Doomsday Pillars

The battle in front of the monkey forest was settled. The dozen or so remaining mutated monkeys turned tails and fled back into the forest. Aria ordered the group not to chase. With Alex inside the forest, Aria was in charge. Not because she was one of Alex's earliest recruits, but because of her position as lieutenant in a death squad special forces, making her the highest in command after him. Also, she was an experienced and natural leader. 

After calculating the situation, she ordered the group to help the injured first. There were eight special forces soldiers who had died, two in critical condition, and another dozen injured. 

The two critically injured were Rama and Sergei. Rama was currently unconscious because of the poison. While Sergei, even with many of his bones broken and body full of blood, he kept his usual charm. 

"Why are you all so gloomy?" Sergie grinned, still laughing although unable to move.. "Just give me some cigarettes and I'll be ready to kick more of those ugly bitches in no time... Urggghh..."

Sergei took a hit for Oscar and Rama saved Oliver. Aside from that, the twins also got saved many times by Aria and others. Hopefully, from this day on, the twins would be more mindful.

Aria ordered the APV to transport both of them and a few more back to the main base. Aria radioed the main base to prepare the medical bay and also told them to send reinforcement. Particularly more troops, some trucks and some from the scavengers team. She tasked twenty-five men to stay and create a temporary post. Sooner or later, zombies would start arriving here because of the noise they had made.

Although it was faint, they could still hear the falling trees and explosions from where Alex and the mother python had gone. Alex and the golem were still fighting the abomination. After everything had been set, Aria didn't wait for another second and went inside the forest with Jerry. The rest of the group were ordered to stay and wait.

After a few hundred meters, Aria and Jerry could see the fight. This mutated mother python was almost twice the size of the one they had faced. If a hit from a smaller mutated python could bring Sergei into a half living corpse, with the mother python's doubled weight, any of them from its tail would spell certain death. Hence, Aria and Jerry didn't want to act recklessly and they watched from afar.

The python was still furious and kept chasing Alex relentlessly. Even with his movement techniques and the golem's assistance, Alex was barely able to dodge the snake's fierce attack. When Alex noticed the two's presence, he threw a smoke grenade and quickly jumped away while the golem fought by itself.

"How's the situation down there?" Alex worriedly asked.

Aria gave a quick report. The condition of Rama and Sergei placed a great big frown on his face. He really needed to settle this fight as soon as possible.

"Can't we just run away?" Jerry asked.

"No, we killed her offspring. She'll never let us go. If she went to the main base it would be a disaster."

"Can the golem win?" Jerry asked.

"The golem was built for defense, it doesn't really have anything which can kill that monster. And once the golem's energy runs out, we'll be in big trouble. I have tried many things but that skin is just impenetrable," said Alex.

"Is there anything we can do?" Aria asked.

"There is one thing but I'm not sure if I can pull it off. With both of you here though, I think the success rate should increase." Alex took out an item from his storage ring. This was the single-most object he thought that could injure or hopefully kill the snake. It was the explosive vest he had taken from one the terrorist base which had C4s attached to it.

C4 was a common variety of plastic explosive. It had a texture similar to modeling clay and could be molded into any desired shape. This particular vest had six pieces of C4 that were already turned into six pipe bombs. The steel pipe was made to contain the powder and increase the pressure inside so once it exploded, the explosion power would be much more powerful. Aside from that, the shrapnel from the pipe after it exploded was also lethal. Usually, in the event of terrorism, most victims died of the shrapnel rather than the explosion itself. The perfect weapon of terror.

Alex quickly discussed the tactics for they didn't have much time. When the smoke dissipated, the snake would target Alex again. 

Aria felt something was amiss with his strategy but before she had the chance to say anything, Alex had advanced already. She saw a glance of Alex's smile before he left. Then she felt anxious.

The smoke cleared; Alex hid behind a tree. The python darted its gaze to find its prey while still fighting against the stone golem. Jerry then lunged at the monster but instead of attacking, he used his knives with his speed to cut the surrounding trees.

SLASSH!! SLASSH!! SLASSH!! SLASSH!!

The fallen trees managed to trap and limit the snake's movement. The mutated monster was pretty smart, for it decided to move out from the tree encirclement, however the golem snatched its body and grasped it closer to its body. 

Alex jumped out of the tree and moved closer as fast as he could. This was a very dangerous move because if the snake saw him and swung its tail, he would die. And just before Alex entered its vision...

BANG!! BANG!!! BANG!! BANG!!

Aria let out multiple shots from and each hit the snake's eyes. Even .50 cal bullets couldn't pierce the high second stage beast's eyes. However, it was enough to bother its sight for a while.

Alex managed to move in closer to the snake and when the snake noticed him, the golem used its full power to grab the snake's mouth with both hands and opened it wide. Alex stopped right next to its mouth.

At this moment, Aria finally realized what was amiss. That was a terrorist's suicide vest and used a manual trigger. Unlike the mines, the pipe bombs used an ordinary detonator, a trigger base safety fuse with a blasting cap. It would only give one second from trigger to explosion.

Aria's mind quickly calculated Alex's chance of leaving the blast unharmed. Six pipe bombs, 0.56 kilogram of C4 each with shrapnel. The blast radius and one second to escape.

0% chance…

Alex's smile flashed before her eyes, and her heart stopped. "Nooooooo!!!" Aria shouted.

Alex didn't seem to hear her at all and she was too late. Alex switched the detonator and threw the vest inside the mother python's wide mouth. He turned around and jumped off but not even one meter away from the mouth...

KAAAAAABBBBBBOOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!

Aria watched in shock as she saw Alex's figure engulfed by the fiery blast! He got thrown by the shockwave, crashed on multiple trees, before landing on the ground with his body on fire.

Aria didn't even bother checking on the mutated snake as she ran toward Alex's body on the ground. Panicking, she ran the fastest she had ever been and kneeled when she saw Alex's burnt body, full of black ash.

No human being could survive that blast...

He wasn't moving. She covered her face as tears suddenly fell.

"No, no, no, why did you do that?"

"..."

She didn't realize the body in front of her slightly twitched and opened his eyes. 

"What are you crying for?" Alex coughed. Aria was startled. She didn't know what to say.

"How — Why — What-what happened?" Aria asked.

Alex stood while groaning. He went back to the snake and once he saw the snake's body no longer had a head, he felt relieved. Alex took off his shirt, which was the answer to her question.

"..." Aria was shocked.

Alex was wearing the low-grade armor artifact the whole time. This was the vest he had taken from Hans of the Ahnenerbe Organization. Alex took a big bet and succeeded. He had charged this vest with twenty spirit stones from behind the tree in order to achieve its maximum defensive capability. As he checked its status, the one meter away from an explosion of six pipe bombs took 90% of its energy. The armor would need time to recharge again and more stones. Hopefully, this mission didn't make him bankrupt.

When Aria realized what had happened, her face turned red. Luckily, Alex didn't notice that for his full attention was with the prize before him. 

He had been thinking about this for a while now. There were supposed to be six snakes in total, but even after the mother died, none of the other three came out. There was only one reason he could think of. The other three hadn't hatched yet.

Three second-stage snake beast eggs. That was very valuable, thinking about the prospects made him smile for a while even after they had left the mother snake.

Alex and the group once again went into the forest, toward the central temple. Following the path leading to a cave, about 500 meters deep, they found the pythons' nest.

There were thousands of human remains and skeletons. So, this was where all the Ubud villagers had ended up. Sitting in the middle were three yellow one-meter tall eggs.

"BINGO!" Alex said.

These three eggs could really be useful for Alex in the future. Unfortunately, since it was an egg that contained life, Alex was unable to put it into the storage rings. His group then took the eggs back to the post in front of the forest.

A few hours later, the reinforcements of soldiers and scavengers came. Alex took one of the jeeps to return to the Star base. He was worried about Rama and Sergei's conditions.

It took the remaining people in Ubud a few hours to scavenge all the 600 plus mutated monkeys' and four snake's bodies. They had also collected 460 white spirit stones and 2 yellow spirit stones.

The group packed everything into the trucks; they also took the eight soldiers who had died.

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