Super Gene

The monsters went up toward the rivers of light, and when they drew close, it turned out that the snake-looking things weren’t actually snakes. It looked like a beard coming out from the sand. It was waving, and the motion had looked serpentine from afar.

The monsters came towards the snake-looking beard, but the beard seemed frightened by their approach. It buried itself underground. There were more of them, and each one the monsters drew near to would end up drilling back into the ground.

Those beards were like dragonflies in the desert. It was like they were forming a path that led the monsters forward.

When the sun rose, the beards disappeared. But Han Sen saw a large, strange mountain ahead.

The reason it was strange was because it looked like a giant egg atop the desert sands. And aside from that mountain, the rest of the geography was plain desert dunes.

“Something as big as that cannot be a real egg, surely. How big would a creature have to be to create such a large egg?”

Han Sen thought to himself.

The monsters, seeing the egg-shaped mountain ahead, started to run even faster. The small monsters stood atop the bigger mountains, crying and calling out at the mountain.

As they drew closer and closer to the place, they saw the egg mountain more clearly. While it was the size of a mountain, it wasn’t made of rock. It was dark, but wrapped in silk. It looked like a giant cocoon.

The silk bands were as thick as an arm, and they glowed gently.

The monsters ran in front of the cocoon and stopped. They lowered their heads to let Han Sen and the others down.

“What’s this?” the bird-faced man asked, as he looked up at the cocoon.

Vic, Rocks Fall Duke, and Yisha did not speak. They merely looked at the cocoon and kept their thoughts to themselves.

Han Sen could tell Rocks Fall Duke was excited about something. His minor display of emotion this was only shown for a split-second, but it couldn’t escape Han Sen’s notice.

“These three people know what this cocoon is. Aside from Yisha, though, Vic and Rocks Fall Duke are here by accident. Still, they know what this is. They knew what this was before they came here?” Han Sen kept thinking.

They all looked at the giant cocoon, as the monsters laid themselves down on the ground, as if in servitude and prayer to their god.

Only the little red monster was willing to go up close to it, though. It walked around the cocoon as if it was looking for something.

“Should we escape now?” the bird-faced man asked as he looked down at the monsters who were all bowing with their heads lowered.

“Do you think they are stupid? Just because they haven’t injured us doesn’t mean they’d let us run off. Don’t you see that they still surround us?” Rocks Fall Duke lifted his lips.

The bird-faced man started to respond, but he suddenly felt the sand around his feet start to shift as it would with the onset of an earthquake.

Han Sen felt it, too. And it wasn’t just the sand that was moving. Even the mountain-looking cocoon was moving. Where the earth and the cocoon touched each other, the sand was beginning to run. It was like a hole had formed somewhere below ground, and the sand was swirling into it like a vortex.

They wanted to retreat, but the monsters were still down on the ground. They couldn’t fall back without stepping onto the monsters behind them.

“That thing is rising!” the bird-faced man shouted.

Han Sen noticed the cocoon was indeed rising. It wasn’t the sand that was moving, it was the rising of the cocoon that was affecting the sand. The movement was coming from that.

Now, Han Sen was no longer looking at the cocoon. Instead, he was looking at Vic, Rocks Fall Duke, and Yisha. He could not see Yisha’s face, for she wore a mask.

Rocks Fall Duke’s face looked excited, though. And Vic’s eyes were now gleaming brightly.

“These guys must surely know something…” Han Sen tried to think of ways in which he could gain information from them.

As Han Sen continued his thoughts, the cocoon completely departed its bed of sand. It was floating in the air, and it looked stunning.

It was like the Himalayas, but they were in the sky. Humans were smaller than ants standing next to it, and if it fell, they would be crushed.

The giant cocoon was hovering six meters above the ground. It froze in the air and stopped moving.

Han Sen wondered what manner of power could make something so big float like that.

The little monster went back to its group, and it growled at them. They surrounded Han Sen, ushering him and the others below the cocoon.

Han Sen saw that the lizards weren’t looking nervous, and so he didn’t try to run. He wanted to know what they wished to do there.

The monsters pushed them to the bottom of the pit, and in the center of the cocoon above them, Han Sen could see there was a circular hole. It was around two meters wide, and compared to the cocoon, it looked as small as the point of a needle.

Han Sen looked up through the hole, and all he could see was silk. The strands were as thick as an arm, just like they were outside. The little monsters pointed at the hole and made snarling noises at Rocks Fall Duke and the others. It looked as if they wanted the captives to enter.

“Should we go in?” the bird-faced man’s face kept changing. He had no clue what was going on, so he looked at Rocks Fall Duke and Vic for an answer.

“Do we have any other choice?” Rocks Fall Duke said, before approaching the hole.

He tried to keep his excitement suppressed, and he did so by walking slowly. But Han Sen knew that Rocks Fall Duke was eager to go inside.

“Yes. Since we are here, we might as well go in,” Vic said, before following after Rocks Fall Duke.

He sounded relaxed, but he was afraid of Rocks Fall Duke stealing something.

The bird-faced man followed. He climbed into the hole with them, and only Han Sen and Yisha remained outside it.