Chapter 350. Architecture
The crisp noise of human boots crushing dry leaves echoed incessantly in the woods as Charles led his group forward with the Dark Blade in hand.
The Dark Blade tore apart every vine and bush in their way while the crew looked around vigilantly. None spoke a word, afraid that any foreign noise would attract the killing harmony from earlier.
Charles had told the mice to retreat. The mice were supposed to scout the road ahead of the group, but the mice were useless against an invisible, intangible enemy, so Charles had told them to retreat.
Just then, Lily whispered into Charles' ear, "Shouldn't we apologize to those Ropelings later once we're done here? I mean, we attacked them first, so I think we should go over to them and make amends."
"Don't think about useless things; concentrate!" Charles replied.
"But we misunderstood them, so shouldn't we go and apologize to them? I mean, we should at least say sorry, right?" Lily asked.
Amidst Lily's chattering, the group arrived before the ruins of the Foundation.
"Everyone split into multiple groups. Your objective is to find any documents, maps, or anything with recognizable markings."
At Charles' order, the crew dispersed into multiple groups of three to five people and started to explore the ruins.
Charles took Lily with him into a nearby dilapidated two-story house. The interior was as dilapidated as the outside; twisting tree roots had overrun the house and stretched across the dust-covered floor, tangling with everything in its way.
Charles looked around briefly but found zero clues. He didn't find even a single document or any recognizable markings, not to mention maps. Eventually, Charles walked out of the house and found his crew members shaking their heads at him with disappointed looks.
Charles reckoned that the remaining crew members still in the middle of their exploration had to have found zero clues as well. Just as Charles was about to say something, an exceptionally low tune echoed abruptly.
Everyone froze, and the terrified Lily hurriedly hid behind Charles' collar. The music was markedly different from before, as it sounded similar to what one would hear from a guitar.
Charles focused his keen ears on the music and found that it was moving around them. He couldn't see the intangible harmony, but it was definitely nearby.
This time, the music didn't just surround them; it even passed through them. The strange sensation sent an involuntary tremor through everyone.
A few minutes later, the harmony faded into silence as it headed east.
The tree was so big that it covered the entire building.
Just then, Charles abruptly froze. Audric had been flying perfectly, but now, he was panicking. He flapped his wings frantically and rushed to his right.
As the discordant cacophony of tunes grew louder and louder in Charles' ears, Charles became sure of it: Audric had been discovered!
The giant bat moved agilely in the air, seemingly avoiding something.
"Land and stop moving! Why are you running?!" Charles shouted anxiously. The blood dripping down Audric made Charles' heart tighten. He had to do something, or Audric would soon be torn apart in mid-air.
"The explosives! Give them to me, quick!" Charles shouted.
Weister moved quickly and hurled the explosives at Charles.
Charles snatched the explosives the size of grapefruits and shortened their wicks using the Dark Blade. He then ignited them at once and hurled them as far as possible in the opposite direction as Audric.
Boom!
A deafening explosion echoed. A few giant trees were instantly torn apart before crashing to the ground, creating more thunderous booms.
Buzz!
A discordant buzzing filled Charles' ears, and the harmony that had inundated him made him feel as though he was before a magnificent orchestra. The fallen trees in the distance were then shredded into pieces by the killing harmony, and were being torn further into finer pieces.
Charles stood still; he dared not move, afraid that he would suffer the same fate as the fallen trees. Once every single fallen tree had been reduced to mere debris, the harmony in Charles' ears gradually faded away into silence.
A bloody Audric staggered over to Weister. He bit the young man's neck and started sucking the latter's blood as if he had been starving for a long time.
"What were you doing?!" Charles jumped down the tree and asked, "I told you to stop moving if you're discovered! Why were you running?"
Audric retracted his fangs and grumbled, "I also wanted to stop moving, Captain, but as soon as my sound waves touched them, they also emitted sound waves that locked onto me.
"Staying still was no use, as they would have shredded me to pieces, anyway."
Charles frowned at Audric's revelation. Their foes were more bizarre than Charles had expected. They could produce killing harmonies, but Charles didn't expect them to be capable of using sound waves to find and track their targets.
How could they do something similar to Audric when they were without a tangible form?