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"Up ahead is Moon City's farthest outpost of exploration."
The outpost had already come within the angels' field of vision, and Klein saw it through their shared mind link. In the distance, several large, supple awnings had been stretched between weathered walls and broken stone pillars. Tents stood against the walls in a corner, joined together into a small camp for around ten people.
It was morning, still a little before lunchtime, and the team showed no sign of continuing to explore outward.
Four people remained at the outpost. Two stood guard, while the other two used gathered dead branches and wild grass to build a fire. The water in the pot they had just set up was not yet hot. A small cloth bag sat beside them, as though they planned to cook once the hunting party returned.
An enormous monster's limb lay in a corner of the camp, covered with cloth presumably used to keep out water, prevent decay, and stop its odor from spreading.
Klein saw the woman preparing the meal stand up, draw the knife hanging at her waist with her deformed left arm, and slowly cut a piece of edible meat from the monster, which had bizarre tumors and muscular structures growing on it. Blood slowly seeped from the wound like thick, blackish-red petroleum. Klein frowned, almost able to imagine its pungent stench, but the Moon City team showed no unusual reaction.
Then the woman with the slightly deformed body took a dried mushroom from the cloth bag at her waist.
Klein's expression briefly turned unnatural.
The female Beyonder stuck the apparently air-dried mushroom into the black monster flesh in her hand.
In the blink of an eye, the shriveled white mushroom actually began swelling at a visible rate. Fine black threads kept crawling