Chapter 170: Green Hell
“Guo Li Cheng, NNY!”
There was no response; the jungle was eerily silent.
Everyone’s hearts tightened. Ye Xing, hovering in the air, raised his grenade launcher, ready to fire, but Lu Yuan stopped him midway.
“You’ll easily cause friendly fire that way. Guo Li Cheng’s vital signs are still there, don’t panic!”
“Alright, sorry, Boss—”
In the teammate status bar, Guo Li Cheng’s heartbeat surged rapidly. At the same time, a faint blue light shone through the rotten leaves below.
It was the glow of a plasma greatsword.
The monster’s sneak attack from underground was successful, but unfortunately, it picked the wrong opponent.
After several flashes, Guo Li Cheng punched through the thick humus, extending her hand to the surface.
“Save me!”
“Pull her up!”
At Lu Yuan’s command, Cao Yuan and Ma Lou lowered their altitude. Each grabbed one of Guo Li Cheng’s hands, pulling her out of the black, foul-smelling, rotting mud.
At the same time, more than a dozen large animals burrowed out from underground around the squad.
Lu Yuan’s scalp tightened as he saw what the animals looked like.
They were large arthropods, structurally similar to those on Earth, with segmented bodies, ten pairs of limbs on each side, and a curved, hook-like stinger at the tail.
The most unsettling part was that while they were generally insect-like, certain parts of their bodies had features of higher animals: their heads resembled monkeys, their large, black, glassy eyes occupied nearly half of their cranial cavity, and the end of each limb had a human-like hand with five long, flexible fingers and densely packed barbs on the fingertips.
Undoubtedly, these were dangerous predators, skilled at ambush, and their frontal combat strength wouldn't be too weak!
The squad gritted their teeth, raised their guns, and opened fire.
They initially thought these carbon-based creatures would be no match for firearms, easily exploding with a simple pull of the trigger. To their surprise, bullets striking the monsters actually produced sparks!
It took an average of three to four 20mm explosive rounds to incapacitate a single monster.
What?! Did their skin contain metallic components?
Lu Yuan connected this to the monsters’ glossy black coloration.
Only his “Dragon’s Breath” shotgun maintained high kill efficiency. Its super-heated energy rounds virtually ignored the “toughness” defense attribute of their skin. Even in low-power mode, one shot could ignite a monster, causing it to burn fiercely.
Seeing this, the squad members immediately made tactical adjustments, vigorously covering the Executive Officer, allowing him to focus solely on sustained firepower without worrying about repositioning.
Lu Yuan then fired to his heart’s content. The monsters were quickly killed, their black bodies burning fiercely in the highly oxygenated air.
“This won’t cause a forest fire, will it?” Ma Lou asked, a little worried.
As an experienced outdoor enthusiast, the warning “start a forest fire, spend your life in jail” constantly echoed in his mind.
“No, it won’t. This is a rainforest; the plants have too much water content, so they’re not that easy to ignite.”
Lu Yuan slung the “Dragon’s Breath” shotgun, its barrel glowing red from heat, over his shoulder and scooped up a still-shaken Guo Li Cheng.
“We need to leave quickly; the gunshots were too loud. This place isn’t safe to stay! And we can’t travel on the ground anymore. Everyone activate your flight packs and jump onto the branches. We’ll use the aerial pathways!”
The group immediately obeyed the command.
The underground here was probably already eroded by water into a network of interconnected karst caves. Facing predators launching sudden attacks from below, the heartbeat detector could only provide 3 to 5 seconds of early warning, which was far from enough.
The ground was too dangerous!
In contrast, the giant tree branches in the air were interconnected and wide enough, making them easier and safer to traverse than the ground.
With the aid of their backpacks, the squad continuously leaped upwards, finally stopping on an exceptionally thick branch, at last finding a relatively solid foothold to catch their breath.
“Holy crap—”
Guo Li Cheng vigorously patted herself, as if trying to shake off something dirty.
“Those monsters—they just—they actually tried to harass me!”
Huh?
Such bold words, girl…
Could your charm transcend galaxies and species?
Everyone moved closer to inspect, finding that Guo Li Cheng didn’t seem to be exaggerating.
On the power armor around her lower abdomen, there was a clear scratch mark left by a sharp object. Around these scratches, they also found some disgusting viscous fluid and a large number of white insect eggs, each the size of a peanut, stuck to the power armor by the fluid.
“Hiss—” Ma Lou gasped, “So what’s on their tails isn’t a stinger, but—an ovipositor!”
Cao Yuan nodded, his expression grave.
“It seems these large ones behave somewhat like real-life parasitic wasps; they forcibly lay eggs inside a host, and then the larvae, after hatching, grow by devouring the host’s internal organs.”
“Ahhh!”
Guo Li Cheng was on the verge of madness hearing this, and quickly brushed off all the insect eggs.
Everyone else also got goosebumps. This planet was indeed “habitable,” with life everywhere.
But whether it was suitable for human habitation was truly hard to say!
“Luckily you came wearing power armor, otherwise, there would have been an R-rated scene just now, and a rather grotesque one at that.”
Ye Xing remarked.
Guo Li Cheng: “Don’t say anymore—just thinking about what happened underground makes me sick—speaking of which, why is the tree trunk behind you moving?”
Ye Xing: “Huh? Don’t scare me—”
“It’s true—”
Guo Li Cheng tensed up, re-illuminating the greatsword in her hand.
“Get down!”
Lu Yuan shouted.
Ye Xing quickly crouched down. At the same time, Lu Yuan aimed at the wriggling “tree trunk” behind him and opened fire.
Puff!
Hundreds of flying insects, as large as crows, scattered, while the rest turned into a fireball.
The color of these flying insects originally matched the tree bark’s texture, but once airborne, they instantly transformed into mottled green camouflage, blending seamlessly with the surrounding background.
They were unintelligent and completely fearless of death. They spread their four tiger-claw-like fangs and lunged at the people.
“Don’t shoot yet!”
Lu Yuan raised his left arm, deliberately allowing one of the flying insects to bite his forearm armor.
“They can’t bite through the ceramic-gold outer armor. Don’t waste ammunition. Wait until they’re on you, then crush them with your bare hands!”
“Under—understood!”
Although the team members instinctively resisted this “splatter combat” method, they knew in their hearts that the Executive Officer’s tactic was very reasonable.
The most primitive battle between humans and insects began. Soon, insect corpses covered the ground beneath their feet, and the team members were covered in a layer of green insect blood.
“Damn, what is that smell? No, I need to turn on my air filter—” Ye Xing instinctively pinched his nose.
“Insect blood is corrosive; it contains ammonia,” Lu Yuan said, scanning the insect carcasses nearby.
Corrosive insect blood was not uncommon. What truly interested him was the flying insects’ optical camouflage ability, which had nearly fooled everyone’s eyes.
This was far superior to chameleons on Earth.