Chapter 7

While Meredith caught up with Cheryl and the others spoke amongst themselves, Jack took the opportunity for a little cultivation. He was in the middle of his tenth monster about half an hour later when the commander sent out the call for everyone to gather up.

He stood up and stretched his tightened muscles before joining his team and Cheryl in walking into the middle of the field. The multicoloured vapour had become much thicker as the field of monsters slowly faded away. In fact Jack observed an interesting effect where some of the monsters hadn’t completely faded away yet, their remains looked partially see through as the light emanated from them.

As they got to the meeting point, all the surviving hunters gathered nearby. The majority of the Dire Woods outpost hunters appeared to have survived with only light injuries. There were also numerous other hunters from outside the Woods, there was a distinct difference between the two groups. The Dire Woods hunters all had a lot of monster components making up their armour as opposed to the regular guild hunters who had a fair amount of metal plate, kevlar and other high grade synthetic materials.

As he looked around Jack noticed with surprise, Stacey’s face was amongst the hunters from the outside. She was staring at him angrily through the crowd, when she saw him looking back at her she hurriedly turned her head away and a moment later he lost sight of her in the crowd. He grimaced unhappily, he really needed to talk to her and settle things.

The commander began to address them.

“All right everyone, that's the first phase of the operation completed. Now it's time for the next phase, we will assault the Vellast hive directly. Members of the surveyor corps have already scouted out a route for us to ascend into the tree canopy, orders will be issued by myself and Cheryl Shriverston as the combat situation evolves. For now, follow me!” With that the commander headed to the edge of the field where a large cluster of roots rose out of the ground and met some low hanging giant tree branches.

As they got closer they could see a path had been outlined, it almost looked like a route left by climbers on a mountainside, with various ropes and metal poles nailed into the wood. A very crude and treacherous route had been marked out made of giant and normal sized tree branches that they would have to navigate, climb across and sometimes jump between, thick ropes had been tied and nailed down to highlight the route and provide something to grab onto, tie tree branches together or just shimmy up. In some places there wasn’t even rope, but instead there were large thick metal nails spiked deep into the wood of the trees to use as handholes. They would have to ascend for almost two hundred metres, but since the route was a winding and circuitous one taking them around many different trees, the actual route would be more like two miles long.

All in all it looked like a climbing enthusiast's wet dream or their worst nightmare. Clearly the surveyor corps had worked tremendously hard to be able to set all this up in a highly dangerous area with poor visibility, if their jobs had a similar ranking system to the hunters then this job was clearly an A ranking one.

Without any further ado, the commander led the large group of hunters upwards. Members of the surveyor corps would sometimes appear seemingly out of nowhere to act as guides for particularly treacherous parts of the route and to make sure the dozens of hunters were spaced out so that the thinner branches they were stepping on didn’t break from bearing too much weight.

The commander led the way up, occasionally some Vellast would descend from above and attack them but the creatures only attacked in small numbers, they were easily taken care of. However one or two hunters still fell from the precarious pathways during the fighting.

Eventually they made it to the top of the route where several gigantic tree branches dozens of metres thick from different trees all intersected, providing a relatively wide space. The commander had everyone gather and wait for any stragglers. Once that was done he separated everyone into two groups led by him and Cheryl, from there members of the surveyor corps would take them to the suspected locations of the Vellast nests. Once there they were supposed to slay the Broodmother, the creature that birthed the Vellast. The two separated groups continued onwards to their goals.

Apparently, the insectoid Vellast were similar to other species of insects found on Earth, they had a hive, they had a queen that laid eggs, they had thousands of worker drones and they also had soldiers to defend the nest when it was directly threatened.

“AAAARGH!!” A pained strangled scream sounded out from the middle of the group Jack was in, he turned around quickly and saw a hunter had been stabbed through the back by something large suddenly appearing amongst them.

The creature looked like it had camouflaged itself to hide against the bark of the trees, they’d stepped right over it and it had suddenly reared up in the middle of their group to attack. Several more of them stepped out of the shadows surrounding them.

They were significantly larger than other Vellast, where the regular Vellast scuttled about on six legs and held their bodies close to the ground; these creatures looked more like giant insectoid centaurs in shape, over twelve feet in height. Their chitinous carapaces rippled in shifting dull colours looking like a mix of bark brown and dark grey. They had many legs gripping the surface of the trees running along a long segmented chitin clad body, their torsos however reared upright and bore eight arm like appendages which ended in massive pointed pincers. What passed for their heads had several sets of green eyes surrounding a vertical gash, which might have been its mouth. They were the Vellast soldiers.

The Vellast soldier standing amongst them lifted up the unfortunate hunter it had impaled through the back and opened up its pincer, the poor hunter was ripped apart with a sickening cracking squelching sound. The hunters' remains disappeared over the side of the tree branches down into the darkness below.

A strange clicking noise came from inside the creature's mouth as it turned to regard the hunters around it, however it wasn’t given the chance to do anything else as a large icicle flew straight into its mouth, killing it instantly. Some sort of fluid began bubbling up from its mouth and leaking over its body, the fluid seemed to dissolve the chitin armour covering the beast.

“What are you all waiting for? Get to work!” Cheryl yelled out at the hunters. With that, everyone turned on the Vellast soldiers surrounding them. Jack found himself confronting one specimen alongside a dozen other hunters, it was fast and strong, its chitin armour managed to shrug off a lot of the elemental attacks and gunfire thrown its way. They managed to take it down but not before it had knocked three hunters over the side, sending them plummeting to their deaths.

Once they’d dealt with the creature, Jack looked around, the only other group still fighting were further along the trail. He watched as a soldier rapidly weaved its way up and down a tree trunk, avoiding incoming fire before leaping down on top of a hunter, rapid clicks came out of its mouth before it sprayed some sort of fluid from its mouth at another one. The hunter who’d been sprayed, screamed shrilly as his face and upper body began to dissolve.

The beast was surrounded and it looked like it was about to be taken down like all the others so Jack was content to watch, but then he saw Stacey amongst the hunters battling the thing. She ran up to it with her giant sabre and stabbed it deeply into the monster’s flank, she withdrew quickly as it lashed out at her, her sword trailing black ichor.

She stood next to another hunter as the monster turned its attention on them, clicks began coming from its mouth again and it looked like it was about to spray that disgusting acid at them. Stacey made to dodge to the side but then suddenly the hunter standing next to her shoved Stacey towards the soldier before scrambling to safety.

Stacey stumbled forwards to her knees and looked up in horror at the Vellast soldier looming over, about to spray acid onto her. She had no time to get out of the way.

Jack saw it all, he didn’t think, his body reacted on its own. He grabbed a handful of steel marbles from a pouch on his belt and threw. With a colossal crack snap of thunder and displaced air, the ammunition rocketed forward, the next instant the entirety of the Vellast soldier’s torso had disappeared into fragments of gore and chitin. What was left of it sank down to the ground, its legs continued to twitch and move slightly as vestigial nerve impulses remained.

A few people around him let out impressed whistles and complimented him on a good kill, Jack didn’t hear any of them as his sights zeroed in on the hunter who’d pushed Stacey so that he could escape. He marched over, it was a male hunter, garbed in dark bone and metal plate without a helmet, he looked over to Jack approaching him.

Before the hunter could say anything, Jack punched him in the face. The hunter went down and Jack straddled him before punching him again and again and again. Suddenly, hands were wrapped around his shoulders, throwing him back.

Someone punched Jack in the face but he barely felt it thanks to his helmet, though it obscured his sight for a moment. He felt someone try to grab him and punch him again but then he was pulled back again.

“What the fuck is your problem you bastard!?” someone shouted out. Jack readjusted his helmet and saw what was happening.

Several hunters were standing in front of him, four men and one woman, all glaring at him, but they were being faced down by Jack’s team who all stood in front of him protectively. Jack took his helmet off and looked at the hunters glaring at him.

“My problem, is watching someone almost get one of my friends killed, bastard,” he spat out as calmly as he could.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” one of the hunters sneered.

“I’m talking about how that shitter over there pushed Stacey into the monster's path as it was about to spit acid out, he then ran away, like a coward.” Jack pointed to the hunter who he’d just beaten, his face was a bloody mess, courtesy of Jack’s gauntlet clad fists.

“What a load of shite!” one of the hunters from the opposing group sneered again. “Stacey was clumsy, she just fell, that's on her!”

“Actually I saw it happen too,” Meredith spoke up.

“Yeah me too!” Katie said.

“As did I,” Noah stated.

“That was fucked up!” Nate declared angrily.

Before the two groups could come to blows, Cheryl slowly sauntered up and stood, looking at them all silently. A visible chill settled over both sets of hunters and everyone glanced nervously at her. However, Jack wasn’t backing down. He stepped forward and was about to tell the other hunters just what he thought about them but then Stacey appeared.

“It's fine! I just slipped okay? It's all good, nothing happened,” she said somewhat glumly. “Let's just carry on,” she said with a sigh. And then surprisingly, she went over to the group including the hunter who’d just almost getten her killed and then joined them as they continued up the path.

Jack stared after her in shock. Was she actually with those guys? He didn’t recognise any of them and they weren’t her usual team. As they left, one of the hunters along with the man Jack had punched turned back to glare at him.

“This isn’t over sparker!” he declared angrily. Jack snorted derisively.

“I couldn’t agree more my good man, this definitely isn’t over. I’ll be seeing you,” he said calmly as he glared back. Jack clenched his fist and allowed thick streams of lightning to flow around it. The other hunters glared a moment longer before turning around and catching up with their comrades.

“We’ll talk about this later,” Cheryl said to Jack and his team before moving on after the other team.

“Who the hell were those douches? Where’s Stacey’s normal team?” Nate asked in confusion.

“I don’t know…..whoever they were, I don’t like them,” Jack muttered in response, his eyes continuing to follow the backs of the other team. Speaking to Stacey later on suddenly became much more important.

In the guild, there were different types of hunters; hunters that specialised in hunting specific types of monsters or doing jobs in specific environments, hunters that only did dungeon delves, career G and F rankers that were quite happy making a living doing relatively safe jobs. Some hunters were only in it for the money, others liked the thrill of the fight, others liked the adventuring lifestyle and some truly believed in helping people and making things safe.

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After a while in the guild and getting to know many other hunters, Jack had begun to get a feel for the different personalities and motivations of the people he’d met. Some hunters took their jobs seriously and did their best, others however…..were only in it for themselves, if a situation looked unsalvageable then they’d cut and run. Those types of hunters and teams were known for using ruthless tactics and were completely unconcerned with collateral damage or taking care of their fellow teammates. More than a few hunters had been found abusing their power and the public and media weren’t completely wrong in being wary of some hunters. Jack was worried Stacey had fallen in with a bad crowd.

“Erm, there’s not a lot we can do about that right now, let's just continue for now. We can talk to her later okay?” Meredith touched his arm and looked at Jack with concern.

“Mm, fine,” he grunted at her and they continued walking followed by the other hunter teams who had all been looking on with interest.

Before long, after walking along a gigantic tree branch, the large group of hunters found themselves staring into an enormous, dark tree hollow carved into the giant tree trunk. It was absolutely cavernous, a faint breeze blew and everyone got a whiff of something rotten coming from within.

“Okay boys and girls, this is it. Flares and flashlights now,” Cheryl called out as she began walking down a slight slope down towards the hollow, the inky blackness swallowed her up for a moment before she lit a red flare and illuminated her surroundings.

The group of hunters followed her in, all lighting flares and torches. What they revealed was a vast hollow space within the trunk of the giant tree, they stood along the edge of a precipice. The hollow space continued both down and up, the light of the torches and flares weren’t strong enough to penetrate far enough into the vast darkness, not even reaching to the opposite wall nor the very top or very bottom. They only illuminated a small area in a vast cavernous empty space. Someone lit a red flare and dropped it over the edge and everyone watched as it fell. They lost sight of the flare after a while indicating it had fallen a very very long way, which was strange because they had only ascended about two hundred metres above ground level.

What they could see, however, lining the inner walls of the tree trunk closest to them were strange sacs, they looked wet and wriggled slightly. Upon closer inspection one of the hunters saw faint shapes of tiny Vellast within twitching and moving, the sacs were eggs. Everyone began shining their lights around as much as they could and saw that as far as they could see, the entirety of the tree hollow inner walls were taken up by eggs.

Large fleshy vein-like growths were also found everywhere, covering the eggs, they pulsed and throbbed rhythmically.

Jack looked around and as far as he could see, there was nowhere for them to go, the tree was hollow and there was no way for them to climb up or down.

“Erm…now what?” a hunter asked.

Cheryl frowned in thought, looking around in consideration.

“Hmm…..meh……I didn’t really want to do this, but…..everyone back off to just outside the hollow…now,” Cheryl ordered. Everyone hastened to obey, somewhat confused but not really wanting to test her.

They all withdrew slightly to just outside, leaving Cheryl alone in the dark. However it wasn’t dark for very long as the interior of the tree hollow was suddenly lit up in a fiery orange glow. Cheryl was illuminated standing amongst a sudden burning inferno as the hollow was set alight all around her. A high pitched alien shriek emanated from within.

Everyone gasped in amazement and slowly wandered back into the tree regardless of whether Cheryl let them back in or not.

Cheryl stood, looking around at her handiwork.

“Hmm, that should get somethings attention,” she remarked partly to herself.

“How did you do that?!” one hunter asked in amazement.

“I thought she was a water element!” Another one remarked.

She didn’t respond, but she did turn to Jack and sent a quick smirk his way. He remembered, a few weeks ago, he’d ironically stumbled upon the potential for using water as a high grade incendiary. It was simply a matter of somehow splitting water molecules into their component hydrogen and oxygen molecules and from there, adding a spark.

He had done it once before with his water crystal infused axe but hadn’t managed it since. Cheryl however, had taken inspiration from it and had apparently managed to successfully replicate the feat. Where he’d failed miserably, in just a few weeks she’d developed a workable and to be quite frank, a rather overpowered ability.

He sighed slightly and smiled back at her, though it was a bitter smile, life is so unfair sometimes. She must have noticed his frustration because her smirk morphed into a full toothed mirthful grin and she gave him a cheeky wink before turning away again.

The hollow quickly filled up with black greasy smoke, burning gunk-like debris began tumbling down from above, the high pitched shrieking continued from all around them. The egg sacs nearest them began twitching and writhing as they caught alight. The shrieking gradually faded away.

Cheryl tilted her head as if she was listening for something and her eyes lost their focus, a few moments later she looked around. “Here we go, I think we pissed something off,” she muttered barely audibly.

“That should do it, fire elements!” she suddenly yelled out to everyone over the roar and crackle of burning flames. “Start putting out the flames! Water elements too! We don’t want to burn the whole forest down!”

Some of the hunters stepped forward and began quenching the flames, the flames around them died down but fires kept smouldering deep at the base of the tree and far above them. Cheryl directed some water cultivators to start pouring colossal amounts of water downwards, vast amounts of steam and smoke flew upwards from the mixing of water, flame and burning flesh.

Cheryl began calmly looking upwards to the still burning top of the hollow, wreathed in flame and shadow, she crossed her arms and tapped her foot impatiently.

“C’mon you great beast,” she continued muttering to herself. “What else do I have to do to piss you off, come and get me.”

As if in answer, a great piercing enraged shriek came from above, something began shifting and squelching, sounding like it was coming from all around them.

“Hmm, finally awake I see.” Cheryl's face was transformed by a feral predatory grin as she watched the top of the hollow. A great shifting and cracking sound could be heard from above as something immense moved around, a deep wet gurgling growl emanated from above.

“It's showtime guys! Unbunch those panties and get ready!” Cheryl cried out to the hunters.

Everyone stared upwards, the fiery inferno above them began to shift and move in strange ways, large pieces of something broke off from the top of the hollow far above them and began dropping down towards them. More and more pieces of something started dislodging themselves from the top of the hollow and dropping down. After a moment Jack and the other hunters could see that whatever these things were, they were large and they were connected to the top and sides of the tree hollow, they were also still smouldering.

They got closer and closer until they got within a few dozen metres and everyone could more or less tell just what they were.

“Oh fuck me.” As usual Nate showed his unique talent for summing up the situation in a succinct manner.

Tentacles, massive thick tentacles thicker in width than a horse, long thin chitinous spiked tendrils, strange lumpy growths that leaked from various openings, bone spiked clubs of flesh. More and more long, gigantic fleshy, boney and chitinous appendages detached themselves from the hollow top and walls and descended to confront the intruders. It was a bewildering and nightmarish array of alien monstrous flesh of numerous shapes and sizes.

Several of the thicker fleshy tendrils in front of them opened up to reveal massive maws filled with jagged teeth, they all roared at them in unison, sending out tendrils of stringy saliva. At that, the array of flesh swooped forward, attacking the group of hunters.

Everyone shot off their elemental attacks in reaction, some out of panic and others in disciplined volleys. The chattering sounds of gunfire could also be heard. Some hunters withdrew back to the entrance of the hollow but even that wasn’t safe as tentacles and other fleshy appendages detached themselves from the hollow walls just above and descended.

Until then casualties had been minimal, but now the hunters were being mowed down and snapped up left, right and centre. Some stood their ground and fended off the tendrils, others panicked and found themselves getting torn apart, crushed or grabbed and dragged into the impenetrable darkness of the hollow below or above.

Cheryl meanwhile hadn’t moved from her spot, she sent out powerful scything pressure jets of water and massive blasts of flame into the weaving appendages in front of her. She fended off whatever directly attacked her by conjuring spiked palisades of ice that skewered everything that came at her.

Jack, meanwhile, was just trying to survive in what had rapidly devolved into what was by far the worst situation he’d ever been in, and that was really saying something at this point in his hunting career. If there was a hell, then he was pretty sure it looked a little bit like this. Everyone around him was screaming and roaring, fighting and dying. Everything was on fire, giant alien tentacles were emerging out of the darkness, swinging around killing everyone. It really just wasn’t a good situation to be in.

He didn’t have the luxury of time to dwell on his misfortune however as a large tentacle barrelled straight towards him. It was thicker around than a horse and he had no illusions about being able to stop it or dodge it. Instead, he took out his black chain and just as the tentacle slammed into him and tried to carry him away, he flooded his body with lightning energy as he wrapped a coil of chain around the tentacle. The tentacle spasmed and the sudden weight of the chain forced it to the ground, Jack slithered out of its grasp and unsheathed his spear. He wasted no time in extending it to its full three metre length and triggering the detonation effect as he stabbed the fleshy appendage

It exploded into pinkish grey gore and something far above them in the hollow gurgled in rage. Despite his minor victory, the situation still looked dire. Hunters, tentacles and other fleshy abominable tendrils were everywhere, struggling to kill each other. One or two hunters had even gone down to friendly fire in the chaos and confusion. Jack had lost sight of his team a while back and didn’t even know if they were still alive. He did the only sensible thing he could at this point, he retreated.

He withdrew all the way to the hollow’s entrance and looked back at the pandemonium; it didn't look any better when viewed from the outside. The hollow was just filled with flailing giant tentacles and hunters running around in the gloom, trying desperately to fight back. Severed tentacles and hunters' bodies lay all over. Cheryl was right there in the middle of it, surrounded by torn up and smouldering tentacle flesh, still doggedly launching one powerful attack after another, though she seemed to be aiming for something Jack couldn’t quite see, deeper into the hollow and above them.

At least now he wasn’t part of the chaos he had the luxury of time, he calmed himself down and took a deep breath, reaching deep into his core. He took out thick strands of lightning and got them ready, he moved his feet apart to assume a wide stable stance. When he was ready he shot off a fully powered, fully charged lightning bolt, this wasn’t a measly quick bolt but something far more powerful. He normally had difficulty aiming this technique unless he really concentrated and took his time, but he didn’t bother aiming this time. He simply aimed over the heads of the hunters into the writhing mass of tentacles above them and into the darkness of the hollow, he shot off as many fully charged lighting bolts as he could. Thick white blue arcs of lightning blasted out of his hands into the hollow, each bolt felt like cold fire searing and freezing its way out of his core and down his arms, making his muscles cramp and spasm painfully. But he saw he was making a difference, each bolt sheared through a tentacle or two and continued to impact something else at the far end of the hollow.

An angry gurgling roar resounded all around and the hollow actually trembled, everyone staggered as they tried to retain their footing. As the hollow continued to rumble, something else descended from the top. The roar got louder and louder until the source came within sight, a gigantic insectoid chitin clad horror, it looked like a vast bloated spider with countless legs and tentacles. It had an enormous bulbous abdomen that connected it to the darkness of the top of the hollow. Its face somewhat resembled those of the Vellast soldiers, with multiple green eyes lining a massive vertical gash for a mouth, only many times longer.

The Broodmother had finally shown itself.

The tentacles stopped moving for a moment and all the hunters stared at it in horror.

It began making a clicking noise from its mouth which echoed ominously throughout the hollow, filling the silence.

“Scatter!!” someone yelled. No one needed to be told twice as everyone tried to get as far away from the things mouth as they could.

“No! Stand and fight!” another shouted. It was Noah, he then assumed a wide footed stance before pulling a large sheet of stone out of the ground to form a wall. People crowded behind it and more earth cultivators copied him.

Meanwhile, Jack was still at the hollow’s entrance and finally had a big juicy target just floating around in front of him. He aimed for centre mass and fired off an especially powerful lightning bolt, the pungent scent of ozone filled the air around him. The bolt struck the massive beast somewhere amongst its tangle of grotesque limbs and raked upwards into its abdomen. It shrieked in pain and terror, its shorter spidery limbs impotently writhed and wriggled in the air. The giant tentacles also writhed and spasmed uncontrollably. The mouth of the creature drooled the viscous acid, Jack had managed to interrupt it before it could spit it out.

Cheryl took advantage of its distraction and began attacking again, the other hunters followed suit. Dozens of hunters began pouring out all their most powerful elemental abilities directly at the beast now that it had shown itself. The tentacles began moving and started assailing the hunters once more.

Cheryl redoubled her attacks, she kept sending massive blasts of fire directly into the Broodmother’s face. She would conjure a faint cloud of shimmering mist or vapour around her target with a faint tendril of vapour leading back to her, then something would spark around her hands and the entire cloud would suddenly detonate in an enormous explosion of flame encompassing almost the entirety of the Broodmother’s body, strong shockwaves blasted away from the attacks, buffeting the hollow and everything inside.

Cheryl did this attack countless times, more and more and more, faster and faster and faster, she rapid fired the technique until the abomination in front of her was a charred flaming mess. Gradually the tentacles attacking the hunters grew slower and uncoordinated, then listless before they began drooping to the ground and sliding off the platform, dropping to hang down over the bottom of the hollow.

The Broodmother was making strangled croaking noises, it weaved to and fro, no longer able to attack or defend. Everyone attacked it for all they were worth. A mass of powerful elemental attacks converged upon it; great gouts of fire, thick pressurised jets of water, large spikes and boulders of stone, concentrated streams of wind and a single lightning bolt impacted on its flesh.

The Broodmother gave out one last weak wail before it came apart under the combined fury of the attacking hunters. All that was left were ragged streaks of flesh hanging down from above, still slightly aflame and leaking copious amounts black ichor into the burning pit far below.