Chapter 80: Captives
He looked behind him at the border of the territory, calculating the distance. He considered whether to push towards the core of the territory itself, even though it meant giving up the location advantage he had if he was suddenly attacked.
However, before he could decide, as he continued to stroll across the wide expanse of the territory, he suddenly heard familiar voices...
Or rather... familiar languages. The voices themselves were unfamiliar to him, but the languages were.
Humans... Modern Humans.
The sound was low, and Uhtred had to focus deeply to hear it with his high perception attribute, but it was unmistakable.
This was the raw, desperate sound of many human voices screaming in different languages — English, Spanish, and even Chinese. The cries seemed to come from his left, a bit deeper into the territory, echoing out of a heavily guarded side ravine.
Uhtred frowned, his chest tightening as he climbed up a small mound of earth at the edge of the territory that gave him a better vantage point into the distance.
About half a mile away, he saw what looked to be a camp, surrounded by thick wooden fences topped with stone spikes.
Neanderthals strolled around the area, clad in pristine leather gear and scanning the surroundings with seriousness. Inside that enclosure, Uhtred could see humans held in cages made of rough wood.
Their skin was covered in deep lacerations and dark bruises, clear signs of repeated, methodical torture.
Their eyes looked hollow and dead, staring at the floor as if they simply wanted to die. They looked like they had been through hell and back.
Their bodies looked incredibly malnourished, their ribs showing prominently, as if they hadn’t been fed for months, when in truth it was only at most four days that they had been here if they had been captured right at the start of the integration.
Uhtred clenched his jaw so hard his teeth clicked, his blood boiling with a sudden, fierce fury.
He didn’t know a single one of them particularly, but seeing humans like him being treated like literal animals, with signs of being tortured extensively, made his hands shake beneath his cloak.
He could even hear the muffled, agonizing voices of some being interrogated from a larger stone building at the center of the camp, people who were being actively tortured on stone slabs right now.
He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to breathe through his nose as he counted the number of the Neanderthal forces guarding the camp.
There were at least fifty of them there, ten of which looked exceptionally strong. Their movements were fluid, and their armor bore distinct silver markings.
The remaining forty looked like standard guards, people Uhtred knew he could take on easily in a fair fight.
He hadn’t risked checking their levels directly with his inspect skill, just in case any one of them possessed a high enough perception attribute to sense the mental inspection and blow his cover.
But from his general glance and from the visual cues he had come to understand after fighting with so many creatures in the dungeon, he could guess that about forty of them were somewhere under Level 15.
Meanwhile, the ten silver-marked elites who had drawn his focus were at least on his level, but more likely higher-leveled than his current Level 17.
There was simply no way he could take on that many of them alone and come out saving any of the humans being held captive there.
While Uhtred wanted to very much rush down the slope and smash the cages open, he was still a very pragmatic man. He wasn’t one to risk his life for an emotional impulse that would essentially guarantee his own capture.
The camp sat close to the edge of the ancient variants’ territory, but it was still deep enough that if he chose to attack, even with his cloaking device providing the element of surprise, the main outpost forces would descend upon him in no time.
Even if somehow he was able to clear the camp and escape with some humans, moving those slow, broken captives across the territory boundary before being slaughtered was physically impossible.
A deep, freezing coldness settled in Uhtred’s chest as he stared at the humans looking lifeless in the cages.
He knew many of them were going to die here. In fact, many of them were going to die terrible deaths after being tortured even more for information.
Uhtred could not save them right now, but he could avenge them later down the line. He would make sure of it.
He stared at each and every one of them from the mound, though they didn’t know he was standing there in the far distance, he observed each of their faces, silently promising a brutal retribution in his heart, as that was the only thing he could offer them.
Then, decisively, he turned his back on the camp and began to head out toward the territory border.
However, before he could take more than a few steps toward the shimmering exit line, a heavy, resonant voice suddenly echoed directly next to him.
"Hmm... Intriguing."
Uhtred’s cosmic essence flared in an instant. His hand snapped to the handle of his star-metal battleaxe, his grip tightening until his knuckles turned white as he readied himself for an attack.
The air to his left shimmered, and a towering, monstrous figure revealed himself.
A Neanderthal about seven feet in height, with a broad build, holding a large battle axe of his own, his hair braided down the length of his back, and a huge beard coating his rough angular face, stared straight at him with fierce, pale grey eyes.
Uhtred leaped away to widen the distance between himself and the Neanderthal, but the Neanderthal’s eyes followed his movement regardless, as if the camouflage cloak was entirely useless.
The alarm bells in Uhtred’s mind rang loudly, his danger senses flaring. Without hesitation, he activated his inspect skill, looking above the head of the Neanderthal warrior to check his level...
And for the very first time, the skill failed.
Six levels! He’s at least six levels higher than me!
His biological inspect skill only enabled him to inspect anyone up to five levels higher than he was.
The description, when Uhtred had purchased the modification, had also mentioned inspecting levels higher than that.
But in truth, anything beyond five levels was uncertain, probably dependent on the perception attribute of the individual being inspected themself.
Uhtred growled under his breath, knowing he was in for a very tough fight if he wanted to escape from here alive. This Neanderthal had locked onto him like he was prey.
He pulled away the camouflage cloak covering his body, revealing himself to the open, since hiding was entirely useless.
His eyes met the Neanderthal’s, the silent fury in them refusing to die despite how bleak his current situation looked.
The Neanderthal regarded Uhtred with a slight tilt of his head, an intrigue flashing across his eyes as he saw the look of defiance in Uhtred’s eyes.
"Urukah was right about you..."
The Neanderthal spoke, not in his own language, but in clear English, shocking Uhtred with a different kind of horror.
"...You are truly different from the rest of your kind."
