Chapter 96: The Watchers

...

The sun sank behind the hangar, leaving a dull red glow across the runway. Ground crews packed up their tools and climbed down from the transport, but the road west of the airfield remained empty.

The plane was ready.

Lin Yan still hadn’t returned.

The officer finished another cigarette outside the command post. When he reached for the pack, it was empty. By now, he was beginning to give up hope.

"...Don’t tell me he actually got himself killed."

A chair toppled inside.

"Sir!"

He turned sharply.

The radio operator had one hand pressed against his headphones and the other on the tuning knob, leaning so close his face nearly touched the set.

The shrill whine that had plagued them for days was gone.

Through the static came a faint voice.

"...Repeat... this is..."

The operator looked up. His lips moved before he managed to speak.

"We’ve got them."

The officer rushed to the desk.

"Answer them! Tell them we’re still alive!"

...

Lin Yan backed out of the abandoned drainage culvert, stooping beneath the low roof and dragging a thin ankle in his left hand.

The damn thing had a body no bigger than a child’s, with scrawny limbs and an enormous head wider than its torso. He hauled it over the loose stones and out into the open.

Dirt coated its gray-white skin. A deep cut in the side of its head exposed bone, and cloudy fluid pooled beneath it.

Lin Yan straightened and let out a long breath.

The plunder notification was still there. He expanded the description.

[Trait Plunder triggered.]

[Trait obtained: Interference — Green.]

[Effect: Emits waves that disrupt the five senses and extrasensory perception of targets within range, distorting their perception of their surroundings. Can also interfere with radio communications.]

[Range and intensity can be adjusted. Sustained use consumes mental energy.]

Lin Yan glanced at the corpse.

That explained it.

He had finished clearing out the other monsters long ago. This little bastard alone had kept him searching through the ruins, even going back through the piles of mangled flesh to check whether he had already killed it.

With his hearing, those horror-movie protagonists who hid in cupboards with both hands clamped over their mouths wouldn’t stand a chance. They could hold their breath until they passed out; he would still hear their hearts pounding like drums. 𝘧𝓇ℯℴ𝓂

Yet this thing had been tucked away in a culvert practically under his nose, interfering with his senses while he searched the same ground over and over.

Unfortunately for it, Lin Yan had never been much of a gentleman. The sheds that had survived the fighting hadn’t survived his search. He had torn them apart and tossed obstructing mine carts aside; one had ended up halfway up the quarry wall, wedged in a crack. When he reached this rubble pile, several boulders slammed against the slope and shook loose stones inside the culvert. The creature had finally stirred enough to give itself away.

Lin Yan closed the panel and started to leave with the corpse.

Clack—clang.

Something loosened at his right shoulder. A black scale slid down his arm and struck a rock beside his foot.

He looked down.

The armor covering his right arm had barely survived the fight. Those muscle-bound brutes hadn’t just been strong; they had swarmed him without the slightest regard for their own lives. The scales were tough enough, but the buckles and supporting straps beneath them had given way under all the pulling, wrenching, and biting.

Now only a few loose plates remained, hanging crookedly from the torn lining and getting in his way.

Lin Yan frowned, grabbed what was left, and pulled.

Fabric ripped. He tossed the ruined shoulder and arm assembly into the rubble, taking most of the remaining sleeve with it. His muscular right arm was left bare from shoulder to wrist.

"How do I keep ending up with less on...?"

He shifted his grip to the creature’s oversized head and headed up the road out of the quarry.

...

Above the quarry, two men lay behind a rocky ridge. They had been watching for some time.

Their squad had been sent to investigate after communications across the area went down. The two of them were scouting ahead. Before they left, the "Priestess" had seen a quarry and a creature with an enormous head. It appeared to be the source of the interference.

They had found the right place. What they found there was another matter.

Almost the entire quarry floor was visible from the ridge. Collapsed sheds, mine carts, and monster corpses lay scattered among the rubble. A man in battered black armor was making his way toward the road, carrying the remains of a large-headed creature.

"Know him?"

"No."

"Could he be from another squad?"

The man with the binoculars didn’t answer. There was no uniform, no insignia, nothing to identify the stranger’s unit. He couldn’t think of anyone in the nearby teams who wore armor like that, much less carried such an absurdly long blade.

After a moment, his companion asked, "The Priestess didn’t mention him?"

"She said she saw a big-headed creature. Nothing about anyone else."

The fighting had already ended when they arrived. They had watched the stranger rummage through the corpse-strewn ruins, tearing apart anything large enough to hide something, before disappearing into a culvert and emerging with the body.

His companion’s gaze wandered over the remains, then returned to the armored figure. They couldn’t place the man, but unfamiliar monsters turned up every day. An unpleasant possibility occurred to him.

"What if that’s some new kind of monster?"

"Probably not."

Through the binoculars, he watched the stranger strip the wrecked armor from his right arm, look down at the exposed limb, and mutter something.

The man shook his head.

"Too human."

They had seen creatures shaped like people before. Some could even talk, but there was usually something off about them. This man’s movements and expressions looked natural. As far as he could tell, he wasn’t looking at something wearing a human skin.

But if he really was human, that raised a bigger question.

The man with the binoculars fell silent.

Among the bodies below were more than a dozen of those grotesquely muscular brutes, along with plenty of bone-blade creatures. Individually, they were manageable. Packed together in a quarry like this, they would give an ordinary team a difficult fight. Without proper preparation, casualties were entirely possible.

Yet apart from the ruined armor, the stranger showed no visible injuries. Even carrying the corpse, his steps were steady.

"If he did all this himself, he’s at least Calamity-class."

His companion turned sharply.

"Calamity-class? That’s enough to lead a team. Headquarters would have a record of someone like that, wouldn’t they?"

That was what troubled him.

He couldn’t claim to know every registered Calamity-class operative, but surely something ought to be familiar—a name, a face, the abilities of a graft. Everything about this man, from his appearance to his equipment, was unfamiliar.

"So what do we do? Go ask?"

He lowered the binoculars slightly, considering.

"First, see what he’s had grafted."

His companion understood. He edged forward and pushed the hair away from his forehead.

Just beneath the hairline was a patch of darkened skin, bordered by a fine ring of stitches. It pulsed gently with his breathing, then slowly parted down the middle.

A dark red eye opened.

The eyeball twitched in its socket, darting several times before abruptly settling. Across the quarry, its pupil fixed on Lin Yan.

Almost at once, Lin Yan stopped.

The man with the binoculars felt his stomach drop.

Down on the slope, the stranger raised his head and looked straight toward their hiding place. In the lenses, his face turned from profile until he was looking directly at them.

"Stop."

He clamped a hand on his companion’s shoulder. The red eye closed.

"He’s spotted us."

His companion drew back behind the ridge, reaching for his weapon.

"Don’t."

The man kept his voice low and his hand firmly on the other’s shoulder. They were here to find out why communications had failed. There was no reason to provoke a possible Calamity-class operative before they even knew who he was.

He put down the binoculars, keeping his eyes on the figure below.

"I don’t feel like dying today."