Volume 5: Bottomless Sinkhole Chapter 268 Hostage
The moment the black shadow appeared, Ke Lan had already activated the time stop... However, the speed of the black shadow was far beyond Ke Lan's reaction. Even in the stopped state, Ke Lan only caught a blurry shadow, while the other party's real body had already hidden behind the stone pillar.
Layton was right, it was indeed a humanoid creature, but it was nearly three meters tall - the tallest person in Ke Lan's team was the 1.95-meter-tall biochemically modified human Layton, but this thing was much taller than Layton.
But in stark contrast to Layton's sturdy figure, this creature was very thin, just like the hand they saw now, it was so thin that it could only be described as skin and bones.
But on top of its shoulders, there is a very huge head.
Ke Lan couldn't see the other person's face clearly, but vaguely, he seemed to see that there were more than two eyes on the other person's face.
The eyes of both parties met for only a very brief moment, so briefly that even Ke Lan's mind didn't have time to generate a corresponding image.
Rather than running, it would be more accurate to say that the creature was teleporting... If it were converted into a digital image at 120 frames per second, the entire process would probably not exceed one frame.
"It's that hand... right?" The Hound took a step back and stood side by side with Ke Lan.
"That weird, uncoordinated body proportion... is exactly the same as that hand." Ke Lan nodded, "It's very fast, I can't catch it."
"Old Dog, you take command. You have more experience in combat than I do." Ke Lan took the initiative to say.
"Okay... If we're fast, then there's only one way to deal with it." Hound gestured to Layton, "Can you provide fire coverage?"
"It's difficult." Layton looked bitter and shook his head. "The stone pillars here are too dense. There are many blind spots for attack. It's impossible to achieve full coverage."
"Then let's not get close to the stone pillar and wait for it to come out... There's no shelter for it in the 50-meter open space in the middle," said the Hound. "We'll be ready for it."
Layton pulled out a metal cylinder hidden in the secret compartment of the mechanical arm and threw it toward the open space in front. Before the metal cylinder hit the ground, hundreds of thousands of alloy particles spilled out of it and scattered on the ground.
This is a miniature electromagnetic mine. As long as the target touches one of them, the other alloy particles will immediately attract the triggered one and release a powerful electric current. No matter how fast the thing is, it is impossible to pass through the minefield unscathed.
But no one expected that the scream came from behind.
When Ke Lan turned around, he saw Martin's abdominal cavity being torn open by a thin, pale hand, and slippery intestines mixed with blood and filth flowed out from the gap - and behind him, the monster finally revealed its true appearance.
It has limbs and torso similar to those of humans. A layer of grayish-white, rough skin covered with boils is tightly stretched over the bony skeleton. Its fingers are almost twice as long as those of a normal person, and its sharp nails are covered with bright red blood.
On its neck, there is a huge head that is completely disproportionate to its body. From the front, it looks like a severely deformed melon that has been squeezed. On the front of the head, there are dozens of eyeballs of different sizes embedded like a shower head.
"When did it come behind us?!" the hound shouted while shooting, but the monster lifted up Martin in his hand and blocked it in front of him. All the bullets shot by the hound hit Martin, and none of them hit the monster.
"Is this another monster, or the same one just now? How can it be so fast?" Leighton roared. He had already opened the energy shield to protect Ke Lan and Qin Zhao behind him. The multi-barrel machine gun in his hand began to rotate, but he did not fire.
The three body bags containing the teammates were right at the feet of the monster. If Layton fired a volley of bullets at them, there was no guarantee that the monster would not use the body bags as shields again.
It is very fast and has a high level of intelligence. These two points alone are enough to make it a difficult target.
"This thing... it won't run away..." The hound quickly replaced a full magazine, "Look at its eyes, some of them are staring at the body bag on the ground... Damn, this thing is smart! It knows that we will be cautious and dare not use heavy firepower!"
"Let me do it! You guys cover me!" Zhuo Ligetu suddenly let out a low roar. He pulled out a Mongolian scimitar with a heavy blade from his waist and pounced directly at the monster!
"Old dog! Layton! Let's attack the eyes on its head first! Predict its movements before shooting, and try not to hurt your teammates by mistake!" Ke Lan said. At this time, Zhuo Ligetu was less than three meters away from the monster!
He roared again and swung the scimitar in his hand directly at the monster's face. He suddenly bent down, grabbed the two body bags on the ground, and quickly retreated.
From the very beginning, Zhuo Ligetu's target was not the monster itself, but the body bags that it held as "hostages". His previous ferocious and aggressive posture was more of a bluff.
"Well done!" the hound called out. "Layton, get him!"
As soon as the Hound finished speaking, Layton leaped forward with the sudden burst of power from his exoskeleton and mechanical prosthesis, pushing the shield to the front.
The monster was retreating quickly! It held Martin, whose life or death was unknown, in one hand and picked up a body bag left on the ground with the other. In just half a second, it had opened up a distance of more than 20 meters between itself and Ke Lan and the others, forcing the hound to release the trigger again.
"Damn it, this thing can even take hostages!"
"I always feel... that it can understand what we are saying." Ke Lan opened his eyes wide and looked directly into the dozens of eyes of the monster. For some reason, he always felt that the monster seemed to be smiling.
The next second, the humanoid monster suddenly turned around and drilled into the vertical shaft that Ke Lan and the others had come down from!
"It's trying to escape?!"
