Volume 11: Memetic Crisis Chapter 544: Experimental Specimens Breaking Containment
"This injury... was not caused by an autonomous robot." Schroeder said.
"You said nonsense." Ke Lan said coldly, "It seems that something has escaped from the underground ice storage of the research institute."
Although they had prepared themselves mentally before entering the contaminated area, they still encountered traces of these things at the first street corner, which made Ke Lan have a bad feeling.
The situation in the contaminated area seemed to be more serious than expected - this was only the outermost part of the contamination. He didn't want to think about what the laboratory building and underground ice storage in the central area looked like now.
"There's movement!" At this time, Asano Akira suddenly warned, "It's at our three o'clock direction, 81 meters away, 45 meters high!"
Ke Lan immediately turned off the screen synchronization and looked in the direction indicated by Asano Akira - he saw a giant crustacean shaped like a mosquito landed on the top of a high-rise building. This "big mosquito" had three pairs of wings that were more than ten meters long when spread out, but were so thin that they were almost transparent. If it weren't for the thin blood vessels inside the wings that were like the veins of leaves, Ke Lan wouldn't even be able to see the outlines of the three pairs of wings.
On its head, there are two huge compound eyes that occupy more than half of the volume of the head. The two-meter-long thorn-like mouthpart below the compound eyes is more like a sharp spear than a "needle". There are serrated spines on both sides of the mouthpart.
After seeing the shape of the mouthparts, Ke Lan was almost certain that the body that was cut into two pieces was probably caused by this "big mosquito".
The purpose of this thing should be similar to that of mosquitoes on Earth, which is to pierce the body of prey and suck blood... However, for it, the body size of "prey" such as humans is too small. Even if the spike-like mouthparts can pierce the prey's body, as long as the prey struggles a little, it will pass through the other end of the body, or simply cut the whole body into pieces...
If one had to find a blood-sucking target of "matching body shape" for this big mosquito, Ke Lan felt that a big guy like Leviathan would be quite suitable.
Because he was not sure whether the big mosquito had been infected by the "meme", Ke Lan did not dare to transmit the real-time image back to the headquarters and could only describe its characteristics in words.
"This thing should be the 'collection' of the research institute, right?" Ke Lan pointed the gun in his hand at the big mosquito on the roof and asked, "What is its weakness?"
"According to your description, what you encountered should be the 'Six-winged Gray Mosquito', an indigenous creature captured from the 'Mud Swamp'. However, according to the information provided by the research institute, the maximum wingspan of an adult Six-winged Gray Mosquito would not exceed half a meter... As for the underground ice storage, there are indeed a batch of Six-winged Gray Mosquito specimens sealed there, but the largest one among them is only 35 centimeters long." Schroeder said.
"I see, it's a mutant." Ke Lan replied, "It looks like the big mosquito either ate something it shouldn't, or was infected by some strange virus or gene... The problem now is that this thing is staring at Asano Akira and me. I think if we make any move, it will pounce on us immediately."
"The six-winged gray mosquitoes themselves are not very aggressive. They will only hunt when they are hungry. As long as you don't disturb them, perhaps..."
"You also said that this guy will only hunt when he is hungry. You have kept it in the freezer for so many years. Its digestive system should be cleaner than a poor man's wallet, right?" The hound's voice suddenly interrupted, interrupting Schroeder's words. At his strong request, the members of the God Hunter Group also gained access to the command center.
"No, old dog, I don't think it's a question of whether it's hungry or not." Ke Lan lowered her voice, "There are so many corpses here, and blood is flowing all over the ground, but it doesn't show any desire to eat these things... Chief Schroeder, this kind of mosquito shouldn't only eat 'fresh food', right?"
"In addition to sucking the blood of its prey, six-winged gray mosquitoes can also be considered a kind of 'scavenger'. Any area in the mud swamp where a large number of six-winged gray mosquitoes gather is most likely the corpses of large indigenous creatures. Compared to fresh blood, they even prefer to suck corpse fluids that have been decomposed by microorganisms because the nutrients in it are richer than blood, and they are immune to most viruses and bacteria produced by the decay of corpses." A voice that Ke Lan had never heard before spoke.
"Who are you?"
"Dr. John Norrison, a member of the countermeasures team and an expert in Alpha Planet indigenous biology." Lin Qiming introduced.
"The six-winged gray mosquitoes in the underground ice storage were basically captured by my team in the gray mud swamp." Dr. Norison continued - judging from his voice, he should be an elderly man.
"Okay, Dr. Norison, since this is your 'collection', can you tell me where the weakness of this mosquito is?"
"The six-winged gray mosquito has no weaknesses... because its entire body is very fragile, we must be very careful when capturing it to ensure that its body is not damaged... small-caliber fully automatic self-defense weapons can kill them. The only time these indigenous creatures can pose a threat to humans is probably when there are more than 10,000 of them at the same time." said Dr. Norison.
"Okay, then I'll try attacking its torso..." Ke Lan set the Gauss assault rifle in his hand to overload charging mode. Within a short period of 1.5 seconds, a row of blue indicator lights on both sides of the barrel lit up one by one, and the big mosquito perched on the roof had been locked by the power armor's intelligent fire control system.
Ke Lan didn't even need to aim manually, all he had to do was pull the trigger.
“Buzz——”
A buzzing sound was heard inside the barrel of the gun, and the magnetic bullet, freed from its shackles, turned into a stream of blue light and headed straight for the target. Although this mutated six-winged gray mosquito flew up the moment the shot was fired, its reaction speed was still half a step slower than that of a charged shot with an initial speed of more than four kilometers per second.
“Bang!”
Only after the blue light hit the abdomen of the mutant six-winged gray mosquito did Ke Lan hear the explosion sound caused by the high-speed flying bullet tearing through the air to form a vacuum - however, after he saw the actual hit effect, an old saying popped up in his head.
"Much thunder, little rain."
This powerful shot only left an inconspicuous groove on the shell of the six-winged gray mosquito. The bullet failed to penetrate the hard shell, but slid along the curved surface of the shell and hit the elevator room on the roof of the building next to it.
Instead, two large irregular holes with a diameter of more than two meters were blasted on the wall of the elevator room, penetrating from front to back.
Ke Lan was very clear about the power of the shot just now - although the charging time was only 1.5 seconds, the voltage had been overloaded to more than 15 times the rated load within this 1.5 seconds. This charging mode might even cause permanent damage to the coil acceleration array in the barrel, but in exchange it would yield a "charged shot" with several times the power.
The "charged attack" of this gun is powerful enough to penetrate the frontal armor of all types of main battle tanks currently in service in the Ark, but it was bounced off by the shell of this mosquito...
"Dr. Norison, this guy's mutation seems... a little beyond belief." Ke Lan said, "The charged shot of the Z-79 Gauss assault rifle can't even penetrate its exoskeleton."
Before the command center could respond, the mutated six-winged gray mosquito had already swooped down towards Ke Lan. Ke Lan quickly switched the Gauss rifle back to rapid-fire mode, aimed at the giant creature and fired a burst of bullets at it.
This time, Ke Lan aimed at the three pairs of wings on its back that were vibrating at high frequencies.
In an instant, dozens of light blue rays of light had penetrated the wings of the six-winged gray mosquito - compared to the exoskeleton whose strength far exceeded that of tank armor, the wings were not yet so abnormal... However, shooting through the wings did not have any effect on the six-winged gray mosquito's attack. Seeing that the spear-like mouthparts had already pierced close, the next second, Ke Lan was nailed to the ground with his armor.
At this critical moment, Ke Lan simply threw away the Gauss assault rifle in his hand, and the energy shield generator in his left hand directly outputted full power. He swung his right hand hard, and threw a "high-frequency particle vibration dagger" out of the hidden slot in the arm armor and held it in his hand.
The six-winged gray mosquito's spike-like mouthparts began to burn fiercely the moment they touched the energy shield. After it pierced the energy shield, the hardest layer of shell on the surface had been almost burned away. Ke Lan raised the dagger and swung it forward, instantly cutting off most of the mouthparts!
Then, he jumped up and crashed into the six-winged gray mosquito in mid-air with the energy shield. The flames immediately burned along the mouthparts and head of the big mosquito all the way to its torso, and even its transparent wings were burned black and curled up.
The six-winged gray mosquito swept one of its limbs with force and directly blew Ke Lan away, but in the last second before being thrown out, Ke Lan turned around and inserted the vibrating dagger into its huge compound eye!
"Bang!" Ke Lan fell heavily into the pile of corpses, but fortunately the protective measures of this set of armor were good. Although he felt extremely painful all over his body, he didn't even break a bone.
On the other hand, the situation of the six-winged gray mosquito was much worse than Ke Lan's - the vibrating dagger pierced through its compound eyes, almost turning its brain into a paste. A large amount of dark green mixed with dark red liquid continued to spurt out of the wound, and after these liquids came into contact with the flames on its body surface, they burned more violently. Soon, half of the six-winged gray mosquito's body was engulfed in raging flames.
The six-winged gray mosquito with a damaged brain was struggling desperately on the ground, its limbs constantly scraping at the ground, turning the nearby corpse into a bloody mess. Its fat belly was raised high, and a large amount of filth was sprayed out like diarrhea, sticking to the buildings on one side of the street.
Ke Lan took a closer look and found that these things that were spraying out like diarrhea were mixed with a large number of soybean-sized particles. They looked a bit like a top-notch delicacy called "caviar" in the old era - although Ke Lan could never understand why people in the old era would admire this seemingly disgusting "food" so much.
"When death comes, living things will do everything they can to leave offspring. This should be considered an instinct..." Ke Lan, who was lying on the ground, took a look at the insect eggs that covered the entire wall, shook his head, took out a incendiary bomb from his backpack, pulled the ring, and threw it over with force.
"Asano Akira, let's get rid of this big mosquito. We have wasted too much time on this guy." Ke Lan said.
Asano Akira nodded, and rushed towards the building where the six-winged gray mosquito had originally landed. The thrusters on his back and the universal suction cups on the soles of his boots were activated at the same time. He ran up the vertical glass outer wall for dozens of meters as if he was performing an acrobatic show, and then he pushed hard, and the whole person rolled backwards in the air, and fell towards the six-winged gray mosquito that was struggling to death in the middle of the road.
"bass."
The long sword was unsheathed, and the tip of the sword directly pierced into the back of the six-winged gray mosquito's head. Asano Akira, who fell on the back of the six-winged gray mosquito, simply bent his knees slightly to resolve the downward momentum. He held the hilt of the sword tightly with both hands, and without pulling out the blade, he just ran towards the tail of the six-winged gray mosquito.
The blade of the Nino alloy sword directly cut the torso of the six-winged gray mosquito along the center line - although this insect-like native creature did not have a spine, the nerve center hidden under the hard exoskeleton was completely destroyed by Asano Akira's knife. The six-winged gray mosquito, which was still struggling, suddenly stopped moving, leaving only the limbs hanging on the ground and twitching from time to time.
"Your knife skills are very precise." Not caring whether Asano Akira could see it or not, Ke Lan got up from the ground and gave Asano Akira a thumbs up. "You destroyed the nerve center of this insect with just one knife. You are more skilled than those who do dissection."
"I don't understand the body structure of this creature..." Asano Akira shook his head, "I just felt that something special was flowing and transmitting there, so I chose those places as the targets of attack."
"What you feel should be the bioelectric signals transmitted within the nervous system... Then can you also see the nervous system in the human body?"
"Yes, but it's very blurry, not as clear as this bug," said Akira Asano.
"That's right. This guy is so big, the voltage is much stronger than that of a human... Hey, wait a minute." Ke Lan stopped talking halfway, "Stand there first, don't come over... This big mosquito... seems to be infected by the 'meme'!"
At this moment, the "six wings" of the six-winged gray mosquito had almost been burned clean, and at the base of its wings and in the gaps of its shell... Ke Lan actually saw dozens of eyeballs of different sizes crowded together, wriggling constantly.
