1888: Memoirs of an Unconfirmed Creature Hunter

Chapter 349: The Great Escape

The underground Garden of Eden was moving toward destruction in an irreversible manner.

As the Corpse-Scent Arum, the plant that served as the base's energy and physical support core, rapidly withered and died after being destroyed, the vast network of roots deeply embedded in the rock strata began to catastrophically fracture and disintegrate.

The unsupported underground rock layers, under the pull of gravity, emitted a deep, rumbling roar. Thousands of tons of rock and soil, along with broken beams, crashed down from the dome dozens of meters above, stirring up clouds of dust and fragments.

"Don't look back!"

Lin Jie maintained a tactically sound retreat rhythm. He skillfully maneuvered through the rain of falling debris using the properties of his [Black Mercury], while constantly monitoring the positions of his three teammates behind him.

Nadia, Julian, and Evelyn were close on his heels, each face etched with the fear of death and the desperate desire for survival.

But behind them, an even more terrifying shadow was winding its way through the ruins at an extremely high speed.

The newly born "Human-Dragon" had no intention of letting these insects that had stolen its food escape.

Its massive, bloated body, covered in human limbs, made a horrifyingly slick, wet, scraping sound as it writhed across the ground. Several fleshy tentacles extended from its body, frantically probing the surrounding ruins.

In those compound eyes filled with chaos and hunger, only one target was clear and emitted an irresistible allure.That was Lin Jie.

Or, more accurately, it was the pure spiritual radiance emanating from the [White Vulture's Mark] within Lin Jie's body, belonging to an ancient, high-tier entity.

For this newly born monster, urgently needing high-quality energy to complete its own genetic defects, Lin Jie was like a beacon in the dark night, exuding the sweetest fragrance.

"Hungry..."

The psychic thought projected directly into everyone's minds grew clearer and more frenzied.

"I want... to eat..."

With the fluctuation of this intent, the monster's speed surged once more.

Faced with instruments or collapsed walls blocking its path, it simply smashed through them.

During a brief moment in his sprint, Lin Jie glanced back, and the sight made his scalp crawl.

The monster's surface secreted a highly corrosive, semi-transparent mucus. When its body rolled over a brass boiler weighing several tons, the hard metal shell rapidly softened, dissolved, and finally turned into a puddle of metallic waste fluid billowing black smoke.

Everything in its path, be it steel, rock, or flesh, was completely corroded by this terrifying bodily fluid, leaving behind a wide, charred corridor of death.

"It's catching up!"

Evelyn, running at the rear, shouted with a sob in her voice. She could feel the foul, hot wave behind her almost licking her back.

"This thing makes no sense! It even eats the path!"

"Can't let it get close!"

Julian shouted while running, looking back to see the monster's tentacles were less than twenty meters away from them.

At this distance, conventional weapon attacks couldn't stop the charge of such a behemoth.

"The path ahead is blocked!"

Nadia, responsible for leading the way, suddenly stopped and let out a cry of despair.

About fifty meters ahead of them was the original entrance leading to the surface.

But now, a giant rock the size of a house that had fallen from the dome had completely blocked that entrance.

Piles of rubble formed a wall of despair, a sighing wall.

A dead end ahead.

Pursuers behind.

This was a hopeless situation.

"Damn it!"

Lin Jie's gaze swept rapidly around the area.

This zone was the experimental core area, with an extremely sturdy and enclosed structure. Besides the blocked main entrance, there was only the passage they came from, but that passage was behind the monster.

The "Human-Dragon" seemed to sense the prey's predicament.

It slowed its pace, its massive mouth split to its ears emitting a bizarre, infant-like laughter.

It was savoring the thrill of cornering its prey.

A dozen thick tentacles slowly waved in the air, sealing off Lin Jie and the others' space for evasion.

"We must block it."

A flash of resolve passed through Julian's eyes.

He suddenly stopped running.

"You find a way! I'll give it something extra!"

The scholar turned around, his gaze falling on a row of huge storage tanks not far away.

Those tanks bore bright red danger symbols and were connected via complex piping to the generator units Evelyn had already burned out.

That was the reserve fuel depot here.

It contained tons of high-purity, alchemically refined whale oil and highly volatile fuel oil.

"Julian! Are you insane?!" Evelyn screamed. "Setting off fuel here will blow us all up!"

"Better that than being eaten by this disgusting thing!"

Julian roared, his gun muzzle already aimed at the valves at the bottom of the row of tanks.

"Lin Jie! Take them and go!"

Lin Jie gave Julian a deep look.

He knew this was the only way.

Without creating enough chaos and obstruction, the monster would catch up to them in a matter of seconds.

"Don't die here."

Leaving these words, Lin Jie grabbed Evelyn and Nadia and charged toward the pile of rubble.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Julian's gun fired.

Three bullets traced strange arcs through the air, accurately piercing the valve connection points of the three largest fuel storage tanks.

"Whoosh—"

Black fuel oil gushed out like a high-pressure water jet, instantly drenching the surrounding ground and splashing onto the monster that was preparing to charge.

The "Human-Dragon" seemed somewhat puzzled by this black liquid. It extended a tentacle, dipped it in, and put it in its mouth.

"Goodbye, ugly bastard."

Julian pulled a still-burning windproof lighter from his pocket, a smile belonging to a scholar, both rational and utterly mad, appearing on his face.

He threw the lighter into the flowing fuel.

"BOOM——!!!!!"

Flames erupted in an instant, a firestorm compressed within the enclosed space expanding.

Tons of fuel oil ignited in an extremely short time, the generated high temperature instantly igniting the methane and various volatile chemical gases permeating the air.

A massive, dark-red fire wall, several meters high, materialized out of nowhere, standing between the monster and the group.

The violent explosion shockwave sent Julian flying, slamming him heavily into the pile of rubble beside Lin Jie.

From the other side of the fire wall came the monster's furious and pained cries.

Even this biological weapon fused with countless UMA genes felt intense pain when faced with thousands of degrees of scorching heat.

Its layer of mucus, capable of corroding metal, became a combustion accelerant before the flames. Its massive body thrashed violently in the sea of fire, madly slapping the ground, trying to extinguish the flames on itself.

While this fire wall couldn't kill it, it successfully blocked its advance.

Even if only temporarily.

"Cough, cough... How about that... Pretty effective, right?"

Julian, his face covered in blood, climbed up from the ground. His eyebrows and hair were singed, his clothes full of burnt holes, looking utterly disheveled.

But his eyes were still bright.

"Nicely done."

Lin Jie pulled him up and dragged him to the pile of rubble blocking the exit.

But this didn't solve the fundamental problem.

The path was still dead.

The fire wall could last at most a few minutes. Once the fuel was exhausted or the monster adapted to the high temperature, they would still be trapped.

"The exit... Where's the exit?" Evelyn desperately clawed at the huge rocks, but it was clearly futile.

Each of those rocks weighed several tons, far beyond human strength to move.

"Listen."

Nadia, who had been silent, suddenly lay flat on the ground, pressing her ear tightly against the damp, cold gaps in the rubble.

"What?" Lin Jie asked.

"Water sound."

Nadia's eyes lit up. The acute hearing of a jungle hunter allowed her to catch an extremely faint, peculiar sound behind all the chaotic noise.

"There's the sound of water below! And it's flowing fast!"

She pointed at the concrete slab beneath their feet, which already showed signs of cracking.

"This is the lowest level of the lab. The Dutch back then would definitely have left maintenance access for the drainage system."

"The underground river is right beneath us!"

"It leads to the underground tributary of the Rajang River!"

A light flashed in Lin Jie's eyes.

He remembered the underground reservoir they had passed when entering the lab earlier.

This massive underground base must have had a proper drainage system, otherwise it would have been flooded by groundwater long ago.

And that underground river was their only way out.

"Evelyn!"

Lin Jie roared.

"Do you still have explosives? The directional kind!"

"Two sticks left!" Evelyn pulled out the last of her stock from her backpack. "But this floor is too thick, and we don't know how deep it is below. If it's solid rock layer..."

"No time to hesitate!"

Lin Jie snatched the explosives.

He quickly searched the ground for cracks, structural damage caused by the earlier foundation collapse.

He stuffed the two explosive sticks deep into the widest crack, then pulled out the fuse.

"Fall back! Find cover!"

The four quickly hid behind several large fallen rocks, tightly wrapping themselves in waterproof tarps.

"Boom!"

A muffled explosion sounded beneath their feet.

This explosion didn't produce much flame but generated a powerful downward shockwave.

The already overstressed concrete slab shattered under the force of the pinpoint blast.

As the dust settled, a black hole about three meters in diameter appeared on the ground.

A cold, damp airflow carrying a strong, muddy smell surged out from the hole.

Simultaneously, the sound of a roaring, thunderous torrent came from below.

It was the underground river.

A wildly surging, unknown subterranean artery.

"It's open!" Nadia shouted excitedly.

But before they could rejoice.

Behind them, the originally thick fire wall was suddenly torn apart by a huge, flaming claw.

The "Human-Dragon" had broken through.

The flesh on its body was charred black and peeled back, the mucus covering its surface turned into a hard scab. The madness burning in its compound eyes was no longer hunger, but the frenzied killing intent of something thoroughly enraged.

Ignoring the still-burning flames, it charged toward them like an out-of-control chariot of fire.

The distance was less than fifty meters.

For such a beast, that was just the distance of one pounce.

"Jump!"

Lin Jie wasted no words.

He grabbed the hesitant Evelyn and shoved her hard toward the bottomless black hole.

Evelyn let out a scream, her body instantly disappearing into the darkness.

Followed by Julian and Nadia.

The monster had already closed in.

It opened its massive mouth, still dripping burning oil, and bit down at Lin Jie, the last one remaining.

In that instant, Lin Jie could even see the remnants of human flesh stuck between its teeth.

He didn't retreat or dodge.

Facing the pouncing monster, he raised a middle finger.

Then.

He leaned back.

His entire body fell like a stone into that dark abyss.

"Crash!"

The moment he disappeared, the monster's massive jaws snapped shut on empty air, shattering the concrete slab at the edge of the hole.

...

Cold.

Bone-piercing cold instantly enveloped his entire body.

The sensation was like jumping from a boiling oil pot directly into a ten-thousand-year ice cellar.

Lin Jie felt as if his body had been slapped hard by a giant, icy palm. The massive impact nearly knocked him unconscious the moment he hit the water.

But that wasn't the most terrifying part.

The most terrifying part was the flow speed of this underground river.

The current here was so turbulent it hardly seemed like a naturally formed river, more like the torrent inside a high-pressure water pipe.

After entering the water, Lin Jie was immediately swept forward by the terrifying current.

Surrounding him was absolute darkness.

No light could penetrate this thick layer of earth.

He tumbled and collided in the water.

Although the [Black Mercury] trench coat on his body was still functioning, helping him slide past most of the water's impact force, preventing his internal organs from being crushed by the water pressure.

But in this narrow, unknown underground river channel, there were more deadly dangers.

Countless fragments washed down from upstream spun at high speed in the water.

There were clumps of earth that had fallen during the lab's collapse.

There were those broken instruments.

And also...

Those experimental specimens that had been soaking in tanks.

Those grotesque corpses and severed limbs were now also being swept down by the current. They were like a group of water ghosts wandering in the darkness, constantly colliding with Lin Jie's body in the turbulent flow.

A severed arm with sharp claws grazed Lin Jie's cheek, leaving a bloody mark.

A beastman head with eyes still open, driven by the current, slammed hard into his chest.

The feeling of suffocation began to set in.

The air in his lungs was being rapidly depleted.

Lin Jie tried to search for traces of his teammates in the water, but he could see nothing, hear nothing.

The only sound in his ears was the deafening roar of the water.

He could only rely on instinct, desperately protecting his head in the darkness, trying to keep his body aligned with the current to avoid having his spine broken by protruding rocks.

This was a race against death.

Also a long, dark drift through this intestinal tract of darkness.

He didn't know how long it had been.

Lin Jie felt his consciousness beginning to blur. The dizziness from oxygen deprivation made him hallucinate.

Just as he thought he would sleep forever here.

The water flow ahead suddenly underwent a strange change.

The feeling of being squeezed and the turbulence began to weaken. The surrounding space seemed to become more open.

Then.

He saw a glimmer of light.

It was an extremely faint, pale green glow.

That was... the exit.

The hope leading to the outside world.

Lin Jie mustered the last bit of his strength and swam desperately toward that glimmer of light.

"Splash!"

With a loud sound of breaking the water's surface.

He felt his body being violently thrown out by the current.

Fresh air flooded his lungs once more.

Long-awaited sunlight fell on his face.

He had survived.