At the instant the offensive from "Worker Bee Six" reached its peak, the seemingly suppressed "Wailing Aggregation" suddenly let out a roar more shrill, furious, and venomous than ever before.
It was not just a physical sound wave, but rather a high-frequency psionic shock that directly targeted the minds of living beings.
Shen Kai felt an intense wave of dizziness; his ears rang incessantly, and it felt as if an invisible heavy hammer had savagely struck his internal organs.
Immediately following this, the massive, bloated body of the "Wailing Aggregation," like a small mountain of flesh, shuddered violently. The countless twisted human faces on its surface opened their horrific mouths, filled with irregular black teeth, all at the same time.
The next moment, vast clouds of dark green, intensely acrid, foul-smelling toxic fog spewed madly from those hundreds of horrific mouths. Like a tide of death with a life of its own, the fog spread with astonishing speed in all directions across the battlefield.
To Shen Kai, it was a filthy "color" filled with the concepts of "corrosion" and "withering."
"All units, engage internal circulation immediately!"
"Evade the toxic fog!"
The experienced Sergeant Jones yelled over the public channel almost instantly after the fog erupted.
However, it was too late.
The "Reinforced Sentinel," which provided fire suppression on the left flank, was slightly closer to the monster and unfortunately caught in the downwind path of the spreading fog. Its Mithril-colored interface represented high-speed mobility, and its call sign was "Silver Fox." The operator was Sarah. Despite executing the fastest possible evasive maneuver, she failed to escape completely.
Shen Kai watched with wide eyes as her agile, Mithril-shimmering figure was enveloped by a dense, dark green wave of toxic fog that swept over her like a tsunami.
"Ahhhh—save...!!"
A blood-curdling, barely human scream came through the comms channel but was cut off instantly.
Through the tactical feed, the quality of which was rapidly degrading due to interference from the fog, Shen Kai could vaguely see Sarah's sturdy interface armor begin to bubble, peel, and melt at a visible rate the moment it came into contact with the fog. It melted like a block of wax thrown into aqua regia.
Then, the video feed cut out completely. On Gestalt's shared tactical screen, the green life-sign indicator representing "Silver Fox" Sarah flickered frantically a few times before dimming and extinguishing like a candle flame.
Just like that, her vibrant "color" was completely devoured and erased from Shen Kai's perception by that filthy, dark green miasma.
"NO!!! SARAH—!!!"
Sergeant Jones's grief-stricken, desperate roar, like that of a wounded lone wolf, echoed through the channel.
However, the terrifying monster gave them no time for grief or respite.
Its massive body, resembling a mountain of flesh, shuddered violently once more. From within its constantly writhing and churning body, several smaller yet far more agile and frenzied "sub-entities" squeezed out—or rather, split off—as if by parthenogenesis.
These sub-entities had no fixed form. They were like rapidly writhing and tumbling mires of filth and flesh. Their surfaces were haphazardly studded with broken bones from humans or mutated creatures, along with sharp metal fragments.
Emitting a piercing psychic screech like countless sharp fingernails frantically scraping against reinforced glass, the sub-entities charged recklessly from different directions toward the few remaining members of Jones's squad, like a pack of hyenas that had caught the thick scent of blood.
They also charged towards the "Pioneer" squad, who were already terrified behind their cover not far away.
With the addition of these endlessly spawning, terrifying sub-entities, the tide of battle completely turned. The human side, already at an absolute numerical disadvantage, was plunged into a nearly hopeless abyss.