Alien Knights

Alfonso was naked to the waist, lying on his side on a soft bed on the second floor of the laboratory building, and fell into a deep sleep. He may have been a handsome man in the past, but now his face is only pale and emaciated, as well as a little bit of pain.

"It's the first time I've seen the boss's face..." Walton pursed his lips and whispered to Leslie beside him.

Todd squatted halfway beside the bed, looking at the two rows of small wounds on the knight's spine with evenly spaced holes, carefully disinfecting them one by one with medical alcohol in his hand, and applying medicinal powder.

These are the puncture wounds formed by the "keel" parasites that absorb the spinal fluid of the host. Although considered minimally invasive, the wounds were extremely deep. If not handled properly, it may cause myelitis and even paralysis.

Adelina sat on the head of the bed, wiped Alfonso's forehead with a cloth soaked in water, and asked worriedly, "Master Todd, when will the boss wake up?"

"Generally speaking, three to four hours. But I think it's a bit strange. I anesthetized only the "armor" on his body. He didn't inhale the anesthetic gas through his mouth and nose, so why did he fall into a coma?" Todd was full of doubts, and carefully checked Alfonso again. Apart from the wound on the spine, the most worrying thing was his physical condition.

Due to the long-term dependence on the "keel" to complete daily activities, the muscles of the knight's limbs have gradually atrophied. This is like a normal person who has been relying on a wheelchair for a long time. When he gets out of the wheelchair one day, he finds that his lower body cannot use his strength.

After explaining to Adelina, Walton and Leslie how to help patients recover their strength. Todd returned to the hall of the laboratory, and returned his attention to the "keel" parasite that had just been taken off.

In the huge wooden barrel, two parasites, one male and one female, lay quietly in the nutrient solution. The "skeleton" originally used to bind and support the host's limbs slowly shrank section by section.

Using the abilities of "see through" and "Eagle Eye", Todd repeatedly checked this strange giant parasite. The outermost layer of the worm body is a layer of horn skin as hard as steel, and then inside is a space similar to an "air sac", which can be called a "dermatome sac" in technical terms, and then a layer of soft skin muscle.

This three-layered parasite body can not only resist the huge impact of the outside world, but also the dermatomysac and muscle layers provide a certain degree of cushioning to protect the host's body.

Looking inside, Todd saw some strange things. They were gray-white medulla bodies, which looked a bit like human nerves. This nerve-like substance is found throughout the parasite's inner body, down to the sharp hooks used to burrow into the host and extract nutrients.

Seeing this, Todd thought for a while and made a bold hypothesis. Did ether, which was originally only used to anesthetize the parasites, enter Alfonso's spine through the "nerve cords" of these parasites?

If this assumption is true, then the fact that the knight fell into a coma even without inhaling ether can be explained.

But this hypothesis is only a hypothesis, and it does not seem to be proven at this time.

Um?

Todd looked at the tailbone of the female and saw some egg-like objects. Full of curiosity, he put on gloves, and while praying that the parasite would not wake up at this time, he carefully stretched his hand towards the copulation tube of the male and female parasites.

First use your hands to open the mating umbrella of the male insect, then pull out the mating thorn, and finally squeeze the reproductive tube of the female insect with your hand to expel the eggs that can be seen with the "see-through" ability one by one.

There are a total of six white eggs, about the size of a jujube, and the larvae inside can be vaguely seen in the sunlight.

It seems that the reproductive mode of the "keel" parasite is heterogametogenesis (a reproductive mode with sex differentiation produced by the parent body), and the eggs are viviparous (the reproductive mode in which larvae have formed in the eggs produced by the female).

In the laboratory, Todd found the glass tank that was originally used to cultivate Chinese rose shoots. First, he disinfected it with about 70% alcohol and rinsed it with sterile water for 3-4 times; then he built a darkroom in the laboratory to isolate the sunlight; he sealed the entire space with wax paper and glass to create a sterile environment; finally, he used sugar, coconut milk, oxygen scavenger and biological amino acids to make the "double-material lactose-peptone culture solution" commonly used in embryo breeding.

Put the "keel" eggs into it, and observe it every 2 hours.

After doing all this, Todd remembered another parasite body that he had been keeping—"hive".

After the Battle of "Frankenstein" at Fort Watch, Todd brought the cut "hive" parasites back to the laboratory and cultured them.

Now, the "honeycomb" has grown to six times its original size in the culture bottle. From the appearance, it looks like a huge black jellyfish floating on the water. The tentacles below are growing all the time. The longest one is even more than one meter long and piled up at the bottom of the culture bottle.

The "hive" is completely different from the "keel". Its reproductive method is "budding" (first, a daughter is split from the edge of the mother, and then gradually grows larger).

On the tentacles below the jellyfish, black, earthworm-like nematodes (used to infect the host and turn them into puppets) are born, and over time, these nematodes can grow into new "hives".

Taking advantage of the period when the larvae of the "keel" were growing, Todd first analyzed the "hive".

The experimental subjects were four white mice. A small "honeycomb" was transplanted to the spine on the back of one white mouse, and then three black nematodes belonging to the former mother were fed to the remaining white mice.

To be honest, this experiment turned out to be a nightmare that Todd didn't want to think about again.

The result of the experiment is that the mice transplanted with the "Honeycomb" can control the actions of the other three mice by making vibrations through the mother's body. But at the end of the experiment, all four mice died without exception.

Mice fed black nematodes died from neurotoxins. The black nematode can emit a toxin in the body of the mouse, which can damage the host's nerve center, thus turning it into a walking dead.

The mouse carrying the "hive" mother died horribly. It was killed by a large number of black nematodes that germinated and reproduced. Tens of thousands of nematodes, along with blood and internal organs, blasted the entire glass box into a mess. Every time Todd thinks of that scene, he always has a feeling of chest tightness and nausea.

After examination and autopsy, Todd also got some information. Black nematodes have strict requirements on the environment. When the temperature is higher than 40 degrees, the humidity is lower than 40%, under sunlight, and the difference between acid and alkali is large, they will lose their vitality and eventually die.

The observation of the "hive" parasite is suspended for a while.

To sum up, there are the following points:

1. "Hive" parasites adopt "budding reproduction" and are divided into mothers (similar to jellyfish) and daughters (black nematodes).

2. There is a vocal sac-like sound generator inside the mother body, which can make a rattlesnake-like sound to control the host infected by the daughter body.

3. The host infected with the mother's body will be corroded by the budding offspring, and will eventually explode and die.

4. The host infected with the daughter body will destroy the nerve center by the neurotoxin secreted by the daughter body, and finally become a walking dead without thinking.

5. According to speculation, as time goes by, when the daughters grow into mothers, the fate of these walking corpses is expected to be the same as that of the mother host, and will eventually be eroded by the massively multiplied daughters and explode to death.

6. The daughter body has poor environmental adaptability and is extremely sensitive to light, temperature, acid-base and humidity.

Todd wrote the last stroke of the observation report, looking at the "hive" parasites in the culture bottle with a sigh. This thing is simply a biochemical nuclear bomb level weapon. Fortunately, in the world of the previous life, there were no such parasites, otherwise the scene in "Resident Evil" might really appear.

Taking a look at the "keel" larva culture tank and "honeycomb" culture bottle in the laboratory, Todd blinked and smiled wryly. Do he count as a professional parasite farmer?

——————————————

The parasite experiment came to an end, and Todd walked out of the laboratory to visit Alfonso, who had awakened and was recovering his strength on the hill.

According to the subordinates, the first thing the knight asked for after waking up was beyond everyone's expectations—a hot bath.

Alfonso, who had soaked in the bathtub for almost a whole day, could not use any strength in his limbs, and had to rely on others to climb out of the bathtub and change his clothes.

But at least his spirit looks good, and the long-lost smile reappeared on his face.

"I feel like I've been relieved of a heavy burden." Alfonso said to Todd with a smile while rubbing his legs, "The ability of the 'Dragon Bone', like the shackles from hell, has imprisoned my soul for many years. Now, I'm finally free."

Hearing this, his followers looked a little disheartened.

Adelina accompanied Alfonso back to the cabin, while Walton and Leslie accompanied Todd for a walk outdoors.

The short and fat man glanced back at the door, and said slowly: "The boss has said more than once that from the day he lost his family and became a different species, he is no longer a knight."

Leslie found an open space and sat down on his buttocks: "Unlike us, the boss was forced to become a heterogeneous species. He has tried countless methods to take off that 'keel'."

Todd came over and asked curiously, "Can you tell me in detail?"

Leslie glanced at Todd, nodded, and seemed to have made up his mind: "In the family of the chief's wife, there is a strange disease. It seems that fatigue and fatigue can cause heart failure. One day, a traveler gave the chief a copper pipe, saying that the contents could save his wife. Unexpectedly, because of the copper pipe, the chief's wife became an heir, and even turned into a monster and killed the child. The traveler actually reappeared, not only blocked the monster's attack, but also put the set of "Dragon Bone Armor" on the boss. With the ability of the "Dragon Bone", the boss finally killed the successor. When he tried to find the traveler again, the other party had disappeared."

Todd recalled what Huggins had said, and asked, "Who is that traveler?"

Leslie shrugged: "I don't know, the boss has been looking for that guy for so many years."

Walton suddenly added a sentence at this moment: "For the boss, whenever he sees the 'keel', he will think of his dead wife and children. He actually doesn't want to become an alien species at all. Perhaps he thought that the ability of the alien species would tarnish the knight's honor, so he gave up his status and became the hunter of the Inquisition..."