I Explore Urban Legends - Chapter 89: The Expressionless Woman (Bonus Chapter) (Patreon)

A gash had been cut through the sheet metal of the gate.

Liam watched in amazement. As far as he knew, an ordinary obsidian saw-blade sword was good enough for cutting people, but the moment it struck anything hard, the obsidian would shatter.

It seemed this sword conjured from divine power only looked like the original. It was made of something entirely different.

Diego hacked at the gate a few more times until it was completely destroyed. By then, however, he looked utterly drained, sitting off to the side and gasping for breath.

Apparently, using this power took a heavy toll on him, but there was no denying its effectiveness. A gate like this would have been difficult to breach without specialized demolition equipment.

Juan glanced at Liam, then led the team straight inside. Liam followed behind and resumed his commentary.

“My friends are incredibly brave, charging straight into the monsters’ lair. Now let’s see how these Mexican warriors fare against the monsters.”

Several people couldn’t help looking back at Liam. They had the distinct feeling there was more to his words than he was letting on, but after opening their mouths, none of them knew what to say.

And so the entire group continued downward in silence, accompanied by Liam’s running commentary.

Strangely enough, despite the number of people they had lost this time, the atmosphere wasn’t particularly somber.

Just as they were about to reach the underground level, Juan, who was at the front, raised a hand and signaled everyone to stop.

“Something’s wrong. There’s someone up ahead.”

Everyone immediately readied themselves. They knew all too well what finding someone in a place like this meant. It was either a Reptilian or something even worse.

Liam, however, was practically thrilled. He quickly squeezed past the others and made his way to the front.

An expressionless woman stood ahead of them. On closer inspection, what she had could hardly even be called a face. It looked as though a layer of cement had been poured over it, utterly devoid of life.

She slowly took two steps forward. Her movements were so stiff that it looked as though she had only just acquired those limbs.

Juan stared at the woman and raised his pistol.

“Bang!”

The gunshot thundered through the stairwell, the violent echo making their eardrums ache.

The woman dropped to the ground, but no one believed for a second that she was dead. They simply stood there, watching in silence to see what she would do next.

A moment later, the woman’s body began convulsing violently as black blood seeped from her mouth and nose.

Then she rose to her feet and slowly opened her mouth. Everyone could clearly see that it was filled with sharp iron nails.

“Tonatiuh, what blasphemy is this?”

One warrior could no longer take it. Shouting at the top of his lungs, he tried to pull the trigger.

But the woman suddenly lunged at him with a burst of speed that caught everyone completely off guard, opening her mouth to bite him.

The warrior had already prepared himself, and a golden protective shield flickered into existence around his body.

“Pop!”

Yet the shield that could normally stop bullets failed to block even the iron nails in her mouth. It vanished like a soap bubble.

The woman clamped her jaws around the warrior’s throat, and blood sprayed everywhere.

The warrior tried to fight back, but the woman was freakishly strong. For a moment, he couldn’t break free at all.

“Don’t shoot!”

Juan roared and conjured an obsidian saw-blade sword, swinging it at the woman.

“Pop!”

To his disbelief, the power they had regarded as the hope of their rise, the obsidian saw-blade sword formed from divine power, was completely unable to harm her.

“Open fire!”

Juan hesitated no longer and gave the order. The others had already been itching to shoot and immediately unloaded their weapons into the woman.

When the deafening barrage finally stopped, both the woman and the warrior collapsed to the floor.

Everyone cautiously moved closer. Because they had been at such close range, most of the bullets had missed the warrior, but the wound to his throat was far too severe. He had already bled to death.

The woman, however, still wasn’t completely dead. Her body continued to twitch, and sounds were even coming from her throat.

“Looks like this lady has something she wants to tell us. Let me hear what she has to say.”

Liam held the microphone to her mouth, successfully amplifying her faint whimpering.

“I am... a god!”

With those words, she stopped moving and died for good.

The sight sent chills through everyone. What kind of creature was this terrifying woman?

She was incredibly fast, absurdly strong, and even weapons formed from divine power couldn’t hurt her.

Seeing fear beginning to spread through the group, Juan tried to rally them.

“Don’t be afraid. That woman only got the drop on us because she was fast. It’s nothing we can’t handle. If the weapons bestowed by the gods don’t work, we still have guns!”

That was right. They still had guns!

The group calmed down somewhat. After all, none of them had ever encountered a creature that couldn’t be killed with a gun. Still, their grips on their weapons tightened.

Liam pointed the microphone at Juan.

“Looks like managing a team isn’t so easy after all.”

Juan shot him a sidelong glance.

“You do realize you’re the one who started this war, right?”

“No. You should be thanking me. If it weren’t for me, you would have quietly disappeared while living comfortably, without ever realizing what was happening.”

Juan’s pupils contracted as he immediately understood what Liam meant.

They were outsiders, after all. If they blindly expanded into an unfamiliar city without even understanding their enemies, those enemies could wipe them out through methods they knew nothing about, just like what that woman had nearly done moments ago.

No wonder El Sombrerón kept warning him to be careful. His actions in Boston really had been far too reckless.

Regret welled up inside Juan, but the moment he recognized the feeling, he forced himself to suppress it.

He was the leader now. He couldn’t allow the course he had set for the team to waver. Even if a decision turned out to be wrong, once it was made, they had to see it through.

“Take our fallen comrade’s gear. We’re moving out again.”

The warriors collected all the guns and spare ammunition from their fallen comrade. They showed little grief. Because of their faith and culture, they viewed death with a certain acceptance, simply believing that their comrade had gone on to another world to enjoy a better life.

The group reached the door at the very bottom of the basement. Liam noticed that the place closely resembled the basement beneath Abraham Biotech, though it was considerably larger. Apparently, the two facilities shared the same architectural style.

Juan took the lead and pushed open the door.

Instead of the culture tanks used to grow Reptilians, what greeted them was a dark dungeon.

The dungeon was enormous and packed with countless torture devices, with so many varieties that they seemed to encompass nearly every dark chapter in human history.

The instruments were covered in congealed blood and dried fragments of human limbs, making it all too clear how many people had been tortured here.

Shocked, Liam aimed the camera at the torture devices.

“Viewers, please forgive me for blurring this footage when it airs. Words cannot fully convey the horrors committed here. Even the smallest glimpse of what I’m seeing could leave permanent scars on the mind of any normal person.”

“Ugh!”

Liam’s delivery was so vivid and emotional that one of the warriors finally couldn’t take it anymore and vomited. The others looked equally pale.

At that point, Juan could no longer hold himself back and stepped forward.