As Mako and Leon stepped outside the barrier hut and into the cave, the strong smell of decay and stagnant air continued to fill their noses, but they powered through. The scene in front of them was filled with darkness as the cave was only partially illuminated by the faint light filtering in from the entrance.
As their eyes adjusted to the dimness, they began to notice a familiar blue liquid covering almost every cave surface in a specific area. Looking down, they could see several giant beetles, each the size of a small dog, lying motionless on the cave floor, their dead bodies still oozing some of the blue liquid which was obviously beast blood.
The beetles' exoskeletons were completely black in color, and their many legs and pincers had parts that didn't resemble the rest of their body as they looked too reflective and resembled thick plastic.
To get a better understanding of what these things were, Mako used Analyze on one of the dead beetles.
[Analyze]
[High-level Terra Beetle] (Dead)
[Ability: Earth (Level 2), Lightning (Level 2)]
[Description: A Terra beetle is already a high-tier beast when it is born and has two abilities. Their rate of growth is quite remarkable as they can grow up from grubs to full adults in a few days. Male Terra beetles lack the ability to reproduce at their normal stage and only a single male king can procreate with the female beetles. In order to become a King beetle, the male beetles fight their own kind and consume their crystals to grow and become stronger.
Once a king is born, the beetles serve their king and in return, the king keeps increasing the population and defends the nest against any intruders or threats. Terra beetles have excellent eyesight which allows them to see and live in the dark; however, they don't have wings.
The most interesting feature of these beetles is their unique muscles. Terra beetles' muscles are unique as they can emit light through them. This light can either be yellow or brown which indicates which ability they are currently using. It takes time for the beetles to switch between the two abilities and can be observed visually.]
[Weakness: Fire, Penetrating attacks]
Mako quickly read the detailed description of the Terra beetles and their unique characteristics. The system indicated that each and every beetle is born as a high-tier beast. Looking around the cave and seeing the number of bodies of dead beetles lying on the floor, Mako gulped. He was not even able to imagine how intense the battle must have been between Bill and all of these beasts attacking him all at once.
'He must have evolved his Earth ability while fighting such an intense battle against all those beetles,' Mako predicted.
Mako continued to examine the body of one of the beetle when he saw something glimmer inside from the wound that ended its life which was a gaping hole directly in the middle of its body.
"Bill didn't remove the crystals from these beasts!" Mako announced as he put his hand inside the hole and wiggled it around a bit until he felt something pointy and hard. He pulled it out and sure enough it was the high-tier power crystal of the Terra beetle.
Leon came to see what Mako was doing and was absolutely disgusted by what he saw him doing but it had to be done in order to extract the crystal. After extracting the first, Mako moved over to the next beetle to extract another crystal.
Even though Leon didn't want to, he didn't have anything else to do so he followed Mako's lead and started extracting the crystals from each beetle's body.
Soon, a small pile of high-tier crystals had formed as all the crystals were extracted from the beetles. Mako and Leon also started to stockpile all the bodies in a small corner. After all the crystals were extracted, Mako lit all the bodies on fire so that they would burn and disintegrate and they won't have to look at tens of lifeless bodies of beetles next to their temporary shelter.
Plus, by burning all the beetles, they were able to get rid of most of the smell but not all of it as a lot of blue blood was still covering the cave and it was also contributing to the smell.
Mako tried to think of ways to get rid of all the blue blood from the cave but after several minutes of thinking, no solution came to mind. In the end, Mako used the Ask function to ask the system about how to get rid of the blue blood.
[Blue blood of the beasts is flammable and can be easily lit on fire once dried up. The blood burns away completely leaving almost nothing left]
Happy with the system's answer, Mako turned his arm into a flamethrower as he quickly got rid of all the blue blood that was spilled everywhere in the cave.
It took around an hour for Mako and Leon to clean up the cave, and gather all the crystals. By this time, the sun had risen a bit more and more light started to enter the cave illuminating the area more.
One question that Mako still had on his mind was how did all these beetles find their way inside the cave. He found it hard to believe that a horde of hungry high-tier Terra beetles just happened to come across their temporary shelter as soon as Mako and Leon were done having their duel and were knocked out from exhaustion.
Leon was feeling a bit sick after dealing with all the blood and smell as well as gathering all the crystals. While holding his stomach with his two hands, he walked back toward the barrier hut and walked past it toward the dead end of the cave so that he could throw up and didn't have to worry about cleaning it up later.
However, what Leon found at the dead end of the cave made him freeze up again as he quickly called for Mako who was busy ignoring the system's prompt for absorbing the high-tier crystal.
Mako was tempted at first as he still hadn't figured out what absorbing a crystal might give him and now he had access to even better quality crystals but he stopped himself because these crystals didn't belong to him.
Mako and Bill both had agreed that however killed a beast would get its crystal and all of those beetles were killed by Bill himself and so he deserved all of them. The system kept tempting him with constant prompts while he handled the crystals and brought them inside the barrier hut, but Leon's sudden call made him distracted and he dropped the crystals inside before going toward Leon.
Mako's facial expression also changed to shock as he approached Leon near the dead end of the cave which wasn't a dead end anymore.
There was a massive hole in the wall that was previously believed to be the dead end of the cave and suddenly everything started to fall into place for Mako. He quickly realized that their fighting which made the cave shake might have attracted the beetles who lived on the other side of the cave.
While they were knocked out, Bill had to protect them from the beetles which was why he made the barrier hut around them so that they would be safe while he fought with all of them at once.
"Do you think the beetles caused this too?" Leon asked as he still didn't have a clue what this all meant.
Mako explained to him what he believed had happened last night and as he told him that their fight was most probably the trigger for this entire thing, Leon's face became plastered with guilt as it was his stupid self that wanted to fight Mako so bad even though it wasn't a good idea.
'It was because of me that the fight took place, it caused a lot of ruckuses and attracted the beetles toward the cave, and then we were both knocked out from exhaustion and left Bill alone to deal with the mess that I created,' Leon blamed himself in his thoughts.
Looking at Leon now, Mako understood that he was feeling really guilty about what happened and so he tried to approach him and at least comfort him by saying that in the end, everything turned out fine and he shouldn't beat himself over what he did but rather to work on improving himself from this experience.
However, before Mako could even take a single step, the cave began to tremble once again. Mako and Leon looked confused as they looked around and couldn't understand what was happening.
*************
[At the military headquarters]
"Sir! Sir!" The sergeant shouted in urgency as he rushed toward the round table where the main commander was observing something on the screen in front of him.
The sergeant climbed the small set of stairs to reach the round table but before he could even tell the main commander the urgent news, the main commander spoke first.
"I already know, sergeant," The main commander said.
The sergeant composed himself as he walked over and stood beside him. They both were now viewing the live footage of a certain cave that was shaking quite a bit.
"It appears that their king has awakened which shouldn't be possible considering, it is supposed to be hibernating this month. What do you think we should do?" The sergeant said after calming his nerves down a bit.
"There is nothing we CAN do, sergeant. It would be against the rules to help the cadets fight against this beast or even help them escape. It would be unfair to the other cadets who faced tough beasts before them and were only saved by the patrolling officers when they lost the fight against the beast and were about to be killed." The main commander replied in a low tone.
"Sir, with all due respect, do you think those boys can face an advanced-tier beast by themselves?" The sergeant asked in shock after listening to the main commander's reply.
To the sergeant's question, the main commander let out a defeated sigh.
"I don't know whether they will be successful or not, but in order to honor all the cadets who have failed the test in the same manner, we can't give these kids special treatment. Plus it was always a risk, that the cadets might face one of the 5 advanced tier beasts on this island. All we can do is hope that they can somehow make it out alive otherwise the patrolling officers would have to intervene." The main commander announced.
The room became a bit dull after the main commander's decision but nobody had the authority to reject his decision and so they watched on quietly and hoped that the cadets could pull off a miracle.
