Chapter 724: The Chasm Behemoth

The fighting continues even after they leave the city.

The expedition members stationed outside are resisting all kinds of monsters crawling up from the chasm.

Stone bugs and bat owls swarm the platform alongside some kind of armored, mollusk-like creature.

The most conspicuous monsters are several enormous centipede-like creatures.

These arthropods resemble centipedes, generally measuring more than ten meters long and a full meter wide.

The dense mass of legs is enough to make anyone with trypophobia break into a cold sweat.

Each end has a mouth for feeding, with powerful pincers and rows of sharp teeth.

With mouths at both ends of their bodies, Henwell cannot help wondering how these creatures excrete waste.

There is only one way to satisfy his curiosity, so he decides to investigate.

Once a bone centipede is killed, Henwell walks over and examines it while the enormous body is still twitching.

He soon discovers the answer.

The bone centipede has excretory openings along its abdomen, one fist-sized opening for every five legs.

Henwell finds the arrangement revolting. The creature defecates as it moves, apparently unconcerned about fouling its own feet.

He then turns his attention to one of the soft-bodied creatures protected by a bony carapace.

Several tentacles protrude from the car-sized creature's shell and lash out at everything around it.

Each tentacle has suckers, and its tip can split open into three sections.

Inside the mouth at the end of each arm is a toothed tongue resembling that of an octopus.

Even the suckers contain several rings of sharp teeth, allowing them to lock tightly onto prey.

More than ten people remain on the platform outside Fendicasa. Henwell's group is the first to retreat from the city.

The Lady of Calamity's group follows, while Solomon's team stumbles out in disarray more than ten minutes later.

The expedition members use the city wall as cover while resisting the monsters around them.

Fortunately, once the exploration teams show how dangerous they are, the strange creatures stop targeting them.

The monsters turn on one another instead, filling the ruined city with inhuman howls.

The once-silent realm descends into a hellish nightmare.

Human beings always fear the unknown, and extraordinary professionals are no exception.

Two hours later, a tremendous noise rises from the chasm.

A strange creature emerges, and terror sinks into the depths of everyone's soul.

A terrifying creature more than a hundred meters long rises from the chasm amid a howling gale.

Rather than rising, it floats upward. Its shape only vaguely resembles a gigantic serpent.

Its main body is roughly ten meters wide, with nine pairs of bony wings along its sides.

The vast wings nearly brush the chasm walls. No flesh stretches between the bones; blue light forms their membranes instead.

The bony wings tremble from time to time. They seem to guide the creature rather than keep it aloft.

The serpent-like creature has no mouth, or perhaps it has no head at all.

Long, sharp bone spikes cover its entire body, making it look like an enormous caterpillar.

More than a hundred tentacles drift and lash around it. When they catch prey, they fling it onto the creature's body, where the spikes impale it.

That section of its body folds inward, dragging spikes and prey alike inside before sealing shut and writhing.

The creature is as bizarre as it is terrifying.

What frightens everyone most are the blue electrical arcs dancing along its tentacles.

Anything touched by those tentacles instantly loses the ability to resist.

The immense monster drifts onward above the chasm.

Its sweeping tentacles even tear apart the cargo zip line suspended above the bridge.

Fortunately, the creature floats more than ten meters above the bridge deck. Otherwise, it would rip the entire suspension bridge to pieces.

Henwell watches it drift away, his expression grave.

Even without considering its other bizarre traits, the monster's sheer size is enough to place it in the Iron Rank.

Even an ordinary Iron Knight would struggle to kill it.

A Grand Knight could not so much as wound it.

No wonder so many extraordinary professionals have turned pale. At last, the ruins have revealed their true lethality.

The Lady of Calamity catches the look in Henwell's eyes and gently shakes her head. This is not a creature he needs to fight.

The strange creatures remain agitated for several hours before gradually becoming dormant once more.

Henwell finally learns how the bat owls get airborne as well.

They use their wings to assist their jumps onto the city wall, then spread them and glide into the chasm.

Powerful updrafts rise through the chasm, carrying the bat owls upward.

Eventually, they disappear into the roof of the vast cavern.

They hang upside down there and enter a dormant state, waiting for the next hunting cycle.

Henwell and the others cannot tell how often the monsters become active.

They must therefore quicken their pace.

Over the next two days, the groups explore as much of the city as possible, never once lowering their guard.

Most areas have been searched, apart from the enormous church at the city's center.

They uncover crates of artifacts and a considerable hoard of treasure.

Philir and the others remain dissatisfied. The treasure is worth far less than Solomon originally promised.

They approach Henwell and ask him to negotiate with Solomon for additional compensation.

Solomon explains that the most valuable treasure is still within the central church.

A mechanism still seals the church, and the archaeologists are searching for a way to open it.

Another two days pass. By then, at least every visible part of the city has been searched.

The city contains several lower levels, but no one can find a passage leading down.

The archaeologists believe the entrance should be somewhere inside the church.

They could descend the chasm walls by rope and search for another entrance.

However, after seeing the terrifying serpent-like monster, no one wants to enter the chasm.

No one can guarantee that the creature is not waiting below for prey to deliver itself into its grasp.

They do not have to wait much longer. The archaeologists soon defeat the mechanism sealing the church.

The expedition prepares to enter this final secret area.

This time, nearly everyone joins the party. Only a few people remain behind to guard the temporary camp.

There are more than thirty people. Aside from three archaeologists and three "physically helpless" leaders, every one of them is an extraordinary professional.

The group includes one Grand Knight, ten Battle Knights, and more than ten Knight-rank professionals.

All of them are armed to the teeth and clad in heavy protective armor.

Once they reach the central church complex, Abbas and the other two archaeologists carefully work together on the mechanism.

Half an hour later, they open a passage.

Everyone takes a deep breath at the sight of the dark doorway before filing into the building.