Alien Relic Hunter

"You didn't plan to hide?" Ke Lan asked directly.

"The task of this substitute has been completed, and there is no use in keeping it." The prophet replied in Alpha language - the language of Alpha civilization does not require the use of human vocal organs, so even if the throat of the prophet's substitute has been pierced by a spear , he can still communicate with Ke Lan.

"What mission?" Ke Lan asked.

However, the other party did not answer his question immediately. Instead, after being silent for several seconds, he suddenly let out a sarcastic chuckle.

"Those things on your body were given to you by them, right? I mean... the people from the Undead Crew."

Ke Lan also did not answer the other party's question. Although he could feel that the substitute was already in a state of death, he still did not want to be tricked by the other party.

Seeing that Ke Lan was unwilling to answer, the prophet's stand-in actually laughed "hahaha" - the language of Alpha civilization also includes "laughter", but because of the different language structures, their "laughter" Able to convey emotions more directly to the person "listening".

There were only two emotions in the prophet's laughter, sarcasm and ridicule.

"They told those idiots on the Ark that the 'warriors' we created were monsters...but, weren't they creating monsters themselves? Hahahaha..."

The breath of the prophet's substitute became weaker and weaker, but he didn't seem to care about the arrival of death, and his laughter became more and more wild.

"Hahahaha...it's so interesting!"

"You're going to die soon." Ke Lan reminded him expressionlessly.

"It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter at all." said the prophet's stand-in. The breath of his body disappeared, and the drooping limbs no longer twitched reflexively. The viscous blood flowed along the spear made of hollow steel pipes, drop by drop. Drops fell to the ground - if he hadn't been able to talk to Ke Lan in Alpha language, Ke Lan would have thought that what was nailed to the dome was a corpse.

"Why do you accept their gifts? For power?" the prophet's substitute asked again.

"It has nothing to do with you."

"You should know better than me... The more power you gain, the further away you are from humans..."

"I'm human."

"Do you really think you are still a human being? Hahahaha, don't look at you now. In the eyes of everyone on the Ark, you are a complete monster! Human beings? This is really me. The funniest joke I’ve heard in a month!”

"If you insist on talking about anyone on the Ark, at least my companions don't think so." Ke Lan retorted calmly.

"Why don't you know that they are not afraid of your power? Lies... everyone can tell them, right? Lying... Is this an innate ability of inferior creatures like humans? In addition to giving the race and society Apart from being a drag on our progress, what’s the point of this ability? You see, inferior creatures are inferior creatures. After tens of thousands of years of evolution, they are still so stupid and..."

"Since you are not an inferior creature, why do you lie to your believers? You promised them the power of gods, but you only used them as raw materials for making biological weapons... Those people outside are actually still half-finished products, right? The reason why you Are you so anxious to catalyze them to stop me?" Ke Lan interrupted the other party - when it comes to wrangling and quarreling, he was not at all false to the other party, but he began to have some doubts that the prophet's stand-in was hanging so half By arguing with yourself, are you trying to buy time for the "things" on the pyramid?

Ke Lan walked slowly towards the pyramid while staring at the prophet's substitute nailed to the dome with half a breath left.

"I didn't lie to them. They did gain power. However, gaining power requires paying a price - this is the rule, and you and I are no exception." The prophet's stand-in laughed again, "Then, you pay What’s the price?”

"Have you really never lied to the people under your command? I won't expose you. Ask yourself...you really have a fucking talent for comedy." Ke Lan also laughed twice - isn't it? Are you laughing? If you can laugh, I can also fucking laugh. He doesn’t believe in a person who is about to die. How can he still laugh longer than himself?

"At least I won't lie to my own kind." Seemingly realizing that he couldn't defeat Ke Lan, the prophet actually chose to give in.

"That's okay. I remember you told me that I am your kind, right?"

"What do you mean?"

"If you think that I am your kind, then you cannot lie to me. So, Mr. Substitute, where is your true body now?"

"..."

"Look, you're silent...tsk, tsk, tsk."

"I just refused to answer. It's not a lie."

"No, when you were silent, you were already lying..." Ke Lan shook his head, "Just a few minutes ago, you told me that you did not have a real body, or that every substitute was a real body. But. Now, I just asked the same question again in a different form, but your answer was different - silence, of course, is also an answer."

Ke Lan can be sure that this guy definitely has an "identity", and this entity is hiding in the place he thinks is the "safest". If you want to kill the prophet, it will be useless no matter how many substitutes you kill, you must get rid of the "original body".

"You... seem to be better than I thought..." The prophet hesitated for a moment, as if he was thinking about the words, "You are more... more eloquent..."

"Thank you for the compliment." Ke Lan said immediately. At this time, he had already reached the bottom of the pyramid.

"You know, actually the word 'monster' is not a derogatory term..."

"Keep talking, I'm listening." Ke Lan nodded perfunctorily, "Have you really kept your tone for a long time?"

"Every living thing worships power, and humans are no exception. People with power will be respected by others, but when the power of an individual is so powerful that it breaks through a certain threshold, and is so powerful that others cannot understand or even feel fear , this individual will be regarded as a monster and an alien by others."

"Then what?"

"Do you think you're not an alien? The gap between your genes and those of the humans on the Ark is probably greater than the gap between humans and gorillas, right?"

"According to what you say, it would be better for mankind to go back to the era of slash-and-burn farming... In the eyes of primitive people, guns can also be regarded as monsters, right?"

"I said, monster is not a derogatory term... If 'monster' represents the future evolution direction of the race, then I am happy to become a monster," the prophet said.

"You don't have to be happy, you already are."

This time, the prophet didn't answer... Ke Lan couldn't feel his breath at all, and the remaining thought for "communication" also disappeared without a trace in the blink of an eye.

The prophet's double was finally dead.

However, the troubles he left behind were far from over.

Ke Lan has climbed onto the small platform at the top of the pyramid. In the middle of the platform, there is a sunken pool. The pool contained a thick liquid that was very similar in texture to serum. A large cocoon made of a large number of fine gray-white mycelium was soaked in this thick liquid.

The cocoon undulated slightly with the breathing rhythm of the thing inside, causing ripples in the liquid in the pool.

Through the translucent mycelium, one can vaguely see a plump female body curled up inside the cocoon.

However, the skin of this body showed a very strange dark red color...

"Is it... Dr. Renee?" Ke Lan recognized the identity of the person in the cocoon at a glance... He originally thought that the prophet would let Dr. Renee join the heretical sect to continue her research, but he did not expect that he would directly use her as an experiment material...

However, from a certain perspective, she has indeed joined the prophet's "great cause", and she has indeed continued her original research... and has participated in the experiment more "deeply".

I have to say that this kind of self-sacrifice is indeed worthy of praise... But whether this is out of Dr. Renee's own wishes, Ke Lanke can't say.

Judging from the calm and composed appearance of the prophet's body, his goal has probably been achieved, but since this thing has not emerged from the cocoon, it means that "it" has not yet reached 100% completion.

The sharp claws of the living armor directly tore through the hyphae and cut into the plump dark red body.

The claw blade cut into the side of the abdomen. With a slight pull, a huge gash was opened. The greasy intestines immediately fell out of the abdominal cavity, and clumps of mist-like blood were dizzy in the pool. Dyeed.

Only then did Ke Lan realize that Dr. Renee's skin had not turned dark red, but that her skin had been peeled off, and the muscles and tendons under the skin were directly exposed to the outermost layer of the body.

There is also a large amount of yellow and white fat tissue attached to the chest, abdomen, armpits, buttocks and both sides of the thighs.

It's hard to imagine that this terrifying body was once so sexy and alluring.

Just when Ke Lan was about to further destroy Dr. Renee's internal organs, the other party suddenly moved!

She stretched out her hands, grabbed Ke Lan's wrist tightly, and then used Ke Lan's wrist as a fulcrum to jump up from the broken cocoon——

More intestines fell out from the breach, as well as some severely deformed internal organ fragments. They fell into the pool with a crackling sound, making crisp splashing sounds... while the owner of these organs did a somersault, He quickly distanced himself from Ke Lan and landed on the other side of the pool.

She... no, it was "it" - it was no longer a human being. Losing those organs didn't seem to matter to it, and the wound on her abdomen had been mostly healed at this moment.

Its recovery ability is even more terrifying than Ke Lan!

It arched its waist, spread its straight legs widely, and gripped the ground tightly with its ten toes. The upper body was bent down, and the two still somewhat stiff arms were placed on both sides of the body. A pair of turbid eyes that could no longer see the boundaries between pupils, cornea and iris were staring at Ke Lan.

All ten of its fingers were folded towards the back of the hand at a weird angle - this was the price it paid for using Ke Lan's wrist just now. All ten fingers were broken off by Ke Lan.

But Ke Lan originally planned to pull off its fingers, but in the end, the bloody claws only picked out a few dry muscle fibers... With this small injury, it recovered almost in the blink of an eye. .

Its folded fingers have not been reset, but the broken joints and tendons have grown back, and the mobility of the fingers has been restored... Although the recovered hands look weird, they seem to be more flexible than before. .

Ke Lan suddenly felt that even if he cut off Dr. Renee's head and stuffed it into its anus, the head would have grown directly together with the butt...

Could this kind of weird recovery ability, which is enough to clear a person's SAN value, be brought to it by its own cloned cells?

A red light flashed, and Ke Lan instantly crossed the pool and appeared in front of Dr. Renee. His left hand penetrated Dr. Renee's eye socket, and the sharp claws of his fingertips reached the brain. His right hand penetrated Dr. Renee's chest and crushed her heart.

Immediately afterwards, Ke Lan moved behind Dr. Renee and took apart her spine piece by piece - the body that lost the support of the spine suddenly fell to the ground, and the upper body and lower body were completely separated.

Ke Lan flew up and kicked Dr. Renee's lower body far away, and then punched twice, shattering its skull and the brain inside.

Brain, heart, spine...the key points of humanoid creatures are nothing more than these, but the rotten flesh in front of him has been destroyed by Ke Lan and is no longer human, but it is still squirming and struggling to stand up.

Its muscles are growing crazily, and its bones are also growing crazily... But they have completely broken away from the original framework of being a "human being"... Compared to "recovery", Ke Lan feels that this thing seems to be uncontrolled and uncontrolled. Controlled tumor cells... As long as there are enough nutrients and growth space, they will expand without limit...

This aspect is somewhat similar to what Dr. Renee described as her own cloned cells.

But at that time, Ke Lan never expected that the first time he saw this scene would be on Dr. Renee.

"It's so troublesome... I can't kill it with my current methods..." Ke Lan muttered - with this trend, even if Ke Lan mashes "Dr. Renee" into minced meat, it will not die, as long as There is still one cell that has not been completely destroyed, and it can continue to grow...

As for what it will grow into in the end, Ke Lan has no idea at all.

He didn't know what Dr. Renee's "nutrient source" was. He cut the body into several parts, but these parts were growing wildly on their own... Now if these pieces of rotten flesh were gathered together , both the volume and mass are several times that of the humanoid state at the beginning.

If it continues to grow, Ke Lan even suspects that this underground space can be filled with all this meat.

This is completely inconsistent with the law of conservation... Of course, on this planet, there are more than one thing that does not comply with the laws summarized by humans.

The key is, how can we completely eliminate it?

Ke Lan immediately thought of the fleet's plasma cannon - with that thing, he should be able to blast away all the rotten meat, right?