Chapter 57: Bombarding the Ghost-Faced Moths

Damn it!

Even Lu Xiao was heavily startled by this sight.

He hurriedly raised the close-in defense grenade launcher in his hand and blasted a shot upward.

Damn it!

This "damn it" was shouted by Dante. After screaming that out, he immediately yelled again.

Hit the dirt right now!

Except for Lu Xiao, everyone else dropped flat onto the ground at that moment.

It wasn't that Lu Xiao didn't want to hit the dirt; it was simply that he was carrying too much gear, which made it rather inconvenient.

Boom!

A violent explosion rang out.

Countless face-hugger moths fluttered their wings and scattered in all directions.

Once they spread their wings, their massive bodies were as large as water buffaloes.

Shrapnel from the grenade flew in all directions.

The bizarre, miserable shrieks of the face-hugger moths echoed infinitely within the cavern.

Fortunately, this cave had endured an untold number of rounds of bombardment, and the earth had already been charred.

Otherwise, Lu Xiao's blast might have caused the entire cavern to collapse directly.

A piece of shrapnel landed right beside Dante's head.

Dante raised his head and glanced at the grenade shrapnel that was still venting white smoke.

Buddy! Next time, please give a heads-up before you open fire!

Lu Xiao grinned, and with a split-second delay, fired two more consecutive shots.

This time, Dante didn't even need to remind anyone; everyone wished they could bury themselves deep into the soil.

They were deeply worried that before even being touched by a face-hugger moth, they would be ruthlessly crippled by friendly fire.

Boom!

Boom, boom!

Successive gunshots reverberated through the cavern, making everyone's ears ache intensely.

The face-hugger moths moved extremely fast. Aside from Lu Xiao's initial shot, which inflicted effective damage, the subsequent shots did not yield very ideal results.

However, Lu Xiao naturally had a way to deal with this.

He held the close-in defense grenade launcher in one hand while reaching out with the other like a magician to pull out that bone spike.

When Dante saw that bone spike, his vision instantly went dark.

Damn it! Buddy! Calm down!

However, Lu Xiao seemed completely deaf to his cries.

With a crazed expression plastered across his face, he gripped the bone spike and violently stabbed it into his own thigh.

You're a damn lunatic!

Dante cursed aloud.

Squish!

The bone spike drove deep into Lu Xiao's thigh, and then the turquoise gemstone at the hilt emitted a halo of white light.

Resisting the feeling of dizziness, Lu Xiao fired another round.

Those rapidly moving face-hugger moths suddenly looked as though they had been hit with a pause button.

Before they even began to plummet downward, a grenade accurately landed right in the middle of the swarm of face-hugger moths.

For a moment, dark green fluids poured down like raindrops.

Accompanied by this came countless shattered limbs.

However, the dizziness affecting the face-hugger moths did not last long; in less than five seconds, they snapped back to their senses.

Without a moment of hesitation, Lu Xiao pulled out the bone spike and stabbed it into his thigh once again.

Hum!

A white halo swept past, and those face-hugger moths were plunged into a brief state of dizziness once more.

Boom!

Another precise grenade dropped.

Lu Xiao repeated the process.

Before long, his thigh was riddled with holes.

The bizarre thing was that not a single drop of blood flowed from those holes.

They were all completely absorbed by the bone spike.

The turquoise gemstone at the hilt grew increasingly translucent.

On Lu Xiao's thigh, the wounds inflicted by the bone spike were healing rapidly.

Lu Xiao seemed entirely impervious to pain; when there was no space left to pierce on his left leg, he simply switched to his right.

Under such high-intensity self-mutilation and assault, the face-hugger moths were thoroughly purged.

The only unfortunate part was that the five people lying on the ground were continuously foaming at the mouth.

By this time, the muzzle of the close-in defense grenade launcher had turned glowing red.

Lu Xiao grinned widely.

Fifty-seven rounds! A true man should definitely blast away!

The cross breeze blowing through the tunnel, mixed with a nauseating stench, rushed straight toward Lu Xiao's face.

Lu Xiao took a deep breath.

The air is truly wonderful!

...

I don't know how much time had passed before the five people lying on the ground finally stirred back to consciousness.

Because the bone spike's effect had been triggered multiple times, the overlapping layers of dizziness caused their period of unconsciousness to exceed four hours.

The first to wake up was the Driver.

His mental strength was the strongest among everyone present, second only to Lu Xiao.

The driver slowly climbed to his feet and scanned his surroundings.

All he could see were scattered limbs of face-hugger moths and thick, dark green viscous liquid covering the entire tunnel.

Even as an anomalous entity, the driver could not suppress a dry heave.

After a long while, Dante finally regained consciousness.

He felt as though his head had been hammered dozens of times by someone, to the point where his skull felt ready to fracture.

Clutching his forehead, his gaze looked somewhat hollow.

What happened?

Instinct drove him to reach into his pants pocket.

With trembling hands, Dante slowly pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

Pulling one out and lighting it up, his gaze finally regained a trace of vitality.

When he clearly saw the scene around him, the cigarette dangling from his mouth dropped to the ground in sheer fright, immediately followed by another bout of dry heaving.

Lu Xiao said with a concerned expression,

Mr. Dante, I told you not to smoke so much, why wouldn't you listen?

Dante rubbed his temples, only then recalling what had happened before he passed out.

Gazing at the countless tattered holes on the thigh area of Lu Xiao's trousers, he gritted his teeth and spat out a sentence.

You are really a motherfucking lunatic!

Lu Xiao replied with utmost seriousness,

Mr. Dante, let me make a correction; I am not a lunatic!

Dante ignored Lu Xiao and walked over to the other three.

After flipping them over one by one, he pinched their philtrums in an attempt to forcefully reboot them.

Soon enough, Flowing Light and the others woke up.

The very first thing Slick said upon waking was,

I dreamed of my long-deceased great-grandmother, and the old lady kept insisting on taking me away with her!

After another round of recuperation, several more hours ticked by.

There was simply no other choice; the lingering aftereffects were genuinely too powerful.

Dante lit a cigarette.

The quantity isn't too large; it looks like the extermination back then was quite successful!

In the absence of food sources, the reproduction rate of face-hugger moths isn't exceptionally fast either!

It seems we have a very high hope of finding the larvae!

Lu Xiao grinned.

What are we waiting for then? Let's go find them right now!

Dante took a deep drag from his cigarette.

Don't rush. Face-hugger moths have a characteristic when laying eggs: they concentrate their eggs in a single location!

If I'm not mistaken, there should be a dedicated egg-laying site for them around here!

See if you can sense the aura of those eggs!

Lu Xiao nodded, then hoisted the close-in defense grenade launcher and took the lead.

After walking for about three hours or so, Lu Xiao's brows furrowed slightly.

I smell an evil aura, and it's very intense!

Dante's heart instantly tightened.

Lu Xiao's words implied that a powerful anomalous lifeform was lurking nearby.

Just as he was hesitating whether to call for reinforcements first, an extremely bizarre sound rang out.

That sound defied verbal description.

Merely hearing it caused one to experience extreme discomfort.

A look of utter terror surfaced on Dante's face.

Run!

His voice was trembling.

That sound is... the Face-Hugger Moth Empress!