Alien Relic Hunter

"No way..." Hound opened his mouth and said with a look of astonishment, "Isn't this too mysterious?"

But in the next second, a wry smile appeared on the corner of the hound's mouth: "But compared with the things we have experienced, it is nothing to be surprised about..."

"You said the jar was placed on the stone platform, and then what? You went and took the jar away?" Ke Lan asked the mercenary.

"No... the jar is not placed directly on the stone platform. There is a base underneath it." The mercenary said, "The guy who led the way told us that the base is actually a safety mechanism. If we forcibly dismantle the jar, When it comes down, the device inside the base will break the can and release the contents."

"What's in the jar?" The hound asked following his words, but before the mercenary could answer, his expression suddenly changed, "You said the contents would escape if the jar was broken... then now? Aren't the things already out? The collapsed passage can kill even people, but it can't break a glass jar? How dare you go back to find the jar?"

"The jar should not be broken..." the mercenary shook his head repeatedly. "Although it is made of glass, it seems to be a very special kind of glass. It is stronger than the armor plate on the tank. The full power of the ten millimeter caliber When I hit it, there wasn't even a trace... As for what's inside, I really don't know. The liquid in the jar is very turbid, like a vat of ink, and you can't see what's inside at all..."

"You are really not afraid of death. You know it will be a big trouble if the contents inside escape, but you dare to shoot at the can?" said the hound.

"It was a stray bullet. The stray bullet accidentally hit the can... If Ryan hadn't told me about it, I wouldn't have noticed it at all." The mercenary replied.

"Stray bullet? There was a fight in the cave? Is this the 'accident' you mentioned before?" Ke Lan asked with a frown.

Logically speaking, since the mercenary team did not suffer any casualties before withdrawing from the cave, it means that the intensity of the battle was not too high... However, if the intensity of the fighting was not too high, why would this "accident" cause them to delay their planned mission? What about evacuation time?

"We did have a firefight in the cave, but the accident I am talking about is not referring to this incident..."

"Then let's talk about the firefight first. Who are your enemies? Aboriginal creatures? Or some... more bizarre monsters?"

"I don't know what it is..." the mercenary muttered. "When we climbed to the platform and were about to get the can off, a lot of... a lot of them came out from nowhere around the platform. …”

He frowned, as if he was constipated - obviously, for a while, this mercenary couldn't find a suitable adjective for what they encountered in his poor vocabulary. to describe.

"How do I put it... It's a bit like minced meat... No... it should be more accurate to say minced meat... It's the kind of minced meat that is very finely chopped with a blender when making meatballs in Chinese restaurants. They are also It's light pink, giving people a very sticky feeling, a bit like mud mixed with a lot of water... These muds gush out from under the platform, and soon fill the ditch that is more than one meter deep around the platform. Filled up... After they were level with the height of the platform, they began to crawl towards the platform..."

"Ke Lan... could it be that thing?" The hound slowly rubbed the stubble on his chin and said to Ke Lan in an extremely fearful tone.

Ke Lan knew what the hounds were referring to—those red meat worms on Leviathan. The way they moved was indeed somewhat similar to the "meat worms" mentioned by the mercenary...

But Ke Lan shook his head and said: "It shouldn't be... Although those bugs look like a red tide from a distance, if you look closely, you can still distinguish the individual outlines. These mercenaries are not far away from the flesh. It’s not that far… Besides, if it were those bugs, they would have been eaten long ago.”

Ke Lan glanced at the mercenary lying on the ground and said, "I didn't ask you to stop, so you continue talking."

"Oh...oh...after those, those pieces of meat came up, Ryan and I's first reaction was to shoot, but the bullets were no different from hitting the soil...not just bullets, even flames It has no effect on them. I watched Ryan throw an incendiary bomb into the meat, but the flames were extinguished as soon as they rose, and the body of the incendiary bomb was also wrapped in the meat. …

I quickly emptied the bullets in the magazine... Just when I was about to step back and reload, an exile suddenly grabbed my shoulder. He asked everyone not to step back and followed him Do it like..."

"What do you do like him?"

"He...he took out a dagger and cut himself on his arm, letting the blood drip on the ground...Oddly enough, the minced meat stopped approaching after smelling the smell of blood. A very slender tentacle stretched out from their bodies, touched the blood dripping from the person, and then retreated.

He yelled at us: 'If you don't want to be swallowed, use your own blood as a sacrifice. They will not attack you after swallowing the blood! ’… To be honest, I didn’t believe it at first, but Ryan believed it, and after he did it, the meaty meat really stopped crawling towards him! "

The mercenary said, stretching out a part of his wrist with a healed knife mark on it: "I did the same. The exile did not lie to us. After sucking the blood we dripped, these fleshy pulps He retreated under the platform and disappeared not long after..."

"In my impression, there is indeed an indigenous creature that is very similar to the 'meat' you mentioned, but some of its characteristics are completely opposite..." Ke Lan pondered.

"What is it?" The hound couldn't help but ask.

"There is a special creature called 'Xirang'. There is no sample, and it is impossible to determine whether it is an independent individual or a group. It cannot be classified into the existing biological classification system. It is only found on Alpha Planet. Sightings have been recorded in several 'dry valleys' near the South Pole."

Ke Lan paused, and a trace of doubt flashed between his eyebrows: "However, according to the existing information, Xi soil is a gray and white mud-like creature that likes to live in very dry areas... And with you The exact opposite of the 'meat' in the mouth is that 'Xi soil' will become very aggressive after coming into contact with human blood. Half of the people in the exploration team who first witnessed Xi soil died because of this. of."

One sucked a small amount of blood and then retreated, but the other started killing after smelling the smell of blood... Even if the appearance of these two "creatures" is similar, it is difficult to say that they belong to the same creature.

"Could it be a closely related species? Or... a subspecies, a mutant species, or something like that?" the hound guessed.

"It's possible... Moreover, I think these things have been modified and domesticated by the Alpha people... But the only thing I can't figure out is why they react to human blood..."

Even if these minced meats are indeed soil modified by the Alphas, then after they suck the blood of alien species like "humans", their most normal reaction should be to expel these "invaders" from the ruins. That's right, instead of retreating obediently like a pet fed by its owner...

This is so confusing.

"After the meat paste disappeared, we started to work... The two exiles asked us to hold the jar with our hands, and they themselves took out a dozen metal rods as thick as fingers and with strange patterns engraved on them. , After a while, they asked us to hold the jar hard, and then inserted the metal rods into the base under the jar one by one, just like inserting a key."

"Those metal rods...are they always with them?" Ke Lan asked.

The mercenary nodded, while Layton on the side shook his head: "I searched the corpses of those exiles at least three or four times. If there were such things, I would have discovered them long ago."

"I remember that after they inserted the metal rod, they didn't take it out again." The mercenary said, "Within three seconds of inserting the metal rod, the jar bounced off the base...Fortunately We were prepared so the can didn't roll off the platform."

"But, the accident happened at this time." The mercenary continued, "A lot of water came out of the base, and the water flow was very fast... No, it should be said that it was very strong, like a high-pressure water cannon used for riot control. , Ryan and one of the exiles were instantly washed off the platform by the current, while another mercenary and I were holding on to the jar...but we couldn't hold on for even a second before falling down together with the jar. ...Fortunately, the water level below was already more than one meter deep at that time..."

The mercenary's face showed a look of recollection: "The situation was chaotic at that time, and I can't remember exactly what happened. Anyway, by the time we returned here with the can, it was already more than an hour beyond the scheduled evacuation time. ...Okay, now I have told you everything I know...then, can you give me that?"

"Although I'm not very satisfied, I'm not a very harsh person either..." Ke Lan said, placing the syringe containing the morphine solution on the ground. The mercenary quickly struggled and turned around, putting the syringe on the ground. He held the syringe in his hand, pulled off the protective cover with his teeth, and directly inserted the needle into the subcutaneous tissue on the inside of his arm.

Ke Lan no longer paid attention to the addict who only had half a life left. Instead, he walked to the other side with Hound and others and began to discuss the next plan of action.

"What to do now? The secret passage these guys came in is completely blocked, and there is no other way here. We can't search the entire bottom of the lake, right? Even if we seize those people's diving equipment, equipment and oxygen The problem has been solved, but who knows what other monsters and monsters there are under the lake?" The hound said very fast, "We have solved the big octopus that can speak human language, but what are we going to do with those damn piranhas? ?We can’t stay at the bottom of the lake for a long time.”

"Perhaps we can go to the cave that the mercenary mentioned... maybe we can find something." Qin Zhao suggested, "Anyway, anyway... those meat pastes don't seem to be a threat to us..."

"Little sister, I said you are still too young..." Hound glanced at Qin Zhao and coughed in a mature manner, "If you believe what others say, you will be tricked to death sooner or later... That guy He was our enemy not long ago. We killed his brother and almost killed him too... Then Ke Lan tortured him to extract a confession, causing this guy not only to gain from this mission. If everything goes to zero, there is a high chance that he will be thrown into the wasteland to feed the indigenous creatures in the future... Do you think this guy can stop hating us?"

"Ah..." Qin Zhao was speechless when the hound said this, and his fair cheeks suddenly turned red.

"The reason why he didn't show any hatred was because he was afraid... But if he was given a chance to trap us all here, what do you think he would do?"

"...But if we die, he can't go out alone?" Qin Zhao said in a very thin voice.

"That's not necessarily the case. People in this business will more or less keep some trump cards... And now we can also verify whether what he said is true or false... Let me give you an analogy. If the number of people in their team is far away, There were more than a dozen people, and more than half of them died in the cave, killed by the 'meat'. And he was one of the few who escaped death... Now, he told us, The meat paste that killed most of them is completely harmless and will recede after just sucking a few drops of blood. They are as well-behaved as pet dogs raised by humans..."

"Haha..." The hound sneered twice, "If possible, I would like to throw him into the cave first and try to see whether those so-called 'meat' can eat people."

"Let's do this," Ke Lan was silent for a long time and finally said, "Let's rest here for a while. Anyway, this place should be safe for the time being, and the supplies carried by the mercenaries are enough for us to last for a week. I suggest waiting until Ivan and Akira Asano will take further action after they wake up."

"This is a good suggestion. I support it with both hands." Layton nodded, "Akira Asano is our strongest combatant. With him here, we will be more confident when we run into some monsters, and Dr. Ivan is well-informed. "

[P.S. The prototype of the Antarctic Dry Valleys is the Antarctic Dry Valleys on the real earth. It is the only area in Antarctica not covered by ice and snow. And the inspiration of Xirang comes from "Spirit Cage" - the time of private goods: I am so blown away by the special episode of "Spirit Cage", Grandma Bai Yuekui, please give me a cup...]