None of the Culls had an answer.

Moss frowned at the lack of response. Perhaps he was overreacting. After all, this tribe of underground beasts was likely different from any other predator that lived above ground. Different environments could mean completely different habits. He still had a job to do. He still had a tunnel to cleanse.

“Advance. Move forward.” He ordered after putting the goggles back on, gesturing in the direction of the blood trail.

The group slowly pressed forward deeper into the tunnel. Aside from the handful of mercenaries Moss left above ground to keep an eye on their ride, there were still nearly 50 War Wolves in the tunnels. This, combined with the limited width of the tunnel, meant the group was quite dragged out. It could be both a blessing and a curse.

A few minutes went by as the men and women moved in the dark. The tunnels seemed to be endless. Katie could sense a distinct slope downward, which meant they were getting deeper and deeper into the earth. As she walked, she couldn’t help but start thinking. Who made these tunnels? And why would they make the tunnels in the middle of a desert? It just didn't make any sense!

Whatever. She might just forget about thinking and go along with the ride and see how things would turn out. It wasn’t like she had the risk of dying, right?

Suddenly, the leading man in the vanguard squad held up his left hand into a fist. Immediately, the entire team came to a stop. Katie knew exactly why.

Moments later, following a series of low hisses and growls, several figures appeared down the tunnel. Once they came out into the open, it was clear that they were completely different from any animal the mercenaries have seen or faced before. At a first glance, they looked like wolves, but on careful examination, the tails of these animals were long enough to dangle on the ground. The tips of the tails were sharp as blades. In other words, they were deadly.

Much like their tails, their furs were as sharp as needles. Any predator that tried to bite a chunk out of their flesh would find itself in a world of pain.

These creatures had tiny eyes, which made sense since they lived in an environment where light was nearly nonexistent.

With a loud shriek, the handful of animals charged at the mercenaries, but the mercenaries were ready. All of them have seen enough shit to not be fazed by these completely new and foreign animals. The leading War Wolves opened fire with little hesitation.

The beasts charged forward fearlessly, but as fancy as their fur looked, they weren’t bulletproof. As the muzzles of the automatic rifles jumped and burst flames, the beasts collapsed one by one, their bodies ravaged by countless rounds. A few of them survived for brief seconds, only to be mowed down by the concentrated fire.

By the time the storm of gunshots came to an end, the beasts were no longer moving. One of the mercenaries approached them carefully and verified that all of them were indeed dead.

“All clear.” He declared, his rifle still training on the dead bodies in case he happened to be wrong.

Moss nodded in approvement, highly satisfied with how professional his team reacted. As the group was sent back into motion, Katie couldn’t help but feel a little let down. Here she was, thinking that she was facing a real challenge! Instead, the danger she looked forward to experiencing got dealt with by a few men with guns! How embarrassing!

Then again, perhaps things wouldn’t be so boring after all. Katie stole a glance at the Culls and kept on walking.

For the next few minutes, the mercenaries advanced, hoping to purge these animals once and for all and secure their fat paychecks. A handful of the beasts would leap into action from time to time, but they were all handled with ease. Not a single one of them even got close enough to the mercenaries to pose a threat.

One time, the mercenaries came to stop in front of an intersection, where there were two potential routes to go down. The trail of blood was gone by now. The mercenaries had no idea which way would lead to the nest of the beasts. Perhaps both could. Yet before they could make a choice, two beasts charged out of one of the tunnels, trying to defend their home.

The mercenaries gunned them down before marching into the tunnel they came from. As they walked, some of the mercenaries couldn’t help but glance at the beasts’ corpses and snicker. Animals...they could have the sharpest claws and the deadliest speed, but in the end, they were still idiots in front of human beings.

And that was why the mercenaries would win, and the beasts would be slaughtered to the last.

This massacre continued for a while. The vanguard squad was all it took to handle the occasional attackers. In fact, from time to time, Moss was even glancing at the Culls with sympathy in his eyes. They wasted so much money hiring a sizable professional team while a small squad could’ve solved the problem. This was perhaps the easiest mission he had taken part in in a while! Still, as confident as he was, Moss still kept an eye out for potential dangers.

As another burst of gunshots exploded, followed by the whimpers of another doomed beast, one of the vanguard mercenaries suddenly cried out in excitement.

“Sir! We’re out of the tunnels! Wait...”

In front of the vanguard, the seemingly endless tunnel suddenly led into an open field. A few of the mercenaries stared at the vast amount of space in amazement and wonder. How? How come there was just a giant underground field under the desert? A few of the mercenaries looked up and around with flashlights. This mysterious space was at least as wide as a basketball field. It was difficult to tell how tall it was. With the bright flashlights, a few of the mercenaries could distinctly see another cave on the other end of the field. Countless other tunnels were connected to the field as if this place was a hub to all the underground traffic.

Moss glanced around. He didn't see any of the beasts. Perhaps their true nest was in the cave in the front? But his thoughts quickly moved from the essentially harmless beasts to this space.

“This is...unbelievable!” The War Wolf leader was rarely moved, but this time, even he had to admit he was in awe. Modern-day engineering and machinery could easily dig out the underground field, but as far as he could see, this was anything but the work of a professional construction team. “Where even are we?”

One by one, members of the group climbed out of the narrow tunnels and started wandering across the field. They were joined by Katie and the Culls. Katie looked up curiously, wondering what were the chances of the roof just collapsing all of a sudden and burying everyone here alive. Knowing how deep they were underground, it might take her a while to break out.

That was when she heard it. For a brief moment, the young woman stood very still and wondered what she was really hearing and what that implied. And then she knew it.

“Oh…smart. Really smart. Those animals...they are geniuses!”

“What?” Moss, right beside her, raised his eyebrows in confusion.

Katie snapped to him and drew her handguns. “We’ve got incoming.” She declared with way too much excitement in her voice.

“Incoming? Where?”

“Everywhere.”

Moss gulped. He thought Katie was joking until he himself heard what Katie sensed coming seconds ago. It was the sound of claws clashing against the dirt. The quiet growls of vicious beasts that desired human flesh. It was the sound that the mercenaries have been hearing for the past minutes. The sound of the beasts...but amplified by a hundred times.

“Shit!” Moss swore. In just a moment, the mercenary squad was placed in a deadly situation. Yet, he maintained his professionalism and started barking orders to the equally terrified troops. “Retreat to the tunnels! We cannot be caught in the open! Now!”

After discovering the open field and ensuring that the entire area was free of the murderous beasts, the mercenary team unsuspectingly wandered into the open area. This turned out to be a fatal mistake.

Previously, when the mercenaries were in the tunnels, the size of the tunnels meant that only two of them could stand side by side and fire at once. This was problematic for the mercenaries, but this made things even worse for the beasts, who only had melee means of attack. If they tried to storm the mercenaries in the tight halls, they would be forced to walk into a storm of bullets one by one. Even the fallen could be used to build a make-shift barrier to obstruct the movement of their comrades.

Unless they could exhaust the ammo of the mercenaries, the beasts would be massacred with no result to justify their sacrifice.

But the beasts were smart. Smarter than any of the mercenaries and even Katie ever gave them credit for. They didn't charge in blindly. In a brilliant maneuver, they hid their troops in the tunnels and abused the arrogance of the humans. Only when the mercenaries were in the open and exposed did they all pour into the fray.

This time, the mercenaries would be charged from all flanks. There was no position to fall back to and no hallway to abuse. This time, it would be the humans that would be closed in on and slaughtered.

Now that Katie thought about it, she realized the occasional animals that tried to take on the entire team by themselves weren’t suicidal or stupid. They were serving a purpose by making sure the mercenaries were on the right path to the open field, where they would be easily wiped out.

They were giving their lives to lure the team into a carefully planned ambush.

The mercenaries didn't have time to think about the implications. All they knew was that none of them wanted to be surrounded by murderous carnivores, and getting mauled to death in the middle of nowhere didn't sound so tempting. They quickly obeyed the orders and rushed for the tunnel where they came from.

The growls were getting closer and closer, and the mercenaries ran as quickly as their legs could carry them. Just as the rear guard was about to reach the entrance of the tunnel, they suddenly stood very still.

A beast charged out of the tunnel they were supposed to enter. Then another. And then a third and a fourth.

The beasts weren’t just going to let the mercenaries make it back into the tunnels like this.

At the same time, countless beasts were pouring out of all the hallways leading to the open field the mercenaries were trapped in. These carnivores charged forward like a sea of darkness, their sharp tails raised in the air behind them in attacking positions. Their fangs stuck out of their open mouths, ready for blood.

At this point, it was clear that retreat was no longer an option. All the mercenaries could do was fight. Fight, and they might live. Flee, and they would die for sure.

A storm of gunshots rang out as the dozens of mercenaries opened fire on all flanks. Countless snakes of flames exploded from the automatic rifle muzzles. Machine gunners joined the fight, providing whatever suppressing fire they could against the suicidal charges of their foes. A few snipers in the team have quickly dropped their sniper rifles and replaced them with automatic rifles. In a situation like this, one had to be blind to miss. Within seconds, dozens of beasts collapsed dead all around them. Their tails fell right beside their corpses harmlessly, never to rise again.

But the beasts were endless. The second line of attackers leaped over the body of their fallen kind and quickly closed in the ground. Bullets whizzed by all around them as the mercenaries did their best to keep the beasts a safe distance away.

Katie contributed as well. She drew her handguns and opened fire on the incoming horde. Beside her, Moss was shooting in short bursts. With every burst, a beast hit the ground and died. Harrison and Jake Cull were firing with their handguns as well, but the panic on the faces of all the mercenaries wasn’t quite on theirs.

A mercenary gunned down two beasts before he felt exploding pain in his chest. The man looked down, only to find a sharp tail through his bulletproof vest and in his chest. Before he could scream, the tail pulled back, throwing the man off his feet and tossing him into the horde behind.

The man barely let out a scream before he was cut into countless pieces.

Another mercenary turned around and found a beast uncomfortably close. The man dodged to the side just as the tail came down on him and barely missed. Using this opportunity, the man emptied his magazine on the beast and watched as it screeched and died.

His victory was short-lived, however, as another beast pounced on him and dug its fangs inside his neck.

The mercenaries were capable soldiers, but it was never ideal to engage a sea of beasts in close quarters. Within seconds, a dozen of the elite mercenaries were dead. Training and equipment meant little when you have a spike in your chest.

The battle was quickly becoming a slaughter, and not one that the mercenaries enjoyed.