vncnus Chapter 119 The Burrowing Worm
Chapter 119 The Burrowing Worm
Chapter 119 The Burrowing Worm
"All personnel! Abandon all unnecessary loads and relinquish the position! Begin the highest-level mobile retreat!"
The commander's roar boomed through the vehicle's loudspeaker at the smoke-filled intersection.
There was no doubt, no hesitation.
The Blackwatch unit, which had just been basking in the glory of having hunted down a hunter, immediately displayed chilling tactical prowess upon receiving the order.
The infantrymen swiftly contracted like a black tide, boarding the armored personnel carriers in perfectly standard tactical formations.
In just two minutes, a defensive force with a barrage of firepower seamlessly transformed into an armored convoy advancing at full speed.
The convoy sped through the streets of Manhattan, littered with abandoned vehicles and dark red fungal carpets, its tracks and tires relentlessly crushing the wreckage on the ground.
The commander stood in the command cabin of the lead vehicle. Although he had given the order to retreat at full speed, he was by no means blindly fleeing for his life.
"Release all Pathfinder drones! Vanguard squads, maintain a fan-shaped formation 200 meters ahead of the convoy!"
"Flankers, turn your night vision and thermal imaging up to maximum power! I need to know immediately if even a mutated rat sneezes!"
With a series of well-ordered instructions, the entire unit acted like an assassin with their nerves on edge, extending all their senses to the extreme as they retreated.
"Vanguard One reports: three blocks ahead of Fifth Avenue, clear visibility, no large heat source detected."
"The left-wing observation post reports that there are no abnormalities in the ruins of the building at the two o'clock position."
"The drone's aerial view showed no gathering of zombies, and there were no traces of hunter activity at the edge of the red zone."
Despite the constant reports of "everything is normal" coming through the communication channel, the commander's furrowed brows did not relax at all.
There were no abnormalities.
Normally, this would be good news.
But after learning that an entire heavy armored battalion not far from them had been annihilated in an instant, this "lack of abnormality" was itself the biggest abnormality!
"This doesn't make sense—"
The commander gritted his teeth, staring uneasy at the green area on the tactical tablet that represented "safety".
The Hunters are not ordinary zombies that you see everywhere; they are elite killing machines created by the Blacklight Virus using a large amount of biomass.
However, to tear apart forty main battle tanks in a few minutes would absolutely require an extremely large hunter swarm, perhaps even hundreds.
A horde of monsters of this size, when they move, makes a noise comparable to a small earthquake.
How could it possibly disappear without a trace in an instant, like a drop of water merging into the ocean?
unless----
"Perhaps I'm worrying too much? Maybe those monsters have already gone back to their lairs deep in the red zone to sleep after they've eaten their fill?"
The commander was trying to deceive himself.
After all, human reason tends to instinctively reject the horrors that are incomprehensible.
However, just as he was about to convince himself,
"BOOM—!!!"
There was no warning.
It was neither at the front of the convoy nor at the rear.
It was right in the middle of the convoy!
An extremely strong tremor came from deep underground, as if a nuclear bomb with a capacity of tens of millions of tons had been detonated in the sewers of Manhattan.
The asphalt road surface cracked instantly, like a fragile biscuit, and spiderweb-like cracks spread wildly in all directions at a visible speed.
"Fuck! An earthquake?!"
"How could New York possibly have an earthquake of this magnitude! Hold the steering wheel!"
"The underground water pipe has burst! Alert! Everyone on alert!"
The once orderly convoy was thrown into brief chaos. Two armored vehicles on the edge of the epicenter were overturned by the raised slabs of ground, their heavy bodies crashing onto the nearby ruins with a piercing metallic scraping sound.
"Enemy attack! Establish a circular defensive position!"
The Blackwatch soldiers displayed exceptional tactical skills; even when knocked to the ground, they immediately kicked open the car doors, grabbed their rifles, and sought cover.
Immediately afterwards, the magnitude of the earthquake began to decrease, but instead, a chilling, muffled sound, as if some giant meat grinder was chewing concrete, filled the air.
"Crack crack crack—Bang!"
The section of road in the very center of the convoy completely collapsed.
A huge crater with a diameter of more than 15 meters appeared in the middle of the street.
To everyone's horror, an enormous creature, beyond description, suddenly burst out of the collapsed black hole!
It was a giant abyss monster that looked like an earthworm or worm.
Its length is impossible to estimate; the part that protrudes above the ground is several stories high.
The skin is not ordinary flesh, but is made up of dark red chitinous armor and thick, cable-like muscle fibers.
Its head has no eyes, only a ring of "mouthparts" made up of countless sharp barbs and rotating gears.
It was covered in mud, chewed-up asphalt, and several broken underground fiber optic cables.
"What the hell is this?!"
The commander inside the command center had a sudden flash of inspiration the moment he saw the monster's structure.
All doubts were resolved at this moment!
There was no radar signal, and no ground movement trajectory.
That's because those hunters didn't actually come down from the ground!
They arrived by subway!
The giant worm in front of us is not a regular combat unit at all, but a logistics-specialized mutant evolved by the Blacklight virus specifically for "digging tunnels" and "troop transport"!
It was precisely because of the existence of these underground troop transport vehicles that the large group of hunters were able to bypass all the defenses undetected and appear directly under the armored battalion's feet to complete that brutal infiltration and annihilation battle!
"Fire! Turn it into a sieve!"
"This is the virus's transport vehicle! We absolutely cannot let it escape!"
"If this bastard dies here, we can cut off the hunters' mobility, which could be the key to turning the tide of the battle!"
"Da da da da da—!"
"Boom! Boom! Thump—!"
With the commander's roar, Blackwatch's firepower was unleashed in an instant.
The machine gun's electric bullets flew in a continuous stream of fire whips, while the vehicle-mounted 25mm autocannon spewed out a deadly storm of metal.
The anti-tank rocket launcher, leaving a long trail, rained down on the giant worm.
Just as the commander had anticipated.
This bio-worm, specialized in digging and transporting, is frighteningly large.
However, while it focuses on underground digging, it also abandons all defensive and offensive capabilities!