freenovelworld Chapter 421 What a huge lake!
Chapter 421 What a huge lake!
Upon seeing the glossy black beetles surging forth like a tide, Zhong Yuemin's mind went blank, and he couldn't help but swear.
Isn't that one of those man-eating scarabs from The Mummy?!
How come this godforsaken place has it too?!
The once deathly silent cave was instantly filled with a chilling squeaking sound, so dense it sounded like a thousand claws scraping against the rock, making one's heart clench.
Even more terrifying, along with the black swarm of insects, a large number of stark white bones poured out from the small hole and the crevices in the surrounding rock walls.
Antelope horns, camel leg bones, wolf skulls... and even a skull with hollow eye sockets that clearly belong to humans, staring straight ahead!
The bones were being swarmed and rolled by the insects. No wonder they could smell the stench of decaying corpses from above. They had stumbled into the lair of these deadly insects, a pit full of the bones of their prey!
"Fire! Use fire! This thing is afraid of fire!" Zhong Yuemin shouted sharply, reacting extremely quickly.
He, Zhang Haiyang, and Ning Wei immediately waved their torches, creating a swaying wall of fire in front of them. The scorching flames indeed slowed the surging swarm of insects, and the scarabs instinctively avoided the flames.
"Quick! Engineer Wang, Yang Qing, you go first!" Zhong Yuemin shouted without turning his head, waving a torch.
Wang Ye and Yang Qing knew this was not the time to hesitate. They grabbed the dangling rope and, with the help of those below, desperately climbed upwards.
Next came Zhang Haiyang and Ning Wei, with Zhong Yuemin bringing up the rear. He waved his fire to repel a wave of insects that tried to approach, then grabbed the rope and began to climb upwards using both his hands and feet.
The group, still shaken, had just climbed out of the cave and hadn't even had a chance to catch their breath when they heard an even more intense rustling sound coming from below.
Looking down, I was nearly scared out of my wits. Those black scarabs, as if they possessed intelligence, were densely packed and crawling upwards along the rough rock wall.
They piled up on top of each other, forming a black backflow that was about to burst out of the cave!
"Shoot! Shoot them!" someone shouted in terror.
"Rat-a-tat-tat...!" Several submachine guns spat fire, bullets sweeping through the swarm of insects, causing carapace fragments to fly and juices to flow everywhere.
However, this damage was a drop in the ocean compared to the overwhelming swarm of insects, and more scarabs poured out from the depths of the cave, seemingly endless!
"Stop hitting! It's no use! Run! Run! Get out of here!" Zhong Yuemin made a decisive decision and shouted the order.
Without bothering to pack any equipment, everyone turned and ran for their lives toward the camp.
But when they stumbled and scrambled back to their original campsite, panting heavily, the sight that met their eyes froze their blood instantly, a chill running from the soles of their feet to the top of their heads.
The campsite, their previous encampment, was now slowly sinking before their eyes.
A massive vortex of quicksand is frantically devouring everything!
Tents, supply boxes, instruments and equipment... everything was being buried by the yellow sand at a visible speed.
Even more terrifying is that, along with the quicksand, like an oil geyser, countless black scarabs surged out from the depths of the sand, covering every inch of the ground that had not yet been swallowed up, like a writhing, nauseating black "carpet"!
The dozen or so camels that were tethered to the edge of the camp had long since disappeared, presumably swallowed up by the quicksand.
Two camels, which were a little further away and were trying to escape, were now being overwhelmed by the black swarm of insects.
It let out a shrill, desperate cry, its massive body writhing wildly in the swarm of insects, but the cry abruptly stopped just a few seconds later.
As the swarm dispersed like the receding tide to find its next target, only two clean, stark white skeletons remained, devoid of even a trace of flesh, reflecting a pale luster in the moonlight and the remaining firelight.
Not to mention the female members of the expedition team who were already terrified, even soldiers like Zhong Yuemin, who had experienced the trials of war, felt a chill run down their spines and their scalps tingle when they saw the hellish scene before them.
Looking back now, we should actually "thank" Yang Qing and Liu Qian for leaving the team without permission. If it weren't for searching for them, the entire team would probably have been swallowed up by quicksand in their sleep, or eaten away by these terrifying scarabs until only bones remained!
"We can't stay here! Let's go! Let's get out of here!"
Zhong Yuemin roared hoarsely, his voice almost drowned out by the rustling of the insects and the howling of the wind.
As the scarabs continued to spread like a black tide, no one dared to hesitate for a moment.
Ignoring all equipment, the group turned and stumbled into the dark depths of the Gobi Desert, heading in the opposite direction from the insect swarm.
Death Valley at night is pitch black, and the wind whips up sand that stings your face.
Still in shock, the group couldn't tell which way to go. Driven by their survival instincts, they stumbled and fled for their lives, running blindly and without thinking.
The exhausted group was forced to stop the next morning.
On the distant horizon, the sun rose relentlessly like a giant fireball, its light bringing not hope, but a deeper despair.
Looking around, all you see are endless, undulating sand dunes, nothing but yellow sand.
The compass was still malfunctioning and unable to determine direction. Even more fatally, all the equipment, most of the water and food, were lost when the camp fell.
For their team of thirty or forty people, this was practically a death sentence.
By noon, the situation had worsened, with the ground temperature rapidly soaring to over forty degrees Celsius, and the scalding sand was burning your feet even through your shoes.
There was no shade to escape the scorching sun; physical strength was quickly depleted, and sweat evaporated as soon as it seeped from the pores, taking away the body's precious moisture.
Several female members of the expedition team were the first to give up. Their lips were cracked and peeling, their cheeks were abnormally flushed, their eyes began to glaze over, and they showed obvious signs of dehydration. In the end, they collapsed on the scorching sand, unable to take another step.
"I can't... I really... I can't walk anymore..." a female team member said weakly, her voice trembling with tears.
Seeing this, Zhong Yuemin was extremely anxious. He did have enough clean water stored in his space to solve this urgent problem, but how to take it out without arousing suspicion was a huge problem.
Especially with Wang Ye, who has a special identity, right next to them, the consequences would be unimaginable if he saw through their disguise.
He didn't want to be invited into that mysterious Bureau 749 and treated as a research subject just because of a few bottles of water.
His brow furrowed, he was frantically trying to come up with a plausible excuse that wouldn't arouse suspicion, even if it was just to use a small amount of water to keep everyone alive...
Just then, Da Long, who was at the front of the group scouting ahead, suddenly seemed to have been injected with adrenaline. He excitedly pointed ahead and shouted at the top of his lungs, his voice distorted with extreme longing:
"Water! Water! There's water ahead! It's a huge lake! Look!!!"
When everyone looked, it really was a huge lake, with rippling blue water, clear and green, and quite large in area. They had never heard of such a large lake in Death Valley.
Zhong Yuemin's first thought was that it might be a mirage, but it didn't look like one. Before he could say anything, everyone went crazy and ran there. When they arrived, it wasn't a mirage, but a large lake. They rushed to the lakeside, lay down, and gulped down water.