Chapter 71: Breaking the Cocoon
The moment clashed head-on with the monster, the five Sentinels had already completed their encirclement from multiple directions, their gun muzzles locked onto the creature.
But because and the monster were standing too close together, didn't open fire right away.
"ROAR—!"
The monster let out an inhuman roar. The black spikes on its arm suddenly proliferated and, like several jet-black blades, came slashing down at from all directions.
raised his left arm and precisely blocked the attack. At the same time, he clenched his right fist and drove it into the monster's chest.
The collision of fist against flesh produced a dull, heavy thud.
The monster's chest immediately caved into a large hollow. Yet this didn't hurt it much—in the blink of an eye, the wound on its chest was healing at a speed visible to the naked eye.
"Your regeneration is still this disgusting." couldn't help cursing. The vector nozzles on his back flashed blue as he once again launched a furious storm of attacks at it.
Just like the battle with last time, in pure strength the monster was a match for the " " armor, but in mobility it was far inferior to .
's figure darted and twisted through the cramped space, every change of direction carrying tremendous kinetic energy.
Fists, elbows, knees—every strike landed precisely on the monster's body, nearly beating it into a puddle of mud.
However, this monster's regeneration was still far too disgusting. In a short amount of time, alone couldn't finish it off.
But the thin mist around them had already begun to thicken, and visibility was plummeting.
That skin-crawling "rustle-rustle" sound also began to rise from all directions, drawing closer and closer to them.
It was as if some invisible monster was steadily closing in on the group, waiting only to show itself and swallow them all whole.
[ , find a way to create some distance. Fall back first!]
's voice reminded him right on time. At the same moment, spotted an opening and kicked the humanoid monster straight at the mine pit.
The monster's body instantly lost its balance and, like a kite with its string cut, flew toward the sky above the mine pit.
But just as it was about to plunge into the pit bottom, the flesh on its back ripped open, and two deformed, twisted wings composed of flesh and fascia burst out of its body!
The wings flapped wildly, actually managing to halt its fall in midair!
But wasn't about to give it a chance to hover. The five " " units, already locked on, trained the missile pods on their shoulders and the guns on their mechanical arms on the monster in midair at the same moment.
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat—!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM—!
A metal storm descended in an instant, engulfing the monster along with its freshly grown wings.
In that instant, the monster's flesh flew in all directions and its bone spikes snapped.
Even with its terrifying regeneration still at work, under fire of such density it inevitably plummeted into the depths of the mine pit.
But the crisis wasn't over yet.
" ! The perimeter! Something's coming!" a team member shouted in terror.
At the edge of the mining area, a huge horde of zombies had gathered at some point and was surging toward them—among them even a few mutants flapping their wings.
Everyone immediately raised their guns to defend themselves, firing as they fell back.
Fwoosh—BOOM!
Before they could get close, a portable surface-to-air missile fired by the team member beside precisely blasted a leading " " into a ball of fire in midair.
[The is about to emerge. Don't get bogged down in fighting—everyone, retreat immediately!] calmly issued the order to fall back.
After that, under the cover of three Sentinels, keeping their eyes away from the mine pit, the group sprinted desperately toward the entrance of the underground passage.
The zombies behind them were intercepted by the Sentinels' fire, but the rustling sound was already piercingly clear.
switched the two Sentinels left at the mine pit's edge to automatic mode, their delayed video feed still transmitting back.
At the same time, based on the patterns he'd summarized from past appearances, he began a countdown.
[3, 2, 1...]
The instant the countdown ended.
[Detonate.]
Beneath the surface, dozens of tons of industrial explosives were activated by electronic detonators at the same moment.
Detonation points A, B, and C went off almost simultaneously. The shock wave released by the emulsion explosives in the sealed blast holes lifted the entire rock layer at the bottom of the pit, hurling rock fragments, soil, and the remains of countless worm bodies dozens of meters into the air.
Then came the chain detonation of the twelve auxiliary detonation points, turning the entire mine pit into a churning sea of fire.
The terrifying shock wave spread rapidly outward, sweeping the nearby surface buildings, vehicles, and even those zombies that had just charged in into even hotter fireballs, reducing them all to powder.
The ground trembled. Even the group, who had already retreated into the underground passage, could clearly feel the violent shaking beneath their feet, and gravel rained down from the tunnel ceiling.
"Holy shit!" grabbed the passage wall, nearly losing his footing. "With a racket like that—should've done it, right?"
However—
[Attention, all personnel. Prepare to evacuate immediately!]
's voice suddenly rose, carrying a note of urgency.
[An unknown, enormous thermal void has appeared at the blast center. There are signs of life!]
[The plan is moving to Phase Two!]
The time-delayed footage transmitted by the Sentinels recorded everything that had just happened.
The humanoid monster had fallen to the bottom of the mine pit, its wounds not yet fully healed.
And around it, six pillars of worms had risen from the ground.
The tops of several of those pillars had split into several slender "branches," slowly extending toward the monster.
As if probing, as if "sniffing" at something.
The monster didn't dodge. Instead, from the surging flesh inside its body, it pulled out a silver disc with an inky black sphere embedded in it.
It raised the disc high, seemingly about to do something.
And the moment the first strand of worm-flow touched the black sphere, the blaze of the explosion swallowed everything.
But after that, in the Sentinels' monitoring scans, an anomalous low-temperature zone appeared at the blast center—and its volume was rapidly expanding.
At that moment, knew: something had gone wrong.
Meanwhile, and the others, who had long since set up their firing positions on a distant hillside, immediately issued the order to open fire upon receiving 's signal.
Fwoosh, fwoosh, fwoosh—
120 mm vehicle-mounted mortar-howitzers and 122 mm wheeled rocket launchers—dozens of shells streaked across the sky, trailing flames, raining down precisely onto the core of the blast zone.
This was the finishing-strike step in the original plan, meant to guarantee absolute certainty.
Now it served as a remedy for the unexpected.
In the mine pit, the aftermath of the explosion had yet to disperse. Countless burning worm carcasses fell like a shower of meteors, laying a thick layer of ash over the ground.
But at the center of that scorched earth, a giant black cocoon of flesh more than ten meters in diameter was slowly pulsing, emitting a dull "thump-thump" sound.
The shells landed, erupting in brilliant splashes of sparks on the black cocoon's surface.
Yet those shells, powerful enough to destroy tanks, could only leave scorched black marks on the cocoon's surface—they couldn't even stop its pulsing.
[No! Cease fire! Cease fire immediately!] 's voice rang out again, carrying unprecedented solemnity.
Watching the delayed footage from the Sentinels—the visibly weakened blast effects and the cocoon of flesh growing even faster as the shells landed—
At this moment, finally understood the true intention of that "ancient noble." It had never been trying to stop the explosion from the beginning.
If its goal were merely to protect the worm swarm, it should have fled the moment it was discovered, or drawn the horde in early to cause chaos, then detonated the explosives when the opportunity arose.
There was no need for it to force its way in head-on, and even less need to deliberately lure the worm swarm out ahead of time, putting both itself and the swarm in danger.
In fact, the true intent behind all its aberrant behavior was precisely to be blown up. It was trying to absorb the energy of the explosion to complete some dangerous incubation—or rather, metamorphosis!
Having figured this out, silently cursed in his core and hastily called off the attack.
Their firepower hadn't reached the threshold needed to break through its defense and deal true damage. Instead, it would only accelerate the enemy's further transformation.
The gunfire stopped abruptly.
Above the mine pit, smoke filled the air and rubble fell like rain.
When the last echo of the explosions faded, an unnatural silence enveloped the entire area.
As if sensing it could no longer trick more energy out of them, the great black cocoon's pulse began to slow, and its size stopped growing.
Crack—
After a crisp sound, a fissure appeared at the top of the black cocoon.
Immediately after, a pitch-black segmented limb, sharp as obsidian, thrust out violently from the crack!
The fissure rapidly widened, and an indescribably enormous humanoid monster broke out of the cocoon.
It stood a full six meters tall, its overall silhouette roughly humanoid, its entire body covered in a layer of glossy black carapace.
Its shoulders were over two meters wide. It had no neck—its head was set directly into its torso.
It had no facial features. In the center of its face was only a single vertical slit, through which a blazing orange-red glow shone, like a vertical pupil.
Six blade-like segmented limbs extended symmetrically from its back and flanks, the longest pair over three meters.
On its back grew a pair of huge, magnificent scaled wings like those of a moth.
Its wingspan exceeded ten meters, and the wing surfaces were densely covered in black scales. Every scale trembled slightly, producing a rustling friction sound.
The edges of the wings also radiated a dark orange heat-glow, like the dying embers of charcoal.
It stood atop the shattered remains of the black cocoon, slowly drawing its six segmented limbs in at its sides, as if surveying its surroundings.
A few seconds later, the wings on its back gave a violent beat!
BOOM—!
A ring of white vapor, visible to the naked eye, burst open behind it—and its figure vanished on the spot.
's last two Sentinels barely managed to transmit a single fragmented frame: several orange-red streaks of light, moving at the extreme limit of speed, flashing past.
Then the signal cut out.
A backup camera that had secretly connected in another corner of the mining area recorded its final trajectory in full.
The monster shot into the sky at supersonic speed. It didn't pursue and the others as they fled, nor did it linger over the mining area—it flew straight toward .
...
Five hours later, , conference room.
All the core members had gathered. The atmosphere was extremely heavy.
[The " " units patrolling over detected a fast-moving fog zone four hours ago.] 's voice was the first to break the silence.
[Through heat-source scanning, we've confirmed that what's inside is the target hatched at the mining area. Temporary code name: " ."]
"Moving that fast?" frowned.
"Where did it go?" asked in a low voice.
[ .]
"There again?" rubbed her brow. She had just come from the lab, still smelling of disinfectant.
"By the looks of it, that place is most likely one of the base camps of these ' ,'" said grimly. "We need to start planning an offensive against it."
"The problem is," scratched his head with a troubled expression, "their overall strength is still a black box to us. And now with this monster on top of that, even if we do attack, it definitely won't be easy!"
"Sorry. That was a misjudgment on my part," said in a low voice. "I knew it might have a connection with the worm swarm, and I still knocked it into the mine pit."
"Come on, Old Mo," waved his hand at once. "Who could've guessed that thing could eat explosions? That's beyond anyone's comprehension. If I'd been up there, I'd have kicked it over there too."
"That's right. The situation was urgent after all. With that kind of information gap, any decision carries risk—no need to dwell on it," chimed in. "The key now is: how do we deal with this kind of monster?"
The conference room fell silent again.
Huge in size, capable of supersonic flight, and wielding high-damage ranged attacks—this thing's threat level was far above the " ."
"Actually, I don't think it's necessarily that invincible." suddenly knocked on the table.
Everyone's eyes turned to him in unison.
"Think about it. If it really were impervious to blades and bullets and could eat explosions, then why did it run?"
"When it first came out, we weren't that far away from it. With its speed, stopping us would've been a piece of cake, wouldn't it?" stroked his chin as he analyzed.
"Don't forget, those undying old bastards have got brains."
"They already know we exist. If that monster were really that invincible, wouldn't it just come straight over and carve us up? Unless..."
"Unless—after breaking out of the cocoon, it no longer has the ability to ignore damage." picked up the thread.
[That makes sense.] affirmed 's speculation.
[According to the final data the Sentinels transmitted, the thermal absorption efficiency during the cocoon stage was extremely high. But after breaking out, the adult form's energy fluctuations are actually stable at a relatively low level, and its structure also seems very different.]
[It can be inferred that the cocoon-stage energy absorption was most likely a one-time hatching mechanism, not a permanent ability.]
slapped the table. "Exactly."
"But that light blade of its—" swallowed hard.
"That one really is strong," nodded, speaking thoughtfully. "But it ran after two shots, which means there should be other limitations. In any case, it's probably not unsolvable."
"After this, our will draft a battle plan targeting , and work to find a way to destroy the enemy in the field and retake the initiative."
[Mm. Then that part will be your responsibility.] continued.
[Also, the cocoon-wall fragments collected by the Sentinels and samples of worms that have lost their vital signs have been brought back to the base. They're currently in the "volunteer" contact-testing stage.]
[Once we confirm they're not infectious, , this batch of samples goes to you.]
"Understood." nodded, her eyes unable to hide their excitement and anticipation. "Then I'll head back first and do some prep work."
With that, she got up and left. The moment she was out the conference room door, her mature, composed stride quickened severalfold, and she nearly jogged toward the elevator.
She'd been craving these worm samples for a long time.
Watching her receding figure disappear, everyone exchanged smiles, and the tension in the room eased considerably.
continued.
[I've already deployed three additional drone formations, conducting rotating 24-hour surveillance around .]
[If there's any abnormal movement, I'll notify everyone at the first opportunity.]
Hearing this, everyone felt a little more at ease.
"What about the mining area?" asked with some anticipation. "That place..."
[The zombies from 's urban area have started aimlessly wandering into the mining area. Preliminary assessment suggests the worm swarm is no longer blocking it.]
gave an encouraging piece of news, and everyone's eyes lit up at once.
Yes—due to the information gap, they had miscalculated by a move and blasted a big problem for themselves.
But were they the only ones with an information gap?
They still didn't realize what moving the worm swarm out of the mining area truly meant.
's awareness settled on the that had gone so long without updating—[ IV: Industrial Raw Materials.]
[Mission Description: The assembly line has taken its initial shape, yet the roar of the machines needs raw materials to feed it. The is required to establish at least one stable mineral collection line and bring the primary industrial manufacturing center to full-capacity operation.]
[Mission Rewards: 50,000 , unlock Ă— 1, Blueprint Ă— 1.]
The accursed bottleneck was finally about to end.