The bonfire that had been burning all night gradually extinguished, leaving piles of reddish ashes still emitting the last of its heat.
Tony, who was on duty for the last shift, walked back gently from outside the camp, sat down next to an ashes pile in the middle, and covered Arthur's sleeping cloak again.
The residual warmth from the ashes soon made people fall asleep. Tony couldn't help but yawned, and he was trying not to close his eyelids completely.
"Don't sleep, you must not sleep, the boss will kill you if he finds out!"
"Just squint for a while, just for a while. It will be bright soon and there won't be any danger."
Two thoughts kept fighting back and forth in Tony's mind, but his two eyelids gradually closed together during the fight.
As if half asleep, a scream suddenly sounded. Tony jumped up from the ground.
This scream in the night was so sudden that not only Tony woke up, but Keynes, Adeline and others also stood up from the ground almost at the same time, and all the mercenaries got up.
"Where did the sound come from?" Keynes asked Tony eagerly.
"It seems to be outside the camp." Tony, who had completely woken up, tried to remember the direction from which the scream came. "No, it's our perimeter guard!" Tony's expression changed, and he rushed out of the camp first.
"Everyone, be on alert, protect the goods!" Keynes ordered and rushed out after Tony.
Arthur also got up from the ground, hesitated for a moment, and then rushed out of the camp.
Tony and Cairns stopped in front of a low bush about 70 to 80 meters outside the camp. There is a slightly sunken, small pit under the feet. There is a steel crossbow thrown on the ground beside it, but the mercenary responsible for guarding has disappeared.
"It's Nathaniel, he's in charge of the last shift at this point." Tony said with a frown.
"Did it be done by humans or monsters?"
"It should be a monster. The attack was launched from the ground. It seemed to swallow the whole person in one gulp." Angus squatted down and touched the soft gravel on the edge of the pit and said thoughtfully.
"Get out of the way!" Keynes shouted and rose into the air, spinning his giant sword towards the ground.
The rapid rotation of the sword body drove the fighting spirit to rotate rapidly, like a wind dragon entering the sea and drilling into the pit on the ground.
The full-strength attack from the eighth-level battle school expert was certainly no small feat. It was accompanied by a loud bang and gravel and soil flying around.
When the soil fell away, a large pit more than two meters deep was blasted out of the ground. In the middle of the pit, a dark, bottomless hole as thick as a bucket was exposed.
"What kind of monster is this? A rock python or a pangolin?" Cairns asked, pointing to the entrance of the cave.
"It doesn't look alike." Angus shook his head gently.
At this moment, there was a sudden exclamation in the camp.
"No, let the tiger leave the mountain!" Almost everyone had the same idea and turned back to the camp.
Dozens of mercenaries were forming a circle in the camp, and a few mercenaries near the inner circle were hitting the ground desperately with their swords.
"What's the situation?"
Seeing the leader return, the mercenaries in the outer circle automatically made way for a gap. The mercenaries in the inner circle still did not pause their attack. They were hitting or digging the same pit as outside the camp.
"A monster suddenly emerged from the ground, swallowed one of our brothers, and then got back in." A mercenary on the side reported hurriedly.
"Has anyone seen what the attacking monster looks like?" Angus asked, looking around.
"I vaguely saw a long monster."
"Its head is as big as its body."
"The monster's mouth was on the top of its head, and when it opened, the whole head split open."
Several mercenaries who saw the situation described it in various ways.
"Like a big earthworm." A mercenary added from the side.
"No, it's a demon-eating insect!" Angus's expression suddenly changed.
As a hunter, Angus knows the Demon-Eating Insect best. They are a type of third-level earth-type monsters that live underground. Their appearance is like an earthworm magnified countless times. Demon-eating bugs have no head or eyes, and their core is located in the heart in the middle of the body. Both ends of the body have mouthparts for devouring prey. As long as the mouthparts can accommodate it, they can instantly devour any creature. This is a kind of monster that has little intelligence and relies almost on instinct to hunt.
"Impossible. I checked specifically before. This is definitely not the territory of the Demon-Eating Insect." Tony immediately questioned.
The Demon-Eating Insect is a kind of monster that lives in groups and has a strong sense of territory. As long as one Demon-Eating Insect is found, hundreds or even thousands of Demon-Eating Insects will be found within a radius of more than ten or even hundreds of miles. They hunt The territory of food is the restricted area of life.
"No, Tony, you overlooked one point. The territory of the Demon-Eating Insects will also move. When they cannot get enough food in one place, they will move to the next place. The Demon-Eating Insects do not move very fast underground. The Attack It started soon after dawn, which means that their territory has just been moved here, or they are still looking for a new territory." Keynes said with a frown.
Just as several people were talking, the screams sounded again.
A collapsed hole appeared in the ground near the edge of the camp without any warning, and a giant gray insect jumped out of the ground like lightning, sending out a huge suction force from the gaping mouth on its head.
The mercenary closest to the cave entrance was instantly pulled down by the suction force. He only had time to let out a scream before most of his body was swallowed by the demon-eating insects.
All this happened almost in the blink of an eye. When everyone heard the screams and turned their heads, the demon-eating insect was dragging the mercenary with half of his body exposed and was drilling into the hole.
The mercenaries nearby watched helplessly but were too late to rescue him.
There was a flash of white light, and the giant sword that had not been sheathed in Keynes's hand flew out.
A wonderful arc traced across the ground at the entrance of the cave, and a piece of yellow-brown blood spattered. The upper half of the demon-eating insect's body lay limply on the ground, while the other half fell back into the hole.
The few mercenaries who were close quickly rushed over, and with great effort they cut open the body of the demon-eating insect with the swords in their hands, and pulled out the mercenaries who had just been swallowed.
There was only a moment's delay from being swallowed to being rescued, but the mercenary was no longer breathing. The bones of the mercenary's body were squeezed and deformed by the demon-eating insect's abdominal cavity, and the skin outside the leather armor had been corroded by the demon-eating insect's body fluid until it was bloody and horrific. Even the mercenary who was used to seeing death couldn't bear to look at it anymore. Holding back tears, he turned his head away.
This is the terrifying thing about third-level monsters like the Demon-Eating Insect. It suddenly attacks from the ground and has terrible devouring capabilities. Human warriors and magicians of the same level or even one or two levels higher are its prey! And this kind of attack is hard to guard against. As long as it doesn't show its head under the ground, no one except earth magicians can do anything about it!
The hunting territory of the Demon Devouring Insect is a death trap!
"Evacuate, evacuate immediately!" Keynes almost shouted...