The Eternal Winter - Chapter 13 - Another Monster (Patreon)

                                              Squad AR27, Alex’s squad
                               At the same time in the BF1 main hanger

“So would anyone mind explaining what the hell that is?” captain Andrew mutters while staring down at the enormous monster currently feasting on one of the inactive spaceships in the hanger. The creature is larger than the spaceship itself, spanning upwards of five meters in length, and two more meters in height, with a lamprey-like mouth full of razor sharp teeth, a worm-like body except with two feet on both sides of it, and three pure black eyes. However, unlike the eyes of the other monsters, these eyes don’t have the blue ring that they do.

No one answers and they’re all left standing at the upper levels of the hanger in the hanger control room staring through the windows at the creature as it continues feeding on the ships.

“At least it doesn’t look like it eats peo-” Robert begins, just to cut off as a scream sounds out from down below, in the ship that the monster is currently eating. The group then watches as a regular soldier falls out of the ship and begins to run away form the monster, just for the monster to stomp on the ground with one of its large feet, causing a sudden wave of ice to run through the ground, freezing the ground and everything on it, including the soldier’s feet. It then just goes back to eating the ship again.

The rest of the group turns to look at Robert, who can’t help but back down slightly at their gazes – particularly the gazes of the major and his two first lieutenants.

They then turn back to the hanger again as the monster finishes eating the ship.

It lets out a loud grumbling sound before lowering its front half – which was slightly up in the air as it ate – back to the ground and beginning to crawl over to the soldier.

“Nonono, please do-” Robert says while hiding his mouth behind his hand, just to stop talking when the monster eats the soldier and continues on to the next ship.

A short window of silence ensues as the monster slowly makes its way to another ship before Victoria points out, “It looks like this creature has more than one glowing point,” while staring at the three different spots on the monster’s body that are illuminated by a light blue glow.

The major nods at that before turning around and starting towards the wall behind them while saying, “We’ve seen enough already. The only person in this base that’s likely to be able to kill that thing without firepower is the lieutenant colonel as a Tier 3 symbiont host.”

The man stops in front of the wall and punches straight through it to grab a lever, startling the others in the room with the exception of the captain, who already knew about the hidden staircase on BF1. Just not where exactly it was located.

“This is one of the two staircases throughout the base that goes down to BF6,” he explains while pulling the lever and making gears sound in the wall before it parts to reveal a door. He then walks up to the door and enters a code in it, just to grunt as he remembers that the power is out.

“Why do you think anything using electricity doesn’t work anymore?” Victoria asks out of nowhere as the major begins grabbing the door from the sides of its frame.

One of the two lieutenants looks at her and adds, “The guns don’t use electricity, but they’re down as well.”

The captain makes a hand motion for them both to stop talking before he starts walking over to the major while saying, “There are scientists down in BF6 and BF7 that might be able to explain that.”

Once he reaches the door, the major moves to make room for him and they both begin to rip the door from its place, making a loud screeching noise in the process that has the heads of several monsters scattered about the floor turning in their direction, but none of them make any moves to head over there thanks to the presence of the large monster.

Both of the symbiont hosts breathe heavily after setting the door down on the ground before walking through the now-empty doorway into the staircase.

“Let’s go,” the major says with a grimace.

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                                                      Alexander North
                                                             On BF5

As we walk through the narrow hallways of the fifth underground floor, I take a moment to look at my terminal.

/ Current Analysis of user Alexander North \

Strength: 1.56
Speed: 1.62
Reflexes: 1.42
Constitution: 1.99
Immunity: ???
Senses: 1.71

Body Malfunctions: ???
Error: Cannot determine Immunity or Body Malfunctions of user’s current species.
The average of a human being without a symbiont is a 1 across all stats.

\End of Analysis/

From what I’ve been able to tell, the wraiths generally increase my speed and reflexes, with a small boost in my senses, while the wendigos increase basically everything but my constitution. As for the brutes? I still haven’t managed to kill one yet, but if I had to guess, it’ll probably increase my strength and my constitution.

Right as I’m about to close out of my terminal again, a new notice catches my attention.

/ Notice \

Terminal is examining user’s body to update the database.
Changes may occur in the terminal to indicate new possible statistics for user’s new species.

\End of Notice/

I abruptly stop walking at the sight of the notice, just to start again to make sure I don’t stand out.

What the heck? I didn’t know the terminal could update itself…

But wait. Does that mean it might add a new statistic for the freezing things I touch power? Or something like that at least?

My thoughts are interrupted as we stop by one of the housing areas full of different housing quarters and captain Ruthers suddenly approaches me and nods towards them while saying, “If you still need a sword, go ahead and take one from one of the housing quarters. The owner of the unit obviously isn’t using it.”

A smile brightens my face at that suggestion, and I quickly salute him before rushing into the housing area to find a sword. Meanwhile, I hear the captain telling the others to do the same except to find a helmet for themselves instead of a sword.

Although why they have their swords on them but not their helmets is beyond me, but it doesn’t really matter.

I can finally get something better than these damn knives!

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