Superhunt

Chapter 12: Why is the soil deep red?

"Coordinates sent, captain. Target's heading toward the tower," Robert reported tersely, eyes fixed on the drone footage.

"Received," Martin said.

Heavy breathing could be heard over the team communication channel as the members ran, but Jonathan was oblivious to it. Moss had filtered out the noise to prevent the external environment from affecting his aim.

There were ten bullets in the K80's magazine, and Jonathan had brought two spare magazines, which should be more than enough. If his teammates were successful in their capture, he wouldn't have a chance to fire a shot.

Jonathan kept his composure, tracking Sean's running figure through the scope.

Sean was running wildly, without a target, without a direction. As he ran, he tripped and fell on the muddy and slippery ground of the slum. He scrambled to his feet, took a panicked look behind him, and, ignoring his bleeding knee and the bread that had fallen from his mouth, continued to run.

"He's running fast, and thankfully in the direction of the signal tower." On Robert's monitor, the distance between the green dots representing their teammates and the red dot representing their target was closing rapidly. Martin and the others were about to catch up with Sean.

"Wait," Jonathan, who had been silent, aiming his weapon, suddenly spoke up. "Didn't they say Sean has no experience in evasion? How did he detect the captain from such a distance and escape?"

Robert was taken aback. "Could it be his extraordinary ability..."

"No, didn't you notice? While Sean was running, he kept looking back, not towards the southwest where the captain was, but behind him." Jonathan moved his sight away from Sean and started searching for any suspicious objects behind him. "He ran not because he knew the captain was nearby—he's not that sensitive... something else is chasing him, something that scares him, that's why he ran."

"Your reasoning seems plausible," Robert muttered.

Jonathan's analysis indeed made sense. Hesitating for a second, Robert separated one drone from the tracking swarm to scan the area behind Sean.

Environmental images, 3D imaging of buildings, the topography of a small area, and the sewage system were all scanned. Living objects had nowhere to hide under the scanning beam of the drone.

There was nothing unusual, nothing was chasing Sean.

"You're overthinking, Jonathan," Robert said lightly.

Jonathan's lips tightened, and a clear premonition arose in his mind. His temples throbbed, his intuition warning him—things were not so simple.

One of Jonathan's inherent talents was "danger evasion." He could acutely sense danger and avoid it. Unbeknownst to him, this talent had been triggered.

Danger nearby, not from Sean...

"Unidentified object detected moving at 59 meters per second in the sewer! Unidentified object detected moving at 59 meters per second in the sewer!" Moss issued a warning, "Scanning... Scan complete! The unidentified object is a parasitic hydra! Level three alert! Repeat, level three alert!"

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Moss's voice was relayed at double speed, quickly and clearly into the ears of all team members.

"What the—how did a parasitic hydra get from the coast to the city?" Robert, who had always looked relaxed, let out a clear expletive. His face looked grim as he manipulated the data panel, directing the drone to fly along the sewer line to confirm the position of the parasitic hydra. "The captain and the others are in danger, we didn't bring weapons and equipment to deal with Xenobiotics creatures!"

Xenobiotics creatures? Parasitic hydras? What the hell was that?

Jonathan's heart rose to his throat. He moved his scope, scanning around the sewer covers on the street.

"It's tailing Sean through the sewers!" Robert exclaimed.

Jonathan took a brief glance at the data panel in his hand. The small red dot representing Sean was desperately moving forward, while the Xenobiotics creature known as the parasitic hydra was marked as a yellow dot, hanging closely behind Sean.

He didn't understand what a parasitic hydra was, but he knew the situation was critical. The parasitic hydra was in the sewer, and its mere presence was enough to make Robert tense, which indicated that this creature was extremely dangerous.

"Moss! Send a drone here with equipment and call for backup," Robert said urgently. "Captain, retreat! Your bulletproof combat suits can't withstand the hydra's attack, and the weapons you carry can hardly inflict substantial damage on it!"

"No, this is a residential area, it will kill civilians," Martin said. "Luke, you go drive the police car. There's a flamethrower on it. Use that to deal with it. Simon and I will continue the pursuit."

"Understood, captain."

Jonathan calmly wiped the raindrops off his scope and re-entered his aiming stance.

He was high on the signal tower, the parasitic hydra was hundreds of meters away from him in the sewer. Unlike Sean and Martin, he was safe.

Jonathan no longer tried to find the parasitic hydra among the sewer covers, instead, he focused on Sean.

Sean was a panicked rat, a live bait.

The bait had been cast, but what kind of monster could it lure?

Jonathan's palms were sweaty, but he remained fully focused. He even forgot to blink as raindrops blew into his eyes.

Rounding a bend, the exhausted Sean slipped. At the same time, a large bump suddenly rose under the cement ground where he was, then shattered.

A terrifying monster burst from the ground!

Jonathan's eyes widened, too shocked to speak.

It was a creature flailing translucent tentacles, with a deformed human body. This body was not its own, it was parasitic. The translucent tentacles were protruding from the human body's back, mouth, nose, eyes, ears, and other parts, frantically writhing in the air.

Sean let out a pig-like scream, "Help! Don't eat me! I just stole some bread!"

He was entangled by the translucent tentacles, wrapped around his neck, turning his face purple.

Martin and Simon fired without hesitation as they caught up, the monster's translucent tentacles were hit and then severed, the severed tentacles still twitching on the ground.

Jonathan came back to his senses from the shock. He aimed at the human body occupied by the parasitic hydra and pulled the trigger.

"Bang!"

The bullet spun out but went wide, hitting the concrete ground beneath the hydra's feet, creating a pit in the concrete.

The K80 was the currently best-performing long-range sniper rifle, capable of penetrating solid concrete walls.

"Damn it," Jonathan cursed.

"You forgot to account for the effect of wind," Moss said. "Light rain currently, wind force 21, slightly diminished. Target distance 7223 meters."

Robert opened his mouth to say, "Jonathan, you..."

"Shut up, don't distract me," Jonathan said irritably.

Robert immediately shut up.

Jonathan exhaled slowly, wiped his scope, and tried again.

A tongue of fire spat out of the K80's barrel, a bullet speared through the rain.

With a squelching sound, the bullet hit! The rotating bullet hit the parasitic hydra's chest. Its body was instantly pierced by the bullet, exploding a bowl-sized hole. There was no blood in the hole, just dry, scattered flesh.

Before Jonathan could even savor the joy of hitting his target, he repeatedly pulled the trigger. One after another, bullets left the gun barrel, hitting the parasitic hydra's head, abdomen, shoulders, waist, and leg bones! Its parasitic body looked like a broken puppet, barely humanoid.

Only after emptying the magazine did he stop, immediately reloading to standby for more.

Without the support of the human body, the parasitic hydra suddenly fell to the ground, releasing Sean. Gasping raggedly, nearly suffocating to death, he crawled away with hands and feet on pure survival instinct, extremely embarrassed.

The parasitic hydra didn't want to let go of its prey. It reached for Sean but grabbed at nothing. Sean disappeared in place, and flashed under a street lamp three meters away, avoiding the attack.

Staggering, he stood up and cursed, "Damn it! This time the superpower worked successfully, thank god it didn't fail."

Jonathan started the next round of shooting, breaking several of the creature's thick tentacles. The parasitic hydra, unable to pursue Sean, attached its tentacles to the ground, using its strength to move back and forth, dodging Jonathan's bullets.

Martin and Simon were also shooting from a few dozen meters away. The two had a tacit understanding when one ran out of bullets, the other immediately took over, giving the other time to replace the magazine.

Before the bullets were completely depleted, Luke timely drove the police car flying in.

The police car lowered its altitude, and a black flamethrower extended from one side, spewing out hot flames. The fire scorched the parasitic hydra crawling on the ground, visibly shriveling its tentacles, no longer vigorous.

"It's afraid of fire..." Jonathan muttered under his breath, a tension in his heart released.

Before Jonathan could completely relax, the parasitic hydra suddenly began to struggle violently. Its flailing tentacles whipped the air, actually making the sound of a whip cracking.

It stretched its tentacles to their limit, entangling the flame-throwing police car in the sky, and with a mighty pull, it skewed the police car while jamming the flamethrower with its own tentacle!

With a loud bang, the fuel tank connected to the flamethrower exploded, and the police car, billowing with smoke, fell from the sky.

The parasitic hydra severed its own tentacle, abandoned the broken human husk, and scurried toward Sean who had just run ten meters away like a mad.

A terrifying scene unfolded. Its soft translucent body wrapped around Sean, and the tentacles forcefully poured into his mouth.

Sean was terrified, his mouth opened wide, unable to resist the parasitic hydra. His eyes rolled back, his neck swelled, his chest and abdomen unnaturally bulging, and his body slowly deformed.

Martin raised his gun and aimed at Sean, but his shot was empty. He had no bullets left! Simon shook his head at Martin with a grim face. He was out of bullets too.

"The parasitic hydra is in a vulnerable state and cannot be allowed to complete the host transition," Robert spoke rapidly, "Jonathan, kill Sean! Quick! The parasitic hydra can't inhabit a corpse!"

In just a few seconds, Sean's body was unrecognizable, the parasitic hydra squeezing itself into his body.

Jonathan pursed his lips, looked through his scope, and aimed at Sean.

"Bang--"

This gunshot sounded more distant to him than the previous ones.

The bullet spun and pierced through the man's head. The body fell heavily to the ground, blood splattering out, staining large patches of ground.

"You've killed Walker Sean."

"You've deprived Walker Sean of his super abilities."

"You've obtained the super ability Shadow Travel·E grade."

"Shadow Travel·E grade allows you to use shadows for short-range spatial travel."

At this moment, there was nothing in Jonathan's eyes, and it seemed as if the sound of gunfire was still echoing in his ears, and his trigger-pulling hand was twitching slightly.

He suddenly understood why this game was called "Red Soil."

—Why is the soil deep red?

—It's dyed red by blood.

The world finally revealed its brutal and cruel side to Jonathan thoroughly.