RB Chapter 146 Arriving At A Camp

"Elena...Chloe...never ever get taken over by your battle lust!" When uttering their names, he had deeply stared into the eyes of each.

"Do you understand?" He asked.

"Yes." Chloe agreed, but Elena glared back at him with her glowing brown eyes in defiance. She didn't like being bossed around. It was in her genes as a top predator.

"If you don't want to listen to my advice, I will kick you out of our group." Eric's dark blue eyes became piercing, causing a shiver to run down her spine.

"Okay." She grumbled out an answer due to the gentle elbowing of Leah. Elena was seated directly opposite Eric with Leah at her left. Chloe was on Eric's right.

Eric saw that she wasn't taking his advice to heart, only agreeing in the surface. It was written all over her face.

"If...your actions place us in danger, I will kill you personally." His voice was cold, like millennium frozen ice.

Elena once more felt a chill behind her back and shivered as those dark blue eyes stared into hers. 

The rest of the journey was silent, as no one was in the mood for any banter.

-----

30 minutes later, a tapping on the metal, sounded out, a signal that they had reached their destination. They had settled upon the signal with the driver.

The speed of the vehicle slowed down as it approached what appeared to be the end of the road.

High walls, composed of wooden logs planted into the ground surrounded the place. The logs appeared to have been freshly felled and had been sharpened at the top. More were laid diagonally, pointiny away from the settlement. They were probably arranged like that in a case a beast horde decided to attack.

The road entered the settlement through the open wooden gate. The entrance was 5 metres wide and over 7 metres tall, probably to allow the easy passage of trucks.

There were no sentries or complicated technological scanning devices by the gate.

The truck slowed down upon making its way inside, but it didn't stop.

Tents, big and small, composed of durable fabric lined the sides of the road. Holographic images floated right above most of the big ones.

The vehicle drive all the way to the other end of the camp, where a large clearing was situated. Many similar, or even bigger trucks were parked there, and most of the people in the camp were there.

A mountain of beast carcasses was resting in the middle of the clearing, and blood had even formed puddles underneath it. Large dark ants, whose exoskeleton glistened in the bright lights lighting up the carcasses, could be seen holding more in their mouths and adding to the mountain.

When the group came out the back, they were taken back by the sight. Men and robots were working to load many of the carcasses into the trucks.

"Aren't these too much?" Eric asked in shock.

"Most of these are loaded and taken back into the city to be processed into food. Actually, only a few are edible, others go into research." The driver who appeared to be a middle aged man answered. Shock was also on his face but it was more diminished.

"I never thought the pile would grow this big!" He exclaimed.

"This, this, this and that...over there. Load them up. I am taking them back."

A man, dressed in a white lab coat with a wizened face attracted their attention. He was ordering a few men to pick up the carcasses he was pointing to.

Eric focussed on the men and saw that they were all burly, probably, with elephant, rhino, or other such types of genes which enhanced strength. But they weren't energy channellers.

They were probably working these lower jobs until they grasped energy channelling, so that they could join the war.

The four didn't linger in the clearing. They bed farewell to the driver and headed into the jungle of tents with the spirit to explore.

Multiple colors of lights fell into their eyes as they travelled around. They were the holographic names of businesses in the air above the tents.

There were mostly two types of people in this camp, buyers and sellers.

Most of the sellers were the people occupying themes tents with the holograms floating above. The buyers were the energy channellers heading for missions.

Food, temp-genes, ATP, and many other things were sold in this camp.

Temp-genes had a variety of uses. Some granted night vision, enhanced smell and hearing, camouflage...and many other abilities. Temp-gene was short for temporary gene.

"I want a night vision temp-gene with a duration of five hours." Eric's voice rang out. They had walked into one of the shops, the one which sold gene solutions.

The night vision temp-gene was being bought for Leah, who lacked night vision.

Leah had heat sensory organs and the night didn't affect then in any way...but due to her identity as a human, she was used to having the eyes as the source of most of her sensory information, so she felt like she wouldn't be safe enough just relying on heat sensing.

"Do we need any others?" Chloe asked.

"No, we all have powerful sensory organs..." Eric answered.

"...now, we need to first ask around and see whether someone has any additional information about the beast in the grove." Elena suggested.

"The beast in the grove!?" An alarmed voice attracted their attention. It was from the shop keeper.

"What? Do you know anything about it?" Eric asked.

"You must be new to this settlement. You are still too young! I suggest that you don't get caught up in that matter. The beast has already claimed the lives of two teams composed of energy channellers, 8 people!" The guy was shouting by the end. He was clearly too agitated.

"We aren't amateurs who have just entered the wilderness like those guys, so don't lump us in with them!" Elena banged on the wood in fury. Being looked down on for her, a prideful girl was too much.

"I was just giving some advice." The man clearly didn't want to argue too much.

"Don't worry, we know what we are doing."

"It looks like we will have to be cautious." Eric said the moment they made it out of the tent.

"Are you also scared?" Elena taunted.

"Energy channellers, even amateurs in the art of wilderness survival aren't easily taken out. If it was one, I would agree...but eight? And two teams to boot? This isn't simple." Eric seriously explained. His facial expression showed that this mission might be very troublesome to complete.