Lost Origins: SS Ranked Awakening

Back at the nest, the unsuspecting Ruby and her team walked through the cave in search for any monsters, but it seemed like her fears were right— they were too late and the monsters had left the nest.

Judging from the traces on the grounds and walls of the place, they were still present a few days ago meaning that they couldn't have gone far. Unfortunately, it wasn't in their in their in description to give chase and try to hunt those monsters down.

Their objective now was to check for any clues and report back to the camp.

'We should have moved faster!'

Ruby thought, blaming herself for her overly cautious attitude during the journey which slowed them down quite a bit.

Jordan, seeing the expression her face, came up to her abd said, his eyes still roaming around the cave.

"Don't do that. They were gone longer than we could reach here."

He said patting her on the back.

"Found something!!"

One of the recruits shouted deep within the cave, attracting their attention.

Bolting in his direction, Ruby instantly saw what it was he had found.

Beyond where they stood was a deep, dark pit, and when she pushed the orb in to illuminate, they were were met with the sight of hundreds upon hundreds of white eggs.

"They left their own eggs behind."

The recuit said lightly with a face twisted with disgust from the sight.

'They'd die, that's odd! Unless..."

Ruby noted the odd behavior. In a nest like this, especially with these types of creatures, the eggs were the most prioritized by the creature's, with about sixty percent of their forces being in charge of taking care of them.

Providing food and guarding them and the hatchers from any form of external threats.

'What th–'

Catching something at the edge of her eyes, Ruby's pupils contracted and she yelled in urgency.

"The bags, NOW!!"

The recruit beside her looked in confusion, shifting to the side for her to catch the bags thrown by the the other two recuits.

Without hesitation, Runy threw the bags into the pit and pressed the button on a remote she had whipped out beneath their eyes.

BEEP! BEEP!! BE-BE-BE-BEEP!

"MOVE BACK NOW!!"

Ruby ran backwards, dragging the receuit beside her by the collar and the approaching two did the same without question, all of them falling go the ground in the last moment.

BOOM!

A large explosion shook the entire cave sending pieces and chunks of the roof falling on them. Luckily they were out of range of the flames shooting out of the pit.

Waiting a few seconds for everything to die down and for the shaking to stop, Ruby ran back to the cracked entrance of the pit.

"What was all that for??"

One of the three recruits lashed out in anger at her sudden actions, but those words didn't register with Ruby who had the entirety of her attention on something else.

The pit was now a mess with burned egg shell and several white substances and body parts of the forming creatures splattered all across the walls.

Two of the bags they had brought along were filled with nothing but explosives.

It was their back up plan to leave them behind and detonate them had they been overwhelmed with the full force of the nest, gving them sometime to escape.

They didn't think they'd need those since the nest was empty, and they didn't particularly thing they'd be used in this way.

Neither did Ruby. She had spotted something that made her make the sudden descsion.

'We were lucky!'

Ruby thought, jumping into the pit and picking up a body part at her feet.

It was the head of one the creatures in the eggs.

Back when she took a glimpse into the pit, she noticed all the eggs wiggling, a sign that the creatures were fully formed and ready to hatch.

The Centrachs were one of the few unique creatures on the planet when it came to their offspring. Monsters similar to them all had one trait.

Their offspring immediately became part of the workforce the moment they hatched out of their eggs, becoming a part of the nest and colony.

Which meant that even with the nest being empty, once these new eggs hatched, they would repopulate and take over the space, bringing up a new colony.

Because of how fast they went through this process and the ridiculous amount of eggs in the pit. It would have spelt doom for them if they had missed this or had been too slow in their attempts to crush the eggs one by one and alerted the rest.

"We could've handled that regardless of what you're thinking. They new born usually eat themselves for nutrients and reduce their population by more than half."

One of the recruits said after looking into the pit and spotting what might have worried Ruby.

'Are you dumb?'

Ruby shot the recruit a cold look hearing those dumb words.

If they let that happen, then they would have to face a couple of beasts, still numbering above a few hundred with the strength of a full grown and well fed adult Centrach.

That was plain suicide.

"Sssssssssss!"

A sharp hissing sound was heard and their eyes flashed back into the room.

Kicking the orb in the direction of the sound.

Three huge Centrach with bulging bellies that prevented them from moving laid on the ground at the extreme end of the pit.

Their long upper body wiggled furiously in their direction and their antennas kept on clacking together sending vibrations through the air.

With Ruby and her teammates watching in alert, several other Centrachs came forth from behind the three hatchers, all of them hissing threateningly at them.

"You were saying, Jose?"

One of them taunted the recruit who had lashed out at Ruby's previous decision whilst pulling out their weapons in preparation to battle.

'How didn't they die?'

Ruby wondered, looking at the burn injuries on the bellies of the three huge hatchers.

"Aren't we losing out on time here?"

One of the recruits said about their silent stalemate with the creatures opposite them and Ruby took the initiative, lunching herself towards the creature who responded in kind while her teammates jumped in to help.

'Those three shouldn't be anything to worry about'

Ruby's eyes flashed across them. They couldn't even move themselves from the ground.

Their main opponents were the bunch of Centrachs rushing at them.

Closing her eyes to the sight infront of her, Ruby relied on her perception, feeling the vibrations that went through the ground as the spider like legs of the creatures skittles around.

BANG!

Throwing the weighted end of her weapon with her leg as an anchor, the weapon shot through the wiggling heads of the creature, reaping first blood in the battle that had just started.

The others too had joined the fray, smashing through the bodies with their blunt weapons.

The body of the creatures were huge, giving them a large surface area to strike

Despite the splattering of body parts, the centrachs were quite nimble with their spider like feet and their number, though not in the tens of hundreds was still alarming.

They had to clear them out fast before they got overwhelmed and surrounded.

A green glow flashed from the slits of Ruby's half closed eyes and in a moment, she drew the attention of the beasts and her teammates to her as her blood red kusarigama flashed around in a deadly and enchanting dance, reaping the lives of the montsers in batches each time it flashed by.

'What the?'

The three new recruits who had never seen Ruby fight were enchanted and even Jordan, her teammate was amazed by the sight nonetheless.

Her foot work was immaculate as she flowed between the monsters like a snake, reaping the heads of the creatures like a phantom.

The Centrachs didn't seem to react until after their heads had been lobbed off and their body left to writhe in pain.

In a moment's passing, she ended the deathly dance, and the result of it?

Over half of the Centrachs there laid on the ground, headless.

Her teammates, snapped out of their daze and took over handling the rest of the monsters. She had taken care of the possibility of being overwhelmed.

Looking back to her teammates taking care of the rest of the Centrachs, she swiped of the sweat on her forehead and approached the three huge hatchers.

'They're pretty good, but move was still too taxing'

The three new faces were also second years of a higher stage than her so it was no surprise that she should hold her own, but she was moving with a sense of urgency

The three huge Centrachs hissed threateningly as she approached, but these three huge sacs had no fighting abilities, was what she thought only to be sprayed with a jet stream of a fluid which melted the ground around her.

Unfortunately for the beasts, the fluid only phased through her, dealing no damage at all.

'Now!'

The eyes of the three recruits flashed watching Ruby's approach and they all moved in sync.

"Ruby!!"

Jordan screamed out, causing her to turn back, but it was all too fast and too late for her to process.

"Cough!"

She coughed up a mouthful of blood, looking down to see three daggers stabbed into her torso.