Alien Relic Hunter

Chapter 285 A Suspected Creature of Breathing Soil (4000-word chapter)
"No way..." The hound opened his mouth and said in astonishment, "Isn't this too mysterious?"

But in the next second, there was a wry smile on the corner of the hound's mouth: "But compared to what we have experienced, there is nothing to make a fuss about..."

"You said that the pot was placed on the stone platform, and then what? You went to take the pot away?" Ke Lan asked the mercenary.

"No... the pot is not placed directly on the stone platform, there is a base under it." The mercenary said, "The guy who led the way told us that this base is actually a safety mechanism. If we forcibly dismantle the pot If it comes down, the device inside the base will smash the jar and release the contents of the jar."

"What's in the jar?" The hound asked following his words, but before the mercenary could answer, his expression changed suddenly, "You said the contents would come out when the jar was broken...then now Isn’t something already coming out? The collapsed passage can kill even a person, so can’t it break a glass jar? How dare you go back and find the jar?”

"That jar shouldn't be broken..." The mercenary shook his head repeatedly, "Although it's made of glass, it seems to be a very special kind of glass, stronger than the armor plate on a chariot. I flicked it up, without even a trace... As for what's inside, I really don't know, the liquid in the jar is very cloudy, like a vat of ink, I can't see what's inside..."

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

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

"Stray bullets? A battle took place in the cave? Did the 'accident' you mentioned earlier refer to this incident?" Ke Lan asked with a frown.

Logically speaking, since the mercenary team had no casualties before they withdrew from the cave, it meant that the fighting intensity was not too high... But if the fighting intensity was not high, why did this "accident" cause them to delay the scheduled time? What about evacuation time?

"We did have a firefight in the cave, but the accident I'm talking about doesn't refer to this incident..."

"Then let's talk about the exchange of fire first. Who are your enemies? Indigenous creatures? Or some... weirder monsters?"

"I don't know what that is..." the mercenary muttered, "When we climbed to that platform and were about to get the pot off, a lot of...a lot of things poured out from somewhere around the platform. ..."

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

"How should I put it... It's a bit like minced meat... No... It should be said that it's more accurate... It's the kind of meat that Huaxia restaurants make meatballs with a blender. They are also finely ground. Pale pink, giving people a very viscous feeling, and a bit like mud mixed with a lot of water... The meat mud gushed out from the bottom of the platform, and soon filled the one-meter-deep ditch around the platform. Filled up...after leveling 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, their movement was indeed somewhat similar to the "meat slime" that the mercenary said...

But Ke Lan shook his head and said: "It shouldn't be... Although those bugs look like a red tide from a distance, but when you look closely, you can still distinguish the outline of the individual. It's not too far... Besides, if it was those bugs, they would have been eaten long ago."

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

"Oh... oh oh... After those, those muddy meat poured up, the first reaction of Ryan and I was to shoot, but the bullets were no different from being shot in the mud... Not only the bullets, but also the flames It has no effect on them. I watched Ryan throw an incendiary bomb into the meat paste, but the flame was extinguished as soon as it rose, and the body of the incendiary bomb was also wrapped in the meat paste. ...

I quickly emptied the bullets in the magazine... Just when I was about to step back and change the bullets, an exile suddenly grabbed my shoulder, he told everyone not to back up, and followed him look like..."

"What do you do in his image?"

"He... He took out a dagger, cut his arm, and let the blood drip on the ground... It's strange to say that after smelling the smell of blood, the meat paste stopped approaching, A very slender tentacle protruded from their bodies, touched the blood dripping from that person, and then retreated.

He yelled at us: 'If you don't want to be swallowed, just sacrifice your own blood, and they won't attack you after swallowing your blood! '...To be honest, I didn't believe it at first, but Ryan believed it, and after he did it, the meat paste really stopped crawling towards him! "

As the mercenary said, he stretched out a section of his wrist, with a healed knife mark on it: "I did the same, the exile didn't lie to us, after sucking the blood we dripped out, the meat paste It retreated to the bottom of the platform, and disappeared after a while..."

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

"What is it?" the Hound couldn't help asking.

"There is no sample of a special creature called 'Xi Soil', and it is impossible to determine whether it is an independent individual or a group, and it is impossible to classify it into the existing biological classification system. Sightings have been recorded in several 'dry valleys' near the South Pole."

Ke Lan paused, and a trace of doubt flashed across his brows and eyes: "But, according to the available information, Xisong is a gray-white mud-like creature that likes to live in very dry areas... and you The "meat mud" in the mouth is completely opposite: "Xi Rang" will become very aggressive after it comes into contact with human blood. Half of the expedition team that witnessed Xi Rang for the first time died because of this of."

One retreated after sucking a small amount of blood, while the other started killing when it smelled blood... No matter how similar the appearance of these two "creatures" is, it's hard to say that they belong to the same kind of creature.

"Could it be a close relative? Or... subspecies, mutants, etc?" the hound guessed.

"It's possible... Besides, I feel that these things have been transformed and domesticated by the Alpha people... The only thing I can't figure out is why they react to human blood..."

Even if these meat pastes are really soil modified by the Alpha people, then after they suck the blood of alien species like "humans", the most normal reaction should be to expel these "invaders" from the ruins That's right, instead of retreating obediently like a pet that has been fed food by its owner...

This point is just too 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 finger-thick metal sticks with strange patterns engraved on them , After a while, they asked us to hug the jar hard, and then inserted the metal rods one by one into the base under the jar, just like inserting a key."

"Those metal sticks... are they always on their bodies?" Ke Lan asked.

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

"I remember that after they inserted the metal rods, they never took them out again." The mercenary said, "In less than three seconds after the metal rods were inserted, the jar bounced off the base... Fortunately We were prepared so that the cans didn't roll off the platform."

"However, an accident happened at this time." The mercenary continued, "A lot of water gushed out of the base, and the water flow was very fast... No, it should be said to be very strong, like a high-pressure water gun used to suppress riots." , Ryan and one of the exiles were washed off the platform by the current in an instant, and the other mercenary and I were holding on to the jar... But we couldn't hold on for even a second before falling down with the jar ...Fortunately, the water level below was more than one meter deep at that time..."

The mercenary's face showed a look of reminiscence: "The situation was chaotic at that time, and I couldn't remember exactly what happened. In short, by the time we returned here with the jar, it was more than an hour past the scheduled evacuation time. ...Okay, now I've told you everything I know...So, can you give me that?"

"Although I'm not very satisfied, I'm not the kind of harsh person..." Ke Lan said, and put the syringe containing the morphine solution on the ground. The mercenary struggled to turn around and put the Holding the syringe in his hand, he pulled off the protective cover with his teeth, and directly inserted the needle into the subcutaneous tissue on the inside of the arm.

Ke Lan no longer paid attention to the drug addict who had only half his life left, but walked to the other side with the hound and others, and began to discuss the next action plan.

"What should we 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 is solved, but who knows what ghosts and monsters are there under this lake?" The hound said quickly, "We have solved the big octopus that can speak human, but what about those damned 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...the meat paste doesn't seem to be a threat to us..."

"Little sister, I said you are still too young..." The hound glanced at Qin Zhao, and coughed pretentiously, "You believe what others say, and you will be cheated to death sooner or later... That guy Not long ago, he was our enemy, we killed his brother, and almost killed him too... Then Ke Lan tortured him again, causing this guy not only to get a lot of money from this mission All to zero, and there is a high chance of being thrown into the wasteland to feed the indigenous creatures in the future... Tell me, can this guy not hate us?"

"Ah..." Qin Zhao was speechless at the hound's words, and his fair cheeks turned red.

"The reason why he didn't show hatred is because he was afraid... But if you give him a chance to kill us all here, what do you think he will do?"

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

"That's not necessarily true. Those who are in this business will more or less keep some hole cards... and now we have a way to verify whether what he said is true or not... Let me use an analogy, if the number of their team is far away More than a dozen people, more than half of them died in that cave and were killed by those "meat mud". And he was one of the few people who escaped from death... Now, he told us, The meat paste that killed most of them is completely harmless, it only needs to suck a few drops of blood and it will recede, as well behaved as a pet dog raised by humans..."

"Hehe..." The hound sneered twice, "If possible, I'd like to throw him into that cave first to try whether those so-called 'meat paste' can eat people."

"Well," 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 those mercenaries are enough for us to last for a week, I suggest waiting until Ivan and Akira Asano will take further action after waking up."

"That's a good proposal. I agree with both hands." Layton nodded, "Asano Akira is our strongest fighting force. With him around, we are much more confident when we encounter some monsters, and Dr. Ivan is well-informed. , can be regarded as an indispensable member of the team... Moreover, after they wake up, they can also liberate Zhuoligetu, and they have to carry two body bags on their shoulders wherever they go..."

[PS The prototype of the Antarctic Dry Valley is the Antarctic Dry Valley on Earth in reality, which is the only area in Antarctica that is not covered by ice and snow.And Xi Rang's inspiration comes from "Spiritual Cage" - the time of carrying private goods: "Spiritual Cage" special chapter I tm blow it up, Grandma Bai Yuekui, please give me a cup...]

(End of this chapter)