Chapter 68: Millipede
Translator: Letty / Editor: DarkGem / Jello
The appearance of the monster gave Chang goosebumps all over his body. He fought with the urge to vomit and glanced at the colourful monster.
It was an insect for sure. Its slender body and shell reminded Chang of a centipede. The difference, however, was that it had more legs, yet they were shorter. The insect looked hideous, but the shell was shiny and rich in color – an aposematic signal.
“Is this a millipede…” Chang struggled at recalling the name of this monster. Although every species was evolving, it was still too soon to produce new species. Therefore, no matter how it looked like right now, it must come from a previously known species.
“It is! It is a millipede!” The image of a tiny millipede overlapped with the image of the gigantic creature in Chang’s mind, and he realized that they are almost identical.
“Is it coming?” Crouching behind the tree, Ming Yi whispered to Chang.
“It’s almost here! Run!! It’s fast!” Chang pulled up Ming Yi and they sprinted back.
“What is that?”
“An insect that looks like a snake and as wide as a wine barrel. I only know it was wide, but I assume it is long too” They ran extremely fast, and within a few words they got back to the troop.
“What is it?” Qing Shui knew that there must be something unexpected when he saw Chang rush back.
“An insect, millipede, wide as a barrel, about 35 meters in length, seemed poisonous from its colors.” Chang answered with the key features he observed.
“How fast is it? Any chance we can avoid it?”
“I don’t know, it wasn’t at its full speed, but it definitely moves faster than any of us.” Chang looked back in a rush, the shadow had showed its huge head from the red fog.
“We can’t run away from it, here it is!” He shouted out loud and squeezed into the center of the troop.
“There! Over there, fire!” Chang straightened his index finger, pointing at where the millipede was coming.
“Fire! Fire!” Qing Shui screamed “Its acidic secretion may blind you, stay away from it!”
Most of the soldiers had never known what a millipede was, nor did have they seen the shadow 10 meters away from them. It was an inherent instinct that they wanted to avoid such a creature.
FRRRRRRRRAK!!!
Four soldiers shot their assault rifles at the same time. The bullets tore through space and the air shattered. They bolted out as if it was their fated mission.
Although they weren’t far away from the monster, most of the bullets were off target.
Their accuracy was low because even if it were a sharpshooter, without seeing the target it was impossible to hit.
Fortunately, the assault rifles had a decent rate of firing, one or two bullets completed their mission and collided against the millipede’s body.
Bang!
The hit was crisp and sharp, as if metal had hit metal. The two bullets struggled to penetrate the monster’s armor, causing negligible damage.
Creak!
The insect noticed that something had ambushed it, and a stream of yellow slurry spurt flew out from its secretion gland. The millipede bounced up like a basketball, and disguised itself within the trees.
Chang lost track of the monster even though he had been trying to keep up with it.
“Damn it!”
Within this lushness of the jungle, the sky was cut off by the curtain of countless leaves and vines long ago. The greenery made up a brand-new dome for this jungle, in which it was impossible to find something hidden.
“It hid on the trees, be wary above your heads!” Chang was the eyes for the whole troop, he coordinated the troop and said, “I remember you brought some heavy firearms, It’s their time to shine. The rifles seemed useless to fight it.”
“We have a few grenades and a single-use rocket launcher.” A soldier threw away his rifle and equipped with the rocket launcher “I don’t whether this is going to hit, I have never used this before!”
The soldier was almost in tears. He looked up to search for his target, but he barely saw anything except for the leaves that almost got onto his face. His vision was greatly limited.
“There are too many trees here…shi*t! I can’t see either, be quiet. Be careful to any movement from above us.” Chang held the crossbow and was ready to shoot anytime. He hoped to spot that color-bright creature from the mixed greenery and to capture the sound of the slightest movement.
But this time was different than usual, his sensitive sense of smell was the one that warned him.
“A strange smell! Spread out! Spread out!” Chang’s nose captured a pungent smell that wafted around. He pulled Pangzi immediately away from that area.
The rest were one step slower to dodge.
When the last person jumped back, a strange mist-like liquid doused the clearing between the trees. It coated the grass on the ground, turning them pink.
Chang finally spotted that garish insect in between a narrow gap of trees.
“There!” He almost roared when he pulled the trigger and the bolt penetrated its armor accurately.
Creak!
The massive insect twisted on the tree, emitting a nauseous shriek.
The shriek was the perfect guide for these soldiers, and a number of rifles fired at the same time the crying soldier shot the rocket launcher.
As if thunder rumbled through the sky, the explosion caused a burst of tinnitus and dizziness for the troop. As the explosion was too close to where they were, a wave of fire accompanied with amplified sound and air waves that blew away their formation made some fall hard on their backs.
“What the hell!” Chang spit out a mouthful of sand and soil and drew out three pieces of rocket shrapnel that were inserted on his chest.
“Couldn’t you just tell us before you fired?” Another soldier rolled up from the ground angrily. It looked like he was burned all over his chest, but the rage made him forget his pain.
“I didn’t know it was so close to us, I couldn’t see anything!” The crying soldier sobbed, he threw away the rocket launcher and stood up. “That thing is dead, isn’t it?”
“It should be.” The flame danced on the branches and vines after the explosion, Chang carefully searched for parts of the millipede in the black smoke and the fire.