse, and eventually a pile of unrecognizable bones buried in the sand.
And I was already standing on the edge of the trap.
The red scanning light was getting closer, and the buzzing sound of the machine was ringing in my ears.
The real crisis of the Black Fort had just begun.