The group all looked up, only to see a massive black shadow hanging upside down right above the hollow area—it seemed to float in mid-air at first glance, but only when the Hunters moved their flashlight beams to the edges of the giant could they see the densely packed fungal threads.
One end of these fungal threads connected to the giant, while the other was attached to the rock wall.
"Is this...is this the true form of the uncanny creature?" a Hunter whispered, afraid to disturb the giant overhead. He glanced at the gun in his hand, hesitating whether to fire at the creature above.
The shape of the giant resembled a coiled python, with a body diameter of at least twenty to thirty meters, but its length was hard to gauge—yet the portion currently visible in the Hunters’ view was at least over three hundred meters long.
With a monster of such size, even if the Hunters’ ammunition could penetrate its surface defenses, the damage from bullets might feel like mere scratching... perhaps not even scratching.
Unless they could find the creature’s vulnerable spot, directly stuff a bomb they carried into it, and detonate it... but the question is—where is the weak point?
When accepting this mission, almost every Hunter in the assault team had a sense of luck, but upon seeing the true form of the creature with their own eyes, any sense of luck was immediately erased.
Now, apart from tension, regret was all that remained in their hearts.
Everyone thought they could be a lucky bystander, everyone believed others in the team had means to deal with the uncanny creature... but reality slapped everyone mercilessly.
"Should we...should we retreat?" a Hunter murmured.
"Retreat where? The passage has already collapsed, above the hollow are countless Fungus Puppets..." another Hunter, barely maintaining composure, said coldly, "When we accepted this mission, weren’t we already informed that if we couldn’t deal with the creature’s true form, the survival rate is basically zero."
"Then...what should we do now?" the Hunter said in a somewhat broken tone.
"Don’t rush." Cheng Ming suddenly intervened, "What we’re seeing now is just a discarded shell, the real form of the uncanny creature is not this gigantic thing."
"What?" The other Hunters exclaimed in shock, though none of them, including those listening in the communications channel like Chen Jing, noticed that Cheng Ming’s tone had changed dramatically.
However, that said, these people were not familiar with Cheng Ming, who left only the impression of being reticent.
Only Sun Hang, who was constantly monitoring all communication channels, found it somewhat strange.
Sun Hang felt this way of speaking was familiar, yet he couldn’t recall who liked to speak like this.
"This is not the creature’s true form? Then what about the intense memetic reaction detected by the instruments?" a Hunter questioned.
"Just residual memetic fragments in the shell, because the original size of the creature is too large, even the memetic fragments take a long time to completely dissipate. After ten days or half a month, when you measure with the instrument again, you’ll find the memetic reaction is far less intense than now."
"Mr. Cheng, I’m curious, how do you know these facts?" Chen Jing also asked in the communications channel, "Dubhe Tower doesn’t provide much information about this creature, yet you seem familiar with it."
"Past experiences combined with some simple analysis." Cheng Ming seemed unwilling to dwell on the topic.
"But this creature is classified as a fungal creature, while pupation and shell shedding generally occur in animals with insect characteristics, right? According to Dubhe Tower’s provided information, the fungus previously parasitizing this insect-shaped creature has already burst out, the insect-shaped creature is completely dead now..." Bai Lingqiu said.
"If Miss Bai and others are alive and still question my viewpoint, please recall the first sentence your teacher said in your first class on the uncanny creature education." Cheng Ming raised his flashlight, shining at a certain part of the creature’s body.
At that position, there was a very "fresh" crack, with turbid mucus-like substance hanging down around the crack.
"For now, there are two pieces of good news." Cheng Ming said.
"What are they?" Chen Jing immediately inquired.
"Firstly, judging by the size of the crack, the thing that came out of this big guy is about the size of a human, not another gigantic creature."
Cheng Ming paused for half a second, then continued, "Secondly, it has just completed its shell shedding and should be in a weakened state, which is why it chose to hide... otherwise, with a group of ignorant Hunters invading its lair, if it had the capability to deal with us, it would have jumped out and crushed us by now."
"Seems...it’s really like that!" The Hunters exchanged looks, and a glimmer of hope ignited in their previously dull eyes.
"What we need to do now is find this hidden uncanny creature." Cheng Ming said solemnly, "Once it gets past the weakened state, it will likely be stronger than before... otherwise, it wouldn’t abandon this shell to opt for another more fragile form."
Hearing Cheng Ming, the other Hunters grew tense again.
An invisible hourglass seemed suspended over their heads. They could hear sand slipping down from inside, but couldn’t see how much sand remained in the upper part... and when it all runs out, it means...
Cheng Ming shook his head vigorously. Two seconds ago, the mysterious girl returned control of his body, leaving him a parting remark: "Use your intuition to find it, that guy is hiding in some corner."
When the mysterious girl controlled Cheng Ming’s body to say those words, Cheng Ming’s consciousness was fully alert, although he didn’t know how she achieved this, from his perspective, her analysis was highly credible—if such words came from his own mouth, he wouldn’t believe it, but if the mysterious girl spoke through him, it was entirely different.
Her origin was very mysterious, her abilities extremely... Cheng Ming even felt, the mysterious girl could even kill the haunted house