Hunter of Mysterious Creature-Chapter 535 - 116: Building Interior (Part 2)

Maxim adjusted his stance, standing directly on the slightly slanted window ledge, his entire body squeezed into the window frame. One hand held a submachine gun, while the other hand pulled a spare tactical flashlight from his pocket, casting two beams of high-intensity light to illuminate the building’s interior.

"Maxim, have you found anything?" The team leader asked somewhat anxiously from outside.

"Very strange... Grazkov was right, these buildings are peculiar not just on the outside, but inside as well," Maxim replied.

This window was three meters above ground level, which logically should have been a window on the second floor... of course, first-floor windows were also possible, like in those grand entrance halls with four to five-meter-high ceilings, where high windows are often installed at this height to enhance indoor lighting...

But the problem was, this window was neither on the first floor nor on the second floor.

The interior of this building had no clear division of floors.

It’s like a life-sized 3D printed model, looking like it has a first floor, second floor, third floor from the outside... but internally, it’s hollow, with nothing inside except the support structures necessary for 3D printing!

And these support structures were like layers of chaotic cobwebs filling the building’s interior, giving Maxim the illusion that it wasn’t the inside of a human building, but some kind of monster’s lair.

Previously, Maxim thought the shadow he saw was wandering on the building’s second floor, but now it seemed completely different from what he imagined.

Assuming it wasn’t just his illusion.

The shadow seemed to be moving along these support structures, much like a spider crawling along its webs.

Thinking of this made Maxim shiver, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.

He hated spiders, especially those that looked furry.

Because when he was a child, a bully in his class once threw such a spider into his collar.

But as an adult, he never mentioned this to anyone—he did not want anyone to know that a grown man could be afraid of spiders, nor did he want anyone to know about his childhood bullying experiences.

"Damn... this is really screwed up," Maxim muttered, constantly observing the building’s interior. The thinnest parts of these support structures were only as thick as a finger, and he had no idea how strong they were or whether they would break if he stepped on them...

A lot of the bricks and rubble that had fallen from the building’s roof dropped through the gaps in these support structures, with only a small portion piling up on them.

The remains of the drone that got hit lay on a relatively larger "platform." 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

This "platform" was formed by the convergence of about a dozen support structures, roughly a square meter in area, located about one meter below the window ledge and about two meters above the ground. Amidst the rubble, the red indicator light of the drone could be seen flashing intermittently.

"I’ve found the drone, preparing to retrieve it," Maxim said.

He tried to reach out, but a one-meter descent was quite difficult for the human body, and Maxim had to change his stance again—he hooked the insteps of his feet over the edge of the window sill, attempting to hang himself upside down.

But after just one attempt, he gave up on this difficult maneuver—his height was 1.67 meters, and in an inverted state, there would be more than half a meter of excess, making it impossible for his feet to hook onto the window sill. He could only brace against the window frame’s sides, relying on squeezing force to hold his body’s weight.

This position not only required significant leg strength but also demanded Maxim to maintain balance constantly, as exerting too much force on one side could send him tumbling onto that platform below.

"No way, this position is too tricky for me to perform any mid-air operation," Maxim eventually retracted back onto the window ledge, turning to the five people waiting outside.

"I have a rope and a hook; can you hook the drone and pull it up?" the machine gunner asked.

"Very difficult, there are too many bricks and rubble pressing down on the drone. Not to mention whether I can find a place to fix the hook... even if I hook it, what if the drone falls apart when pulling it up? Wouldn’t that be all for nothing?" Maxim flatly rejected.

"Then what do you plan to do?" the captain asked.

"Throw me the rope and hook!" Maxim replied.

"Didn’t you just say it can’t be hooked?" The machine gunner said this, but still took out the rope and hook and tossed them to Maxim.

"I never said it was for hooking the drone... what’s to be hooked is me!" Maxim hooked the safety lock on his belt with the hook and threw the other end of the rope back.

"The drone is on a platform, and I’m planning to go down to that platform and dig out the drone with my hands. But I’m not sure if this platform can bear my weight. So, if I crash through it, you guys need to find a way to pull me up, understand?" Maxim shouted loudly.

"Alright, be careful!" After securing the rope’s end to an iron spike driven into the ground, the captain, medic, and machine gunner held onto the rope together, pulling it taut.

"Okay, I’m going down." Feeling the force on his waist, Maxim took a deep breath and started stepping down the building’s interior wall cautiously.

He synchronized his movements with his teammates as much as possible—each time the three outside let out a bit of the rope, he would take a step down. Step by step, he took nearly half a minute to traverse the short one-meter distance.

When his feet finally landed gently on the platform, Maxim breathed a sigh of relief.

He reached out to touch a nearby support structure, feeling its rough and hard textures, akin to concrete mixed with gravel... though he wasn’t sure if it encased any steel reinforcements. If it did, even twenty of him wouldn’t be able to collapse this platform.

Maxim pressed down on the platform slightly, feeling neither any swaying nor cracking sounds, greatly easing his worries.

"Tsk, it didn’t budge at all despite that violent shaking earlier; this thing is much sturdier than I thought. This is... what’s that Chinese phrase, yeah, this is much ado about nothing!"

Maxim bent down and began clearing the debris covering the drone, directly throwing the residue from the platform’s edge.

The rustling sound of the fragments and gravel scraping together and the impacts as they hit the ground were continuous, and Maxim’s actions gradually sped up.

The drone buried in the rubble soon had most of its body exposed. With a closer look, Maxim saw several cracks on the drone’s shell, though its internal electronics seemed largely intact, implying high repair probability.

"Lucky... huh?"

Maxim’s expression suddenly froze. He realized a critical issue—his actions of clearing the rubble had stopped, yet why did the rustling sound persist?

That sound... it seemed like something was swiftly climbing along the support structures inside the building!

"Something eerie! It’s something eerie!! There’s really something eerie inside the building!!!" Maxim’s heart began pounding wildly!

Maxim immediately pulled the drone wreckage from the rubble and held it in his arms. But just as he was about to call out to his team to pull him up, he was stunned to find that the window he had just entered through had somehow disappeared!

The rope was now directly embedded within the wall!