Chapter 11: A Horde of Invisible Beetles
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The racing of my heart and the sweat trickling down my forehead couldn’t stop as I had my back to the banyan tree. Despite gazing and looking around non-stop, I didn’t discover anything except that the feeling of being watched still welling inside of me.

Indeed, you don’t need to fear strong enemies but towards the unknown enemies, because it was the scariest type of enemy out there.

Seconds became minutes; I still hadn’t spotted the object that had thrown me into the tree. The thing that I knew was that it was very strong to be able to do that.

This cannot go on, this place was its habitat, it could last longer while I’ll be exhausted and lowered my guard sooner or later, that’s where it will strike.

As I saw my shaking hands, a brilliant idea suddenly sprung up inside of my head. I took out the Universal Measurement Device from my dimensional storage and tried to scan the area in front of me. A smirked then formed on my mouth as I found something.

Thereafter, my body bent down to the ground and showed an unguarded side of my back. Not even a second had passed, I felt the gust of the wind was launching at me. As it came closer and closer, my hand touched the dimensional storage and the All Cut Sword came from within.

“Now!” I activated the radiator and slashed the sword downward right in front of me.

A green goo then spluttered over my helmet and ceramic armor; I could see something split opened from the corner of my vision.

“Disgusting…”

My eyes then gazed at the two half-basketball size carcasses on the ground. There, a carcass of an insect that looked like a beetle had its innards and green blood littered everywhere, despite having most of it burned out.

Just then, On the hologram screen, I saw a numeric number of over 100 was written.

Impossible! For a lifeform to had more than 100 points on their power, even a ferocious bear was only measured around 60-70! Only a ferocious dinosaur and a few extraterrestrials lifeforms are well over 100.

Wait, it could camouflage and even went invisible, even the sensor of my helmet couldn’t detect where it was located. A grim look formed on my face as I thought the worst outcome, if I didn't have the Universal Measurement Device, then wouldn't that mean….

Well, stating that I won’t survive is a bit exaggerated, I could just run away and activate my body shield before taking cover in the ship. But then I clenched my fist when the thought of running away crossed over my mind.

If I could only run away when the situation was only getting a bit dangerous, why would I even bother be an explorer? What right do I have to call myself a brave pioneer? It’s just better for me to be a normal working man living somewhere in the galaxy! 

“Huh? Wait a minute… holy shit! How could I make such a fatal mistake? Well, couldn’t be helped since I cannot smell the air outside." Immediately, I got away from the place and tried to stay away from the dead carcass.

Of course, I didn’t forget to snatch a sample before taking the pulse rifle that got thrown off. Unfortunately, a multiple sound of grass and leaves of tree flapping and swaying violently filled my eardrum. My instincts told me that an uncountable number of the same insects were coming to this place.

This is bad! If the first one attacks me indiscriminately as if seeing me as prey, I don't think there's any need to talk about the others. I need to get away from here and run in the opposite direction of the ship.

And just like what I believed, I could feel that the wind was breezing behind me and the feeling of being chased well up inside of me.

“This way is no solution; they will catch me in no time! I should think of something.”

As the invisible insects could only be detected by the Universal Measurement Device and there were a lot of them, using the sword to fight was a no brainer. But even then, it could only detect the general location, therefore using the pulse rifle wasn’t a good idea either. Still, it was the best choice I had.

Just as I passed through the thick forest, a narrow gap between two 10 meters tall cliffs entered my vision.

A narrow gap? Perfect timing. I will converge them into there and blast them with the pulse rifle.

I could sense that the insects were getting closer to me, possibly around 10 meters behind me. It was likely that they will reach me first before I could get into the cliff as it was still some 20 meters away from me.

So, in order to cover that distance, I activated the booster of my ceramic armor to propel me into the gap. Although it couldn't fly like a jetpack, at least it could boost my speed. Since I was inside a thick forest before, I hadn’t had the chance to use it.

Just as the booster was starting to activate, it pushed my back forward. I could feel my body becoming light just like a feather, making me able to cover the distance of 20 meters in a matter of a second.

At the same time as I was only about 1 meter away from the mouth of the gap. A feeling of a sudden gust of wind came up right behind my back. Something then crashed into me and made me flung to the gap of the cliff, headfirst.

“Aaackk…”

Luckily, I managed to roll my body in that short margin and only received a light injury. I was thankful to my hard armor for protecting me.

Every time it crashes into me, it feels like getting hit by a small train. If normal people that didn't have gene modification and wasn't wearing any kind of armor got struck by that insect. At best, they would have all their ribs broken and died not long after and at worst, they died instantly.

Instantaneously, I took out the Universal Measurement Device on my left hand and the pulse rifle on my right hand. Before pointing both to the entrance of the gap and started shooting after having certain that the invisible insect was right there.

Bullets after bullets were raining down to the entrance, it then smashed into something and rains of green blood started to splatter everywhere. I was a bit cautious this time and back away little by little so that the green blood didn’t splatter into me.

As time passed, more and more invisible insect was getting into the narrow gap, bumping into the two rocky cliffs between it. The invisible insect had quite a hard shell and a very fast momentum, so it made the rocky cliffs cracked and dust raining down from above.

This isn’t good, if this goes on, the cliff might collapse and buried me inside. I might survive with my suit but if I was to be stuck below a pile of rocks then it’s game over.

A grim look started to form on my face as I was reloading the pulse rifle in my hand. In that small time when I was reloading, the invisible insect finally managed to get through the cliff and was approaching me at an insane speed.

Although my eyes couldn’t see them, the hair on the back of my hands were tensed as if scared of something. If they were to crash into me, I would die without even knowing how I died.

“Ahh… screw it!” I pointed my pulse rifle into the two cliffs before pulling the trigger and let the bullet loose from the tube.

As the bullets hit the cliffs, the already severely cracked cliffs collapsed into pieces and it fell into the ground. A normal bullet won’t be able to cause this much damage, but as it was a bullet that came out from a very damaging pulse rifle, thus making the cliffs collapsed was just a piece of cake.

The rain of rocks then bumped into the invisible insects, destroying them into pieces. Green blood was spurting out from below the fallen rocks. Unfortunately, the cracks also got to right above me and rocks start to fall from above.

“Shit!” I cursed as I had my body shield activated simultaneously while trying to get away from this place.

I didn’t forget to activate my booster and moved my legs to the limit. At that time, I wished I had been born with four legs instead of two so that I could run faster. But alas, even with the booster, the falling rocks were still catching up to me and was falling right above my head. If it wasn’t for the shield, I would have died multiple times already.

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