Alien Relic Hunter

"Put the body away... I hope we can find some useful information from this person." Ke Lan sighed and said.

With the rigorous behavior of the members of the Undead Crew, this possibility is extremely small... This corpse is probably like the men in black outside, and no clues can be traced.

Ke Lan walked around the room twice more - this room didn't look like a "bedroom" at all. Except for the small compartment where the sleeping cabin was placed, the rest of the space was filled with rows of shelves. The shelves are filled with all kinds of bottles and cans.

These vessels are filled with liquids of different colors. Under the dim red light, it feels like an alchemy laboratory in a magical world... Most of the vessels have no labels on them, but none of those with labels have Chemicals and biological agents are not strictly controlled by Ark, and they even include some of the highest-level contraband that are absolutely not allowed to be possessed by private individuals or organizations.

Among them is "tissue culture fluid containing active cells of flesh-eating worms" - although active ammunition has now become a standard supply for almost all Ark legions, there are also many private organizations that have obtained some small doses of active ammunition from various channels. , but these can only be regarded as "finished products". Once such "finished products" are unsealed from the frozen state, they will expire soon. But tissue culture fluid is different... This is not only a raw material for making active ammunition, but also an extremely dangerous experimental specimen.

As for what is stored in those unlabeled containers, one can imagine.

It is no exaggeration to say that the number and types of medicines stored in this "bedroom" have completely overwhelmed the biochemical laboratory on the sixth floor of the building.

These potions...are all this "BOSS"'s personal collection?

Why does he collect these things? To feed his "pet"?

Just as Ke Lan was checking the shelves, a loud noise suddenly came from the direction of the dormant cabin!

what happened? !

Ke Lan was shocked. Why would something happen to this woman if she didn't pay attention to her for a moment? This kind of thing happened once before when they ransacked the main house of the Williams family. Why did it happen again?

Could it be that she was too unlucky?

Ke Lan quickly bypassed a row of shelves and rushed to the place where the "BOSS" had just exploded. He saw that Aya had retreated to the wall, her entire right arm had been torn off, and her chest had been opened. There were several large holes that penetrated from front to back.

Fortunately, her body has been replaced by a cybernetic body, otherwise, she would be a corpse now.

Ke Lan's eyes turned to the other side - the headless corpse had climbed up from the ground, and a large number of earthworm-like tentacles with circles of links on the surface of the mucous membrane emerged from the broken neck. These tentacles and the seeds of erosion Or the tentacles of the fusion are different, showing a dark brown color like rotten flesh, and also exuding a disgusting strong rancid smell.

"Fuck...where did this thing come from?"

Ke Lan was very sure that when he inspected the headless corpse just now, the corpse had lost all signs of life, and there was no corrosion or other parasites inside the corpse. When he first approached the corpse, So he was so cautious because he was worried that something hidden in the body would suddenly jump out and attack him.

"I was just about to wrap the body in a body bag... it suddenly sat up from the ground... these tentacles poured out from the break in the neck in an instant and launched an attack on me," Aya said. .

Her condition is very bad. Although she still has a certain fighting ability, the artificial lung has been severely damaged. Once the oxygen supply to the brain is affected, it will cause irreversible consequences - the prosthetic body must be repaired immediately.

"I know... you first try to repair the prosthetic body yourself, at least don't let the brain suffer from lack of oxygen and necrosis. Leave this thing to me."

Ke Lan took out his spare weapon - a folding mini engineer shovel from his trouser pocket.

This shovel is also made of Nino alloy, and some stalagmite fragments are melted into the blade. It is even made of a little more material than the previous deer hunting knife.

"I have never seen such a monster." Aya added, "There has never been any record of such a thing in the archives of the Security Bureau."

"To be honest, I haven't seen it either." Ke Lan replied - as for whether there is any file about this thing in the dark well, he doesn't know. There are neither keywords. He wants to find it in so many hard drives. The information related to this thing is really difficult.

Ke Lan slowly approached the headless corpse, holding the engineer shovel in front of him, making a posture that allowed him to attack or defend at any time.

Weird...really weird...

It was obvious that he could not be dead just now... He even used his fingers to dig out the spinal cord of this corpse. Logically speaking, it is impossible to fake the corpse?

What makes Ke Lan feel the weirdest is that although those tentacles are still squirming, tearing and disassembling the arm that was pulled from Aya's prosthetic body, from his perspective, these tentacles do not show any signs of movement. release any breath of life.

The breath of life is a relatively metaphysical term... In short, in his opinion, this thing is clearly a dead thing... even if it is still moving.

A term that has been widely used in various novels, movies and TV series suddenly popped into Ke Lan's mind: zombie.

Soon, Aya's broken arm had been torn into countless tiny pieces... Then, the headless corpse began to stumble towards Ke Lan.

The movements of the headless corpse were very slow, but those earthworm-like tentacles were not slow at all - when the corpse was still about three meters away from Ke Lan, these tentacles had already shot out, heading in from more than a dozen directions. Ke Lan attacks.

The tentacles were very fast, but in front of Ke Lan, who had the ability to stop time, he could clearly see their attack paths.

In the past, Ke Lan often felt that the ability to stop was a bit useless - for example, if someone shot at him, even if he could stop and clearly see the trajectory of the warhead, after canceling the stop, it would be difficult for him to avoid it. For these high-speed flying warheads, unless the opponent can see the direction of the muzzle the moment before the opponent fires, they can dodge in advance.

The body's reaction cannot keep up with the speed of consciousness, which makes it easy for people to feel frustrated... It is like a professional player with the best consciousness and operation skills, but using a worn-out machine with extremely slow response. , like an antique machine that still freezes from time to time, the hardware conditions simply do not allow him to complete any slightly difficult operations.

However, after the body was greatly strengthened by the living armor, this problem has been greatly improved. Although it cannot be said that it can completely match the reaction speed of the consciousness, at least it can barely dodge bullets like in "The Matrix".

Ke Lan's upper body suddenly leaned back and made a movement called "Iron Banqiao" in Chinese martial arts, causing all the first wave of tentacle attacks to miss.

When these tentacles changed directions, the engineer shovel held in Ke Lan's right hand suddenly swung upwards, and the sharp shovel blade instantly cut off more than a dozen earthworm-like tentacles.

Ke Lan quickly pulled away and dodged to one side to prevent these severed tentacles from falling on his body, and at the same time kicked the headless corpse away with force.

The power of the ninth-level enhanced person's full-strength kick was very terrifying. The chest of the headless corpse was dented directly, and the whole corpse flew out, knocking over four or five rows of cabinets.

The cut tentacles twitched on the ground and stopped moving. This made Ke Lan relax a little: although this thing looks like an earthworm, it does not have as tenacious vitality as an earthworm... If these were cut off The tentacle that came down grew another head, which would cause trouble.

The bottles and cans placed on the overturned cabinets were immediately scattered all over the floor. Fortunately, the materials used in these utensils were relatively high-end. Except for those directly hit by the headless corpse, none of the bottles fell. broken.

But even so, the headless corpse lying on the cabinet shelf has been doused with at least dozens of different pharmaceuticals - these pharmaceuticals are being absorbed by the mucous membranes of the tentacles at a speed visible to the naked eye, and the tentacles themselves are also Things started to change gradually...

"I should have known better of not kicking him this way... I actually buffed the opponent." Ke Lan muttered to himself, then rushed forward, wielding the engineer shovel, and slapped him randomly.

The tentacles have not completed evolution - those potions not only did not provide any positive BUFF to it, but also caused serious corrosion to the tentacles themselves. Even if Ke Lan did not add subsequent attacks, these tentacles would probably be completely necrotic in a short period of time.

"Remember to ask the biohazard disposal team to clean this room afterwards." Ke Lan said to Aya who was not far away, then picked up a pliers on the cabinet shelf and clamped a still intact one. Tentacles, forcefully pulled it out of the headless corpse.

Each of these tentacles is independent and does not seem to be connected to each other. At the tail of the tentacles, there is a tumor-like mass of flesh.

Ke Lan used the blade of the engineer shovel to cut open the meat ball, and was shocked to find that the inside of the meat ball was filled with white mycelium.

It's just that these hyphae are dead at this time, and many of them have begun to turn gray and black.

Ke Lan took a deep breath and recognized the thing almost as soon as he saw these white mycelium.

Isn't this the kind of mimetic fungus they encountered when they followed the Soma Consortium's convoy on the way to Leviathan? !

After the Leviathan mission ended, Ke Lan handed over the corresponding reports and samples to Lieutenant General Maginot, who forwarded them to the officials on his behalf. Then the matter just disappeared without any response. Unexpectedly, I saw this fungus in the BOSS's body again today.

Moreover, this fungus seems to have mutated to a considerable extent, and it is not known whether it is the result of natural mutation or artificial improvement...

"Does this count as shooting oneself in the foot?" Ke Lan showed a rare wry smile.

In his impression, after the institute was destroyed and rebuilt due to the "meme incident", many of its original topics and research projects were cut off, and topics related to this mimic fungus should have been shelved... But he didn't expect it. The mole took out a sample of this thing and handed it over to the "BOSS" of the Xinxing Chamber of Commerce.

"Wait a minute, something seems to be wrong..."

Ke Lan glanced at the body on the ground, then at the bottles and cans on the cabinet shelf, and some thoughts in his mind suddenly began to overlap...

After the mimetic fungus eats up its prey, it will simulate the form of the prey... and after the fusion devours the prey, it will also embed the prey's genetic fragments into its own genetic sequence, and grow all kinds of strange things. Limbs and organs... Both of these creatures have the ability to "change what they eat". Although there is a big gap in principle, it is very intriguing to appear in the same place at the same time.

In addition to these two, the red worms on Leviathan also have extremely strong mimicry abilities... They can not only mimic living things, but can even mimic mechanical inorganic objects such as battleships, airplanes, and mechas, even energy. Shield generators can all be simulated perfectly.

They are obviously better than this mimic fungus - in addition to their appearance, even their functions can be copied perfectly.

Is there any connection between these three? Ke Lan couldn't help but fell into deep thought.

[P.S. The plot will start to accelerate soon. My personal plan is to finish it during the National Day. There are about 300 chapters of the remaining plot. Judging from the discussions in the group and the comments of some readers and this chapter, some people You may have guessed the truth about this world and the true identity of the protagonist... But in order to ensure that the plot does not collapse, I will not modify the outline or these important settings. You can rest assured on this.

In fact, I have laid the foreshadowing of these things very early. People who read carefully, have a big brain, and think in a way similar to me, I think they should be able to see some clues...

As for the holes I dug one after another in the early days, as long as I still remember them and recorded them on the outline, I will fill them in one by one... As for the small holes I dug casually when I had a flash of inspiration... If If I forget, you can remind me in this chapter... After all, I have been writing this book for a year and a half. I have changed the outline, plot direction and final ending several times, almost in The volume of the Sick Village was finally finalized, and many subsequent fine-tuning and improvements were made. There are many pitfalls and settings I dug in the early days that I no longer remember... If you have any obsession with the plot, It can also be brought up here, and I will be as satisfied as I can without affecting the main plot. 】