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Bermuda Chapter 85
🕑 Added 2024-05-04 11:28:31 +0000 UTCChapter 85
Hugo dispelled the greatsword he had stabbed into the monster's eyeball, as it seemed there were no more monsters to come out in this area. When he unfastened the button of the newly worn glove, one of the other members who had come with him flew urgently from the top of the cliff and shouted to Hugo.
"Commander, I think you should come for a moment!"
At his urgent demeanor that seemed unusual, the member with him and Hugo immediately followed him.
He led Hugo to the entrance of a cave hidden at the foot of the cliff. The cave was located in a quite inconspicuous place, and judging from the lack of wind flow, it seemed there was only one entrance without a path leading out the back.
As they lit the way and went deeper inside, the stench intensified and bugs swarmed. Hugo recalled the sticky pool of blood he had seen near the entrance and narrowed his brows. It was different from the black blood they had just annihilated.
When they reached the front of the innermost cave, the member leading them stopped. Hugo raised the brightness of the light ball a bit more and illuminated the inside of the cave.
In front of their eyes, the source of the blood that had been soaking the ground all along was revealed. The other member seemed to feel nauseous at the sight and covered his mouth and nose with the back of his hand, frowning.
The cave was filled with grotesque chunks of flesh.
They were rotting and decaying, exposing entirely red skin, and looked like corpses of monsters or beasts, but occasionally human arms and legs could be seen.
In the belly of something with wrinkled intestines protruding, maggots were hatching eggs and parasitizing, wriggling. On top of the deliberately crushed flesh, a bright red fascia was attached to the protruding spine.
A horse's head lying at the feet had one dark, optic nerve-attached eyeball flowing out, and judging from the fact that the inner muscles were still wriggling, it seemed it hadn't been dead for long.
However, none of them could be recognized in their original form.
"It can't be a tomb, so did the monster gather food?"
"It seems so."
It looked like a food storage where prey was piled up.
Hugo created a long ice spear in his hand and approached the pile of corpses. Whenever he walked, the blood pooled on the floor froze, creating space for him to step on. As the Commander approached it, the two members made an uncomfortable expression, but soon they also followed the path Hugo had made.
Hugo poked the pile of corpses in several places with the ice spear. The unpleasant sensation of it sinking in was transmitted to his fingertips. After stirring a few more times, it seemed like it would collapse into liquid, so he dispelled the ice spear from his hand and said,
"There are some that died relatively recently, and some that have been rotting for a long time and easily crumble."
"The longest seems to be about 2-3 weeks old."
The member who had guided them here added while examining the corpses beside him. Then, the member who had been covering his nose and frowning asked,
"Do the creatures living on the peninsula also have the habit of gathering food?"
Monsters in cold or temperate climate regions often gather food to survive the coldest period. On the other hand, the creatures living on the peninsula didn't need to gather food because they could wander around at any time. Then, apart from the climate, there was only one reason why monsters usually gathered food.
The member who had been examining the corpses turned around and answered the question.
"They do when gestating or during the spawning season."
As he answered, he glared at his junior who had been standing and covering his nose. The junior member hurriedly lowered his hand and smiled awkwardly, then opened his mouth as if he had remembered something.
"But when I searched the nest, there were no traces of hatchlings or eggs."
Indeed, Hugo also hadn't seen any small hatchlings while hunting those fellows earlier. It could be a case where it was difficult to distinguish even if they were hatchlings because they were mutants.
While they were speculating the cause of this pile of corpses, the radio held by the junior member made a crackling sound, and someone's voice was heard intermittently. Their gazes turned to the radio, and the member holding it said to Hugo,
"It seems the expedition team has approached nearby."
Hugo scanned the rotten chunks of flesh piled up in front of him once more, then turned around and said,
"For now, let's leave this place to the expedition team and return to the procession."
"Yes, understood."
Although it was quite unsettling, Hugo thought it was an urgent matter to return first as he felt he had been away from the procession for too long.
They immediately went back the way they came and went outside. Facing the open air again, they could escape the pungent stench. The member who had been covering his nose earlier took a deep breath as if he could finally live.
Soon, voices looking for them were heard, perhaps because the expedition team had arrived nearby. Hugo and the members went down to the valley below again to make contact with the expedition team.
At that moment, this time a sound came from Hugo's radio. The voice that came through intermittently was Flynn's.
***
Leonardo went up to the surface of the water and went back into the water without even taking a few breaths. The 8th Platoon leader, who was still fighting underwater, had such good lung capacity that even when observing from outside, it seemed he had rarely seen her come up.
As he went down to a deeper depth again, the 8th Platoon leader caused another explosion of air around the monster's body.
As a result, the limbs blocking the front of the body were cut off, and the creature's speed slowed down a bit. In the meantime, it kept trying to defend its body with its limbs, so it seemed the body was more of a weak point than the limbs.
Leonardo took advantage of the monster's slowed movement and immediately dug into its center, directly feeding a ball of flames to the dozens of millet-like eyeballs. The monster twisted its body and stretched all the limbs clinging to it towards the center to catch him, but the 8th Platoon members surrounded him and instantly cut off those limbs.
In the midst of that, Leonardo, who suddenly sensed an ominous feeling, turned around. Then, he saw the monster with severed limbs unable to change direction and going straight towards the wall of the lake, getting closer and closer to the wall.
Without even time to be startled, he hurriedly cast a barrier, but the monster advanced at a fast speed and eventually collided strongly with the wall. Due to the impact, rocks crumbled down, and a member was thrown out as if bouncing. He seemed to have lost consciousness.
To catch that member, the 8th Platoon leader stepped on the monster's body and leaped towards him.
At that moment, two strands of the monster's regenerated limbs twisted together, and a sharp venomous stinger was generated at the end, aimed at the 8th Platoon leader who was heading towards the member.
Leonardo reflexively stretched out his hand without even realizing it. Flickering flames were generated from his hand and flew towards the venomous stinger faster than the speed at which he was thinking. However, at that moment, he had an "oh no" feeling.
Leonardo immediately cast a barrier in front of the member and the 8th Platoon leader. Immediately after that, the flames he had launched heated the water, increasing the pressure and causing an explosion even larger than the original scale.
At the same time, not only the monster's tail with the venomous stinger but also about 1/4 of its body was blown away, and the floating objects that had sunk to the bottom also floated around in disorder, obscuring the view.
Due to the aftermath, the unconscious member was caught in the fierce spray of water, and the 8th Platoon leader also lost her balance for a moment. Fortunately, she quickly regained her posture and lifted the member with one arm.
Leonardo momentarily flinched. And he looked at his hand once. Something was strange.
'It's definitely not this scale.'
He stayed still in the water surging due to his mana, then raised his head and looked up towards the surface. His golden eyes moved around as if searching for something.
Then, his gaze stopped at a certain point, and he narrowed his eyes as if sensing a strange air current. Before long, bubbles suddenly formed around Leonardo's arm and boiled violently, causing his arm to heat up to an extremely high temperature.
He thrust his arm into the monster's body, which was trembling from the impact of hitting the wall, in one go. As if it didn't matter whether there was acid inside the body or not, he deeply shoved it in with the force to melt everything, and the monster thrashed, trying to throw him off.
Leonardo firmly grabbed the creature and drew a powerful mana from inside while crushing the slimy and unpleasant-feeling intestines and pushing his arm in.
The 8th Platoon leader, who felt his extraordinary mana, tucked the unconscious member under her arm and sent a hand signal to all the members who had been driving away the Sawtooth Fish to go up. The members also seemed to have felt that energy, and upon seeing the platoon leader's hand signal, they hurriedly started swimming up.
From Leonardo's hand, destructive mana that was even more fiercely raging due to instability fluctuated. Eventually, the moment he detonated it all at once, the condensed mana spread in all directions underwater, creating a huge explosion and a fierce whirlpool that had never been seen before.
Leonardo was also caught in the whirlpool due to that impact and was roughly thrown around inside it.
His body was swallowed by the water current on its own, and he almost lost consciousness for a moment, but he shook his head to come to his senses and faced the sight in front of him.
The monster's flesh, torn to shreds to the point it couldn't even regenerate due to his mana, was surging. And around those floating objects, the Sawtooth Fish began to rush in like crazy to eat the flesh.
Leonardo tried to scatter them by causing another spray of water, but suddenly, a force strongly grabbed the back of his collar and pulled him away helplessly. As he spat out his breath due to the resistance, he immediately turned his head and saw the 8th Platoon leader grabbing and pulling him while attacking the Sawtooth Fish to buy time.
He had thought her strength wasn't ordinary since she crushed the water bottle, but Leonardo was inwardly amazed at her arm strength that could pull his body at once, even though it was underwater.
However, that was short-lived, as the light balls of other members briefly shone above the platoon leader's head. Roughly gauging the location, they had already reached near the surface without him noticing.
Confirming that, Leonardo thought there was no reason to stay in the water any longer. He immediately grabbed the 8th Platoon leader's forearm and teleported as close to the surface as possible, then quickly flew out of the water.
The 8th Platoon leader, who had come up to the surface with him in an instant, was startled as her ears became muffled for a moment due to the pressure difference caused by Leonardo's formidable speed, but she quickly finished assessing the situation and shouted to her platoon members who were on standby in the air.
"Now!"
Comments
Jesse Gibson
Oh no.. I have a bad feeling…
