Insect Molt

Everyone looked up to see a massive black shadow suspended upside down directly above the hollow. At first glance, the enormous thing seemed to be floating in midair, but when the hunters swept their flashlight beams toward its edges, they could make out the dense mass of fungal filaments.

One end of those filaments was connected to the enormous thing, while the other clung to the rock walls.

"Th... that's the Anomaly's main body?" one hunter whispered, seeming afraid of disturbing the thing above them. He glanced at the gun in his hands, hesitating over whether to fire at the giant overhead.

The thing was shaped like a python coiled into a ball. Its body had to be at least twenty or thirty meters thick, while its length was impossible to determine—but the portion exposed to the hunters' view alone was already more than three hundred meters long.

Against a monster of that size, even if the hunters' guns could pierce its outer defenses, the damage from their bullets would be no more than an itch to it... perhaps not even that.

Unless they could find the Anomaly's weak point, shove their bombs directly inside, and detonate them... but the problem was—where was its weak point?

When they accepted this mission, nearly every hunter in the assault team had harbored a trace of wishful thinking. But the instant they saw the Anomaly's main body with their own eyes, that wishful thinking was wiped away completely.

Now, aside from fear, all they felt was regret.

Everyone had thought they could coast by on luck. Everyone had believed someone else in the team would have a way to deal with the Anomaly... but reality mercilessly slapped every one of them across the face.

"Should we... retreat?" one hunter muttered.

"Retreat where? That