Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 583 Maggots and Rotting Flesh

"Don't think too much about it. The more you think about it, the more scared you'll become, and the more scared you'll become, the easier it is for you to die." Another hunter, who had been silent since being attached to the drone, suddenly spoke up. "Trust me, this is based on experience."

"I don't want to either... but those images just keep popping into my head, I can't control them at all," the hunter, whose family owns a meat processing plant, said with a mournful face.

"I'll teach you a trick."

"What trick?"

"After you're thrown down, rush towards the area with the highest concentration of monsters... When your mind is filled with fighting spirit and anger, fear will be squeezed out of your head."

Hearing the hunter say that, Cheng Ming couldn't help but think of the nightmare he had in the car. He looked at the hunter with some doubt, but the latter seemed completely unaware of his gaze.

Coincidence?
The sound of a ten-second countdown to the artillery barrage came through his earphones, and Cheng Ming stopped thinking about those things.

After the countdown reached zero, a barrage of artillery fire erupted, with countless shells continuously falling into the crater and bombarding the pre-set location.

Although the hunters hanging below the drones had put on protective earmuffs before firing, the deafening explosion still made their eardrums ache. The airflow rising from the crater caused the six "Giant Harrier" drones to shake violently.

The explosion tore through the dense fog of spores, allowing the hunters to finally see the scene at the bottom of the pit.

Tens of thousands of mycelial puppets were piled up on top of each other, wriggling continuously, just like a piece of rotting flesh crawling with maggots.

Less than one-fifth of these mycelial puppets are complete humanoid figures; the remaining four-fifths are mostly incomplete limbs, or even not limbs at all. They are like creations casually sculpted by the strange creature, twisted and abstract, yet containing a powerful life force.

"Ugh..." The hunter, whose family owned a meat processing plant, vomited again, but this time he wasn't just dry heaving. He actually vomited up food residue mixed with stomach acid. To prevent being parasitized by spores, all hunters wore a full-body protective suit inside their powered exoskeletons, with the head being no exception.

The unlucky guy vomited, and the sour and smelly vomit instantly covered his face inside the helmet, and the inside of the transparent visor was also splattered with filth.

Vomiting inside a closed helmet isn't the worst part; the nauseating smell and the reduced visibility are the most serious risks. The worst risk is suffocation caused by the backflow of vomit. The guy instinctively tried to take off the helmet, but Cheng Ming reached out and stopped him.

"Don't take off your helmet. Although the spore mist near the drone isn't as dense as at the bottom of the pit, the number of strange spores in the surrounding air is still very large. If you're exposed to this environment, you'll be parasitized 100%!" Cheng Ming advised in a deep voice.

"Cough cough... I... cough cough... I choked..." the unlucky guy said while coughing.

"Attention all assault teams, the shelling will end in twenty seconds. There are only thirty seconds left before the airdrop." Chen Jing's voice came through the headset.

“There’s no time… Flip open the inner armplate of your right arm, there’s a red button inside, press it!” Cheng Ming said to the unlucky guy.

While coughing violently, the unfortunate man followed Cheng Ming's instructions, flipped open the polymer armor plate on the inside of his right arm, found the most conspicuous red button, and slammed it down!
The next second, he felt a current pass through his body, followed by a heavy blow to his chest and abdomen, making him instinctively want to curl up—but at this moment, the exoskeleton controlled by the muscles in his body "got stuck," forcibly tensing his body and preventing him from curling up.

"I...cough cough cough cough...Holy crap...cough cough cough cough!!!"

A violent coughing fit erupted in the team channel. The unlucky hunter coughed so hard that snot and tears streamed down his face. Just when he thought he was going to die, a slight pain, like an insect bite, suddenly came from his right shoulder. Then, a warm current flowed through his body, gradually easing his rapid breathing. "Huff... huff..." The unlucky hunter gasped for breath. "I'm... I'm alive... Captain, what's this button for? I don't think I choked to death, but I almost got killed by this thing."

"The composite battlefield emergency recovery device can revive soldiers who have been stunned by artillery shells or have fallen unconscious due to injuries on the battlefield," Cheng Ming said. "It will also inject you with combat stimulants and powerful painkillers to ensure that you can recover your combat effectiveness in a short time."

"How did you know? Have you used it?"

"No." Cheng Ming shook his head slightly. "However, I did read the instructions for using this equipment beforehand."

Before the operation began, Cheng Ming had nothing to do, so he simply studied the equipment issued by Bai's Military Industry thoroughly, and he read the user manual several times.

"Then... what happens after the effects of the drug wear off?" The unlucky hunter suddenly thought of a question, and his face turned pale.

“Ordinary people would immediately lose their fighting ability and might even fall into a coma again. As for the infected, it depends on the individual’s physical condition,” Cheng Ming said.

"This thing is supposed to be a life-saving ultimate move, the kind that leaves you in a weakened state afterward," another hunter said. "But who knew you'd use it before the fight even started?"

“But if he hadn’t used it, he probably would have choked to death on his own vomit,” said the hunter who had mentioned the roller coaster earlier.

"I..." The unlucky guy wanted to say something more, but the final countdown had already started playing in his earphones.

"Five, four, three, two, one! Release!"

With Chen Jing's command, the giant harpoon drone and the hunters' exoskeleton attachments instantly detached, and the twenty-eight hunters plummeted into the pit below in free fall.

Cheng Ming held his breath; he could feel his adrenaline surging... He kept recalling the content about "parachuting and airdropping" from the hunter training course, but it wasn't until he actually jumped into the air that he realized that theory and practice were two completely different things.

In large cities, the research institutes for strange creatures usually have their subordinate hunters experience several real parachute jumps so that they don't need to be trained on the spot when there is a mission that requires airdropping hunters. However, Cheng Ming's small city doesn't even have an airport, so he has no opportunity to receive such training.

Cheng Ming sighed and pressed the "Managed" button on the exoskeleton controller.

Not only him, but the other 27 hunters also unanimously chose to "manage".

After pressing this button, the powered exoskeleton takes over, guiding the hunters' bodies into the most suitable landing posture with the help of the built-in computer—even those who have never jumped out of a parachute can ensure that they will not lose their balance in the air and tumble a series of somersaults.

If you lose consciousness during the fall, then it's all over.

A small opening was torn open in the writhing swarm of puppets by the artillery fire. Cheng Ming watched helplessly as he got closer and closer to the opening... But just when he felt he was about to pass through the hole, the mycelium puppets near the opening suddenly used the carbonized remains of their own kind as springboards to leap up and pounce on the twenty-eight hunters who had fallen from the sky!
Qidian has updated its full attendance rules. Now, older books don't get full attendance unless they have 100 readers following them. Many books with a lot of words but slow updates can't get full attendance anymore, especially those with chapters filled with readers who are just supporting the book. They're basically doomed. Monster Hunter is almost two million words long, and there's no way to save it... So I've been focusing my energy on brainstorming new books these past few days, and the updates for this book have been a bit unstable.

But don't worry about it being abandoned, because the outline is already written; all that's left is to fill in the content. What I need to do now is minimize filler and speed up the main plot... The new book will probably be released at the end of the year. I can give you a spoiler: it's a Warhammer-like story. If you're interested, you can check it out then (and because of the new attendance policy, the new book will absolutely not be padded out!!!!).

(End of this chapter)