Chapter 214
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Chapter 214: Surprise Attack
Gangfeng’s emotional control was clearly faltering. The normally composed man suddenly became frantic, reaching into his backpack and eventually turning it upside down to spill its contents.
Just after Trace had posed that question, Gangfeng realized he hadn’t paid attention to this issue for a long time. Each time he unzipped the bag and delivered food to his teammates, he never bothered to check inside the backpack or feel for the remaining quantity.
It was as if he had deliberately ignored this thought!
According to the rationing rules, each person was allocated one tube of nutritional paste per meal. This special product for exploration teams could fulfill both energy and water needs; as long as it was consumed on time every day, the body would remain in a stable functional state.
There were five members in the team, and with three meals a day, the team consumed fifteen tubes of nutritional paste daily.
The exploration duration was seven days, so to allow for sufficient reserves, they had brought a total of one hundred fifty tubes of nutritional paste, all marked with continuous numbers on the packaging.
Soft, tube-like items continued to spill out of Gangfeng’s backpack. He grabbed one, checked the number, then glanced at the last one and quickly reported,
"Seventy-five tubes are left."
Half of the nutritional paste was consumed!
The team set out on the morning of October 10th, year 52 of the New Era, and everyone had eaten their fill before leaving Hope City.
Excluding the five tubes just opened for team members, only half remained unopened, indicating that it had been a full five days since they departed!
Five days!
They were clearly on the second day of exploration, having entered this forest on October 11th!
According to their memories, it should be the morning of October 13th now; it felt as if two days of memory had vanished into thin air!
Everything was so strange; the unreasonable parts were right there, yet they seemed transparent and went unnoticed, failing to draw any attention.
Every morning, they acted according to rehearsed routines without considering where they came from, as if the one-way road they traveled had unknowingly twisted into a distorted loop without any distinction between the starting and ending points.
When everyone finally recognized something was off, a faint crisp sound suddenly filled the air around them.
Though the sound wasn’t loud, it echoed in everyone’s minds, as if something akin to a soap bubble had abruptly burst.
Before them, a layer of filter began to slowly shatter.
Zheng Gaoya and his teammates saw larger and more significant problems.
Their combat suits showed signs of slight damage and scratches, with some gray-black elongated markings faintly visible on them.
The disposable Beacons that normally marked locations around their waists had long been used up, replaced instead by gray-white branches.
The team members glanced around and noticed the state of their teammates.
Each of them appeared as though they had not rested for a long time—disheveled hair, dirt covering their bodies, and pale lips, as if they would collapse at any moment.
The effect of this shattered filter spread, resembling a disturbed beautiful dream. The accumulated fatigue and pain over the past three days forced everyone to press their hands against their temples.
Sharp pain and dizziness followed one after another. Despite such negative states, the five members formed a combat formation they had practiced, with Trace and Extract drawing their weapons to point at their surroundings.
Zheng Gaoya closed his eyes, focusing all his energy on sharing a third-person view ability, ensuring that everyone remained alert about their surroundings.
A gentle breeze blew, and the leaves in the gray-white forest rustled softly.
Amidst the noise, a language they could somewhat understand intertwined within:
"So this is how it works, this is how to obtain this information. But it’s still not enough… still not enough…"
A sharp cry echoed throughout the forest, reminiscent of a modified cicada’s song, constantly assaulting the eardrums of the five.
Within the chaotic sounds, various colored insect-like extraordinary beasts appeared on the trees surrounding them.
Some bore hard, brightly colored outer shells, while others struck their exoskeletons with long legs. Still, others twisted their patterned bodies, forming faces of suffering humans.
Just as the five’s senses neared the brink of collapse, that soul-piercing sound suddenly ceased.
The swarm of insects initiated the attack.
What awaited these extraordinary beasts were not bullets or chemical substances that could harm insects.
Instead, they encountered a crimson ray—hot and bright, capable of rapidly heating their soft body tissues merely by passing over.
One by one, the insects, some the size of human brains or even larger, began to convulse. Liquid that had reached a boiling state gushed from the seams between their bodies, their legs, and the gaps near their eyes.
This liquid, some green and some white, with a foul smell, splattered in all directions, spraying onto more insect-like extraordinary beasts.
In just a few seconds, hundreds or thousands of insects died, their bodies forming a low wall of several steps high.
Yet, this didn’t stop the advance of other insects; they continued to march forward, stepping over boiling body fluids, trampling over their fallen companions, as though they were manipulated marionettes.
"The fourth one… this is the fourth one…"
A voice, slightly tinged with joy, mixed with the rustling leaves carried by the breeze, but unfortunately, the five embroiled in battle could no longer pay attention.
Everyone fought while retreating, making their way slowly towards the east, towards the direction of Hope City.
The piled-up insect corpses were sent flying by a tornado created by a punch from Gangfeng. He was responsible for ensuring his teammates’ safety at close range while also clearing a path in the direction of their retreat.
"The fifth one… so that’s how it is… so hard to comprehend…"
Once again, the breeze carried whispers from the rustling leaves.
Suddenly, the group noticed that the attack of the insect-like extraordinary beasts had slowed. Their movements became sluggish, no longer tightly packed together.
The majority of the insect-like extraordinary beasts gradually dispersed, as if there was a retreat at the Seaside…
Only a few remained; they seemed trapped in place by something. From the forest’s soil, strands of white mycelium extended upwards, ensnaring the legs of those extraordinary beasts.
The mycelium wrapped around their legs and crept upward. The insect-like extraordinary beasts only struggled briefly before giving up entirely.
Under the invasion of the mycelium, their bodies cracked apart inch by inch, the once-solid, colorful outer shells breaking into fragments, while their distorted contents splattered onto the ground.
The mycelium controlled the fragments, blending them together, and in less than a minute, a humanoid model resembling a human emerged—a humanoid figure standing just a few meters away from the group.
