Chapter 390: What Lurks Below
The first sight of the mammal was its pink little snout that twitched curiously, smelling the surroundings. Its two paddle-like front feet followed, slowly emerging from the depths below. Finally, the adorable creature peeked its head out of the hole.
Fortunately, the place where it had emerged from wasn’t burned by Victoria’s flames, meaning the mole’s dark fur made it easier to distinguish from the surroundings.
Instantly, the crew froze. A common misconception was that moles were blind... In reality, they simply had extremely limited vision. Hearing wasn’t their primary way of perceiving the world. They did so by sensing vibrations and smell.
Since Victoria’s flames had recently ravaged the chamber, the crew was temporarily outside of the creature’s detection capabilities.
As long as they didn’t move too hastily, they could catch the little creature. The fact the mole had shown itself after the extermination of the aliens in the breeding grounds indicated that it was tasked with investigating.
In other words, the mole wasn’t a wild animal but a tame one, serving the cult... Perhaps the only lead the crew would stumble upon for some time. There was no way they could let this chance slip by!
Michael was caught in a dilemma. Given his abilities, he could easily hunt the creature down and examine it later. But he wasn’t a cold-blooded killer... At least not when it came to life originating from Earth.
He would rather avoid killing the creature if possible. Yet if he failed to subdue it, the mole would escape with ease.
Moles were masters of staying hidden underground. Even with all his power, Michael might not be able to catch it once it slipped away.
While he was still locked in internal debate, he noticed one of his companions reacting differently from the rest.
Ruby’s eyes snapped open, her pupils dilating. Saliva trailed from the corner of her mouth, her nails extending into claws... She had entered a hunting state!
’Crap!’ Michael realized his mistake too late. Ruby’s feline instincts must have taken over the moment she spotted the small mammal. Every fiber of her being urged her to hunt!
In a flash, she moved. Her body arched, and then sprang forward with the fluid grace of a lethal predator. She used her stealth-enhancing technique to avoid the mole’s senses.
The poor little creature didn’t know what hit it. In a fraction of a second, Ruby had it firmly in her grasp, scooping it out of the familiar soil and exposing it to the unforgiving air.
Reeee!
Desperately, it began to twist its body, squealing for help, but it was to no avail. Once caught by Ruby, it was completely at her mercy.
Michael paled, fearing that she was about to eat their only lead. Thankfully, the worst didn’t happen. With the prey secured in her grip, Ruby turned toward the crew, clearly proud of herself.
"I caught it!" Ruby declared, her tail swishing playfully.
Exhaling slowly, Michael relaxed. After he approached her, he gently petted her on the head.
"Good girl."
Ruby blushed intensely, beginning to purr deeply.
Once Michael finished giving praise to his feline companion, his attention shifted to the little mole.
The small creature wore a collar, and inside it rested a tiny chip.
Michael proceeded to examine it. Just as he suspected, the embedded chip contained data on different alterations of the plague and their effects on felines and unaltered humans. Some versions caused severe symptoms in felines, while others spread far too quickly among normal humans.
"It’s cute." Victoria murmured, observing the little creature from the side.
"You mean delicious!" Ruby corrected, her cat instincts still flaring, having quickly recovered from Michael’s praise.
"Actually, it reminds me a little of Ava." Claire giggled mischievously.
"E—Excuse me?!" Ava exclaimed, utterly astonished. "What exactly gave you that impression?! We aren’t alike at all!"
Victoria nodded thoughtfully. "Now that you mention it, I can see the resemblance. Both are small and absolutely adorable..."
Ava pouted, her face flushing red, while Michael studied the little mole in his hands with wonder.
This tiny, hairy creature was supposed to be cute?
Was he really that clueless, or did his companions have such little self-esteem that they compared themselves to a mere animal? Perhaps his earlier lecture had crushed their morale a bit too much...
"Don’t sell yourselves short. This small creature can’t even begin to match your beauty." He declared without a second thought, immediately snapping back to examining the data.
Suddenly, Ava wasn’t the only one blushing red.
Other than the plague data, there wasn’t anything particularly useful. After swapping the chip on the mole’s collar with another, Michael let the poor mammal go.
The mole screeched loudly one final time... Either to curse Michael for handling it too roughly or to thank him for not eating it, before diving back into the soil.
"Why did you let it go?" Ruby’s ears flattened. Part of her really felt the desire to eat the creature.
Michael chuckled.
"As we discussed before, even if we wipe out all the alien nests and the plague, without eliminating the source, the same problem is bound to resurface again."
Pausing, he used the device strapped to his wrist to project a hologram of the underground. A blinking red dot moved through it.
"So... we’re going to use our little friend to lead us to its owner."
"I see..." Claire smirked. "In that case, leave it to me!"
Naturally, as a skilled mecha pilot, she had brought her mecha into the underground passage. Clinging aboard, Claire reminded everyone why she was hailed as the White Angel.
She activated her giant lance, heating it to thousands of degrees. The weapon began to spin with tremendous force, its motion resembling a massive drill more than a traditional lance.
Following the location tracker set on the mole, she began to mine. Her heated drill easily penetrated the hard ground, burrowing even deeper with relentless force.
The passage she created was wide enough for even Cyberfang to follow. Slowly, the crew began to approach what they assumed was the cultists’ main base of operations. Claire was at the front, with everyone else riding on the back of the mechanical beast.
Notably, Devil seemed to be in a strangely good mood, while the crew dug deeper into the ground. He didn’t stop for a moment, singing nonstop in Michael’s head:
’I am digging a hole! Diggy diggy hole! Diggy diggy hole!’
Michael didn’t know whether Devil was so happy because they had killed so many aliens or simply because he loved digging, but he didn’t interrupt, since the tune was surprisingly catchy.
Initially, the crew suspected that the culprits they were searching for couldn’t have buried themselves too deep. Yet the deeper they went, the more they realized their assumptions couldn’t have been more wrong.
The surroundings grew hotter. If they had been mere mortals, the natural temperature of the planet would have either forced them out or cooked them alive.
"If the moles can survive at such depths, then they must have been made to do so according to their creator’s wishes." Michael mused aloud.
Finally, they reached the other side. The passage Claire had dug opened into a colossal chamber that stretched farther than even Michael could perceive with his heightened senses.
"Seeing this scene makes me understand why some people believe in the hollow planet conspiracy..." Michael whispered in awe.
He and the crew were rendered speechless. The chamber was vast enough to hold multiple cities, and to make matters worse, it was crawling with aliens that had been hiding right beneath the capital all along.