After the officer led the second and third squad on the road for 20 minutes, he finally stopped at one spot.
“Report, according to the footprints, Porcupine has gone missing here!”
Another scout who was in charge of exploring the road crouched and looked at the footprints on the ground, and then looked forward. However, the place that the row of footprints finally led to was a huge deep pit in front…
This deep pit was about two or three hundred meters in diameter and it had an area of seven or eight football fields. It was like a geological collapse arising from a hollowness in the ground, so the surface eventually caved in. The previous scout’s footprints disappeared at the edge of the pit.
Seeing this scene, the officer immediately stretched out his fist and made a gesture to stop and be on alert. The other members a dozen meters away immediately stopped and formed a defensive gun formation in a circle.
At this, the officer ordered the scout to join him in slowly approaching the edge of the pit ahead.
The two did not move quickly but inching forward with their guns. Before they even approached, the officer suddenly had an idea. He took out a palm-sized drone and then brought out a remote control the thickness of a finger to maneuver the drone. Immediately, the drone flew toward the deep pit with a low rustle.
At once, on the night vision goggles worn by everyone, a screen popped up, and the drone’s footage began to play.
As the drone slowly got closer, everyone gradually saw the side of the pit, but they noticed that on the opposite edge of the pit a few hundred meters away, there seemed to be squirming bright red things.
Some of those squirming things resembled pythons and some resembled the tentacles of some kind of creature.
“What the h*ll…”
The officer treaded even more lightly. He raised his gun to his eye level at the same time. While warily approaching the edge of the pit, he stared at the drone on the split-screen. However, before the drone had completely flown over the pit, suddenly, a blood-red thing struck out from the pit. Before the drone could evade it, it was brought down with a “whoosh”!
At the same time, a huge red tentacle suddenly sprang out from the edge of the pit and it struck in the direction of the two men like lightning!
“Fire!”
The officer roared and pulled the trigger again and again, but the electromagnetic rifle in his hand did not produce the loud familiar bangs. Instead, it was a series of low buzzing noises and when the sound passed by their ears, the big tentacle rushing toward them had exploded in response, and a row of holes, each the size of a human head, was punched into the tentacle!
“Splatter splatter…”
Suddenly, the bright red flesh exploded as if it could not do anything else. The tentacle could not withstand the force and finally burst open right in the middle abruptly!
Blood splashed on the officer and the other scout!
Fortunately, the two wore tight protective clothing, so they were not injured.
“Snap!”
The tentacle slowly retracted and at the same time, the other half of the tentacle fell at the feet of the two of them like rotten flesh.
Even so, before the two of them could heave a sigh of relief, a few more tentacles whipped out from the edge of the pit, and the officer’s heart tightened. His hand instinctively pulled the trigger of the electromagnetic rifle, forming a storm of bullets in front of the two!
“Buzz buzz buzz buzz buzz…”
Three tentacles exploded in thin air but the remaining two still broke through the bullet-proof barrier. One of them wrapped around the scout and with a flick, the scout was thrown into the pit before he could utter a cry!
The remaining one was wrapped around the officer’s body, but it happened to be blocking the muzzle of the electromagnetic rifle. In the next second, before the tentacle could exert its strength, it was snapped and blown off!
The officer had a near brush with death and was instantly drenched in a cold sweat from the fright. He retreated quickly without thinking further, and at this time, the group behind him finally came to the officer and shredded the remaining tentacles one by one!
“Huff, huff, huff…”
There was a tremble in the officer’s eyes. He led the crowd to retreat a hundred meters before stopping. The tentacles that stretched out from the deep pit also had a limited sensing range. After detecting that their targets had disappeared, they drew back calmly.
“Captain, are you okay?”
At this time, someone looked at the officer who was still shell-shocked but then found that the sleeve of the officer’s protective suit was torn off by the tentacle just now. Not only was it torn, but even part of the skin and flesh of the arm under the protective suit had been torn off, exposing a bloody wound below.
“It’s okay, it’s just a superficial injury…”
The officer waved his hand and allowed the part-time medical soldier to take out a bottle of wound adhesive and sprayed it on his wound. Soon, the wound was covered by a layer of glue and the bleeding stopped at the same time.
The officer only felt that the burning pain suddenly eased a lot and was replaced by a cool sensation.
This wound adhesive was from the biological department of Blacklight Biotechnology. It contained disinfectant. Not only could it clean and disinfect the wound, but it also formed a nano-layer of protective film, which was breathable, able to stop bleeding, and aid healing. It was just that the price was too outrageous.
Only wealthy foundations in the world could afford it.
“What kind of monster is in that deep pit…”
A soldier next to him could not help but ask, “Is it a native creature of this world?”
“Probably…”
The officer nodded. Bearing the pain, he took out the walkie-talkie and adjusted it to a channel that the other three teams could hear. “This is Team East Crow. We’re now at coordinates 145.436.053. Just now we encountered an enemy. I’ll send you the video we took, please come here immediately. I repeat, please come here immediately!”
After saying all this, he pressed the button of the walkie-talkie, connected the camera device on his head to the walkie-talkie, and then sent the video directly.
To be safe, everyone withdrew another 100 meters. Anyway, the tentacles in the deep pit did not look like intelligent life, so everyone started to set up camp, leaving only two soldiers to be on the lookout.
The officer sat in front of the camp and touched the wound on his arm. Even so, for some reason, a strong sense of hunger suddenly gripped his stomach. He was so hungry that he was dizzy as if he had low blood sugar.
This feeling came out of nowhere. Everyone had eaten a full meal before entering this world. Although a few hours had passed at this time, he should not be so hungry.
However, just in case, the officer took out a highly concentrated glucose injection from his backpack and stuck it in through the closed rubber opening on the side of his protective suit.
After the nutrition needle was injected, the officer felt his hunger diminish significantly. He touched the wound on his arm again and he could not help feeling a little nervous. After all, he had been exposed and now he could only pray that the air in this world was not toxic…
Everything that the officer encountered was not only passed on to the other three teams but also to the temporary transfer base in front of the light spot. Then, the news was passed along the fiber optic cable through the Rosen bridge and sent to the command ship in the real world.
Following that, the group of researchers started a fierce discussion about the huge tentacles in the video. Several of them trembled with excitement, yelling that they must get some samples of the tentacles because this would be the first time humans discovered alien life in history… No, rather, it was life from another world.
Immediately, orders were sent out one by one, and again passed through the optical cable into the world on the opposite side of the light spot, and then passed to everyone’s walkie-talkie.
“D*mn it!”
Seeing all kinds of outrageous commands on the walkie-talkie screen, the officer almost had an urge to thrash the walkie-talkie. The inhumane researchers not only asked for the flesh and blood samples of that tentacle monster but also said that it was best to catch a tentacle alive to see what kind of monster was behind the tentacles.
This bunch of people — did they not realize that his team had just lost two soldiers?
At this time, about three hours had passed and the sky was getting dark. A shining round moon rose in the east, illuminating the entire land. In this alien world without any traces of humans, the moonlight was unexpectedly moving, creating a poetic, picturesque image of “the full moon rises over the sea, we share this moment across the horizon”[1].
Of course, it would be better if there was no deep pit and that group of weird tentacles.
Just when everyone was feeling rueful, there was a rustling sound from the walkie-talkie, and a voice came. “Team Columbus has reached the coordinate position and is currently located directly behind you.”
Before this voice was finished, another voice followed. “Team Zheng He has arrived at the target location and is currently at 3 o’clock relative to Team East Crow.”
Everyone was overjoyed and quickly looked behind them. As expected, two light spots were slowly approaching in the night, from 3 o’clock and directly behind them.
When the three teams were close enough, all sides exchanged the secret signal before they assembled properly. At this point, the Northern America, North Sea Continent, and Mainland China teams had gathered in one place, and only the European team had not yet arrived.
Still, this was also inevitable. At that time, the North Sea Continent team had chosen to explore the north and the European Continent team was in the south. The two teams were the furthest apart, and naturally, Europe would be the last to arrive.
“How’s it going, have you collected the tentacle samples that the research department requested?”
The captain of Northern America asked immediately.
“I’ve got it.”
The officer took out a transparent glass box with a few bloody pieces in it. “But we can’t get the live tentacles requested by them. Maybe both your teams can give it a try.”
“You’re hurt?”
Li Qiang, the leader of Team Zheng He from China, suddenly saw the wound on the officer’s arm. “Since you’ve been exposed to this other world, you should return to the camp immediately and return to our reality for isolation treatment according to the regulations.”
“To h*ll with isolation treatment!”
The officer of the North Sea Continent could not help but angrily say, “I know my own body, there’s no problem!”
With that said, he took out a highly concentrated glucose injection and injected it into his body.
“I hope so.”
Seeing the other party’s resistance to isolation treatment, Li Qiang shrugged and did not continue to persuade him.
Then, the three of them waited for a while again until the European team also arrived. When the four teams were all here, they officially began to discuss countermeasures.
What they had to do was very simple, that was to collect information about these tentacles and this pit as much as possible, and then send it to the higher-ups, so that the foundation could grasp as much information about this other world as possible.
Not only that, but also, as the first batch of pioneers, as long as they could be sure that they were able to survive in this other world without being harmed by insurmountable forces, then naturally, there would be more task force members coming, and even troops from the four continents.
Also, there was news from the rear that helicopters, armored vehicles, and even the engineering team were already on the way here, and they would arrive tomorrow. By then, everyone would have a higher guarantee of surviving.
After some discussions, the other three teams also launched their own drones one by one. Learning from what happened to Team East Crow, they knew that the tentacles seemed to be able to sense the vibrations of the air, so all three drones flew extremely high, completely suspended tens of meters high in the sky over the pit. Finally, the inside of the pit could be seen clearly.
The diameter of this pit was more than 300 meters and the inside looked very deep and dark. Even the night vision equipment could not make out the bottom. Without seeing it, one would not know, but upon seeing it, one would have a fright — through the drone’s camera lens, the edges of the hole could be seen to be swarming with tentacles!
These tentacles came from the depths of the soil on the edge of the hole, like hairs made of flesh and blood growing from the side. The only difference was that, unlike animal hair, these hairs were all living things, wriggling like maggots. Any disturbance was enough to trigger their attack.
Through the night vision device, the pit in the black and white image was like the entrance to hell. The dense clusters of flesh were disturbing and disgusting as could be.
Then, everyone tried to test these tentacles in other ways. They used flares and incendiary bombs and then found that these tentacles did not respond to light at all. Instead, several incendiary bombs exploding upon the tentacles could arouse the tentacles’ alertness.
Once they found themselves being burned, those tentacles instinctively retracted to the side wall of the hole, causing the incendiary bombs to become ineffective.
After collecting certain information, the four teams did not plan to continue exploring. The night was getting deeper and everyone was wrapped in protective clothing so they could not relieve themselves nor sleep. Thus, after some discussions, the four teams again returned from where they came.
After an hour of rushing, the four foundation task forces returned to the entrance. At this time, a group of XTN engineering robots had built a large disinfection room and living area. This was all made of special airtight materials. Once erected, it was extremely sturdy and at the same time, it could completely isolate the outside from the inside.
Then, in the disinfection room at the door, everyone took off the protective clothing that they had worn for a day and then checked for unknown infections through blood tests. Only after confirmation that they were fine, they would enter the living area and recover inside.
It was not until the team leader of the North Sea Continent entered that he took off his protective clothing rather feebly, instantly revealing a pale, sweaty face.
The officer touched the sealed wound on his shoulder, then stood in front of the disinfection spout and silently allowed several kinds of disinfectant to be sprayed over his body. Then, he walked to the blood-sampling device and anxiously allowed it to pierce his finger.
A few seconds later, a green light flashed on the screen of the blood-sampling device, and a mechanical voice resounded, “No. 04564, no signs of microbial infection were found. Entry allowed!”
“Phew!”
Seeing this, the officer felt a weight lifted off him. He heaved a silent sigh of relief, put on the clothes provided in the disinfection room somewhat joyously, and walked into the living area like a pardoned man.
However, when he turned around, one could still see a dense circle of faint red rash on the shoulder blades on his back. At the same time, a smear of blood was slowly permeating through the fabric…
[1] Lines from a famous poem by Zhang Jiuling