Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 587 Insect Molting
Everyone looked up and saw a huge black shadow hanging upside down directly above the cavity area. At first glance, the giant object seemed to be floating in mid-air, but when the hunters moved the beams of their flashlights to the edge of the giant object, they could see the dense mycelium.

One end of these mycelia is connected to the giant object, while the other end is attached to the rock wall.

"This...this is the real thing?" a hunter said in a very low voice, seemingly afraid of disturbing the giant above. He looked at the gun in his hand and hesitated whether to fire at the giant above.

The creature was shaped like a coiled python, with a body diameter of at least twenty or thirty meters. Its length was difficult to determine, but the portion exposed to the hunters' view was at least three hundred meters long.

For a monster of this size, even if the hunters' guns can penetrate its outer defenses, the damage caused by the bullets is just a tickle to it... or even less.

Unless they can find the monster's weak point, insert the bomb they're carrying directly into it, and then detonate it... but the problem is—where is the weak point?
When accepting this mission, almost every hunter in the assault team harbored a sense of wishful thinking, but when they saw the monster in person, that wishful thinking was instantly wiped away.

Now, besides tension, all they feel is regret.

Everyone thought they could be a lucky slacker, and everyone thought the others in the team had the means to deal with the monsters... but reality slapped them all in the face without mercy.

"Should we... retreat?" one of the hunters murmured.

"Where to retreat to? That passage has long since collapsed, and above the cavity are countless mycelial golems..." another hunter, who was barely able to remain calm, said coldly, "When we accepted this mission, weren't we already told that if we couldn't deal with the monster itself, our chances of survival were basically zero?"

"Then...then what do we do now..." the hunter said, his voice breaking.

"Don't rush," Cheng Ming suddenly said. "What we see now is just a shed shell. The real monster is not this enormous creature."

"What?" The other hunters exclaimed in shock. However, none of them, including Chen Jing and the others who were listening to everything on the communication channel, noticed that Cheng Ming's tone had changed drastically from before.

However, on the other hand, these people weren't really familiar with Cheng Ming. The only impression Cheng Ming left on them was that he was taciturn.

The only one who felt something was amiss was Sun Hang, who had been listening to all the communication channels.

Sun Hang felt that this way of speaking was somewhat familiar, but he couldn't remember who liked to use this way of speaking.

"This thing isn't the real monster? Then what's with the strong memetic reaction detected by the instrument?" a hunter questioned.

"It's just a fragment of memetic residue left in the body. Because the original size of the monster was too large, even memetic fragments take a long time to completely dissipate. If you take the instrument to test it again in ten days or half a month, you will find that the memetic reaction is not as strong as it is now."

"Mr. Cheng, I'm curious, how do you know all this?" Chen Jing asked over the communication channel. "The Tian Shu Tower doesn't provide much information about this strange creature, yet you seem very familiar with it." "Just past experience plus some simple analysis," Cheng Ming replied, seemingly unwilling to dwell on the topic.

“However, this creature should be classified as a fungal creature, and the molting process usually occurs in animal-type creatures with insect-like biological characteristics, right? According to the information provided by the Tian Shu Tower, the fungal rod of the fungal creature that parasitized inside the insect-shaped creature has already broken out of its body, so this insect-shaped creature is definitely dead…” Bai Lingqiu said.

“If Miss Bai or anyone else questions my point of view, please recall the first thing your teacher said to you in your first lesson when you received education related to ghosts.” Cheng Ming raised his flashlight and shone it on a certain part of the ghost’s body.

At that location, there was a very "fresh" crack, and around the crack, there was a murky, viscous substance dripping down.

"Currently, there are two pieces of good news," Cheng Ming said.

"Which two?" Chen Jing immediately pressed.

"First, judging from the size of the crack, the thing that emerged from this giant was about the size of a human, rather than another enormous creature."

Cheng Ming paused for half a second, then continued, "Secondly, it has just completed its molting and should still be in a weak period, which is why it chose to hide... Otherwise, if it had the ability to deal with us, a group of ignorant hunters, who ventured deep into its lair, it would have already jumped out and crushed us to death."

“It seems…that really makes sense!” The hunters looked at each other, and a glimmer of hope rekindled in their previously lifeless eyes.

“What we need to do now is to find this hidden monster,” Cheng Ming said in a deep voice. “Once it gets through its period of weakness, it will probably only become stronger than before… Otherwise, there’s no reason for it to abandon this body and choose another, more fragile form.”

Hearing Cheng Ming say this, the other hunters tensed up again.

An invisible hourglass seemed to hang above their heads; they could hear the sand falling softly, but couldn't see how much sand was left in the upper part of the hourglass… and when all the sand had run out, it meant…

Cheng Ming shook his head violently. Two seconds ago, the mysterious girl returned control of her body to Cheng Ming and left him with a message: "Go find him by following your intuition. He's hiding in some corner."

When the mysterious girl manipulated Cheng Ming's body to say those words, Cheng Ming was fully conscious. Although he didn't know how the mysterious girl did it, from his personal perspective, her analysis was highly credible. If these words came from his own mouth, Cheng Ming would definitely not believe them, but if the mysterious girl spoke them through his mouth, it would be a completely different story.

The other party's origins are mysterious, and its abilities are extremely overpowered... Cheng Ming even felt that killing this strange creature would be as easy for the mysterious girl as crushing an insect.

(End of this chapter)