Chapter 294: Abandoned Mine Cave
After the car stopped at the entrance of an abandoned mine, Fang Mu got out with everyone, and they indeed found strange footprints nearby the abandoned mine.
The footprints basically had human characteristics, but the special thing was that they were very large, twice the size of an average adult male’s footprints, and the toe areas presented a triangular shape different from humans, which meant their toes had sharp nails, and at the same time, the front part of this footprint was deeper, meaning the footprint’s owner walked on tiptoes.
About three to four meters away from the first discovered footprint, they found another footprint from the same creature’s other foot.
This discovery was extremely heart-pounding, because it meant this creature’s physical ability far exceeded people’s imagination; its speed running swiftly through the woods allowed it to cover three to four meters in one step, no different from a fierce beast.
And to know, this thing had wisdom and could walk upright; they would only be more terrifying and dangerous than the fierce beasts in people’s impressions.
Guessing that the anomaly recently abducting children and boys might be something like Corpse Disciples or a witch, the Mysterious Group squad led by An Fang had been temporarily specially dispatched their information.
Comparing the footprint pictures provided by the information with the footprints at the scene, it could almost be completely determined that the monster leaving these footprints was a Corpse Disciple.
Fang Mu looked at those footprints and suddenly felt a bit dazed; in the blink of an eye, the surrounding scenery switched to nighttime, a hairless humanoid monster with skinny limbs and a hunched figure, topped with a pair of inhuman green beast eyes, leaping over walls and running along eaves in the woods—if not for his special eyes, he probably wouldn’t have been able to keep up with the opponent’s movements.
Coming back to his senses, Fang Mu had already broken out in a cold sweat and stood stunned in place for a few seconds.
An Fang’s line of sight hardly left Fang Mu for long; she had always seen the changes in Fang Mu’s expression, and after three years of interaction, she also had some understanding of Fang Mu’s special abilities.
For example, Fang Mu would occasionally have “visions” and “auditory hallucinations,” but they were not entirely hallucinations; his eyes could see images of past or future moments at a certain time point in a place at any time, and additionally his eyesight was astonishing—if Fang Mu could carry a gun, he would become a terrifying sharpshooter; similarly with his auditory hallucinations.
Fang Mu’s relatively stable mental state and these super senses abilities were important reasons he was allowed to stay in the Mysterious Group squad; in this era, scouting methods with technology in the Shenzhou Region were still too few, and investigating anomaly events was very difficult; Fang Mu was a very useful prop.
After instructing everyone to prepare to enter the mine cave at any time, An Fang also took the opportunity to come to Fang Mu’s side and softly asked, “What did you see again?”
“A hairless humanoid monster running in the woods, hunting a human passing through their predation realm at night; that person didn’t die but had all four limbs broken; the monster gnawed on his arm while dragging the powerless, despairing human into the depths of the mine cave.” While speaking, Fang Mu led An Fang through the places where the Corpse Disciple footprints had appeared, then parted a bush and found inside a human severed finger crawling with scavenging insects eating it.
An Fang frowned tightly, “Corpse Disciples have the habit of storing food, and it’s almost winter now; they dislike cold and also dislike high heat; not killing the prey immediately is probably for this reason.”
Fang Mu shook his head, his gaze turning to An Fang, and calmly said, “It might not just be that; I saw that beast’s expression—it was pleasured, enjoying the despairing screams from the prey facing desperate situation.”
Hearing this, An Fang clenched her fist; she didn’t doubt Fang Mu’s words at all and gritted her teeth: “These damned beasts, I’m going to slaughter them!”
Fang Mu was slightly silent and asked, “Later, how do you plan to arrange me?”
“Same as always, just stay by my side and don’t easily leave my line of sight.” An Fang glanced at him, then handed an expandable baton to Fang Mu, “This is for your self-defense.”
“What you said sounds no different from a domineering CEO.” Fang Mu rarely complained about her, took the expandable baton and swung it at the air; the whooshing sound of the baton sweeping the air was somewhat intimidating, and it would definitely cause severe pain if hit on a human body; he muttered, “Having a weapon is better than none.”
“Don’t think about fighting the Corpse Disciples desperately with this thing; they fear cold, but freezing won’t kill them, only slow their movements; flame is the only sharp weapon to kill them.” An Fang took out her pistol from the gun stock, exposed the magazine to let Fang Mu see those specialized bullets marked with red circles.
Simply put, Corpse Disciples feared strong light and high heat.
These bullets were developed explosive flame bullets, specially for dealing with anomaly creatures afraid of light and heat; using them on humans would be too wasteful, after all, ordinary bullets were enough for such vulnerable creatures as humans.
“Never thought of giving me one?” Fang Mu joked, chatting idly with An Fang while the others were still preparing and packing.
But An Fang seemed not to take this as a joke; she shook her head and seriously replied, “I wanted to, but the application was denied; I really don’t know when you might lose control.”
Fang Mu’s mouth corners curved up, the playfulness in his smile slightly restrained, and as seriously as her he said, “Then I can only point out attack directions for you when you’re not looking; are you willing to trust me?”
“I trust.” An Fang nodded affirmatively.
Everyone finished gearing up, and the group of ten formed two columns and entered the abandoned mine cave.
The Mystic Investigator profession was high-risk and couldn’t skimp on money; everyone was fully armed and wore night vision goggles, equipped top to bottom with the current top technology in the Shenzhou Region.
Fang Mu had no difference in protective gear from the other Mystic Investigators except for lacking weapons; of course, his special eyes meant he didn’t need to wear night vision goggles either, moving naked-eyed in the dark mine cave and seeing things even clearer than those wearing night vision equipment.
“Stop!” Fang Mu was walking in the front row; after turning several mine tunnels, he called out for everyone to stop.
“What’s wrong?” A Mystic Investigator puzzledly stepped forward to inquire, but was stopped by him before reaching Fang Mu’s shoulder height.
Fang Mu saw the dissatisfied expression on this young Mystic Investigator transferred from the local Mysterious Group Branch, and calmly said, “There’s an abyss ahead; one more step and you’d fall to your death.”
Hearing this, the Mystic Investigator felt a chill in his heart, quickly removed his night vision goggles, lit an illumination stick and threw it forward; the illumination stick blooming with red light instantly lit up the scenery ahead.
The path suddenly broke here, with an advancing cave entrance only five meters away in front, and between these five meters was a bottomless abyss; the red light of the illumination stick kept falling until the red light extinguished without hearing the echo of hitting the ground.
