Chapter 12: Sea Without Light 12
“Captain, the coordinates have been sent.” Lan Lan said in the team communication channel.
He fixed his gaze on the screen displaying the images transmitted by the drones. “Criminal Chai Jian is running toward the signal tower.”
“Received.” Xueyao Shu replied.
The sounds of heavy breathing from the team members could be heard over the communication channel as they ran, but these sounds were inaudible to Kui Xin, as Augus filtered out the noise to prevent the external environment from affecting her aim.
The K80 magazine contained a total of ten bullets, and Kui Xin had brought two spare magazines, which was enough. If the teammates successfully captured him, she wouldn’t even have a chance to fire her weapon.
Keeping calm, Kui Xin tracked Chai Jian’s frantic movements through the scope.
He was running in a panic, with no target and no direction. As he stumbled and fell onto the muddy ground of the slum, he quickly got back up and looked back in fright, disregarding his bleeding knee and the bread that fell from his mouth as he bolted away.
“He runs really fast; luckily he’s heading toward the signal tower.” On the monitor, the green dot representing their teammate and the red dot representing the mission target steadily closed the distance. Xueyao Shu and the others would catch up with Chai Jian soon.
“Wait a minute.” Kui Xin, who had been silently aiming, suddenly spoke up. “Wasn’t it said that Chai Jian has no evasion experience? How did he sense the captain and start running when he was so far away?”
Lan Lan was taken aback. “Could it be his extraordinary abilities…”
“No, you didn’t notice? Chai Jian is looking back as he runs; he’s not glancing toward the southwest where the captain is, but rather back to where he’s been.” Kui Xin adjusted the aim of her scope, shifting her focus from Chai Jian to search for suspicious objects behind him. “He’s not running because he knows the captain is nearby; he’s not that sensitive… Something else is chasing him, and it’s scaring him, so he ran.”
“That’s quite a reasonable deduction.” Lan Lan mumbled.
Kui Xin’s analysis did indeed make sense. She hesitated for a second, then disentangled a drone from the tracking group and redirected it to scan the surrounding environment.
The environmental images, 3D representations of buildings, small topographies, and sewer systems were all scanned, revealing any living entities under the drone’s light detection.
Nothing unusual was found; nothing was pursuing Chai Jian.
“It’s just your overthinking, little Kui.” Lan Lan said lightly.
Kui Xin’s lips tightened, a clear warning signal appearing in her mind. Her temples throbbed as her intuition warned her—this wasn’t so simple.
One of Kui Xin’s inherent talents was “Hazard Avoidance,” which allowed her to keenly sense danger and evade it. When she wasn’t paying attention, this talent was triggered.
There was danger, and it was nearby. But the danger wasn’t from Chai Jian; it came from elsewhere—
“Unidentified object moving at a speed of 5.9 meters per second in the sewer! Unidentified object moving at a speed of 5.9 meters per second in the sewer!” Augus emitted an alarm. “Scanning… Scan completed! The unidentified object is a parasitic hydra! Level three alert! Repeat, level three alert!”
Augus’s report sped up, fast and clear in all team members’ ears.
“Damn! How can parasitic hydras be in the city away from the coast?” Lan Lan, who had been relaxed, now swore clearly, her face pale as she operated the data panel, directing drones down the sewer to confirm the hydra’s location. “The captain and the others are in danger; we didn’t bring any weapons or gear for dealing with xenomorphs!”
Xenomorphs? Parasitic hydras? What are those things!
Kui Xin’s heart raced; she moved the scope, searching along the sewer covers on the street.
Lan Lan said incredulously, “The parasitic hydra is following Chai Jian through the sewer!”
Kui Xin briefly looked up at Lan Lan’s data panel, noticing the small red dot representing Chai Jian urgently moving forward, while the xenomorph named parasitic hydra was marked as a small yellow dot, closely trailing behind him.
She didn’t understand what a parasitic hydra was, but she was aware that the situation was critical. Just its presence in the sewer made Lan Lan anxious, indicating its extreme danger.
“Augus! Send a drone here to deliver equipment and call for backup!” Lan Lan urged urgently. “Captain, retreat! Bulletproof vests can’t withstand the hydra’s attacks, and the weapons you have are unlikely to deal substantial damage to it!”
“No! This is a residential area; it could harm civilians.” Xueyao Shu replied. “Jiang Ming, take the police car; there’s a flamethrower in it. Use that against it, while Liu Kangyun and I continue the pursuit.”
“Yes, Captain.” Jiang Ming left the team.
Kui Xin calmly wiped the raindrops off her scope and re-entered aiming mode.
From the high signal tower, the parasitic hydra was in the sewer hundreds of meters below her. Unlike Chai Jian and Xueyao Shu, she was safe.
Instead of searching for the parasitic hydra among the sewer covers, she focused resolutely on Chai Jian. The hydra was chasing him, so her main focus was on whether he could lure the hydra out of the sewer.
Chai Jian was a panicking little white mouse, an unintended bait.
The bait had been thrown; but what kind of monsters would it lure?
Kui Xin’s palms were sweating, yet she remained fully concentrated. She forgot to blink, even as the wind blew raindrops into her eyes.
As Chai Jian turned a corner, his legs gave out, and he fell.
At the same moment, the concrete ground beneath him suddenly bulged up and shattered.
A terrifying monster emerged!
Kui Xin’s eyes widened, stunned into silence.
It was a creature waving translucent tentacles, bearing a deformed human body that was not its own, but rather parasitic. The translucent tentacles erupted from the creature’s back, mouth, eyes, and ears, thrashing wildly in the air.
Chai Jian gave a blood-curdling scream, “Help! Don’t eat me! I just came to steal some bread from your house!”
The tentacles ensnared him, wrapping tightly around his neck and turning his face purple.
Xueyao Shu and Liu Kangyun arrived, unhesitatingly drawing their guns to shoot at the creature. The translucent tentacles were hit and broke off, falling to the ground and still writhing.
Kui Xin snapped out of her shock, aiming at the parasitic hydra occupying the human body and pulled the trigger.
“Bang!”
The bullet spiraled from the barrel but missed the target, striking the concrete ground beneath the hydra instead, creating a crater upon impact.
The K80 is currently one of the most advanced sniper rifles; it can penetrate solid concrete walls.
“Damn.” Kui Xin cursed.
“You forgot to account for the wind effect,” Augus mentioned. “Current light rain, wind speed at 2.1; it’s a bit down. Target distance is 722.3 meters.”
Lan Lan opened her mouth, “Kui Xin, you—”
“Shut up, don’t distract my shot.” Kui Xin snapped.
Lan Lan immediately silenced herself.
Kui Xin slowly exhaled, wiped the scope, and attempted again.
The K80’s barrel erupted with flames as another bullet tore through the rain.
With a pop, it hit! The spinning bullet struck the parasitic hydra’s chest, instantly penetrating its body and creating a gaping, palm-sized hole, with no blood flowing, just dry and decaying flesh scattering around.
Before Kui Xin could revel in hitting the target, she continued to pull the trigger, one bullet after another shot out, hitting the parasitic hydra’s head, abdomen, shoulder, lumbar vertebra, and leg bones! Its parasitic body resembled a broken puppet, hardly retaining any human shape.
Only after expending all ten bullets did Kui Xin pause. She didn’t look at her accomplishments but quickly replaced the magazine, preparing her aim for the next round of fire.
With the support of the human body gone, the parasitic hydra collapsed to the ground, releasing Chai Jian.
Chai Jian gasped for air, nearly suffocating. Without time to recover, driven by his survival instinct, he crawled away frantically, a pitiful sight.
The parasitic hydra, unwilling to release its prey, reached out towards Chai Jian, but missed. Chai Jian’s body vanished in place, flashing to a lamppost three meters away, narrowly evading the grasp.
He staggered to his feet, cursing in despair, “Damn! My superpower finally activated successfully; thankfully, it didn’t fail me.”
Kui Xin began her next round of shooting, severing several of the hydra’s sturdy tentacles. The parasitic hydra temporarily abandoned Chai Jian, using its tentacles to grip the ground and evade Kui Xin’s bullets.
Xueyao Shu and Liu Kangyun were also firing from several dozen meters away; they coordinated perfectly; as one ran out of bullets, the other quickly took over, giving them time to switch magazines.
Before the bullets ran out, Jiang Ming promptly arrived, driving the police car.
The police car lowered its altitude, extending a dark flamethrower, releasing a scorching flame that burned the crawling parasitic hydra. Its tentacles visibly shrank, losing the vigor it once had.
“This thing fears fire…” Kui Xin murmured softly, feeling the tension in her heart ease.
Before Kui Xin could completely relax, the parasitic hydra suddenly began to struggle violently, its thrashing tentacles creating snapping sounds in the air.
Its tentacles strained and stretched, managing to snag the police car spewing flames, pulling it skewed while shoving its tentacles into the flamethrower’s mouth, effectively clogging it!
With a boom, the fuel tank connected to the flamethrower exploded, and the police car plummeted from the sky, engulfed in thick smoke.
The parasitic hydra severed its tentacles, abandoning its battered human shell, frantically crawling towards Chai Jian, who had only run ten meters.
A terrifying scene unfolded. Its soft, translucent body wrapped around Chai Jian, and the tentacles forcefully invaded his mouth.
Chai Jian’s expression turned to sheer terror as his mouth opened wide, powerless against the parasitic hydra’s intrusion.
His eyes rolled back, his neck strained, and his chest and abdomen unnaturally inflated, his body gradually twisting into grotesque forms.
Xueyao Shu raised his gun to aim at Chai Jian, but his gun clicked empty—he had no more bullets! Liu Kangyun, pale-faced, shook his head at Xueyao Shu, indicating he was also out of ammo.
“The parasitic hydra is in a vulnerable state; we can’t let it complete the host transfer.” Lan Lan spoke rapidly. “Kui Xin, shoot Chai Jian! Hurry! The parasitic hydra can’t parasitize a corpse!”
In just a few seconds, Chai Jian’s form had changed beyond recognition as the parasitic hydra began to force itself into his body.
Kui Xin pressed her lips together and focused on the sight, aiming at Chai Jian.
“Bang—”
The gunshot, to her ears, sounded more distant than the previous ones.
That bullet spun and struck the man’s skull. His body crashed to the ground, blood splattering across a wide area.
“You have killed [Proxy Chai Jian].”
“You have deprived [Proxy Chai Jian] of his extraordinary abilities.”
“You have acquired the extraordinary ability [Shadow Transition, Level E].”
“[Shadow Transition, Level E]: You can utilize shadows for small-scale spatial teleportation.”
In that moment, Kui Xin’s eyes were devoid of expression; the echoes of gunfire reverberated in her ears, and her finger that had pulled the trigger twitched slightly.
She suddenly understood why the game she had signed up for was called “Crimson Soil.”
—Why is the soil crimson?
—It has been stained red with blood.
This world finally revealed its hideous and brutal aspect to Kui Xin.
