Chapter Forty-Two: The Invisible Man

“Damn it!”

Several glow sticks scattered across the ground as shadows flickered within the cavern. One by one, snarling and growling monsters stomped through the water and charged forward. Intermittent flashes of blue electricity cut through the darkness, piercing the forefront of the grotesque creatures, sending sprays of blood into the air.

Yang Che raised his electromagnetic rifle, continuously aiming and firing. His brow was deeply furrowed, while several comrades in identical uniforms lay motionless beside him.

“When will reinforcements arrive?”

“Another hour,” Luther replied from a corner of the cavern behind them. He occasionally peeked out, supplementing their fire with his handgun to repel the stragglers.

“We’re too far underground. The special police from Bayin City don’t know the terrain well enough to arrive quickly.”

Luther panted heavily as he spoke. When his handgun ran out of ammunition, he tossed it aside and reached for the heavy machine gun lying nearby on the ground. It was left by Pascal, but the old man had already slipped into unconscious shock. Luther’s attempts at bandaging and stopping the bleeding had only managed to keep him alive for the moment.

“If only old Pascal hadn’t gotten hurt. Who would’ve expected the scale of this assault to be so massive, with attacks from both sides,” Luther grumbled as he awkwardly adjusted his gear and prayed silently.

“Is this guy raising an underground army? We’ve already killed hundreds of these monsters, yet they keep coming endlessly.”

He set up the heavy machine gun carefully, nervously fine-tuning the fuel and energy mixture. Methodically, he checked each of the dozen or so glowing knobs, then decisively closed the lid and locked it in place.

Lying prone on the ground, he rotated the gun mount, aimed at the monstrous horde charging from afar, and squeezed the trigger.

Bang—

The ammunition discharged with a somewhat crisp crack, followed by a sudden burst of golden-red light, which exploded shortly after.

The burning blaze instantly illuminated the subterranean cavern, the scorching heatwave pressing down like suffocating weight.

“Don’t use that! It’ll suffocate us.” The oxygen was already scarce underground; a few more blasts like that and they’d all be dead from asphyxiation.

Yang Che shouted, forcing Luther to adjust the fuel and energy formula of the machine gun again. Thankfully, the raging fire created a barrier, temporarily calming the battlefield.

Dragging the severely wounded and unconscious comrades one by one to the rear, Yang Che gathered the remaining usable weapons and began inspecting and replenishing supplies.

When they had pursued the creatures to this spot, they had been attacked by numerous mutated, frenzied monsters. Fortunately, seven agents from the bureau soon arrived, organized a defensive line, and steadily pushed forward.

Things had gone smoothly up to this point. After reporting to their superiors, they continued searching underground until recently discovering some manmade subterranean facilities.

Transparent incubation pods lay on their sides in a rudimentary room, tended by several robots performing basic maintenance. Surveillance cameras were scattered throughout.

Upon their arrival, alarms were triggered. The pods opened, releasing malformed flesh-and-blood monsters that launched a sudden assault on the squad.

The continuous firefight drew attention, but unexpectedly, another group of enemies ambushed them from behind. The line was disrupted, and comrades began to fall wounded.

In this dire situation, Yang Che and the others covered their teammates’ retreat to a dead-end cavern. With no worries about pursuit, they leveraged the terrain to mount a counterattack.

After finishing their inspections, Yang Che and Luther began rearranging their defenses. Two men, barely able to move, lifted electromagnetic rifles to provide rear support.

“This is bad, boss,” Luther said as he reassembled the machine gun.

“These monsters clearly lack intelligence, yet they don’t attack each other and even coordinate simple pincer movements. Someone must be directing them from the shadows.”

“The problem is, we haven’t detected any command signals or even glimpsed a single figure.”

“Are they using some kind of invisibility?” Yang Che pondered calmly. He then approached a teammate in the rear and took a brand-new Octagonal Compass from his backpack.

The ‘Wind-Seeker Octagonal Compass’ was eight-sided and octagonal, made of bronze. Opening its casing revealed an incredibly intricate mechanism resembling a clock. According to the gold and silver inscriptions, fine Aijeka particles flowed inside, continuously diverted and analyzed, spinning through the delicate gears to produce a result.

This was a custom scanning and detection device crafted by the ‘Bookbinding Workshop.’ Although exquisitely made, it was little known and used only by a few specialists, so it was seldom countered or neutralized.

After adjusting the compass’s parameters, Yang Che injected a designated silver liquid column, causing a shimmering silvery ripple to spread in all directions.

The projection on the Octagonal Compass began to reveal a 3D map of the surrounding underground area. Flickering points of light represented living beings.

Several stable blue lights near the center varied in intensity. A short distance away, restless red points gathered, indicating chaotic activity. Among these red points, a deep purple light flashed briefly, then vanished.

“They’ve noticed us,” Luther said, watching the display.

“That’s true, but maybe it’s a good thing — it could intimidate them.”

Yang Che scrutinized the edges of the image, searching for possible escape routes. Soon, he spotted an area in the upper corner with a different color.

“What’s that place...?”

———

On the other side of the underground, Hersia finished treating a few injured individuals in a room. She first separated the minor, semi-conscious patients behind a curtain before getting to work.

A faint blue magical dust floated in the air, gathering around her hands. Closing her eyes to focus, she gently brushed her palm over a large man’s open abdominal wound. The damaged organs slowly healed, blood vessels reconnected and cleared, while internal injuries and bleeding sites gradually mended.

After completing this, she repeated the process for the others.

Phew, that was a bit tiring.

When finished, the girl wiped the few beads of sweat from her brow. Her black hair was somewhat disheveled, and her mind felt fatigued.

Healing others was entirely different from healing herself. She knew her own body intimately and could recover with minimal effort, but it was another matter when treating others.

After resting briefly and seeing everyone’s breathing stabilize, Hersia stood up.

Pulling the hood of her coat back on, she prepared to leave—it was time to return.

The iron door swung open, but outside was no longer the calm scene she had entered through.

A broken fang flew past her eyes, smashing against the wall and bouncing down, splattering a little blood.

Nearby, a monstrous blood lion pinned Jolon to the ground. Its gaping maw was filled with fangs and razor-sharp teeth, hissing lowly and exhaling a foul stench of hot breath. Jolon gripped the creature’s upper and lower jaws, forcing them apart so it couldn’t bite down.

Two burly figures struggled fiercely; on the other side, Jennifer, with her purple-green short hair, held a pistol, firing at agile monsters darting across the ceiling and walls. This creature was as clever as a monkey but ferocious, its claws and teeth still dripping with blood and flesh.

In a brief lull in Jennifer’s shooting, the vicious monkey-like creature lunged suddenly, biting her wrist. The sound of tiny bones breaking echoed sharply.

“Hiss—” Jennifer’s face twisted in pain, but she seized the chance to grab the back of the creature’s head with her other hand.

A spreading coldness stiffened the beast, and it ceased moving, falling to the ground as a rigid corpse.

Hersia approached just as Jolon’s struggle with the blood lion shifted.

After regaining some strength, Jolon kicked the blood lion, flipping it onto the ground. Then, exerting all his might, his muscular arms bulged as he pried the creature’s jaws apart, tearing through steaming flesh and pale bones.

In agony, the blood lion thrashed wildly, nearly overturning Jolon several times. Its hooked black claws shredded his back, leaving raw wounds.

But with massive blood loss and no fangs left, the creature’s death was inevitable.

Jolon plunged a claw into the lion’s throat, tearing at its lungs and organs until it gradually ceased resisting and fell silent.

“Did we get attacked again?” Hersia asked, coming over and surveying the surroundings. Many gang members who had guarded outside were either dead or wounded; only a few remained capable of fighting.

“I can’t heal this many people,” she shook her head.

“It’s fine. You don’t need to trouble yourself here, miss.” Jolon stood up, wiping the blood from his hands and looking for something to clean with.

As a Dragon Sequence transcendent, his robust body healed rapidly. These wounds would recover naturally within days.

Hersia said nothing, slipping her hands into her coat pockets as she slowly walked out of the stronghold. She sensed something amiss outside.

The cavern remained pitch black, with faint, broken lights illuminating the surroundings. The ground was scarred with shell craters, corpses, and bloodstains. Despite wearing masks, the air’s odor was unpleasant.

The silence was profound, as if no living creature remained nearby.

Yet Hersia’s gaze fixed on a shadowed corner. Though appearing empty, in her mind’s eye, she clearly sensed a figure standing there motionless like a phantom.

Her brow furrowed slightly. Just as she was about to draw her weapon and issue a warning, the figure suddenly fled.

Could this be the culprit behind all the chaos? the girl thought.

She really didn’t want to be chasing someone underground. At only sixteen, not even a high school student yet, she had no desire to be a heroic savior.

“Did you find something?” Jolon appeared, supporting Jennifer as she emerged. Jennifer’s wrist was now clean and bandaged.

“Yes, someone who can turn invisible,” Hersia’s voice was soft, oddly out of place in this underground world.

Hearing her, Jennifer shot Jolon a sideways glance. She hadn’t expected this man to have actually recruited a schoolgirl; before, she merely thought the doctor was eccentric or small-framed.

“Is there any way I can see through his invisibility?” Jolon asked as he helped Jennifer onto a nearby bench and approached Hersia.

“Probably not,” the girl shook her head. Although the Dragon Sequence included secret arts to see through invisibility, mastering them required extensive knowledge, usually encountered only in university. Judging by Jolon’s appearance, he was likely a dropout with no chance of learning it anytime soon.

“I can see through his invisibility, but I don’t want to get involved,” Hersia explained. The chaos had already drawn the attention of the federal government; troops might have been dispatched to cleanse the area. If she recklessly intervened and was discovered underground, it would be hard to explain and bring more trouble.

She just wanted to take the upcoming school retest calmly and continue living a normal life. Coming underground this time to save people was already a weakness. She wouldn’t be soft again.

In this age of abundant information, even though Hersia Tilan knew she had special talents, she dared not reveal them casually. It might bring good fortune, but more likely, it would attract all kinds of problems.

She was someone who feared trouble and preferred to be alone in quiet corners, watching the bustling, beautiful world and living a simple, undisturbed life.

“However…”

Though unwilling to get deeply involved, Hersia didn’t intend to stand completely aside.

She pressed her fingers lightly to her forehead as blue magical dust gathered, finally condensing into a palm-sized sapphire crystal in her hand.

This crystal, formed from the withering sequence’s magic, was fully inscribed and transformed. If crushed and dispersed, it would create an apparitional mist allowing Jolon to briefly discern the enemy’s form.

“Here,” Hersia tossed the crystal to Jolon and gave simple instructions.

“You have only one chance. Whether you seize it depends on you.”

Then she jumped down from the rock she was standing on, ready to return.

“Don’t forget what you promised—help me find that person later.”