Alien Relic Hunter

Ke Lan looked at the power armor worn by the "Servant of God" again. It was indeed the "Bronze Hammer Type VI" that was discontinued forty years ago - the reason why this series of armor was given such a name is It's entirely because the iconic spherical shoulder armor looks like a pair of huge copper hammers embedded on both sides of the head from a distance.

Although it is named "Copper Hammer", the armor is not made of copper alloy, but a material called "Schroeder Steel". This material is developed from WC cemented carbide. Its main components are tungsten carbide and cobalt as a binder. It is an alloy with extremely excellent hardness and toughness... However, this material has a fatal problem. shortcoming.

That's the weight. The density of this alloy is extremely high. Even the armor plate on the chest of the "Copper Hammer Type VI", which is only 6 mm thick, weighs nearly 50 kilograms, not to mention more than 70% of the whole body. The entire armor is made of Schroeder steel.

If these Schroeder steels are replaced with composite armor made of special ceramics and titanium alloys with comparable defensive capabilities, the overall weight will be reduced to one-third of the original weight. In addition, people later discovered in the ruins of the Alpha Civilization With a large amount of Nino alloy, Schroeder steel has basically withdrawn from the field of armor manufacturing. It is precisely for this reason that the production of the "Bronze Hammer" series of power armor was discontinued.

But Schroeder Steel has not completely withdrawn from the field of military manufacturing - on Ark, whether it is armor-piercing bullets used by individual firearms or armor-piercing artillery shells used by mechas and tanks, more than 90% of the types, The warhead materials are all Schroeder steel, which is commonly known as "tungsten core armor-piercing bullets."

Ke Lan and the others had used this kind of bullet to shoot at the Seed of Corrosion, but it had no effect at all.

And the guy in front of him, who is called "God's Servant" by the locals, his gauntlets are also made of Schroeder steel. Why can he kill this corrosive species? !

Ke Lan's gaze shifted to those withered and suppurating tentacles. This corrosive seed was indeed dead, but it was impossible to kill this monster by physical means alone...

The transparent spherical object called the "core" is indeed the key to the Seed of Corrosion, just like the human heart, but it is impossible to kill the Seed of Corrosion simply by crushing it - the Security Bureau is equipped with a The special weapon for the seed is to first use explosives and fragments to tear open the body of the corrosive seed to expose its "core", and then use a nino alloy needle to pierce the shell of the "core" and remove the active cells of the flesh-eating worm. Injected into the "core".

Whether it is the stalagmites and stone cones that Ke Lan found from the seabed caves, or the flesh-eating worms that were made into "special effects weapons", they essentially use an effect similar to "toxicity" to kill the erosion seeds. of.

As for physical means... Even if a corrosive seed is blasted to the ground with a missile, as long as there is still one cell that is not completely destroyed, it can regenerate.

After the East 9th District incident, Ke Lan had "borrowed" Victoria's authority to access the Security Bureau's archives. In that confidential document titled "Seed of Erosion Research Report," "Research on Conventional Physical Attacks" There are only two words in this column for "Defense Capability and Adaptability".

"immunity".

In this erosion, just by "pinching", all the cells will appear similar to "poisoned", and will disintegrate and undergo apoptosis in just a few seconds. To say that this is due to Ke Lan would never believe in the effects achieved by purely physical means.

That can only mean one thing.

What "poisoned" the Seed of Corrosion was the creature hiding in this heavy armor.

Ke Lan no longer uses the word "human" to describe the servant of God... In his eyes, the body of this thing has become a monster that is more threatening than the Seed of Corrosion.

This one-ton armor may not be its armor, but some kind of device similar to a "restrainer", just like the "armor" on an EVA organism.

Ke Lan once again cast his gaze on the Servant of God, but at this moment, the body of the Servant of God, and the "Bronze Hammer Type VI" power armor it was wearing, suddenly had a distorted and blurred effect... countless details Long, root-like fleshy tentacles emerged from every gap in the power armor. These tentacles quickly expanded and lengthened, and in the blink of an eye, the entire armor had been wrapped into a large spindle-shaped cocoon.

But when Ke Lan blinked, the cocoon and tentacles disappeared without a trace, and the servant in power armor returned to his original appearance, standing motionless in front of the missionary's mutilated body.

"...Is it a hallucination?" Ke Lan quickly realized that the scene just now was the same thing as the hallucinations he had seen many times in the exile settlement and on the strange desert island - these scenes came from Deep in his mind, those broken memory fragments...

The illusion is false, but what appears in the illusion is real!

Ke Lan looked at the "restored" servant of God and subconsciously took half a step back. He couldn't help but think of a famous line from an old movie -

"I can tell at a glance that you are not human!"

Ke Lan was no stranger to those slender tentacles that formed cocoons. There were also many such tentacles growing on the body surface of the flesh-eating worm, but they were not as long.

Could it be that underneath this armor was a humanoid flesh-eating worm?

In this way, it barely makes sense that the Seed of Corrosion was instantly killed... But at the same time, another problem emerged.

Leaving aside whether there are humanoid subspecies of flesh-eating worms, Ke Lan clearly remembers that among the information he obtained from the memory fragments, one of them clearly stated, "The cells of the 'flesh-eating worms' are very important for 'erosion'" This kind of 'has an irresistible temptation." During the combat operations in the East Nine District, the Security Bureau and Ke Lan also used "flesh-eating worms" as bait many times to kill those eroding worms hiding deep in the streets. The seeds are drawn out and killed...

It only takes a few active cells exposed to the air to make those "erosion seeds" flock to it. However, now, with such a big "flesh-eating worm" standing here, even if it is covered with a thick layer of armor, It was enough to make the seeds of erosion in these two "containers" go crazy.

But they didn't react at all.

It wasn't until the missionary suffered an electric shock and chose to commit suicide that the corrosive seeds in his body completely lost control. Before that, they had been in a very stable state.

Ke Lan glanced at another missionary out of the corner of his eye... If the body of the "Servant of God" is really a flesh-eating worm, then the corrosive seed in his body will smell the smell of the flesh-eating worm as soon as he smells it. , it will enter a period of rapid change...

Rather than like now, there is no movement at all.