Volume 14: Devastation Chapter 714: See the Mimic Fungus Again
"Put the body away... I hope we can find some useful information from this person." Ke Lan sighed and said.
Given the strict conduct of the Undead Crew, this possibility is extremely small... This corpse is most likely the same as those men in black outside, and no clues can be found.
Ke Lan walked around the room twice more - this room didn't look like a "bedroom" at all. Except for the small compartment with the hibernation capsule, the rest of the space was filled with rows of shelves, and the shelves were piled with all kinds of bottles and jars.
These vessels were filled with liquids of various colors, and under the illumination of the dark red light, they gave the feeling of an alchemy laboratory in a magical world... Most of the vessels had no labels, but those with labels were all chemicals and biological agents strictly controlled by the Ark, and some even included some of the highest-level contraband that were absolutely not allowed to be possessed by civilian individuals or organizations.
Among them was "tissue culture fluid containing active cells of flesh-eating worms" - although active ammunition has now become the standard supply of almost all legions in the Ark, and many civilian organizations have obtained some small doses of active ammunition from various channels, these can only be regarded as "finished products". Once these "finished products" are unsealed from the frozen state, they will soon become ineffective. Tissue culture fluid is different... It is not only the raw material for making active ammunition, but also an extremely dangerous experimental specimen.
As for what , one can imagine.
It is no exaggeration to say that the medicines stored in this "bedroom" far surpass those in the biochemical laboratory on the sixth floor of the building in terms of both quantity and variety.
These potions...are they all this "BOSS's" personal collection?
Why did 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 hibernation capsule!
What happened?!
Ke Lan was suddenly shocked. How come this woman would get into trouble if she wasn't watched carefully? This kind of thing happened once before when they raided the Williams family's main house. Why did it happen again?
Is it that she is just unlucky?
Ke Lan quickly walked around 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 there were several large holes in her chest that went from front to back.
Fortunately, her body has been replaced with a cyborg, otherwise, she would probably be a corpse now.
Ke Lan turned his gaze to the other side - the headless corpse had crawled up from the ground, and a large number of earthworm-like tentacles with circles of segments on the surface of the mucous membrane emerged from the broken neck. These tentacles were different from the tentacles of the Seed of Erosion or the Fusion, and were a dark brown color like rotten meat, and also emitted a disgusting strong stench.
"WTF...Where did this thing come from?"
Ke Lan was very sure that when he had just examined the headless corpse, the corpse had lost all signs of life, and there were no parasitic things like seeds of erosion inside the corpse. The reason why he was so cautious when approaching the corpse at the beginning was that he was worried that the things hidden inside the corpse would suddenly jump out and attack him.
"I was just about to wrap the corpse in a body bag... it suddenly sat up from the ground... these tentacles instantly surged out from the broken neck and attacked me." Aya said.
Her condition is very bad. Although she still has a certain combat capability, her artificial lung has been seriously damaged. Once the oxygen supply to the brain is affected, it will cause irreversible consequences - the prosthesis must be repaired immediately.
"Got it... Try to repair the prosthesis yourself first, at least make sure the brain doesn't die from lack of oxygen. Leave this to me."
Ke Lan took out his backup weapon from his trouser pocket - a folding mini engineer shovel.
This shovel is also made of Nino alloy , and some stalagmite fragments are melted into the edge of the blade. The material used is even more than the previous deer hunting knife.
"I've never seen such a monster before." Aya added, "There is no 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 are any files about this thing in the black well, he doesn't know. Without the two keywords, it is too difficult to find information related to this thing in so many hard drives.
Ke Lan slowly approached the headless corpse, holding the engineer shovel in front of him, making a posture that indicated he was ready to attack or defend at any time.
Strange... Really strange...
It was clearly dead just now... I even used my fingers to dig into the body's spinal cord. Logically speaking, it's impossible for it to come back to life, right?
What made Ke Lan feel the most strange was that although the tentacles were still wriggling, tearing and disassembling the arm that was torn off from Aya's prosthesis, from his perspective, these tentacles did not show any signs of life.
The breath of life is a relatively metaphysical term... In short, in his opinion, this thing is clearly a dead object... even if it is still moving.
A term that has been used so frequently in various novels, movies and TV dramas suddenly popped up in Ke Lan's mind: zombie.
Soon, Aya's broken arm was torn into countless tiny pieces... Then, the headless corpse began to stumble towards Ke Lan.
The headless corpse moved very slowly, but those earthworm-like tentacles were not slow at all - when the corpse was about three meters away from Ke Lan, these tentacles had already shot out like lightning, attacking Ke Lan from more than a dozen directions.
The tentacles were moving very fast, but in front of Ke Lan, who had the ability to stop time, he could see their attack patterns clearly.
In the past, Ke Lan often felt that the ability to stop time was a bit useless - for example, if someone shot at him, even if he could see the trajectory of the bullet clearly while the time was stopped, it would be difficult for him to avoid these high-speed flying bullets after the time stop was lifted, unless he could see the direction of the muzzle a moment before the other party fired and make a predictive dodge in advance.
The body's reaction cannot keep up with the speed of consciousness, which can easily make people feel frustrated... It's like a professional player who has top-notch consciousness and operating skills, but uses an antique machine that is extremely slow and old, and freezes from time to time. The hardware conditions simply do not allow him to complete any operation that is even slightly difficult.
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 consciousness, at least it is possible to dodge bullets like in "The Matrix".
Ke Lan's upper body suddenly leaned back, performing a move known as the "Iron Bridge" in Chinese martial arts, making the first wave of attacks from the tentacles all miss.
When these tentacles changed direction, Ke Lan swung the engineer shovel in his right hand upwards suddenly, and the sharp shovel blade instantly cut off more than a dozen earthworm-like tentacles.
Ke Lan quickly pulled away to the side to avoid the severed tentacles falling on him, and at the same time kicked the headless corpse hard and sent it flying.
The power of a full-strength kick from a level nine enhanced person was terrifying. The chest of the headless corpse caved in directly, and the entire corpse flew sideways, knocking over four or five rows of cabinets.
The severed tentacles twitched on the ground and then stopped moving - this made Ke Lan feel a little relieved: Although this thing looks like an earthworm, it does not have the tenacious vitality of an earthworm... If these severed tentacles grow a head again, things will be troublesome.
The bottles and jars on the overturned shelves were scattered all over the floor, but fortunately, the materials used for these utensils were relatively high-end, and except for those that were directly hit by the headless corpse, not a single bottle was broken.
But even so, the headless corpse lying on the shelf was doused with at least dozens of different drugs - these drugs were being absorbed by the mucous membranes of the tentacles at a speed visible to the naked eye, and the tentacles themselves began to gradually change...
"I should have known not to kick like that... I actually gave the opponent a buff." Ke Lan muttered to himself, rushed forward, and waved the engineer shovel to hit him randomly.
The tentacles did not complete their evolution - not only did those potions not provide any positive BUFF, but they caused severe corrosion to the tentacles themselves. Even if Ke Lan did not add any 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 pair of pliers on the shelf, clamped a relatively intact tentacle, and pulled it out of the headless corpse with force.
Each of these tentacles is independent and does not seem to be connected to each other. At the tail of the tentacle, there is a mass of flesh that looks like a tumor.
Ke Lan used the blade of an engineering shovel to cut open the meat ball and was shocked to find that the inside of the meat ball was actually covered with white mycelium.
However, these hyphae have already died at this time, and many of them have begun to turn gray and black.
Ke Lan took a deep breath. Almost at the same time as he saw the white mycelium, he recognized this thing.
Isn't this the same mimicry fungus that they encountered on the way to Leviathan following the Soma Consortium's convoy? !
After the Leviathan mission was completed, Ke Lan handed the corresponding report and samples to Lieutenant General Maginot, who passed them on to the official. Then the matter fell into oblivion without any response. Unexpectedly, this fungus was seen again in the body of this BOSS today.
Moreover, this fungus seems to have undergone a significant degree of mutation, and it is not known whether it is a natural mutation or the result of human improvement...
"Does this count as shooting oneself in the foot?" Ke Lan rarely revealed a bitter smile.
In his impression, after the research institute was destroyed and rebuilt due to the "meme incident", many of the original subjects and research projects were cut, and the subjects related to this mimicry fungus should have been shelved...but he didn't expect that the insider took out the sample of this thing and handed it to the hands of the "BOSS" of the Nova 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 jars on the shelf, and some thoughts in his mind suddenly began to overlap...
After eating up their prey, the mimic fungus will imitate the shape of their prey... and after the fusion fungus has devoured its prey, it will also embed the prey's genetic fragments into its own genetic sequence and grow a variety of strange limbs and organs... Both of these creatures have the ability to "become what they eat", and although there is a big difference in principle, it is very intriguing that they 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... Not only can they mimic living things, they can even mimic mechanical inorganic objects such as battleships, airplanes, and mechas, and even energy shield generators can be perfectly simulated.
They are obviously better than this mimic fungus - not only the appearance, but even the functions can be perfectly copied.
Is there any connection between these three? Ke Lan couldn't help but fall into deep thought.
