Plague Doctor

Chapter 448: Unearthing

On the monitor at the command central, it gave a bird’s eye view of the desert wasteland. The earth shook and the Ancient Seal Net tore with sparks. The signal was disrupted as the image turned blurry and the audio turned staticky. The buzzing of the drones became more piercing. Mysterium had warned them of possible counter from the ritualistic power. Even though Elder Tong and Yao Sinian wanted to do something, they could only wait and watch for now. Every unit was in a ready position. The fighter jets, missiles were ready.

“The ritualistic energy is counteracting, suppress it!” The Mysterium drones said through loudspeaker. The voice was heard by all the 7 agents from the One. They were seen on the 7 different screens to press their hands on the cleansing stones. Their faces burned red and veins popped on their arms. The shiny Ancient Seal Net was exhausting their mental power. Everyone could see that these 7 agents threw everything they had behind this. The 7 agents from Icebreaker at Mysterium World were doing the same.

However, this ritualistic energy was extremely powerful. It won’t be easy to suppress this rebound of force.

‘Please hold on...’ Wang Ruoxiang prayed. She hoped that she could do something but she was not Gu Jun. Her contribution was mostly at the surgical rooms and not the front line. However, at the moment, her eyes widened as she captured something on screen, “What, what is that...”

Wang Ruoxiang hoped that she was only hallucinating. However everyone else soon saw it as well. The surface of the wasteland groaned to life as it morphed into a whirlpool. Soil sunk and shifted as something tried to break through the ground.

Bang! Those who were tuned to the live footage had their eardrums injured. The analytics of the recorded audio were off the charts. The frequency and decibel were extremely high. A strange howl was emitting from the centre of the earth whirlpool. It sounded like the amplified shrill of a mandrill or the summon of a demon who lived underground. The echo caused one of the agents who wore the earpiece to convulse and collapse to the side with blood rushing to their faces. Seeing this, the medical team immediately moved into action. They suffered from cardiac arrest. The reason was unknown but it probably had to do with that echo. The other agents who heard the shriek suffered different degrees of discomfort. There were reports of nausea, dizziness and cold sweat...

Thankfully, Elder Tong and Yao Sinian were not wearing any headsets or they’d be the one needing emergency rescue. The command central was in such bad shape even though the echo travelled to them through the transmission of waves, in that case, how bad would the situation be at the frontline?

After the shriek, the command central’s visual connection to the frontline disconnected. It was unclear whether it was a signal problem or a machine problem. But it was clear that some abnormal creatures had crawled out from the ground. This was not the subterrain giant worm or Conqueror Worm which they had faced before. It was a different existence, something that could emit a howling shriek.

“Abnormal creature discovered!” “Open fire!” The gunshots came from all sides. The shriek caused some damage to the frontline agents too but these Special Mobile Forces were stronger both physically and mentally so they were still standing. “...The enemies are moving too fast for us to hit them!”

“They seem to know how to read our bullet trajectory...”

“The enemies have the power of flight!”

“The enemies can go invisible! I repeat, the enemies can go invisible!”

The visual connection was down but the audio connection was not. Live battle report and fighting sound came from the speakers, it cast a pall over the command central. Elder Tong slammed against the monitor. This damn signal, why it still won’t reconnect?!

The command central had a picture from the frontline agents’ frantic descriptions. There were 3 abnormal creatures that surfaced, they were of the same species. They were large and eerie. Each one was as tall as a two-story building. They looked like hydroid but they were made from twisted polyps. They had elongated bodies and a giant opening was placed at the bottom of their body. Their bodies were covered in flailing tentacles. Since the agents did not spot any wings, they thought these were a mutation of the subterrain giant worms initially. But when the giant creatures floated into the air with their wingless bodies, this observation was quickly vetoed. They soared into the sky without any problem and the ghastly tentacles fluttered along the wind.

“There are no exposed organs on the surface!” Lou Xiaoning said nervously, “There are no eyes, or mouth...” There were no eyes or anything similar. These supposedly blind creatures had startling senses. Just like how a fly could sense the movement in the air, they easily evaded the flying bullets before they could hit their target. None of the bullets hit. Guns, humanity’s deadliest weapon posed no threat at all to them. But to their agents’ deepest consternation, the 3 creatures managed to disappear into the air before they materialized somewhere else. This happened a few times before the agents knew what was happening. Every time before the creatures were about to disappear, a temporary glow covered their body and turned them translucent. However, this process happened so fast that human eyes could not capture what was inside the creature’s body. This was not an isolated event, it was a controllable power. Perhaps it was an effect of the ritual or these creatures knew how to go invisible innately.

“These are the things I saw at the end of the illusion when I interacted with the Siyu’s poster...” Deng Ximei gave another report. “Flying polypus hydroid...”

Flying polypus hydroid? Well, that was quite a literal description. But what was the relationship between these Flying polypus hydroid, Flying Locust and Locust Sickness? The mechanism they used to turn transparent was similar to the invisibility mechanism employed by the Flying Locusts before they self-destructed. Were these the ‘Gods’ worshipped by the Flying Locust?

“We have no information, this is also our first encounter!” Mysterium’s drones said.

“We’ll call them Flying polypus hydroid for now.” Elder Tong answered urgently, “Where are they now? Can you still see them? Can you lock onto them with missiles?!”

At the same time, another shriek came from the frontline. Lou Xiaoning cursed heatedly, “Fuck, more bugs are coming out from the ground. There are so many of them...”