305: Chapter 305 Fifth-Order Monster

The corpses of a thousand Fourth-Order Monster Beasts covered the plateau.

The dark red moss was mostly covered by plasma and shredded flesh. The air was thick with a fishy-sweet scent, and the wind blowing from the north pushed this odor toward the south.

The Logistics Group's recovery vehicles had already caught up.

Hundreds of heavy trucks drove up from the rear of the formation, stopping at the edge of the battlefield.

Following behind the trucks were thirty Engineering Mechas—slightly shorter than the combat mechas at only a dozen or so meters tall. They lacked weapon systems, but their two arms had been replaced with hydraulic clamps and cutting saws.

The Engineering Mechas jumped off the transport flatbeds and began clearing the monster beast corpses.

The process was already very familiar—first, use the cutting saw to split open the monster beast's skull and remove the demon core, then use the hydraulic clamps to grab the corpse and throw it onto a truck to be transported back to the portal and sent to the Zombie World to feed the zombies.

Su Mingyuan stood atop the command vehicle, holding binoculars and looking north.

The plateau continued to extend northward, the terrain gradually rising.

The dark red moss became sparse further away, exposing the grayish-black rocky ground.

Visibility was excellent.

On the northern horizon, a raised ridge could be seen stretching across the end of the plateau like a low wall.

"Tao Zhe, what's on the other side of the ridge?"

Tao Zhe pulled up the drone footage.

The drone's range was limited; it had only captured the outer side of the ridge.

"The terrain sinks behind the ridge, looking like a basin. The signal began to attenuate when the drone flew over the ridge, so I didn't dare go any deeper."

Su Mingyuan lowered his binoculars.

"Reason for the signal attenuation?"

"The spiritual energy concentration is too high." Tao Zhe glanced at the detector in his hand. "From where we're standing now, for every kilometer we advance north, the concentration rises by eight to ten percent. By the time we reach the ridge, the concentration might be three to four times higher than here."

It was already seven times that of the Forward Base here.

Behind the ridge, it would be twenty to twenty-eight times.

Su Mingyuan did not immediately order the advance to continue.

He waited for the Logistics Group to finish collecting all the demon cores. One thousand and three Fourth-Order demon cores filled four metal boxes, which were locked and loaded onto the trucks.

Then he jumped down from the command vehicle and walked over to Chen Rong and Lin Wan.

The two were standing by the foot of a mecha, both looking somewhat fatigued.

Controlling one hundred and twenty mechas simultaneously for two hours consumed a significant amount of spiritual power; even those at the Foundation Establishment Stage couldn't possibly feel nothing.

"Can you continue?" Su Mingyuan asked.

Chen Rong stretched his neck. "Yes. Just need ten minutes of rest."

Lin Wan didn't speak, only nodding once.

Su Mingyuan checked his watch.

"Rest for thirty minutes. Everyone, replenish your food and water. We continue north in thirty minutes."

—

Thirty minutes later, the formation restarted.

Two thousand mechas stepped onto the grayish-black rocky ground of the northern plateau.

The tactile sensation underfoot was completely different from before.

The mossy ground was soft and had a bit of elasticity when stepped on.

The rocky ground was much harder, and the mechas' feet made dull thumping sounds that echoed across the empty plateau.

The further north they went, the fewer monster beasts there were.

It wasn't that the density had decreased, but that they had completely disappeared.

During the previous clearing, scattered monster beasts would emerge from all directions no matter how many were killed.

But now, there wasn't a single red dot on the heat map.

It was completely clean.

"Something's not right," Zhang Dabiao said over the communication channel.

Su Mingyuan didn't respond; he also felt something was wrong.

A thousand Fourth-Order Monster Beasts gathered together was already abnormal enough.

Now that even low-level monster beasts couldn't be seen, it meant something in this area had driven all the monster beasts away.

Or scared them away.

"All units, reduce speed. Advance speed reduced to ten kilometers per hour," Su Mingyuan said. "All mechas switch to combat mode, unlock weapon systems."

"Chen Rong, pull the Vanguard Formation in to five hundred meters in front of the main force; don't pull too far away."

"Lin Wan, pull your formation into the main force's flanks, keep it tight."

After the orders were issued, the two thousand mechas switched from a marching column to a defensive formation. Their speed slowed, and the spacing between each mecha narrowed, like a group of hedgehogs tightening their bodies.

They traveled for about another forty minutes.

The ridge was getting closer and closer.

Su Mingyuan could see the silhouette of the ridge clearly—it wasn't high, reaching just over two hundred meters at its highest point, with a gentle slope and a surface covered in a layer of grayish-black gravel.

At the foot of the ridge was a natural gap, about three hundred meters wide, just enough for the mecha formation to pass through.

"Are we going through this gap?" Tao Zhe asked.

Su Mingyuan looked at the gap and thought for a moment.

"Send a drone in to take a look first."

Three drones took off from the top of the command vehicle and flew toward the gap.

After the first two flew into the gap, the footage was normal—bare rock walls on both sides of the gap, gravel on the ground, no monster beasts, no abnormalities.

The third drone flew through the gap and entered the area behind the ridge.

The moment the footage was transmitted back, Tao Zhe's hand froze.

"Group Leader Su."

His voice had changed.

Su Mingyuan leaned over to look at the screen.

The area behind the ridge was indeed a basin.

But the center of the basin wasn't flat ground.

It was a pit.

A massive, circular, bottomless pit.

The diameter was visually estimated to be over two kilometers.

The walls of the pit were steep, almost vertical. Looking down from the edge, the bottom was hidden in a layer of gray mist.

But it wasn't this pit that caused Tao Zhe's voice to falter.

It was the thing lying by the edge of the pit.

The drone's lens zoomed in.

A snake.

Coiled on the northern edge of the pit.

The thickness of its body was about the same as a mecha's torso—at least seven or eight meters in diameter.

The length of the snake's body couldn't be estimated because most of it was coiled in a bunch, with only the head and neck extended, resting on the edge of the pit, the snake's head facing south.

Facing the direction they were coming from.

The scales were black, as if coated in a layer of black lacquer.

"Physical parameters—" Tao Zhe's fingers tapped on the keyboard a few times. "Body diameter approximately seven point five meters. Visible length... Tianheng estimates the total length to be between one hundred and twenty and one hundred and fifty meters."

"And the energy readings?" Su Mingyuan asked.

Tao Zhe glanced at the numbers on the spectrometer.

He was silent for two seconds.

"Fifth-Order."

Two words.

Since entering the Yaowu World, the highest level of monster beast they had encountered was Fourth-Order.

Fourth-Order already required mechas to deal with.

Fifth-Order, in the ancient records of Cang City, belonged to the level of legends.

City Lord Zhou Yan was a Fourth-Order martial artist; he couldn't defeat a Fourth-Order Monster Beast alone and needed the cooperation of all of Cang City's military power.

In the history of Cang City, no one had ever successfully hunted a Fifth-Order Monster Beast.

Su Mingyuan stared at the coiled black giant python on the screen for about five seconds.

"Has it noticed the drone?"

"No reaction so far. Its eyes have been closed the whole time," Tao Zhe said. "It might be sleeping, or it might be faking it."

Su Mingyuan made a decision.

"No more waiting. Take it out."