Huge linen banners fluttered in the night wind, adorned with lifelike, unrestrained, and bizarre images of wild beasts.

A force of nearly a thousand men marched through the mountains, carrying torches and wearing animal skins, resembling a group of barbaric warriors from ancient times.

The strongest warriors led the way, wearing simple and worn armor. Although the handles of their weapons were rusty, the blades still gleamed.

The leader, a man in his prime, walked at the head of the procession. His light blond curly hair cascaded over his shoulders, and a long scar stretched from the corner of his right eye to his ear. The outline of Watchtower was reflected in his eyeballs, and his pupils narrowed as if a wild beast had locked onto its prey. He spoke in slightly broken Common to the people behind him: "The drawbridge hasn't been lowered."

A woman dressed in a grass-green, tight-fitting long dress, her head hidden under a round cloak, spoke in a melodious voice that sounded like the tinkling of pearls: "Don't you northern warriors have a proverb that says, 'If the road beneath your feet is too comfortable, your courage will sooner or later dissipate like melting snow'?"

The man stopped, his gaze towards the woman growing even colder: "For the sake of my people, I would rather not be a warrior."

The latter froze for a moment, then lowered his head and said with a smile, "Please rest assured, the suspension bridge will come down."

Watching the leader walk further and further away, the woman looked towards the distant fortress and muttered, "Those unreliable guys from the 'Relief Society'..."

A cold mountain wind ruffled the woman's cloak, her tight-fitting long dress accentuating her graceful figure. She tightened her clothes, glanced one last time at Watchtower, and then disappeared into the night.

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The greatsword slashed down from the sky, sending wood chips flying. Alfonso kicked it hard, shattering the wooden door of the winch room into pieces.

The group of four rushed into a pitch-black room. In the darkness, a huge, twisted figure wielded a massive broad axe, about 1.5 meters long, hacking at the third chain winch.

"Leslie!"

The knight shouted his companion's name, raised his two-handed sword, and charged ahead of the shadowy figure.

The boy with red markings on his forehead held his hands together, palms facing each other, then rubbed them back and forth.

A moment later, the change in the other person's hand made Todd's eyes widen.

The palms, which were originally of normal skin color, gradually turned red, and finally, like a furnace, a bright, blazing flame rose up.

Leslie then pulled a strangely made metal slingshot from his waist, pressed a hidden mechanism in his clothes with his elbow, and a spherical ball the size of a copper star fell into his hand. After holding the ball in his right hand for a moment, he placed the burning ball onto the slingshot, drew the bowstring taut, and first aimed at the kerosene-covered torch on the wall.

As the bowstring was released, the burning ball traced a fiery trajectory through the air, striking the wall near the torch. Sparks exploded everywhere, igniting the torch.

As sparks flew and torches were lit, the room gradually became brighter, and the four people could see the culprit who had sabotaged the winch.

Alfonso, who was charging forward, stopped and looked up in disbelief.

Leslie put down the slingshot, Karin covered her mouth, and Todd looked like he'd seen a ghost, muttering to himself, "This can't be real, can it? What is this thing?!"

The human in front of me—no, this cannot even be called human.

This creature is more like Frankenstein, pieced together from various limbs.

His lower body was covered in thick hair, his knees bent over, like the "goat demon" from the Bible; his torso was pieced together from countless pieces of flesh of different colors and shapes; his arms were of different sizes, the larger one bulging with muscles, as if it came from a warrior, while the smaller one was as thin as a stick, probably taken from a child. If all of the above wasn't bizarre enough, his head was a nightmare. A charred, blackened human head was embedded in the body, with a white bone spine and a bunch of thick tubes serving as the connecting bridge between the two.

Leslie swallowed hard and said with difficulty, "I swear, this is definitely not 'The Hive'! No! This is definitely more than just 'The Hive'!"

The monster ignored the four intruders, raised its broad axe with its thick arms, and swung it at the winch again.

Alfonso snapped out of his shock, raised his two-handed sword, and slashed at the monster's back.

As if it had eyes in the back of its head, the monster leaped to the side, dodging the attack, and turned its broadsword around, crashing directly into the sword's edge.

A deafening crash, like metal shattering and stone breaking, echoed through the room.

Alfonso was slammed backward by a brute force, rolling several times on the ground before his momentum subsided.

"This is the ability of 'Perception'! This guy has a second special ability besides 'Hive'!" Leslie took out another small ball from his pocket, lit it with flames, and shot it towards the monster's axe-wielding arm, shouting, "Boss! Be careful, this guy doesn't recognize things by sight or hearing!"

The monster turned around, raised its axe, and brought it down, the sound of metal breaking reaching everyone's ears.

The third chain broke, leaving only the last winch!

The burning ball also struck the monster's back, but the expected explosion and sparks did not occur. The ball, after hitting the skin, was like a trampoline, denting into the skin by seven or eight centimeters before bouncing back to the ground.

Leslie was completely dumbfounded. The boy took a deep breath and said in a trembling voice, "This...this is the ability of the 'Gel' mutant...This is the third one, along with the previous two...Boss, is this the one we've encountered...?"

The knight got up from the ground, looking as if facing a formidable enemy, his eyes more serious and earnest than ever before. He slowly said, "Ah, yes, I didn't expect to encounter the inheritor of the 'Sutherland Relics' here."

Upon hearing a familiar term, Todd was startled and couldn't help but glance at the monster a few more times, thinking to himself, "How could a creature with Sutherland bacteria in its body become like this?"

The attacked monster turned its back and slowly walked into the firelight, showing its face to everyone for the first time.

In the dim light, Alfonso looked at the monster's charred human head, and a familiar symbol jumped into his field of vision.

『Sun V』

He suddenly remembered something and muttered to himself, "'Sun' variant? Level 5? You're Marcos Byrne?"

The monster stopped, seemingly observing the Iron-Faced Knight before it, as if recalling something. A moment later, it suddenly raised its broadsword and launched a frenzied attack on Alfonso.

The greatsword knight immediately realized that the other party must have recognized him as well.