Volume 11: Memetic Crisis Chapter 547: Strange Survivor
Fortunately, this mad beast of burden showed no obvious changes in size or appearance, and it seemed that only its mind was affected.
Before Ke Lan raised the gun, Asano Akira had already drawn his sword and rushed forward.
Although the size of the violent beast of burden in front of him did not change, beasts of burden were originally large mammals. Generally, an adult beast of burden could be over five meters tall, and the one in front of him was estimated to be close to seven meters.
As for the length of its body, it is more than ten meters - judging from the visual effect and size comparison alone, the oppressive force this guy brings to people is even greater than that of the mutated six-winged gray mosquito.
Seeing Asano Akira rushing towards it, the beast of burden instantly locked onto him as its target, lowered its head, and suddenly accelerated towards him!
This is the most common attack method used by long-haired beasts of burden - although this creature has a docile personality, even the most docile animals can be aggressive during the estrus period. In order to compete for mates, male long-haired beasts of burden will use their skulls to butt other mates of the same sex, driving them away from their chosen "partners".
Although the long-haired beast of burden has no horns on its head, its alien skull with four horn-like protrusions on the edge is the hardest part of its body - most of the metal elements absorbed from food will be enriched in this bone, and it is so hard that even large-caliber anti-material sniper rifles find it difficult to penetrate.
Of course, it was impossible for Asano Akira to be hit by the beast of burden like this. When the two were less than half a meter apart, he suddenly braked, swung his whole body with his right ankle as a fulcrum, and dodged to the side and rear of the beast of burden. At the same time, the sword in his hand also cut a huge gash in the lower abdomen of the beast of burden.
The snow-white fur was instantly dyed red with blood, and the slippery intestines fell out directly from the hole, and were then crushed to pieces by the beast's own hind hooves. Ke Lan was shocked to find that what emerged from the ruptured intestines were large chunks of bloody flesh and blood... Perhaps because the digestive system of herbivorous creatures is not suitable for digesting meat, many of these corpses still retained their original appearance. Ke Lan could even vaguely recognize a human arm.
"The herbivorous beasts of burden have actually started to eat meat..." Ke Lan shook his head to himself. Compared with "memetic contagion", this matter was not so strange, but it added a bit of gloom to his heart.
No one knows what the other "collections" with more brutal natures have become at this time.
The beast of burden did not fall down immediately after its stomach was cut open. Instead, the severe pain intensified its frenzy - it did not turn around to look for Asano Akira, but instead turned sideways and rushed towards Asano Akira, which was somewhat like the "Iron Mountain Backing" in ancient Chinese martial arts.
If Asano Akira was hit solidly by this "Iron Mountain Backkick", he would be in great danger even if he was wearing power armor. After all, the tonnage of the beast of burden is there, and coupled with the inertia of the collision - even the bulletproof glass exterior wall of the institute's public restaurant could not withstand the impact of this beast.
This time, Asano Akira did not choose to dodge, but jumped up directly and lightly leaped onto the back of the long-haired beast of burden.
The moment his feet touched the back of the beast of burden, his knees and hips quickly bent, and his whole body assumed a squatting position in order to dissipate the force transmitted to him. Then, holding the sword in both hands, he stabbed straight into the back of the beast of burden!
Asano Akira did not pierce the ribs with the tip of the knife to pierce the soft internal organs of the beast of burden. The internal organs are vital points, but they cannot kill a violent beast of burden immediately. Instead, they will make the dying beast of burden burst out with greater strength. If you want to stop its movement immediately, the best way is to destroy its central nervous system like you did with the six-winged gray mosquito.
“Ka-ka! Ka-ka-ka!”
A sharp sound that made one's teeth ache came from the place where the sword pierced - besides the skull, the spine was the second most metal-rich part of the beast of burden. Its spine was as thick as a bowl, and its strength was comparable to that of alloy. Even a blade made of Nino alloy could not penetrate it for a while.
At this moment, more than ten movable armors on the back of Asano Akira's power armor, including the back of his hands, wrists, forearms, elbows and shoulders, flipped open, revealing vector thruster nozzles of different sizes. After adjusting the angles, these nozzles began to spray dark blue tail flames - Asano Akira's arms were like two mini rockets, forcibly "pushing" the sword in little by little!
"So this is what the Equipment Department meant by 'close combat specialized' armor... Tsk tsk, it looks pretty cool, but if someone else uses this device once, both arms will basically be useless." Ke Lan glanced at his arm armor. His armor did not have so many hidden thrusters. Instead, it had two miniature rocket launchers and two foldable thermal switchblades.
The armor's equipment is indeed rich, but the feeling of being pieced together is also very obvious. For example, the two thermal switchblades have some overlapping functions with the high-frequency particle vibration dagger that Ke Lan had just used. He can be sure that these two sets of armor were hastily made by the Equipment Department specifically for this mission.
"I guess those guys want to take this opportunity to use Asano Akira as a test subject to test that 'enhancement device'..." Ke Lan muttered in his heart. He had noticed before that when Schroeder asked the people in the equipment department to dismantle the "mind enhancement device", those people showed obvious frustration on their faces.
If that guy named Smith hadn't caused such a big mess this time, this group of people would probably have tampered with their armor... Even if they didn't dare to install some lethal equipment on themselves, they would definitely have to do things like drawing some blood when injecting medicine, cutting some subcutaneous tissue when treating wounds, etc.
In addition, all kinds of data of the wearer will definitely be collected, under the pretext of using it as a reference for developing new armor. But what these people will actually do with this data, Ke Lan can guess with her heels.
Ke Lan secretly decided that after this mission was completed, he would just "pocket" the two sets of armor... This would also prevent those crazy people in the research institute from causing any more trouble.
…
With the support of more than a dozen vector thrusters, the entire sword quickly penetrated into the body of the long-haired beast of burden, leaving only a section of the handle exposed.
The ferocious beast of burden could still roar in pain at first, but as the blade penetrated deeper and deeper, its roar gradually became weaker, and its huge body even knelt on the ground, no longer struggling as violently as at the beginning.
Asano Akira drew his sword, stepped on the back of the beast of burden and walked a few steps forward. He pointed the tip of the sword at the back of the beast of burden's head and stabbed it again.
The beast of burden that had gone mad and out of control finally stopped moving and fell silent forever.
Asano Akira sheathed his sword, jumped down from the pile of corpses, and said casually, "Dead."
"I know." Ke Lan nodded. If it were in the past, he would have to dissect the body of the beast of burden and study the reason why it went mad. But now, Ke Lan had no intention of doing so.
Seven hours had passed since the incident broke out. In another five hours, the reserve power in the underground ice storage would be exhausted... Once those things sealed deep in the ice storage came out, it would not be something the two of them could easily deal with.
"There is another one in the restaurant." Asano Akira said again.
"Long-haired beast of burden, too?"
"No, they are much lighter than beasts of burden, but they are faster." Asano Akira replied, "Also, there seem to be survivors hiding on the second floor of the building at the nine o'clock direction."
"Since that thing didn't take the initiative to cause trouble for us, there's no need for us to waste time on it." Ke Lan thought for a moment and said, "As for the survivors... as long as they hide in the buildings and don't come out, and don't stick their heads out to look around, they'll be safe for the time being. At least it's much safer than following us."
Asano Akira nodded. He had no intention of asking Ke Lan to rescue people - after all, even if they rescued people now, there would be no time to escort these survivors back to the third line of defense.
What's more... Schroeder had emphasized at the beginning of the mission that the undead crew would have assumed that the entire contaminated area had been "fallen" and there were no survivors.
However, out of humanitarianism, Ke Lan still recorded the coordinates of the building and sent it back to the headquarters: "There may be survivors in the building marked at point A. You can keep an eye on it during the cleanup, or send a rescue team here first. In addition, traces of 'collection' that broke through containment were found in the restaurant marked at point B. As for how to deal with it, you can decide for yourself at that time."
"Got it." Schroeder's voice came from the headset, "But until the 'meme' itself is erased, we cannot send more personnel to the contaminated area."
"I know." Ke Lan nodded, then turned to the building where the survivors were hiding and shouted, "If there are still people alive inside, remember two things - first, never leave the room; second, don't look at anything outside the room, and don't look at the screens of your mobile phone, TV, or any electronic devices. If possible, I suggest you keep your eyes closed. In five hours at the latest, rescuers will come to take you away!"
As soon as Ke Lan finished speaking, there was a knocking sound from the window on the second floor of the building. The bulletproof glass window kept making loud banging noises, causing Ke Lan to look up...
That was indeed a "survivor", but all parts of this survivor's body exposed outside the clothes were covered with grape-like tumors. What surprised Ke Lan was that none of these tumors seemed to have cracked, and the eyes hidden in them were not exposed - so that this person looked more like a patient infected with some strange disease.
"Intelligence update, the person at point A is not a 'survivor', but a meme infected person..." Ke Lan paused, and decided to tell Schroeder the actual situation, "However, this infected person is a little strange."
"Strange? How strange?"
"His body is covered with tumors, but for some reason, none of the eyeballs in these tumors seem to have matured, and none of these tumors have cracked... Moreover, this person seems to have good physical strength. After hearing my shouting, he kept knocking on the glass window hard." Ke Lan said.
"His heartbeat, pulse and breathing are also stable, and his vital signs are all normal." Asano Akira added, "So I just thought he was a survivor."
Generally speaking , for humans infected by "memes", their energy and nutrients will be sucked dry by those wildly growing eyeballs in a very short period of time, and their organs will quickly fail due to lack of energy and oxygen, leading to the death of the infected person themselves. Like Professor Smith, the instigator of this incident, the entire process took less than a minute, from the time he discovered a tumor on his arm to the time he fell to the ground due to exhaustion and lost the ability to move independently.
But the guy in front of him looked full of energy and didn't look like he had been "sucked dry" at all.
Ke Lan even suspected that this guy was really just suffering from a strange disease, but the symptoms of this strange disease looked very similar to those of people infected by the "meme"?
There seemed to be a heated debate at the headquarters. After more than a minute, Schroeder finally spoke: "Please try to communicate with the infected person and confirm whether he is conscious."
"OK."
Ke Lan raised her head and shouted again: "Stop knocking! I see you! If you can understand what I say, tell me your name and identity."
As soon as this sentence was shouted out, the man stopped knocking. However, he did not open the window. Instead, he shouted something at the top of his lungs inside.
It's a pity that the window was too soundproof and Ke Lan couldn't hear what the man was shouting.
If it weren't for the high-power loudspeaker installed on his power armor, the other party probably wouldn't be able to hear what he was saying.
He could only look at Asano Akira who was standing beside him, patted him on the shoulder, and asked, "What is this guy shouting in there?"
"He said he was an engineer in the logistics department of the institute and his name was Zhou Tong. All the doors and windows of the building were locked and he was trapped inside."
"This guy...isn't this his own residence? Doesn't he have the authority to open the door?"
"During special periods, the privileges of ordinary personnel will be revoked." Schroeder explained in the communication channel, "But the access card in your hand can open the door lock of this building."
"Ask him again how and when and what his condition is now," Schroeder added.
