World's Last Hope-Chapter 51: Hatching

"Let’s think about this logically," Eric spoke with caution in his voice.

He was currently in a forest that was plagued with weird cocoon-like things. There were hundreds of them, possibly even thousands.

Some of the trees were also surrounded by spider webs.

"Can this even be considered a spider web, though?"

He asked himself. It was too thick, far more than normal.

And not only that, but it was also sharp... unbelievably so.

Eric didn’t want to touch it, even with the gloves on his armor, as he felt the spider web could slice through his armor like it was nothing.

"There is no mistaking it, I’m in a monster nest... the question is, considering the amount of cocoons around, is it the nest of hundreds of monsters or just one colossal one?"

Eric wasn’t sure which option he would prefer, as both of them sounded like a deadly threat.

Nevertheless, one thing was for certain, he had to be quiet, deadly quiet, as he didn’t want to attract unwanted attention.

So he made a mental note to stop talking to himself and quietly continued toward the cathedral, where he was supposed to meet the girls.

’Will they be fine? How would they even reach it? What if we miss each other?’ he asked himsel.

But realizing there was no point in pondering things he couldn’t answer, he moved forward, shifting his gaze to the side for a moment.

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[Current Essence: 3867]

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Eric let out a quiet sigh of relief. At least it seemed he wouldn’t have to worry about running out of essence anytime soon.

So at least he could take his time...

’Did I forget about the thing that is slowly chasing me?’ He furrowed his eyebrows. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

His arms trembled slightly, remembering the creature and how close it had come to reaching him. If it hadn’t been for Aria and her quick thinking, he would have probably been long dead.

’I should thank her when I see her,’ he made another mental note as he quickened his steps.

’Aria...’ Just thinking about her was enough to quicken his heartbeats.

’Ah... shit, there hasn’t been even a day since I last saw her, and I miss her already,’

Thinking about the things he and she did when they were in the pool made his blood run hotter.

’Is that what love feels like?’ he asked himself. He wanted to see her smile and touch her, this was an unfamiliar feeling to him.

Truthfully, he had never dated anyone in the past, and now that he had somehow started dating Aria and slept with her just about a month after meeting her, it felt surreal.

’Wait, are we even dating?’ he asked himself, raising an eyebrow. They had slept together, but they hadn’t actually discussed if they were dating.

Seeing that he wasn’t focused, he slapped his cheeks.

"Focus on survival, you can worry about things like that later," he muttered under his breath, frustrated.

The surroundings were quiet... to an uncanny level. It felt like something was wrong, as the trees seemed to get taller and taller as he continued forward.

Not only the trees, but the cocoons also seemed to be getting bigger in size. Before, the biggest ones were almost as big as him, but now they were more than twice his size.

"If I have to fight a creature like that, would I survive?" he asked himself.

And unfortunately, it seemed he was soon going to get his answer, as he heard a crack behind him.

Sharply turning his head to the noise, his eyes widened in surprise as he saw that one of the cocoons was hatching.

It seemed a creature had been born.

*****

"How did this happen?"

Stella, a powerful master, had collapsed on the ground as both of her legs were cut.

Her eyes were frozen with fear as she looked at the beheaded head of Grandmaster Lucas.

How did this happen? They were supposed to liberate a cathedral of the God of Ocean.

Their expedition had shown the most promise, even if their journey was unbelievably long, sailing the ocean just to reach a small island where the cathedral was located.

They had a lot of personnel.

22 masters! There hadn’t been an expedition of that scale in a decade!

They even had a Grandmaster with them! Since they were incredibly rare and important, they rarely left the city gates, and when they did, it was usually for a short amount of time.

"If... if it weren’t for that wretched thing!" Stella spat in frustration.

Their battle against the guardian had been going relatively well...

Until that thing showed up.

They were close to defeating the guardian when thousands of human-sized monsters with bat-like wings began to rain from the sky.

In mere seconds, the creatures overwhelmed the guardian, killing it...

And in the next moment, they shifted their attention to the humans on the island.

The masters, led by Grandmaster Lucas, battled with everything they had, killing tons, but it seemed as if there was no end to them.

The more they killed, the more they kept raining down from the sky.

In the end, they were overwhelmed by the wave of abominations and all died, leaving Stella the last one alive.

And all of this happened because of one thing.

Stella shifted her gaze to the massive floating land spanning kilometers across...

No, it wasn’t floating land, it was a monster...

A monster of truly immense proportions.

It had appeared out of nowhere, as if it had the ability to become completely invisible.

It was black in color, the kind that absorbs the light around it, not letting it reflect its real color.

It bore millions of human-sized holes... and out of these holes, tens of thousands of creatures were emerging, getting ready for an attack.

The thing was not alive, but at the same time, not dead either. Was it the queen of a huge nest, perhaps? Or something else entirely?

"One month..." Stella gritted her teeth in frustration.

"One month of travel time and 1,000 kilometers later... just to die by this thing?" She summoned her sword, gripping it tightly.

"I can’t accept it! I wi—"

Her shout was cut short as countless flying creatures quickly landed on her body and tore her apart.

With the last of the humans gone, the flying mass seemed to disappear as it activated some kind of camouflage that made it impossible to perceive, as it continued its long and slow flight.

It drifted toward the Last City of the world, its hunger tormenting it as if it had lasted for an eternity.

At last, it had found its next feast.