Chapter 1: Magma Caverns

  "This place is damn hot, boss, what kind of mission did you take on? You didn't take a good bodyguard mission, but instead took this inhumane job. What the hell is this place?"

  A young white man wearing jungle camouflage and holding an AK74U complained to the middle-aged veteran next to him, without considering that the person he was talking to was his "boss" who paid his salary.

  "Shut up. Don't waste your breath, the boss has his own reasons for doing things, it's not for us small soldiers to understand. Although this place is a bit hot, it still has a lot of 'flavor'. Don't look at me, be careful, don't fall into the lava, or I won't save you~~"

  The speaker was a black man with an MP5 on his back and holding an M14 rifle modified with an ACOG scope. Although he seemed to be defending the boss with words like "although", "seemingly" and "apparently", his facial expression betrayed his true intention of flattering yet actually damaging.

  The middle-aged soldier, known as the captain, looked at the serious expressions on his comrades' faces and couldn't help but smile wryly. It seemed that if he didn't explain things clearly, the soldiers behind him would almost go on strike. After all, they were newbies, just like he used to be. How nostalgic.

  "Cough!"

  The captain cleared his throat: "I took this task also for the sake of our mercenary group, we just formed, no picky eaters, and...". The captain pointed with his chin at the two people in front of him who were checking the route signs, an old man and a young one. "Those two people are very influential, the reward he promised me is also very rich, they can bring us countless 'good jobs' afterwards. Everyone bear with it a bit longer, we're almost there, we're almost there!"

  After hearing the captain's words, the mercenary's curiosity was immediately piqued. Even team members who were not very interested at first gathered around. Zhun Xing was the first to squeeze in front of the captain and curiously asked: "Captain, who are those two people up ahead? From what you said, it seems like you knew them before?"

  "It's not them, I only know the elder one, I don't recognize the young one." The captain smiled bitterly.

  "Who is he?" The young man just can't hold back his temper.

  "Head of the US CIA's..." The captain paused for a moment: "Deputy Director!"

  "What?" Everyone was stunned.

  "What's the concept of CIA deputy director?" It turned around in the minds of these new recruits for a few times. "With such great power, why do they need to hire us?" A mercenary with an Eastern face asked.

  "It's probably a personal matter, he didn't tell me and I didn't ask! Mercenaries only need to know the mission, no need to understand the purpose. Especially him. I don't want to understand either." The captain sighed again, casting his gaze at the backs of the old man and young boy in front...

  "Director, have you arrived?" A young man asked an old white-haired man who was carefully searching a map with a note in his hand.

  "It should be here. Jack told me to look again. And don't call me Director, call me by my name."

  "Alright, Uncle Brown." Jack looked at the director for a while, not finding any possible destination, then wiped his sweat and took a glance around the surroundings.

  Kilauea Volcano - the world's most active volcano, sulfur gases everywhere, years of flowing lava rivers, underfoot all solidified magma, stepping on it with force, magma bursts out from the cracked shell, deadly traps everywhere.

  For years, Brown has been asking himself and others to run around, seemingly chasing something, but never telling himself, delaying his own business without apologizing, if not for the fact that since childhood, Brown is the only "relative" who comes to the orphanage to visit him. He would have used force to coerce a long time ago.

  This time it's even more exaggerated, running to the South American war zone is not enough, but also running to this place where birds don't lay eggs, and I don't know what they're doing. Looking at the mercenaries behind, they are all newcomers, the chaos in the exchange of fire with the anti-government forces two days ago fully explains this point. And I don't know why these people were hired

  "Found it! Found it!" Blang waved the paper in his hand and shouted, pointing in a direction.

  Everyone gathered around and looked in the direction that Brother Lang was pointing, but there was nothing there.

  "Is he okay?!" Zhen Xing whispered softly.

  Unexpectedly, Bulang really heard it, smiled at Zhunxing, didn't say a word, and led the way to the previously designated location.

  When they arrived at the location, Jack sensed something was off about the lava shell that Brown had pointed to earlier. It was just a feeling, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was. Brown looked at everyone's puzzled faces and chuckled, then reached out and poked the lava shell with his finger. Amidst the group's shocked cries, he ripped off a large chunk of the shell, revealing a massive opening. He handed the shell to Jack and stepped into the hole himself, followed closely by the mercenary captain.

  Looking at the rock crust in his hand, Jack finally understood what that feeling was all about. It turned out to be a piece of rock crust that had solidified long ago, while the surrounding rock crusts were newly solidified. Inside, there was still high-temperature magma, so the air above the rock crust was that kind of hot air that would distort one's line of sight. But behind this piece was a cave, so there wasn't such hot air, which is why this piece of rock crust stood out more.

  "In this environment, with such a brilliant disguise, what is this place, and why are we here? What's inside the cave?" Everyone who saw this rock formation had these thoughts.

  "Light!" Brown's shout in the cave awakened the person deep in thought, and others rushed into the cave, turning on the emergency light. The cave was quite large, but one could see all four walls at a glance. Brown was feeling around on the dark wall for something. Jack handed over the light to shine it on Brown, who seemed to trigger something. The cave shook, and a large stone slab on the left-hand side fell down, revealing a door, startling everyone.

  On the black metal door were bas-reliefs of canine teeth, and Browning looked excited; a mercenary tried to touch the reliefs on the door but was pulled back by Browning.

  "Don't touch it, do you want to kill everyone? If you don't want to die, then don't move." Burang shouted.

  He finished speaking and pulled out a soldier's badge from his neck, with a small key on it. Then, he pried open the left canine tooth of the upper dental relief, and also pried open the corresponding lower canine tooth. A keyhole appeared on the door, and he inserted the key and turned it. A window popped open beside him, revealing a password window and a square indentation. At this point, Buran's hands began to shake slightly as he input a string of passwords. Then, he pressed the soldier's badge into the indentation with force, and the iron door creaked open with a loud noise. This series of actions was performed very smoothly, as if he were the master of this place, opening the door to his own home.

  Bulangfeili pushed open the large iron gate. At the entrance, he touched something and surprisingly turned on the light switch.

  "A place like this actually has electricity?" Jack was amazed. Before his eyes was a garden-like hall, nothing in it, the mercenary group of over ten people and the uncle and nephew duo of Bulang, standing there didn't feel crowded at all, the hall was surrounded by doors, the ones directly opposite the corridor were bigger than those on the sides. It looked like a conference room.

  "Open all the doors!" Blang shouted loudly, startling the people around him, Jack didn't move but looked at Blang with a puzzled expression, he seemed more than just excited.

  "Wow, what is this?!"

  "Look, it's weapons, so many weapons..."

  "Computer, the most advanced computer..."

  "How can there still be hospitals in such a place?"

  "What the...?! What are these, robots?!"

  Every time a door opens, it is accompanied by a sigh of admiration and exclamation, and Burron's face will have an extra bit of satisfaction and pride.

  "Get back here, all of you!" The mercenary captain's voice was deafening.

  All the mercenaries ran back to their team with red faces, and in Accurates' hand was a Gatling four-barrel machine gun.

  "Captain, look, look, so many guns! And inside, they're all high-quality, modified ones! They'd be priceless on the black market!"

  "Put it back. Even if it's priceless, it still belongs to someone else!" The captain scolded the clueless team member while awkwardly sneaking a glance at Bulang.

  Burton didn't respond to them, his eyes fixed on the large door in front of him, his face flushed with excitement, his hand covering his mouth as if his heart couldn't take the thrill. Jack rushed over to support him but was pushed away by Burton, who adjusted his camouflage uniform and pushed open the conference room door.

  Everyone was stunned, and everyone guessed what was behind the door, but from everyone's expression, it can be seen that no one expected it.

  Behind the door will be a table, accurately speaking, a table full of various military knives.

  An old-fashioned table filled with military swords of all kinds, some were familiar equipment from various countries' troops, while others looked like they were homemade. There were about 300 to 400 swords, filling a long rectangular table to the brim, and each sword had a soldier's tag hanging on it. The tags didn't have names, only a tooth-shaped embossing similar to the one on the outside door. Some of the swords were rusty, but most of them still looked new, gleaming with cold light. The table itself also looked very old, with an ancient style and many dents on its surface.

  Above are two knives that catch the eye. One is a blood-red, oversized, irregularly-shaped trench knife with a handle guard. The other is a peculiarly-shaped three-edged military dagger, stuck into a diary beside it. The diary has an old-fashioned cowhide cover with black and red patches - it's unclear what they are. It looks very old, the pages inside can be seen to have yellowed from outside.

  Buron, trembling as he stroked the edge of the table, circled around it, tapping on the knives and muttering something that only Jack at his side could hear - a string of names: "Big Bear, Quickdraw, Big Buck, Little Buck, Knight, Beauty, Kitty, Fast Knife..." Finally standing in front of the two most conspicuous knives, he spoke to an M9 bayonet sandwiched between them: "Captain... I'm back. The Trigger's back." Tears slid down his face with his words.

  After a long time, Brawling was still crying. Jack and the other mercenaries felt the ground begin to shake, and it got bigger and bigger. Everyone's face changed, and they all knew what this meant - the volcano was about to erupt.

  "Uncle Bulang, Uncle Bulang, don't cry anymore! The volcano is going to erupt! The volcano is going to erupt!" Seeing that Bulang was still not coming around, Jack had no choice but to slap him on the back, "thwack", just by the sound of it, you could tell how painful it was. But Bulang only looked up at Jack with a slightly dazed expression, as if he was blaming Jack for interrupting his reminiscence of past times.

  "The volcano is going to erupt!" Jack yelled in his ear. Jack's yell and the increasingly strong tremors brought Brown back to reality.

  "Oh, I see! Don't worry, don't rush!" Bulo's expression didn't change at all.

  The pale faces of others clearly told Burroughs that his consolation was limited in its effect.

  "Everyone else get out. Jack, stay."

  Jack had already turned around and was about to leave when he heard Bulang's words. He scrunched up his face and turned back around. "Uncle Bulang, I'm still young, please let me off easy..."

  Bulang ignored him, pulled out the dagger from his body, wrapped his soldier's badge around the hilt, and stabbed it into the table with force. Then he picked up the diary on the side of the triangular bayonet and handed it to Jack.

  "Take it! Don't drop it."

  Reluctantly took another look at the table, then shook his head and walked out first.

  Sitting on the mountain top, everyone watched as the molten lava and mudflow from the volcanic mouth buried the slope where the cave entrance was just now, completely sealing it off. Everyone took a deep breath, if they had come out a little later, they would have all been buried alive inside.

  "Uncle Bao, what's going on? What place is this? How did you know about this place? Who told you? What's with the tables inside? What captain? I want an explanation!" Jack wiped the mud off his face, pulled out a few strands of black hair from his head, and spat out some muddy water, firing off a string of questions.

  Bolang didn't bother with him and just asked: "Where's the diary?"

  "We almost died in there and you're still thinking about that diary? If you don't tell me, I'll throw the diary down the mountain!" Jack was furious.

  "Leave it alone, that's your father's!"

  With a crash, Jack was stunned there.

  He grew up in an orphanage since he was a child and no one ever told him who his father was. Only Mr. Brown had visited him before, and when he asked about his origins, Mr. Brown only said that it was a friend who died in battle who entrusted him with the task, but he didn't know much about his origins either. Over time, he gave up on finding out. He never expected that today, under such circumstances, a diary of his father's would suddenly appear, and the sudden stimulation made Jack somewhat unable to accept it.

  "This is just a small earthquake before the volcanic eruption, the real volcanic eruption will be 24 hours later. Let's go, it doesn't matter." Brown stood up and walked down the mountain, the mercenaries followed behind him, only Jack was still stunned there.

  "Captain, that place we just passed seems to be a mercenary base too. What kind of mercenaries would build their base in a place like this? Captain, you know him, so you must also know what kind of mercenary group that is." The surrounding mercenaries couldn't help but feel curious.

  "Some things should be let go and disappear in the wind once they're over."

  "When did Lao Da start being so sentimental? How disgusting"

  "Yes, people in their several tens are still 'dissolving in the wind', how cheesy!"

  "Feigning mystery!"

  The team members who did not get the results began a consistent verbal attack.

  "When I first met Captain Bulang, he didn't look like a 60-year-old man at all, but now I think he's over 160!" Zhun Xing said to the captain.

  "His heart remained in the cave, and what came out was just an empty shell!"

  Back in his home in Manhattan, Jack stared at the diary on his desk, but he hadn't opened it yet. He was a little scared; his father seemed to be a soldier, and years of solitary life had made him fearful of understanding this "family member" he had never met. But there was also a thrill in his heart, a longing that had been pressing on his nerves.

  Taking a deep breath and summoning up his courage, Jack opened his diary.

  Page one, line one reads: "I was just an ordinary student, living an ordinary life, everything was so calm, every day except for class was spent chatting with friends, playing on the computer, having a spring dream, dreaming that one day a beautiful woman would descend from heaven and marry this ordinary kid, peaceful and wonderful. Everything changed with the arrival of that day and never returned. I remember it clearly, it was the day before my 20th birthday. April 30th, 1999. It was very hot...