"Fuck, I shouldn't have eaten so much earlier. If I'd known, I wouldn't have eaten at all!" Watching the swaying figures crawl out of the black sludge, Han Shu clutched his stomach, looking queasy.
He wasn't the only one. The others felt sick too, and some couldn't help dry-heaving.
Drawn by the humans' scent and their warm flesh and blood, the Wanderers Ghost Car hadn't digested emerged from the black sludge and staggered toward the Ascenders.
In an open area, however, the Wanderers posed far less danger. As long as they didn't latch onto anyone, they were unlikely to be lethal.
The real problem was Ghost Car. Having successfully "slimmed down," the monster no longer radiated such intense heat, but red light still shone through its surface.
Tianyang examined it with his electronic eye and obtained a set of readings. Ghost Car's surface temperature fluctuated between 150 and 180 degrees-still far too hot to approach easily.
The underside of its abdomen, on the other hand, was only in the thirties, a perfectly tolerable temperature. But getting underneath it meant facing the threat of its mouthparts.
Besides, its two scythe-like forelimbs, still glowing red, hardly looked decorative.
As the Wanderers began closing in on the Ascenders, Ghost Car lowered its body and drove the legs on either side sharply downward. Like a grasshopper, the monster leaped nearly ten meters into the air and clung to a building.
Then it scurried along the wall like a reptile, passing above Tianyang and the others as it raced toward the firing position at the intersection.
"Shit, shit, shit, shit!" Han Shu shouted, running back. "Don't just stand there! Shoot it down!"
The personnel at the firing position had already redirected their weapons toward Ghost Car without needing his orders. This time, however, the slimmed-down monster was more than twice as fast as before, and its body was smaller. Most of the fire missed, striking the buildings it crawled across and blasting the already dilapidated structures into flying debris.
All that accomplished was to create obstacles for Han Shu and the others rushing back.
The Heavy-Armored Model remained anchored to the road. Thanks to the 360-degree universal swivel at its waist, the machine didn't need to turn around as it raised its two autocannons and kept firing after Ghost Car.
Two blazing torrents of metal lashed the buildings like searing whips before finally catching Ghost Car. The heavy barrage drove the monster into a building, but before the pilot could celebrate, Ghost Car smashed out through the other side.
The monster landed, darted back onto the main road, and advanced in a zigzag.
The pilot finally panicked. The monster was clearly coming for him! Seeing that he couldn't stop Ghost Car's advance, he decided to abandon the Three-Dimensional Armament and slapped the eject button.
Ghost Car planted its legs and launched itself into the air, descending on the Heavy-Armored Model with its mouthparts spread wide.
Switched to automatic mode, the armament continued pouring autocannon rounds into Ghost Car's mouthparts. At the same time, the armor on its back fell away, and the pilot ejected along with his seat.
Ghost Car landed and swallowed the Fifth-Generation Armament in its maw. Still airborne, the pilot breathed a sigh of relief. He had escaped at the very last moment.
Just then, one of Ghost Car's scythe-like forelimbs shot through the air.
A streak of red light flashed across the pilot's body. Before he could even react, he and the seat beneath him were sliced in two!
The bombardment continued. No one even had time to mourn the pilot. A single second of carelessness could leave any of them sharing his fate.
The firing position was under immense pressure. After destroying the Heavy-Armored Model, Ghost Car slashed apart two Falcon combat vehicles in succession.
As it charged toward the medical vehicle, a freezing mist suddenly swept in from somewhere. Gray-white frost vapor enveloped Ghost Car. The temperature around the monster plummeted, its glowing red crystals dimmed, and ice rapidly spread over its body, starting from its legs.
The monster managed to crawl only a dozen or so meters before it was frozen inside a hard shell of ice. Icicles even formed along its outstretched legs.
Atop a combat vehicle, the bald woman who captained the Gray Pigeon Squad let out a long breath. An Elemental Heart Ascender, Lida had just unleashed her ability, Withering.
It was a terrifying ability that converted Star Essence into the power of frost, instantly freezing everything within several dozen square meters. Its only limitation was range.
That was why Lida had been unable to freeze Ghost Car until it came close.
Cheers erupted across the firing position. Even Han Shu slowed his returning steps. Looking toward the bald woman, the burly man gave a dry chuckle. "Nice work, Lida."
But then the frozen Ghost Car began to tremble. Lida looked over and saw the red crystals on the monster's body shining brilliantly beneath the ice. The ice began to melt, and wisps of steam rose into the air.
Moments later, the ice suddenly exploded. Ghost Car let out a piercing shriek, turned toward Lida, and charged.
"Damn it!"
Lida hurriedly jumped off the combat vehicle, landed, and rolled. She had only just regained her feet when she heard metal being sliced apart behind her. Looking back, she saw that Ghost Car had cut the vehicle in half. Amid the flames of the explosion, the monster curled its body backward, spread its mouthparts wide, and let out a triumphant cry.
"We're done for. There's no fighting a monster like that." Han Shu held his Star Essence spear with a bitter smile.
The others were dispirited too. If even the bald woman's Withering couldn't stop the creature, anyone else who went up against it would only be throwing their life away.
The only one who thought otherwise was Tianyang, who was covering his left eye. Through his remaining eye, he could see Ghost Car's body becoming translucent. Though the monster had become even harder to deal with after slimming down,
it clearly could no longer deploy its deflection force field.
That was why even the Three-Dimensional Armament's heavy autocannons could easily blast it into a building, provided they hit.
Now Tianyang found that his Weakness Sense was useful again. He still couldn't directly see Ghost Car's will cage as he had last time, though.
But he could at least make out a faint red glow flickering inside Ghost Car, above its mouthparts.
He walked over to Han Shu and said quietly, "Captain, I think I know where that thing's will cage is."
Han Shu turned toward the boy, surprise filling his eyes.
A moment later, the Shooter Model's pilot received a transmission from Han Shu. "Does that thing of yours have Sniper Equipment?"
The pilot answered at once. "Yes. The fifth-generation model is equipped with the Falling Star sniper cannon. But I need to know where the will cage is. Otherwise..."
"Heh, here's your chance." Holding his communicator, Han Shu pointed at Ghost Car. "Listen carefully. That thing's cage is probably above its mouthparts, roughly a third of the way up its body cavity. Ideally, you'd fire a shot from beneath its mouthparts, but that's not realistic. So can you take it out from the outside?"
The pilot was already tapping the screen to activate the sniper cannon. "No problem. If one shot won't do it, I'll fire ten!"
Han Shu said eagerly, "Give it everything you've got!"
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