Alien Relic Hunter

"No... I must be dreaming, this must be a dream!" Thirty-three murmured, "This task has been completed a long time ago... I survived, I did not die... I clearly remember that I waited. The reinforcements left the Prismatic Basin on a high-speed battleship. I can even remember the hull number of that battleship..."

Even though Thirty-three firmly believed that he was in a dream, he still chose to retreat and pulled the trigger when faced with the flood of young rats.

The extremely real recoil came from the butt of the gun and hit Sansan San's shoulder blades - this Type 01 assault rifle has also been modified. Although the caliber has not changed, the barrel and bolt are all made of high-quality materials. Made of pure Nino alloy, the ammunition propellant charge is three times that of conventional ammunition, and the recoil is astonishingly large. It is specially prepared to deal with those rough-skinned and thick-skinned radioactive creatures living in the Prismatic Basin. .

The warhead fell into the rat swarm, and the bright red minced meat suddenly flew everywhere like an explosion... After Thirty-three poured out an entire magazine of twenty rounds of bullets, the ground in front of him was already covered with a layer of thickness. The meat was uniformly minced, and even a few bloody intestines were stuck to the top of the tent. The fishy smell mixed with the smell of gunpowder filled the semi-enclosed space.

Due to the extremely high density of the rat swarm, this single magazine killed at least fifty rats, but compared to the total number of rats, fifty was not even a fraction - the inside of a light corpse It was impossible to hide so many rats. Thirty-three suddenly discovered that more rats came out of the shadowed corners of the tent and gathered into the group of rats.

He quickly changed the magazine, fired while retreating, and soon pushed to the door of the tent.

"Why are there so many?" Thirty-three felt something was wrong. He clearly remembered that the research team only brought about two hundred mice, and the number of mice that had emerged now was at least thousands... …

Even if artificial breeding was carried out in the later stages of the experiment, and the surviving individuals were mated to give birth to new pups, more than 70% of the female mice injected with the reducing serum were stillborn, and the ones that survived were all with serious diseases. Deformities with defects would not live long at all... Thirty-three vaguely remembered that he seemed to have heard two researchers mentioning in casual chat that healthy young mice were even rarer than those of the first generation of mice that had benign mutations.

So where did these thousands of baby rats come from?

If he wanted to know the answer, he might have to rush towards the depths of the tent against the group of rats to check the incubation boxes used to place the mice. But there was a voice in Thirty-three's mind telling him: Don't escape from this place now. Place, there will be no chance later.

Not to mention the generation of white mice that successfully survived, these young mice alone have terrifying destructive power. Their sharp teeth and claws can easily bite through and tear apart protective clothing made of high-strength polymer and wire mesh clips. The fabric strength of this kind of protective clothing is much higher than that of human skin.

When he thought that the researcher who turned into a skeleton might have been chewed into a skeleton by the baby rats that got into his body, Thirty-three felt his scalp tingling and didn't dare to let these baby rats get close to him.

Although he could trample several to death with one foot, more baby rats would crawl up his legs while he stepped on them... It wouldn't take long before he would look like the researcher.

Thirty-three regretted that he only brought an assault rifle and a few magazines when he came out. To deal with such a swarm of rats, things like incendiary bombs are the best, and only a half-meter-high fire wall is needed. , you can completely separate these little cannibals from yourself.

Thinking of this, Thirty-Three suddenly thought, opened the tent door and ran out, running to an armored off-road vehicle parked at the door.

Opening the back hatch of the off-road vehicle, more than a dozen barrels of gasoline were neatly arranged in the cargo hold. Thirty-three didn't have time to think about it, so he directly took out two barrels and threw them towards the tent door.

Before the gasoline barrel hit the ground, it was hit by a bullet in mid-air. With a loud noise and a burst of hot air, the raging fire immediately sealed the entrance and exit of the tent. The rats that rushed out were immediately swallowed up by the flames. They let out shrill screams and rolled desperately on the ground... But it was all to no avail. Rolling could not extinguish the flames on their bodies, and would only contaminate more burning gasoline... These mice soon became carbonized. The black remains, and the strong burnt smell could even pass through the filter element of the breathing mask and reach Thirty-Three's nasal cavity.

As for whether the fire would spread to the entire tent and burn down the months of hard work of this group of researchers, that was beyond Thirty-Three's control at this time.

The immediate crisis was temporarily resolved, and Thirty-three couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief, but before his heart rate calmed down, his whole body became tense again.

Because he found that the fierce gunfire just outside the camp disappeared.

When did the gunfire disappear? Was it after he entered the tent that was used as a laboratory, or when he discovered the body of the researcher and the mice?

No... If the sound disappeared at that time, I should have noticed it... It should have been when I fired the gun just now, the gunfire inside and outside the tent was mixed together. When the gunfire inside the tent stopped, the gunfire outside the tent The sound of the gunfire also disappeared, so I didn't notice anything unusual at the first time.

Already finished? Those things that attacked the camp were eliminated?

But...why is the entire camp so quiet, without even a sound of human beings?

It stands to reason that after the battle, the commander and the captains of each team should promptly count the number of people and battle losses... instead of being so quiet like now, with only the whistling of the wind in their ears.

From the time he woke up until now, apart from the researcher who was gnawed into a skeleton by rats, Thirty-three has not seen a single person... It seems that he is the only living person left in this camp.

"Isn't this really just a dream?" He tried to recall his previous memories, but found that those memories became more and more blurred, and those unclear pictures seemed to have fallen into a deep Inside the pool, it kept sinking and was gradually swallowed up by darkness.

He put his hand into the inner pocket of the protective suit, and his fingers touched a cold bullet. It was a "special armor-piercing bullet" that he just took out from the magazine... But he could no longer remember why he wanted this bullet. Taken out.

At that time, I seemed to want to verify something...but, what exactly was it?

The more Thirty-three recalled, the more confused his mind became... It was as if those mice had wormed their way into his brain. In just a few minutes, they had chewed up his memory to pieces.

Thirty-three always feels that he is in a dream, but the problem is that this dream is so real. No matter the picture, temperature, smell, touch... everything is the same as reality.

Why do you think this is a dream? A question popped up in his head.

Thirty-three remembered a story passed down from the old era. The name of the story later became an idiom, called "Zhuang Zhou Dreams of Butterfly". It was about a man named Zhuang Zhou in ancient times who dreamed that he turned into a butterfly. But after he woke up from the dream, he fell into deep thought-did Zhuang Zhou dream that he became a butterfly, or did a butterfly dream that he became Zhuang Zhou?

Thirty-three felt that he had also fallen into such a state of self-doubt.

He decided to do a simple test——

Many people say that you cannot feel pain in dreams; or that severe pain can wake people up from dreams...

He rolled up the sleeves of his protective clothing and training uniform, exposing part of his arm.

As soon as the cold wind blew, a layer of goosebumps suddenly appeared on the exposed arms... But this was not the most real thing. Thirty-three could even feel the subtle tingling sensation on the skin, as if there were countless finer than human hairs. It felt like needles were pricking him.

This is because the radiation concentration in the Prismatic Basin is extremely high. When exposed to such an environment, skin lesions will quickly occur... ranging from redness, swelling, blisters, and peeling, to severe dissolution of the entire skin, or even evolving into skin cancer. .

The moment he exposed his arms, Thirty-three's heart skipped a beat - such a realistic radiation effect shouldn't be simulated in a dream, right?

But he still gritted his teeth, put the tip of the dagger on his arm, and pressed down gently.

Pain immediately came from the place where the tip of the dagger penetrated, and the bright red blood beads were squeezed out. Thirty-three people suddenly pulled out the dagger that had penetrated about half a centimeter.

"It's real...it's not a dream." He panted heavily, not even having time to deal with the wound on his arm immediately.

"I'm still in the Prismatic Basin...the mission has not been completed...the reinforcement warships have not arrived...I have not been able to leave safely...I am still trapped in this damn camp..." Thirty-three's breathing gradually became heavier, and he He seemed to have transformed back into the young soldier he was before, standing in the deathly silent camp, looking around in panic.

Everywhere he could see was blocked by the tent. Thirty-three had no idea what was happening outside. Only the flames burning not far away crackled in the wind, and the tongues of fire continued to lick the scorched remains of the rats.

"Maybe... I should find a commanding height to see what is going on in the camp..." Thirty-three said to himself, but he turned around and found that there was no whistle in any direction. Traces of the tower.

Although in this era, the main surveillance method of wild camps relies on drones staying in the sky, the reliability of drones is a big problem in harsh wild environments, and traditional methods have not been completely abandoned. ——All camps with more than 20 people, even if there is only one tent, must have a high tower for sentry observation according to the "Field Corps Field Marching and Camping Rules". This kind of sentry tower can be made of earth and stone. The piles can also be assembled from modular building materials carried by the army. In short, they must be available, and someone must be on duty 24 hours a day.

It's impossible for a camp like this to not even have a sentry tower!

Thirty-three tried to recall the scene when the camp was established, but he couldn't remember at all whether they had built a sentry tower at that time. Instead, the more he thought about it, the more headache and confusion he got.

Even if a soldier wants to be lazy, he will definitely be forced by the squad leader or commander to build a sentry tower - no one can violate this "Code" unless it is absolutely necessary.

Could it be that the sentry tower was demolished? Or did it fall down due to some accident?

Thirty-three thought for a while and decided to give up the idea of ​​looking for the sentry tower. Instead, he climbed to the nearest tent to have a look at the situation in the camp. Anyway, these tents were strong enough, and there were frames made of steel pipes inside to support a person. The weight of a heavily armed soldier is more than enough.

But just when he wanted to take a step, he found that the soles of his feet were sticky. He looked down and saw that the place where he was standing had turned into a small puddle about a centimeter deep... No. , a small puddle of blood.

"Blood?!"

Thirty-three eyes twitched, and he immediately lowered his head to look at his arm, only to see blood flowing out of the wound, dripping along the tip of his elbow into a puddle of blood...

"impossible?!"

Thirty-three's brain stopped thinking for a moment, but after recovering, the first conclusion he came to was that it was impossible - not to mention how such a small wound could leak so much in just ten seconds. The fatal amount of blood loss alone was enough to send him into shock... Not only was he in shock, even if he was stuffed into a juicer, his body alone would not be able to squeeze out so much blood.

But now Thirty-three not only did not faint, but even the feeling of fatigue and collapse was not very obvious.

If the blood is not his, then whose blood is it?

He looked around again and found that there were countless "streams" composed of blood on the ground of the surrounding tents. These streams were winding and winding, but eventually they all gathered at his feet. This is how this small blood puddle was formed.

Is it someone else's blood? !

Are everyone in the camp dead?

Thirty-three's heart was beating like a drumstick. He hunched over, raised his gun, and looked at the familiar but unfamiliar environment around him like a frightened bird.

No...this doesn't seem to be the Prismatic Basin...

Those tents made Thirty-three feel familiar, but this sense of familiarity was also very confusing... He remembered that the camp in the Prismatic Basin used semi-permanent buildings, because the entire experimental process lasted more than a year, so the laboratory and guards The army's barracks are all built with composite panels. Except for the transition with tents in the first two days of camping, there should be no tents in the entire camp!

"I'm not in Prismatic Basin? Then where am I?"

There was a rustling sound of friction, followed by the second and third sounds... These sounds came from different directions, and they surrounded Thirty-Three.

Those things kept coming closer and closer.