Chapter 130: Peril-Laden Lemon Port, Humans Raised Like Livestock

Dean felt that he had never been this suffocated in his entire life.

He was like a rat.

Cowering behind the base of a half-collapsed wall, he did not even dare to breathe loudly.

Just now, when he stepped down, the sticky secretion had almost glued his boot off!

This hellhole…… was practically a breathing nest of rotten flesh!

Lemon Port, which in the past had fairly orderly streets and brick buildings.

Now, eight or nine out of ten of them were smeared over with a thick layer of gelatinous substance.

Stepping on it felt soft and squishy, slippery—and damn it, it was even slightly warm!

It made his stomach churn with nausea.

What was even more fucked up was—

In his panic just now, Dean had put a bit too much force into his step.

He immediately felt a vibration coming from beneath his foot, spreading out like ripples on water.

Just a few seconds later.

From not far away came the faint rustling sound of crawling, making his scalp go numb.

Luckily, he reacted fast.

He ducked low and darted over here, hiding behind this section of wall that was barely not covered by secretions.

In an instant, he suppressed his presence to the lowest possible level, wishing he could even stop his heartbeat, his whole body nearly melting into the shadows.

“Damn it! How the hell is this even playable?!”

Dean cursed inwardly, cold sweat pouring down his forehead.

The stealth skills he had always been proud of had become a complete joke in this place.

Those black insects did not rely on eyes or ears at all—they used this ground full of “living carpet” as sensors!

Step on it once, and the vibrations transmitted outward.

It was no different from beating drums and gongs to tell them, “There’s a living human here.”

He cautiously stuck out half his head and glanced in the direction where the noise had come from.

Several oily, pitch-black beetles were slowly crawling past.

Their compound eyes flickered with dim light in the darkness, and as their mouthparts opened and closed, murky sticky fluid dripped down.

They seemed unable to locate a specific target. After circling around a few times, they rustled away again.

Dean let out a long breath. The clothes on his back were already soaked through with cold sweat.

Leaning against the icy brick wall, for the first time, a thought of retreat rose in his heart.

This mission…… really was not something meant for humans!

The captain had said it lightly, “Intelligence second, safety first.”

But in this damn environment, where was safety to be found?

Every step felt like dancing on the edge of a blade!

“How about…… pulling out?”

Once the thought emerged, it grew wildly like weeds.

Inside, there were nothing but insects everywhere—what kind of bullshit intelligence could there be?

Could there really be some blind survivor holding a party inside this insect nest?

Going through so much trouble only to lose his life would not be worth it!

But when he thought of that group of howling mercenaries outside……

Dean clenched his teeth again.

The captain was as shrewd as an old fox.

If he thought this trip was worth something, there had to be a reason.

The Platinum Mercenary Corps had made it this far by daring to chew on hard bones and snatch the profits before others.

This outbreak of the insect tide had thrown everything outside into chaos—this was precisely the perfect opportunity to infiltrate.

If he chickened out and slipped back now, not only would the captain look down on him, even he himself would despise himself.

“Fuck it! I’ll probe a bit more!”

Dean spat and his gaze turned vicious once again.

He set his sights on a four-story building several dozen meters away that was still relatively intact.

Judging by the style, it looked like an old merchant guild building. The rooftop should have a decent view.

If he could climb up there, he might be able to see clearly into the depths of the port, especially the situation of that damned lord’s castle.

As for even more core areas?

Dean knew his limits. He did not have the life to barge in there. Being able to take a distant look and scrape together some peripheral intelligence would already be like burning incense in gratitude.

With the goal set.

Dean once again became a shadow, beginning to move with difficulty through this gelatinous hell.

He had to move like playing hopscotch, deliberately stepping only on areas where the secretion was thinner, or where the bricks were completely exposed.

Sometimes, when there was truly no path, he had to take a risk—stepping quickly along the edges, minimizing vibrations as much as possible.

His whole body twisted and contorted, hopping and bouncing, looking like a monkey having a seizure.

This was a hundred times more mentally exhausting than assassinating some noble lord or sneaking into a heavily guarded castle!

At last, with fright but no danger, he reached the foot of the merchant guild building.

The outer walls of the building were also smeared with sticky fluid, and most of the windows were broken.

Inside was pitch-black, exuding a strange stench mixed with rotting wood and insect odor.

Dean found a drainage pipe, tested that it was fairly sturdy, then silently climbed upward like a gecko.

At every floor, he paused, cocked his ear to listen, and only continued after confirming there was no abnormality.

Finally, he flipped onto the fourth-floor platform.

The afterglow of the setting sun barely pierced through the filthy haze hanging over the port, casting a dim yellow light.

Dean lowered his body.

Carefully, he crawled to the edge of the platform and looked toward the center of the port.

With that single look, half the blood in his body turned cold.

A thousand meters away, that lord’s castle which had once symbolized the power and prosperity of Lemon Port—where was there any trace of its former majesty now?

The entire castle.

Was actually a gigantic nest piled up from countless ghastly white skeletons!

The bones were twisted and interwoven—human ones, and those of other creatures as well—densely packed, stretching endlessly as far as the eye could see.

The surface of the nest was likewise covered in thick, dark-green gelatinous matter.

Countless black insects burrowed in and out of it, like maggots parasitizing the corpse of a giant beast.

And what made Dean’s scalp explode even more—

He vaguely saw, at some of the openings of that skeletal nest.

It seemed…… something was moving!

Not insects, but humanoid outlines!

They looked as if they were bound by something, occasionally struggling, only to collapse weakly again.

“Those people…… are still alive?”

Dean’s throat went dry, a chill shooting straight from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.

“They’re being…… raised?!”

The thought was so horrifying that it plunged him into icy despair.

And then, all of a sudden!

A bone-chilling sensation of being watched violently struck him!

Dean instinctively lowered his head.

Only to see on the street below the merchant guild building.

At some unknown point, several black insects had appeared soundlessly.

They were different from any black insects Dean had seen before.

These creatures were larger, nearly half a man tall, their carapaces displaying a dull metallic sheen.

The most bizarre thing was that they were actually standing upright!

Supporting their bodies with two thick hind limbs.

Their forelimbs were sharp like sickles, and their deep compound eyes held no emotional fluctuation whatsoever as they stared straight up at Dean on the rooftop!

“Surrounded?!”

Dean’s heart nearly stopped. “When did this……”

He suddenly recalled that when he had gone upstairs earlier.

There had been a section of railing where he had lightly brushed against a bit of secretion.

But no insects had appeared immediately at the time.

He had thought it was good luck, or that the vibration had been too slight to be detected.

Now that he thought about it……

That had been a trap!

Those damned things had deliberately let him come up, waiting until he reached the rooftop with nowhere to escape before revealing themselves to close the net!

“Captain…… looks like this time, I’m really done for.”

A miserable smile appeared on Dean’s face.

He knew that today, there was no way he was leaving this place alive.

The aura emitted by these upright black insects was far beyond that of the first-tier cannon fodder outside—at the very least third-tier, possibly even higher!

Once targeted by them, and in such a dead-end environment.

The chance of survival was infinitely close to zero.

Dean took a deep breath.

Suppressing the fear and despair in his heart, a trace of resolve flashed in his eyes.

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