49 Waking Up the Ghost in the Cloak (1/2)
”What do you have to say for yourself? Anything at all? Go ahead, don't be shy. Explain the thought process that led you to our current situation. ”
”....You see, I thou—”
”Ahh... I see, I see. I understand now, it makes total sense. Alerting the entire city of our whereabouts was a part of your grand plan, right?”
”...I didn't mean to al—”
”So what's the next part of the plan, Reed? Shall we head out go to battle with that thing over there? Was your plan to screw everyone over in the worst way possible?”
”.....No, that wasn't my inten—”
”Man.... you've really shit the bed this time. I can't wait to see how you'll fix this, bud. I mean, just look at that goddamned beast. Look at the size of it! H-Haha... isn't it taller than this skyscraper?”
”Is it even possible for us to slay that monstrosity? I could see a fully armed warship taking it down, but us as we are now? It'd be tantamount to suicide.”
It dwarfed every living thing that they'd ever seen in their lives. It was so tall that it defied their understanding of what a living being could be. The lumbering, amorphous titan even scraped past the clouds as it moved across the city.
There was something fundamentally unsettling about even looking at the creature's silhouette. It had an essence, an aura of discord , that shrouded it from view as the furious storm raged across the city. But every now and then, a bolt of lightning would flash by and faintly cast a light on the creature for the span of less than a second.
Whenever that happened, they would also catch a glimpse of the unspeakable . None dared to comment on what they saw.
When Reed set off his fireworks display off, he received a reply. Something from above the endless storm-cloud layer descended upon the city, along with a near-apocalyptic rainstorm. The downpour was so intense that portions of the city had even begun to flood in shallower areas...
The wriggling silhouette in the storm shook the earth as it gradually moved toward them, one titanic step at a time. As if heralding the arrival of the gargantuan monstrosity, a cacophony of screeches and roars accompanied the unearthly creature's movement. They were different from the cries that Reed had heard before when he first encountered the Infested. The horde was not crying out in fury or madness like before... No, something was wrong .
Beneath all the insanity laced within their shrieking, Reed unexpectedly felt like he'd heard something else. He felt like he'd heard fear in their mangled voices — an overwhelming sense of terror. Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please clickfor visiting.
Fortunately, the enormous entity's size worked against it and greatly labored in order to move. It would be a while, maybe an hour and a half before it'd reach the outpost. There was still time to act, for now. Time was of the essence if they were to survive.
Reed gazed at the massive shadow in the storm and quietly said, ”It's impossible. There's no point in even contemplating whether we can kill it or not. A highly skilled conqueror might stand a chance at fighting it, and that's a generous guess.”
Astor looked at Reed despondently and said, ”Then what do you suggest? Roll over and die? I prefer not to die without struggling at the very least.” He was about to make a remark on Reed's hopeless attitude but was caught off when a visitor suddenly arrived with a bang.
A flash of light struck the observation deck above them and burst through the ceiling angrily like a force of nature. A torrent of malicious intent quickly locked onto Reed almost instantaneously. Reed sighed internally — for better or worse, his warden had finally arrived. Salvation and damnation awaited him in equal measure.
The Anima that rolled off of her was ghastly and turbulent, making her seem as if she were a judge from hell. It was so frightening that some of the trainees even mistakenly assumed that she was actually an Infested until the dust settled around her.
Reed grit his teeth, expecting a biblical-level verbal beatdown until he begged for forgiveness, but it strangely never happened. Lu'um simply glared at him with a hollow expression and said, ”Don't even think that I'm going to let you off. Consider your sentence postponed for a later date since the situation's gotten complicated now.”
”You never cease to impress, you know. To think that you actually managed to catch the attention of a Lesser Nightmare . I was wondering why all the Infested in the area turned tail like frightened rats all of a sudden. You've really outdone yourself this time, Reed.”
She pointed at Lesser Nightmare and said, ”You see that right there? That thing over there consumes Anima and uses it to poison everything around it, eroding the planet away piece-by-piece until nothing is left except a barren, lifeless world. The miasma they release is toxic even to the Infested , which is why they ran away when it descended upon the city.”
”...........Oh.”
Reed felt cold sweat form on his face as he stared at the unholy monstrosity in the distance and said, ”We're going to need a really big Anima cannon, I suppose. Do we have any of those in one of our warships?”
An awkward, tense silence filled the room until Astrid chimed in and said, ”I've modified the transponder that was left to us and it's broadcasting on all available channels, including the emergency distress channel but I wouldn't expect much from it. The chance that the signal will pierce through the heavy Anima concentration in the area is very low. ”
”Shit. We won't be able to request assistance. I'd hoped that we'd at least be able to hail a roaming fleet somewhere, but now...”
”And we since we aren't official contenders, we don't have privileges to access the FLEETCOM network for additional information. The only intel we have to work on is the map of this damned city. Everything outside of the city's been left intentionally blank since it wasn't a part of the mission area. It's all unknown territory...”
”Does it even matter anymore? Look outside, for god's sake — the city's fucked and so are we. We can run but it'd be the same as charging out into uncharted land; we'd be losing the only advantage we have once we leave. Who knows how dangerous the outlying areas are...”
”It's safe to say that the further we depart from the Heaven's Gate, the more dangerous it'll get... Either way, the situation's fucked.. .”
Whispers floated around here and there amongst the group and many felt an imminent sense of danger. For the vast majority of the group, it was the first time that they'd brushed so closely with death. It was starting to seriously affect morale, something that Reed and his friends quickly picked up on.
He needed to act now before everything spiraled down into something uncontrollable.