After tending to the injured, Cheng Ming led the remaining Hunters towards the location of the creature’s main body, which was precisely where the memetic reaction was strongest at the bottom of the pit.
From the twenty-eight Hunters forming the assault team, only six—including Cheng Ming—still had combat capability. Six people aiming to take down a creature of this level seemed like an absolute pipe dream.
"Maintain communication and keep advancing," Chen Jing instructed through the communication channel.
Cheng Ming glanced back at a Hunter over two meters tall following him. This Hunter wasn’t a temp or freelancer but belonged to the Batu Family, one of the three major families, as a "private Hunter."
The Batu Family was once a nomadic tribe on the Ulaan Grasslands. Due to various reasons, they migrated to Dragon City, settled there, and gradually became one of the three major powers in Dragon City.
Unlike the "purebred" Dragon City native powers like the Chen and Bai Families, the Batu Family also holds considerable influence in the Ulaan Grasslands—after rising in Dragon City, they sent a branch back to the Ulaan Grasslands to establish a subsidiary, leveraging Dragon City’s resources to nurture their original homeland.
The primary mission of the Ulaan Grasslands branch is utilizing their influence on the grasslands to continuously provide fresh blood to the main family in Dragon City.
These loyal and hardy Tartar men, purely in terms of combat strength, are on par with those retired veterans the Chen and Bai Families have spent heavily to hire.
This Hunter’s name is Batu Han—he didn’t originally carry this name, but all Tartar men sent to Dragon City are given the Batu surname, which for them symbolizes an honor.
The only surviving signal amplifier was strapped to Batu Han’s back, and he was also the only person in the team who could carry such heavy equipment without relying on an exoskeleton, without significantly affecting his mobility.
Moreover, two small Gatling Vulcan Cannons were fixed on the outer side of his arm armor, and the long ammo chains draped over his shoulders connected to the two ammo boxes on his belt.
It’s no exaggeration to say Batu Han’s firepower alone surpassed the combined firepower of the other five.
The six Hunters had proceeded around a hundred meters in the open pit bottom when a Hunter wrapped in a gray cloak, who always walked with a hunched posture, suddenly raised his right fist, signaling "stop advancing."
"Shhh." This Hunter gestured for silence, then directly lay down and pressed his ear to the ground.
A few seconds later, he quietly crawled back up and inputted a string of information into the combat terminal.
"Ahead, roughly a hundred and fifty meters, a living creature, quantity one, weighing at least three hundred kilograms, slowly approaching here."
Everyone exchanged glances, and Cheng Ming instinctively looked at the screen connected to the memetic detector, but the data displayed was a confusing mess.
This close to the creature’s main body, the memetic detector was easily disturbed by its direct interference, causing an overlook of those independent entities close to the main body.
"Everyone, remain on alert! Keep advancing!" Chen Jing said in the communication channel.
Unlike Cheng Ming, who didn’t much favor issuing commands, Chen Jing was the actual commander of this assault team.
After giving the order, Chen Jing glanced with the corner of his eye at Bai Lingqiu sitting beside him, seemingly puzzled why she chose Cheng Ming, who appeared "ordinary," as deputy leader.
Honestly, Chen Jing preferred if Cheng Ming could fully take over his command duties—remote command involved many issues, the most lethal being signal delay and interference.
Accidents caused by delay and interference were common in hunting missions; some creatures could even alter what both sides saw and heard, using this capability to lure front-line combatants into pre-arranged traps.
The six Hunters proceeded another sixty meters in silence, and the "living creature" previously detected by the cloaked Hunter finally appeared in their sight.
It was a monster formed from countless Fungus Puppet limbs stitched together—the torso component prominently being the previous Hunter who first asked to turn off the thrusters.
Some limbs appeared crudely inserted into his body, some grew from beneath his skin, and others fused with his original limbs, forming vine-like flesh.
His body’s surface was filled with festering wounds, covered in a spider web-like fungus membrane, countless tiny granulations writhing underneath, resembling insect larvae about to hatch...
This Hunter’s eyes were cloudy, his mouth slightly ajar, with bloody drool dripping from the corners, his throat emitting a bizarre sound of "hooo ho ho ho."
Apart from the ghastly throat sounds, his heartbeat was distinctively audible—even from tens of meters away, Cheng Ming and his team could hear its powerful pulsations.
"How did that guy become like this?" a Hunter said, his voice trembling.
"Clearly, he’s been parasitized," another Hunter replied, checking if his own protective suit was damaged, "If you don’t want to end up like him, you’d better put on your respirator mask."
"Oh crap, I thought there were no spores below, so I tossed my protective gear right after landing. What should I do?!" the terrified Hunter exclaimed.
"Then stay as far as possible," the Hunter finished examining his suit, picking up his gun and glancing at Cheng Ming, "Captain, that monster should have spotted us. Requesting permission to open fire."
Cheng Ming nodded: "Open fire."
The Hunters began shooting in unison, with Batu Han’s twin Gatling Vulcans drowning out the sound of the others’ firearms, brass shells amassing at his feet, the perforated monster slowly collapsing.
"Fortunately, bullets can kill this creature," seeing this, Chen Jing in the command center breathed a sigh of relief.
But this time, neither the pit’s Hunters nor the command center personnel erupted in cheers.
Everyone knew mere bullets couldn’t eradicate Fungus Puppets. Shortly thereafter, these shattered limbs would clump together again, forming even more sanity-draining monsters.
"Use time wisely, bypass the monster," Cheng Ming instructed, "Its speed is slow; if we keep advancing, it won’t catch up."
The other Hunters remained silent, tightly following Cheng Ming from behind.
Fearful of spore dispersal from the monster, they took a wide detour, eventually circling behind the creature.
At this position, they were very close to the creature’s primary body.
"Strange... where’s the main body?" a Hunter puzzledly checked his terminal, "With such a massive object, it shouldn’t hide at this distance... Why is there nothing around?"
"Look up," Cheng Ming whispered, "it’s... above us..."