The Conspiracy of the Elites

Chapter 211: the hole in the tree

It took a little bit more time than the soldiers anticipated before they finally reached the snowy woods. Despite this little setback, they were not concerned, their attention was completely on their surroundings.

Unlike most conventional forests, this one was less compact and had less of a cover to hide from prying predator's eyes.

This was only natural as there was no way normal trees and grass could grow in a mountain like Everest, only mutated ones could survive the extreme regions of this place.

Bushes and shrubs were a rare sight here, only sparkly white snow filled everywhere, paired with the giant trees that rambled across like evolved pokemons going to war.

The only cover here was the trees, as some of them grew as wide as dozens of meters. Most of the trees were the tenacious cedar trees, but there were still other tenacious varieties.

Their shoots were already gracing the mist-filled Himalayan skies, as their leaves slowly swayed to the rhythm of the breeze.

Though this sight was beautiful, none of the soldiers dared to admire it. Who knew if another bald eagle or giant cat would emerge from inside and bite their heads off? This was unknown territory.

The only thing that came as a relief to them since they arrived in the forest was that they have not encountered any beast yet. This meant that the bald eagle was probably just a fluke, and exobeasts were still at the normal minimum here.

As they continued trudging forward silently in the forest, their expressions continually grew darker and grim as till now, no possible covering where they could take shelter was in sight.

Despite this, they still held hopes and continued deeper. 10 minutes later, the stealth coverage device finally beeped, indicating that it had less than 10% energy in its batteries.

Stop, going further is an uncertain variable now, lets go back and take shelter in the giant tree that we encountered some minutes ago. Clark finally spoke out on seeing their situation. He was also out of ideas.

Though the soldiers kept silent and no one refuted his suggestion, almost all of them had unwilling expressions on their faces.

The giant tree that their Major was speaking of was actually a mutated cedar tree. Though its size was humongous and could take all of them in, they felt reluctant to stoop so low.

We are not barbarians; we are elite soldiers of the Spartan army.

These were just their thoughts though. After all the embarrassing situations that they found themselves in since coming to this mountain, they no longer had the dignity to speak to their Major confidently.

If Clark was not with them, perhaps, they would be all be dead men already. Their extreme reactions to the spooky sights in the cave alone left them ashamed.

It took them only 2 minutes before they finally returned to the location of the enormous tree, it still stood rooted confidently on its spot.

Though most of the soldiers already saw most trees including mutated ones, the sight of this wonder of nature still left them awed, despite already seeing it once when they passed.

The enormous tree was both intimidating and attractive in itself. Most cedar trees grow as tall as 40-60 meters in this age, but this one had an outrageous length size of about 150 meters.

On getting inside the forest, they already noticed that the mutated trees here were bigger than normal, but this one was still one in a million among the hundreds that they already saw.

Though this was eye-catching, their focus was elsewhere, what really made their eyes bulge was the even more outrageous width size of this cedar tree.

This was definitely not normal, as this trees width grew as much as about 80 meters in size from their estimation. They already asked themselves this before when they passed, but they still asked it again.

What abomination is this? Are we still on earth?

Its long dimorphic shoots which formed the framework of the branches pierced through the sky imperiously, like an emperor in eastern fantasy novels going against the heavens.

This was simply just ridiculous at this point.

All those were its intimidating side, as the soldiers eyes finally went to the attractive side of the tree that could make girls scream like excited fanatics.

Its brown skin tree bark that was attached to the enormous stem, though it looked rough like other wildlife trees, had a certain unique look to them that made it seem like it was a work of technology.

Faint square-shaped and thick ridged cracks rambled across the stem and broad branches, making it seem like puzzles that were waiting for a master to solve.

Its thin evergreen and needle-like leaves sparkled under the evening sky, their bright and vibrant colors were hardly affected by the extreme weather around.

They were curled and arranged in open spiral phyllotaxis along the tree shoots and dense spiral clusters of 25-50 together in short shoots.

Even its barrel-shaped seed cones were not spared from this lavish model tree-like beauty, their green maturing grey-brown color blended with the grey sky to form a nice combination.

The soldiers were petrified. It took them minutes before they finally snapped from their dazed admiration, as they started wiping off the foolish smiles that were originally on their faces.

Like the others, Clark was guilty too, he admired without any care of the world. After admiring the intimidating grandeur of the giant tree to the fill, he finally went to work as he opened his military bag again.

He first brought out what looked like a mechanically controlled sawing machine. He brought out and activated a sound dampening device next, before going to work on carving a hole into the tree that a human could pass through.

Yes, he planned on cutting a hole inside the tree where they could take shelter. Its diameter was wide enough, so why not?

He already prepped himself to work for dozens of minutes if not hours, but he was surprised as just after a minute, the sharp saw breached the periphery bark-covered skin of the tree. A big dark hole appeared inside.

Seeing the dark hole which looked like the passage to an abyssal depth, he was startled, making him apprehensive again. A tree as thick and big as this one, there was no way that it would have such a big hole inside naturally.

He cautiously retreated, while motioning for his soldiers to prep themselves for battle as he already started feeling his back for his spear in the case of any dangerous encounter.

After another minute of patiently watching and enduring the tense atmosphere that followed, seeing no danger come out as he expected, he was puzzled.

This did not leave him out of options for long though, as he dipped his hands into his bag again.

This time, he brought out a batch of military special ops bean-sized drones, before letting them through the hole to go inside the tree.

As soon as the drones entered inside the hole, they hovered and spread out to different directions in the hole. After this, it took only 2 seconds before a holographic screen appeared before him mid-air.

The holographic screen was extremely clear, as it showed exactly what the bean-sized drones were seeing and transmitting to him. Though inside the tree was still dark, the drones night vision add-ons made everything clear.

Clark waited for another 5 seconds before the image being transmitted finally stabilized, after clearing every interference. After this, he went to work as his finger poked various instructions into the holographic screen.

Acknowledging the new instructions that were transmitted to them immediately, the drones continued their advance deeper inside the tree.

As the drones stealthily continued their advance, Clark became more and more shocked as the depths of this hole were even deeper than he predicted. Different thoughts and questions were already revolving in his brain.

Who or what exactly dug this? Is there an enemy predator inside here? Does this hole cover the entire diameter of the tree?

Though he was tempted to explore the whole area of the hole through the drones, he held his impulse back on seeing the blinking red timer of the stealth coverage device.

He instructed the drones to stop their advance, as they already scouted a large enough area to act as a temporary shelter for his squad. He could be proactive now.

Ok, you guys can go in now, but take it slow and steady. Benny, Diana, you 2 go in first, the others will follow you.

Though the soldiers were still apprehensive about everything attached to this tree, they held back their thoughts on seeing their 2 seconds in commands enter decisively.

One by one, they quickly entered the hole as the stealth coverage device drew nearer to the end of its energy lifespan.

After all the soldiers entered, Clark finally motioned to enter. As he did this, he turned back for a moment to survey the surroundings again. Seeing no sudden intruder, he heaved a sigh of relief before squeezing inside.

As soon as his figure entered the hole, he brought his hands out to grab the tree bark that he cut from the tree with his saw and placed it at the opening now in the tree.

He carefully covered the opening in the tree back, before complimenting it with a black metal gum patch to hold it in place.

[Ding!! Master, the energy reserves of the stealth coverage device are at a dangerously low level of 2%. I suggest that master should deactivate it now to prevent any recharge problems later.]

Dont worry, its done its job already.

As Clark thought to himself, he quickly stretched his hand to the stealth device to switch it off. After switching it off, he finally turned to face his soldiers who stood rigidly at various positions of the space in the hole.

We will have to make do with this for now before I finally scout this region well to understand our circumstances.

And, no one is to switch on any light. As you all saw in the holographic screen, this is just the periphery region of this hole, its depth is unknown to us.

We dont know what dangerous creatures created and are probably living in this hole, its wiser to be prudent at this moment. I dont want us to expose ourselves just because of the convenience light brings.

Make do with your military night vision goggles for now. Any objections?

Is there anything we can say before, youre the boss? We dont want to get evicted and eaten by a bald eagle. This was most of the soldiers thoughts but no one dared speak it out, so the problem ended there.

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