First Kill

Having gathered everyone into an 11 by 2 convoy, with the RivTech grunt keeping watch next to Moustache at the back, they set off on their return journey. Following behind the 22-man convoy was the mining mech carrying the precious materials.

They expected the swarm to arrive within an hour and a half at minimum, and two hours at maximum, from the time they received the call. Knowing they had 30 minutes to reach the main tunnel where the APCs were waiting, everyone walked at a slightly faster pace than usual, yet still feeling relaxed enough to chat about what they each managed to dig up.

"I managed to find enough bauxite to finally replace my shoulder plate," said an older soldier, pointing at his mostly dented, molten, pierced, and scratched shoulder armor with a slightly angry look. 

"Those damned rats from the maintenance crew told me this thing costs 30 credits due to its layering. What a scam! There was no layering on this garbage! It was all just one damn layer!"

"That's pretty bad," replied another, showing his mostly chipped sword and something wrapped in cloth. "It's not as bad as this, though. I was clearing out a hive of cockroaches, and while the sword obviously got chipped..." He put away the sword and started unwrapping the object with sadness in his eyes.

 "I bought a new model of the Lancor Arms autopistol that was recently marketed. You know which one I mean?"

"Yeah, the Lancor Spitfire, right?" replied another, with interest visible in his eyes, "I know its one of the best small caliber pistols which uses the cheap ammo thats basically everywhere. Plus its durable and the chance of failure is near zero!" 

"Yeah, that exact thing cost me 200 creds. And what happened to it? This!" Fully unwrapped, the front half of the pistol was gnawed off, as if something had nibbled on it.

"THE HELL?! What the hell were you fighting? Didn't you say it was cockroaches??" The old guy saw the damage and replied with shock. Leaning in for a closer look, while he was still stunned upon inspecting it further, he turned to look at the owner. "Out with it, what happened?"

With slight embarrassment, the pistol's owner replied, "... There was an invisible cockroach. It took it off my armor without me noticing and... did what you see... I didnt notice what had happened until it was too late..."

A moment of resounding silence passed. Suddenly, unable to hold back her laughter, Uria let out a pfft. That was followed by another, and another...

Everyone had listened in on the poor man's story, even those who pretended not to pay attention. An invisible cockroach ate his priceless pistol?

"HAHAHAHAHAHA!" Laughter rang out in the tunnels, leaving the man wanting to find a hole to hide in.

"Look, young pfft! I mean young one, Accidents happen! It's okay! It happens to everyone!" Trying to stifle his laughter and failing once, the older soldier consoled him.

With occasional chatter resounding like that, they walked for 15 minutes and were elated to be nearing the exit. However, at the forefront, Uria suddenly went serious, as did the older soldier next to her.

The reason? A black armor lay ahead—elite RivTech armor. The armor that had mowed down countless stalkers. But now, its helmet was ripped off, bloodstains around the neck, collapsed in the middle of the road.

Seeing that, Uria and the other person at the front stopped. Everyone else suddenly became confused for a second.

"What's the holdup?" came Moustache's reply from the back of the convoy.

"We found one of the RivTech armors. Dead."

As soon as that was said, Moustache ran to the front of the convoy.

"Sir, it's dangerous!" yelled the remaining RivTech guard as he followed.

Seeing the scene of the ownerless armor, Moustache first went into shock, then with worry inspected the area. The 20 hired grunts did their best to spread out and protect him while he checked out what happened.

Quickly inspecting the entire area, and seeing that the ceiling and walls were riddled with holes and still warm, he guessed it wasn't an ambush. Knowing the attacker was likely extremely fast and powerful, and seeing the ripped-off helmet, Moustache thought for a moment.

Knowing whatever did it was still nearby from the not-yet-dried blood, he decided the best course of action was to make a run for it.

"Forced march to the tunnel entrance! Whatever it was, it's probably too fast for us to deal with, so we need to get out ASAP. It shouldn't be capable of dealing with all of us at the same time either. Got it?"

Everyone agreed that getting out was the most sensible thing. After all, they had no information on the opponent. With it being in the dark and them in the light, it was much more compelling to just try getting out of there than to find out what it was.

Breaking into a light sprint, no one dared to slack off. Moustache even rode on the RivTech grunt to prevent him from slowing down the others.

Yet less than a minute later, another situation arose.

The rocky walls, originally dimly lit by occasional light bulbs, were now dark, broken, leaving them in all-encompassing darkness. Turning on their flashlights, they ventured into the pervasive darkness, needing to return in time or risk death.

Yet no more than 15 steps later, Uria and Paul, the old soldier, stopped. In the damp, dark tunnel, their beams of light illuminated two dark cavities. The issue was, where were those cavities located?

A corpse.

To be exact, a corpse with muscles, tendons, veins—everything except skin and eyes.

As everyone saw them stop, they walked to the front to see what was happening, then fell silent upon witnessing the scene. Looking around in the tunnel, the rest of the group was disturbed to see unorderly patterns of blood on the walls, the skinless corpse and the terror that was apparent in his last moments.

After thoroughly checking for an ambush from all sides, including above, Uria decided to proceed onward, unfazed. Utilizing tremorsense, she approached the corpse. As she got closer, she felt a sense of unease but her instincts, honed by countless battles, told her it wasn't dangerous. With conflicting feelings swirling, she finally reached it.

Looking down and thinking for a moment, she realized what was wrong after a moment. She ran at the wall without any splashes of blood with full force.

The creature behind the wall ceased its ambush once it realized it had failed, opening its front legs, that were covered in rocks as camouflage. Eight eyes stared furiously at Uria as its 3-meter-tall rocky body charged at her.

Seeing this, everyone ran to support her, and the RivTech grunt was about to open fire when Uria's shout interrupted them.

"He's mine!"

With her armor that was hardened and the creature that was mostly covered in durable rocks, they ran towards each other. 

And soon the two were in melee distance. With an overhead blow from both her hardened fists and a sideswipe from its sharp rockly legs, a massive rumble shook the cave. The aftershock of the collision made the entire cave tremble, with rubble falling from the ceiling.

After a moment, Uria pulled back her hands, now covered in green goo. The creature, with its upper carapace turned to pulp, collapsed. The ground that was cracked like a spiderweb by their original collision seemed to crack again under its weight. 

As for the creature's attempt to kill her? A light scratch on her chest plate, which had a light hardening effect applied.

Satisfied, she heard "Congratulations on your first kill" from her system. The roughly 5% of her reserve she had used to perform the hardening and attack had been half replenished. Now understanding what her cheat's absorption part was, she turned around and said to the dumbstruck peanut gallery, "Let's keep going. We should be out of here soon."

Further down the tunnel, they came across another RivTech armor and the corpse of the terravore. Like before, there was no person inside the armor, but this one was different, with a massive hole punched through its chest.

They didn't need to find out what it was this time, as the uninvited guest had started skittering towards them. With a whooshing sound, something passed by the mining mech and accelerated toward the RivTech grunt.

Performing full-body hardening, the grunt tried to turn around. Luckily, the invisible stinger failed to pierce the armor. As he finally turned around, he opened fire on the invisible creature.

A corpse fell, and Moustache noticed an issue.

The corpse was rapidly becoming visible! 

Stalker corpses remained invisible for a long time after death, but this one didn't, meaning it wasn't a stalker, it was something worse! 

Not just him, but the others as well realized they weren't dealing with just a run-of-the-mill Stalker swarm.

They were Hunters—the big brothers of the stalkers, much bigger and faster than their brethren. Their stingers had evolved into more powerful weapons, and their pincers weren't completely useless, able to hold down prey to finish them off with their tails. Their chelicerae had evolved further, allowing them to spit venom or acid onto unsuspecting prey.

Yet that wasn't the worst part of the Hunters. 

They moved under their broodmothers commands, and every broodmother was at least kaiju-class!