Shrouded Seascape

"Containment Breach Level Two: Mobile Task Force—the Collective. Awaken."

The voice that echoed throughout the factory reached everyone's ears as if it were a bomb that had exploded next to them. Clearly, the Foundation had left more than one task force behind.

Everyone wished that they had two extra legs. They had already discarded every single deadweight except for their weapons.

Thud!

A dull noise echoed as Norton collapsed to the ground. Norton's face was pale as he used his trembling right hand to hold the bleeding wound on his waist. He had been shot during the earlier gunfight with the Black Beavers.

"Get up!" Charles exclaimed, and a tentacle rushed toward Norton, lifting the latter up to his feet. The tentacle belonged to Charles.

Charles' right leg was injured, so he could only rely on his invisible tentacles to move; he appeared to be levitating in mid-air in the eyes of other people.

The shining crack in the welded iron door was already visible and was just less than three hundred meters away from them. Charles' nerves remained taut, and he'd look behind him from time to time.

Fortunately, the Black Beavers had already fallen behind them.

Just as Charles and his group were halfway to the welded iron door, a shrill friction noise pervaded the factory as a black wall rose from the cold floor.

It instantly shrouded the light coming from the crack, and the disappearance of the light cast a shadow over the hearts of Charles and his crew.

Eight figures emerged from the black wall, and they were all dressed in the same black, unique combat uniforms representative of the mobile task forces.

The figures looked human, but their limbs were either abnormally swollen limbs or as thin as wooden sticks; it was as if they were monsters born from inbreeding.

Their heads weren't round, resembling flattened balls instead. They had no eyes, and their mouths were extremely large, with lips extending all the way to the corners of their eyes.

Their grotesque appearance was terrifying enough to instill fear in just about anyone's heart.

There seemed to be both men and women among them, but it was incredibly difficult to distinguish who among them was a man or a woman. Every single one of them had an icon of sea waves tattooed on their right arm.

The members of the Black Beaver Mobile Task Force exhibited the same icon, so it didn't take long for Charles to deduce that the horrifying monsters before him had to be members of the so-called Mobile Task Force: the Collective.

Charles could already imagine just what kind of terrifying human experiments the Foundation had conducted in the past just by looking at these disfigured monsters.

The eight members of the Collective stood motionless, seemingly not planning on making a move. It seemed that they had come here to stop Charles and the others from reaching the exit.

They could wait, but Charles couldn't afford to do so. He could already hear distant footsteps behind him. The resurrected members of the Black Beaver Mobile Task Force were making a beeline for them.

They had to escape now, or it'd be impossible for them to escape once they had been sandwiched by both mobile task forces.

Charles reached into his pocket and took out Lily. He placed her on the ground and said, "Lily, take your mice friends with you and slip out. See if you can break the wall from the outside using the Narwhale."

"Mr. Charles, what are you going to do here by yourself?"

"I'll figure something out. The key to our escape here is your successful escape. You're a mouse—a small target. I think they're not going to care about some mice," Charles urged, sounding anxious.

The members of the Collective remained motionless, but Charles could feel their hostility growing even stronger and stronger as time ticked by.

Lily's furry face showed hesitation. She didn't want to flee by herself, but Charles did not stop urging her until she finally nodded and said, "All right, then, I'll be waiting for you outside."

Lily and her mice moved along the walls to reach the crack in the welded iron door.

The Collective seemed indifferent toward the mice and did not move an inch.

Charles licked his tongue and started dishing out orders. "Come together and rush to the left. Dipp, Audric, Bandages, and I will hold them off for a few seconds. The rest of you, rush to the right and make a break for it.

"The black wall isn't that high; you should be able to climb over it."

However, it seemed Linda had her own plans. "Captain, I don't think you should keep on taking risks. Let us be the cannon fodders; we'll charge at them and attract their attention."

"Shut up! I'm the captain! You just need to follow my orders!" Charles retorted.

Gunshots rang out from behind Charles and his crew. The Black Beavers would soon catch up to them. Charles knew that he couldn't wait any longer, or they'd be completely surrounded.

"Move! Hurry up and move!" Charles whipped out his flesh revolver and charged with the crew.

Just then, the Collective finally made a move.

Three Collective members raised their hands, and a gale manifested between the two groups. Exactly one second later, the gale transformed into a tornado laced with flames, and it moved slowly toward Charles and his crew.

"Retreat first!" Charles exclaimed, and his figure abruptly became invisible. He wasted no time and charged toward the eight Collective members. His plan was to ambush them during his invisible state, but before he could get within five meters of them, his keen ears picked up a soft voice coming from their earpieces.

"Collective, this is Black Beaver. The target can become invisible. Thermal imaging shows that he's approaching you from your right. Stay alert!"

They can even communicate with each other? Charles thought, astounded.

The members of the Collective clenched their fists and pounded the ground hard. A gust of wind swept across the ground, striking everything in its path.

When the gust of wind struck Charles, the Collective turned in Charles' direction.

Having been exposed, Charles couldn't care less about being sneaky. He raised his gun and fired rapidly while retreating toward his crew.

A wave of blue light burst out of a small-framed Collective member; the white bone bullets came to a screeching halt before them.

Charles became certain of it just then. The members of the mobile task forces were like Alice and had several relics implanted in them by the Foundation.

The Collective kicked off of the ground, and their figures left afterimages as they rushed toward Charles.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Gunshots rang out as the crew members provided cover fire for Charles.

However, bullets were completely ineffective against the Collective. They did not stop for even a brief moment as they engaged Charles and his crew in hand-to-hand close combat quarters like beasts on a rampage.

The Collective had thick and hard blackened fingers. The crew members couldn't defend themselves at all against such monsters. In just a few seconds, three crew members had already been dismembered.

Agonized screams, gunshots, and explosions pervaded the air in a chaotic cacophony of noises.

Charles and Bandages worked together and finally managed to decapitate one of the Collective, but the corpse simply vanished into thin air. It turned out that these monsters were capable of resurrecting like the Black Beavers!

Meanwhile, the Black Beavers were fast approaching.

They were about to be surrounded!

At the critical juncture, Charles turned to his second mate and roared, "Charlie, it's time! Use your relic!"

Charlie was in pain, and his head was bleeding, but he wasted no time and forcefully bent his right index finger with his left hand. A grotesque cracking noise echoed, and everyone's right index fingers snapped at once.

Everyone froze, seemingly becoming frozen statues. Roughly three seconds later, the Collective could finally move once more, and they raised their guns, rapidly firing at Charles and his crew.

A noise akin to a bursting bubble echoed one after another as Charles and his crew burst into nothingness. It turned out that their figures were mere illusions; the real versions of them had already escaped.

The members of the Collective and the Black Beaver were dumbfounded. Then, they turned toward the distant crack in the welded iron door and made a beeline for it.

Upon their departure, a vigilant eye moved slowly away from a window inside a workshop within the same factory.

"They're gone. Good thing we knew that the first thing they'd do upon coming back to their senses is to block the exit." Charles let out a sigh of relief and turned to look at his injured crew.

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