novelSiege
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Chapter 142: Siege
Giant spider world, the cave where Jian Hua and Li Fei had been.
As the temperature rose, the spiders perched nearby fled. The originally dark and damp cave became unbearably hot, and Old Cheng covered his chest, gasping while forcing a smile.
Ordinary people can't stand such a hot and humid place, not to mention he's too old.
Old Cheng heard bubbling from the pool in the middle of the cave.
Old Cheng, who had been to the mountains as a young man, looked carefully. His expression changed; this is a hot spring.
This hot spring is different from an onsen, the latter is for pleasure, while this hot spring can reach up to ninety degrees. No matter what fell in, it'll be boiled alive. As the steam filled the cave, how could it not be hot?
The violently moving hot spring represented the frequent movement from the Earth's crust so there might be an active volcano nearby.
In the case of an earthquake, the consequences could be disastrous.
Old Cheng used his cane to pull out the spider silk. The cobwebs were originally woven very thickly, but after being covered by the steam, its viscosity began to decline. The air was filled with a strange smell which is the paralytic toxin on the spider silk. Old Cheng felt dizzy when he walked for less than five meters, so he hurriedly retreated.
Old Cheng was distraught.
It wasn't long before he found the gap in the rock walls where he could escape. He tested the width. Being fat or thin is not the problem; it's just that he can't see the end. In case it's a dead end, he may get stuck halfway even when he wanted to go back.
Old Cheng sighed. He didn't expect that after seeing a lifetime of ups and downs, he's finally going to die in such a strange place.
"Nn?"
Footprints are next to the rock wall, and there are more than one.
At this time, Old Cheng didn't know that Jian Hua also joined the giant spider world one-way tour package. The news that Li Fei and Jian Hua disappeared half a month ago just came, and then Red Dragon Base ushered in an Australian A-class ability holder, Rem.
Red Dragon knew the existence of the giant spider world from Rem.
This is a place where life is extinct and where spiders have no natural predators. They're also getting bigger and bigger that they ended up eating almost all the creatures in this world. No matter where you go, there'd be spider silk......
With no food, the spiders killed and hunted each other.
Spider silk covered the vegetation, so the trees and grasslands are beginning to disappear.
Red Dragon researchers speculated Earth's own space might have been influenced by the book transmigrators, damaging the "shell" and making it very easy to penetrate, hence why the hole in the sky came early. At the same time, it provoked a "peng ci scam" from the giant spider world which is facing biological extinction and trying to get rid of all the "scourges".
Earth might not be the first place where a "spider" was thrown into and shouldn't be the last one. Just look at how long they've been connected, if they get stuck, Earth is in big trouble.
If it emptied all the spiders to their world, it'd be an extraordinary amount. Ordinary ability holders would find it difficult to deal with it.
Old Cheng attended the discussion meeting but didn't expect that when he turned around, he'd come and experience it himself.
——I hope that Major Zhang doesn't have an accident. Red Dragon Base can lose an Old Cheng, but if there's no Zhang YaoJin and with the wind ability holder called Rem still in the base, does the Red Dragon expects the corgi to hold down Rem, or let the outsider lead?
There are many high order ability holders in China. If this leaked out, where'd they go to find someone to lead?
Old Cheng sighed heavily. He carefully checked the footprints and found only traces.
With the blurred vision of an old person and with not much light in the cave, he only had the flashlight he carried with him, and his groping hands, which is really difficult.
Old Cheng got ready to straighten up. He stood up slowly to prevent himself from getting dizzy. As a result, the flashlight illuminated a bizarre swaying scene in front. Old Cheng grabbed the flashlight, but the light still undulated. He couldn't help but close his eyes——
"Ah!"
There was a short scream.
How is someone in the cave? Old Cheng looked up and was stunned. He blinked several times until he realized that the surroundings have changed.
There's no bubbling hot spring and no overhanging stalactites. Instead, there's an underground passage that's wide enough for several people. Ancient slabs formed an arched roof, like the remains of an ancient city thousands of years ago seen in documentaries.
Old Cheng's flashlight shone on a young girl with straight blonde hair.
She turned her head, stepped back, and had a gun in her hand. She watched Old Cheng with vigilant eyes.
She's not very old, has a good body shape, and very beautiful. After discovering that the "competitor" is an unarmed old man, the girl heaved a sigh of relief.
English came out of her mouth, but Old Cheng didn't understand anything.
The girl wrinkled her brows, then she spat out two words in Chinese in a strange accent, "Black Abyss?"
Old Cheng's expression slightly changed.
The girl leaned back against the cave walls, then turned and quickly ran.
There's a dark passage at the corner. The steps led to an unknown dark place, but Old Cheng didn't follow. He put out the flashlight and listened to the other side of the passage.
At least five high order ability holders are fighting nearby.
The stone walls creaked, the aftermath of energy surges all over the place. Old Cheng also heard the low growl from a herd of monsters. Even separated by so much distance, Old Cheng can tell which monsters these sounds belong to.
It sounds as if a nib rubbed against sandpaper, then like a heavy object being dragged on the ground, and also something scratching a thick plant......
"Cannibal Squid!"
Old Cheng's expression significantly changed. He'd taken a close up look of Abandoned World's top predators. Huai City ability holders even paid a considerable price just to kill a cannibal squid.
And now this sound is obviously more than two.
Luckily, the cannibal squid isn't heading in this direction.
"What's over there?" Old Cheng said to himself. He knew the habits of this monster very well. Once a cannibal squid found a more valuable prey, it'd immediately turn around and go after it. Even if there's food in front of it, it'll ignore it and wholeheartedly pursue the most "delicious" food, unwilling to let go.
Old Cheng himself is A-class, and that girl just now is probably also A-class, but the cannibal squid didn't come in this direction......
"Jian Hua?"
Disdaining A-class, the only one left is S-class.
Old Cheng hesitated for half a minute, but still hurried that way.
When turning a corner, Old Cheng heard a rapid breathing sound behind the rock wall. There were no movements like they're just squatting there, followed by the sound of a gun being loaded.
Old Cheng forced a smile, looks like it's pointed at him......
To avoid disturbing the ambusher, he moved on and just activated his ability.
There was a muffled sound behind the rock wall. The ambusher held his head in pain as he hit the ground, blood oozing out of his five sense organs. Infrasound waves are inaudible but highly lethal. Old Cheng usually won't dare use it, since this ability can easily cause accidental injury. It's also because when sound waves spread out, it will continue on until it naturally disappeared. There's minimal loss along the way so that all living things in this direction would be affected regardless of distance.
It sounds mighty, but in fact, it's nothing more than an "alerting the enemy" ability.
A lot of ability holders suddenly had symptoms of dizziness together. Higher order ability holders are better, but others directly vomited. Each and everyone shook and swayed, and stood unsteadily.
The monsters also became restless. The surrounding sharp-toothed beasts opened their mouths, bit the companion next to them and caused confusion.
"Black Abyss' 'Devil Sound'?"
"Someone saw the 'Great Bear', and now this...... lucky!"
These conversations took place in a hasty alliance between A-class ability holders.
The alliance is not big and even divided into several small groups. It's not that they're suspicious of each other, instead, the language barrier is impassable.
For example, a South American wood ability holder is with someone dressed up in African tribal clothes. Even if they don't understand each other's words and can't figure out that their own world has a big secret like being a book, they were surrounded by enemies on all sides. Not allying with anybody is tantamount to waiting for death, so they had to choose someone compatible with them.
Like their appearance and clothes, or if their power attributes match.
Small groups that can communicate in English is the largest, and their momentum is also strong. Some of them looked arrogantly at the people from the remote parts of the world, including the ordinary ability holders that are originally in this underground city.
Even people who don't know the "plot" are not too overpowering.
Seeing them, they're clear about the "enemy's" skills. With this huge advantage, they can up the others by a little.
The blonde girl that Old Cheng met before is also in this crowd. She looked distraught, and don't want to talk.
"Rosemary, I heard that you just met a yellow man and he looked very old?"
"I quickly ran away, so I did not see him clearly......" the girl whispered, "I'm afraid it's Red Scorpion."
Her face was full of grief. Two days ago, someone found a bloodstained white gold necklace on the surface wasteland. That's what Jennifer, Rosemary's sister, owned.
The sisters are the same A-class fire system ability holder with a five year age difference, but they resembled each other a lot.
The little sister Rosemary is a little bit shorter with her body not so sexy. When the two sisters stood together, you can easily distinguish them. If they're apart and seen from afar and just a headshot...... after being separated for some time, it's not clear if it was the big sister Jennifer that he saw first, or the little sister Rosemary.
Right now, if another three or four years passed, little Rosemary would be all grown up, and the difference between them became even smaller. A lot of readers of the original work were unclear and started a feud on who the beautiful blonde woman is, the big sister or the little sister.
The protagonist, Johnson Brown, saw a temptingly beautiful woman in her teens among the ruins. They met several times, but there's no deep contact. He treated her as the Goddess in his heart and regretted not conversing, but he confessed to an ordinary girl. In the end, his strength as an S-class was exposed, and his girlfriend and partner lost their lives. Johnson came to the US Ability Holders Bureau and met his first love again. Only this time, the distance between them no longer seems so far away.
After every mission and tactical training...... Johnson and the blonde girl met again and again. Their relationship improved from far to near. The protagonist stammered and practiced for a week, prepared to confess to Rosemary after the general assembly——like a bolt from the blue, he saw a pair with similar looks and with only subtle differences between the sisters.
Johnson can tell that he had always been with Rosemary ever since he arrived at the Abilities Bureau and the other side obviously has a good impression on him, but Johnson can't tell if Rosemary is the one he met when he was a teenager, or her big sister Jennifer.
Johnson can't ask, and the situation doesn't allow them to slowly fall in love. He had to hide it in his heart and slowly grapple with it.
Later, Jennifer was killed by Dr. Mad. Johnson's dilemma is gone and no longer has any meaning, so he was engaged to Rosemary before the final battle. In the end, the matter of who is his first love wasn't explained in the original work.
The two white gold necklaces that their parents made for them had different styles that followed its owner. The style was advertised by the book transmigrators and used as one of the ways to distinguish between the two sisters.
This pair of A-class fire system sisters are fond of each other and have a tacit understanding. Their joint strength is very powerful, and they're important members of the US Abilities Bureau.
Now that something may have happened to Jennifer, many people have sympathy on their faces, but glee in their hearts.
——everyone has the appearance of unity but divided at heart, the threat of two A-class that's unlikely to disagree is significant.
There aren't many people who can kill Jennifer to the point that no one else can find the body, only Red Scorpion. In just a few days, there are already two A-class ability holders who mysteriously disappeared.
"There are more and more people from Black Abyss. They now have two S-class and two A-class, we must get rid of at least one."
"Rosemary, did you see someone just now?"
"In the underground city's third-floor passage, the terrain over there is complicated."
"That's good, now let's arrange it, as long as——"
Sounds screeched to a halt. Everyone saw the huge tentacles that suddenly appeared at the end of the passage.
"Cannibal Squid?"
Such a narrow place like the underground city made the Cannibal Squid's huge body look very ferocious. The mollusks can twist itself into any gap, and when the dark red rough "meat" undulated closer, it's even more shocking than a horror movie. The upper and lower passages are simultaneously filled by the shaking tentacles, and a timid person would have fainted.
"Didn't you say that this side has no scary monsters?"
"Didn't the devouring mushrooms eat all of the monsters in the underground city?"
Rosemary curled her lips: even if it didn't, with so many high-order ability holders here, it's estimated that the Cannibal Squid from the mountains will also come over.
Thinking about it, she still has to follow everyone to find a way out.
"Don't panic, get away from the passages. It will surely go to the devourer!"
"Ah!"
An ability holder was shocked when he suddenly saw a Cannibal Squid appear in front of him.
"What is it, it's just the eyes...... not right, there's also Cannibal Squid's eyes over here!"
The "meat" that squeezed in "re-inflated" in the open space and huge cloudy eyes were revealed. Now there are eyes like this in different directions.
Cannibal Squid can squeeze and deform itself, but the parallel eyes can't be separated for long. Even if it's an oversized Cannibal Squid, why would it divide its head into two sides?
"There's more than one cannibal squid, we're surrounded!"
Footnotes:
*peng ci scam* – to scam sb by setting up an "accident" in which one appears to have sustained damage or injury caused by the scam victim, then demanding compensation. In other words, since Earth bumped into the giant spider world (the accident), spider world blamed Earth (scam victim) and so dumped its spiders to ours (the compensation).
| ← Ch. 141 | Ch. 143 → |