Volume 14: Devastation Chapter 717: Injection of Protoembryo
The moment he saw this monster, a term from ancient Greek mythology popped into Ke Lan's mind.
"Chimera".
In mythology, this is a monster made up of a lion, a goat and a python... Later, this word was also used to describe those strange hybrid creatures or chimeras, of course, only limited to the fictional magical worldview.
The monster in front of him was even more chimera than the ancestor Chimera - a huge monster randomly pieced together with the limbs of various earth creatures and Alpha native creatures. At the top of its body was a female head with wheat-colored skin and messy white hair... Although the appearance of this head had undergone earth-shaking changes, Ke Lan still recognized that this face was the founder of the Nova Chamber of Commerce, the woman named Camilla Claudia.
Regardless of whether this woman is a follower of a heretical sect, it is obvious that she has long been fed to this monster by the "BOSS".
But what Ke Lan cares about most is not this... The surface of this fusion body is densely covered with a layer of white fluff - these are not the hair of the fusion body, but the hyphae of the mimicry fungus. Every time the fusion body hits the cage wall, a large number of spores will fall from between the hyphae and fall to the ground.
"It seems that these people want to try to merge the mimicry fungus and the fusion body... But it seems that the mimicry fungus is merely parasitic on the surface of the fusion body... I just don't know what the inside of this monster looks like." Ke Lan muttered softly. Not to mention that guy Ivan, even Ke Lan had an urge to dissect this thing.
However, one thing is certain, the mimicry fungi on this fusion body are somehow connected to the mimicry fungi in the "BOSS" body... Only after the latter's death did the fusion body begin to bang the cage frantically, and before that, it had been in a very quiet state.
"Could this thing be used as a communication device?" A strange idea popped into Ke Lan's mind.
Another layer of the cage wall was smashed. Less than twenty seconds had passed since the previous layer was smashed.
There are still twelve layers of cage walls remaining, which means that this cage can only buy Ke Lan and the others four minutes at most.
In fact, as long as the monster wants, it can rush out at any time... This beautiful transparent cage can't trap it at all. It seems that the "BOSS" should have the means to control the fusion body.
It's a pity that he is already dead.
"Hello? Aya? How is the evacuation of the people going?" Ke Lan pressed the communicator hanging on her ear and asked.
"The garrison troops have entered the economic development zone, but the previous gunshots and the sudden appearance of the army have caused a new wave of commotion... at least... at least another forty-five minutes!"
"I can only give you half an hour at most." Ke Lan said.
"It's impossible to evacuate all the people in half an hour!" Aya screamed. The background noise on her side was extremely chaotic, with all kinds of sirens and shouts mixing together.
"There are still many people hiding in the buildings. They are unwilling to cooperate with us, and some of them have even locked the doors... Forty-five minutes is the time required under the most ideal circumstances... In fact, even if we have an hour, we won't be able to evacuate all the people!" Aya added.
"Four more minutes..." With a loud bang, another layer of transparent cage wall shattered to the ground. "Okay, now it's three minutes and forty seconds. In another three minutes and forty seconds, this big guy will be free."
"But……"
"Don't say buts. To be honest, I don't think I can help you hold this thing off for a full hour." Ke Lan sighed, "Only thirty minutes, not even a second longer. Use a high-power loudspeaker to tell all the people that this block will be hit by indiscriminate artillery fire in thirty minutes. Everyone should immediately follow the military's guidance and evacuate in an orderly manner. Those who stay behind will bear the consequences at their own risk."
"This will cause panic! There's a high probability of a large-scale stampede!" Aya exclaimed.
"What about the army? Are they there to eat and do nothing?"
"There are too many people. There are simply too many people in this neighborhood... Even if we include the soldiers from the 24th Regiment, we can't control all people and all places." Aya replied.
"But if we don't do this, more people will die." Ke Lan said, "We have no choice... As for the agents and soldiers, they only need to maintain order at the main intersections... If anyone disrupts the order or does not follow the instructions, the soldiers are allowed to use non-lethal weapons... If anyone maliciously obstructs the evacuation operation, or drives a vehicle to crush the people or rush through the checkpoints, they can be shot directly without reporting!"
Ke Lan paused for a moment and added: "Remember, if you can't save everyone, then save as many people as possible...save those who can be saved!"
"I know..." Aya replied through gritted teeth.
The wall of the eleventh-to-last cage was also smashed - Ke Lan noticed that at the front end of this fusion body, an organ completely wrapped in an exoskeleton had grown out at some point. It was about two meters in diameter, five meters long, with a blunt front end and a large amount of muscles at the end... This thing rammed against the cage wall again and again, causing cracks to appear on the cage wall at a much faster rate.
The time it took to break through the tenth-to-last cage wall was shortened from twenty seconds to thirteen seconds.
"No matter from the appearance or function, this thing is clearly a battering ram..." Ke Lan frowned and whispered to himself.
Could it be that the remnants of the heretical sect also fed this monster a "battering ram"? But the fusion should only eat non-living things, right? And... a battering ram doesn't have the genetic sequence for it to replicate, right?
Ke Lan began to search in his mind for creatures with organs that looked like battering rams, but no matter which one it was, it was very different from the organ growing on the monster in front of him.
Moreover, this organ only appeared not long ago. During this period of time, no one should have come to feed this fusion.
Could it be that this is adaptive evolution? Because it needed to break the cage, it pieced together this organ that looks like a battering ram from the complex genetic sequence in its body?
If that's the case, then this monster will be difficult to deal with.
It's like playing cards - every "feed" it eats and every set of "genes" it fuses are equivalent to an incomplete set of cards... Originally, Ke Lan thought that it could only play the cards it got, but now, this fusion body seems to be able to rearrange and combine these cards, and then put them together into the required decks to play... As long as enough cards are collected, it is not a problem to even put together more than a dozen decks of king bombs.
Of course, it is not a problem for the fusion body, but for Ke Lan, it is a huge problem.
To exaggerate a little... this monster has almost "infinite" possibilities.
The ninth layer from the bottom, the eighth layer from the bottom, the seventh layer from the bottom... the speed at which the cage wall was breached could be described as unstoppable. Ke Lan even felt that he could already smell the stench emanating from this monster.
Let alone thirty minutes...he felt that he might not even be able to hold out for five minutes.
If the living armor was still there, there might be a chance, but now...
Ke Lan looked at the engineer shovel in his hand and the light machine gun he had snatched from the man in black, then looked at the fusion body that was over twenty meters tall... Reason told him that the best choice was to turn around and flee from this place immediately.
"Do you want me to use a trump card right at the start?" Ke Lan subconsciously reached into his pocket and held the two syringes. "But the problem is, I only have this one trump card... and this big guy has a lot of trump cards in his hand."
"My only chance of winning is to strike a fatal blow before the opponent finishes playing all his cards."
but……
The question is back to the starting point: Can these two "seed embryos" really be considered as the king bomb?
Ke Lan couldn't help but think of the "meme crisis" that almost destroyed the entire research institute. The cause was that Professor Smith tried to inoculate the cells of the Seed of Erosion into his own cloned tissue, inadvertently creating a monster like "Seraph".
Now, the seed embryo is equivalent to the ultimate enhanced patch version of the erosion seed cell, and after being transformed by the living armor, I am much stronger than a piece of meat that cannot survive without nutrient solution. If these two things are combined...
Ke Lan had no doubt that he would gain extremely powerful strength...but he was more worried about whether his consciousness could remain clear after being injected with the seed embryo.
According to the instructor of the remnant of the heretic sect, after being parasitized by the seed embryo, the container will fall into a "violent period" of mental confusion... If I become like that by then, I will probably be wiped out by the Undead Crew very quickly, right?
But at the same time, another voice in his mind kept telling him: Inject it, inject it quickly, don't hesitate any longer... This is the crystallization of tens of thousands of years of technology of the Alpha civilization, and it condenses the supreme and brilliant fruit of the biological science of the Alpha civilization... As long as it is integrated, you can gain power that rivals that of a god...
"Rivaling the gods?"
Isn't it the Prophet's obsession to match the gods? Why...why would I want to match the gods?
Could this be the sign that appears after consciousness has been deeply eroded by "Him"?
Ke Lan shuddered suddenly, and his hand that was holding the syringe loosened a little.
He couldn't help but feel a little scared . Just now, he was not considering whether to inject this thing, but what to do if there were side effects after the injection - this showed that his mind had been severely affected.
Before it is confirmed whether this thing is really effective, it is undoubtedly a dangerous item... Even if this thing is to be used, it should be used when there is no other way out. But now, all Ke Lan has to do is to delay this fusion body for 30 minutes instead of being forced into a desperate situation by this fusion body.
If things really don't work, he can rely on the speed of high-level cyborgs to quickly escape from here, and then call for warship artillery fire... Although doing so will cause tens of thousands of civilian casualties, it is at least better than triggering another "memetic crisis", right?
“Why do I have such thoughts?”
Ke Lan was breathing heavily, his eyes fixed on the fusion body dozens of meters away - at this time, there were only the last three layers of transparent cage walls left, and the monster could break out at any time.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
The sound of the fusion body hitting the cage wall was like beating a giant drum. Ke Lan only felt his brain numbing and an unusual heat spreading through his limbs and bones.
His consciousness, which had just been clear for a moment, suddenly became chaotic ... His ability to think for himself seemed to be gradually disappearing...
He felt as if another consciousness had emerged from the depths of his memory and taken over this body.
The voice no longer induced him to inject the seed embryo, but instead kept muttering something in the language of the Alpha civilization...
Ke Lan was very familiar with those words, but when each syllable was strung together, they became words that he could not understand at all... He felt that his self-consciousness was being stripped away from this body, and darkness was gradually falling.
Just then, Ke Lan heard a low sigh.
Everything returned to normal in an instant.
“What… happened?”
If I had to describe the feeling just now, Ke Lan felt as if his soul had left his body for a few seconds and then was stuffed back into this body.
He reached out and wiped his face. His forehead, cheeks and neck were covered with beads of sweat, and his skin was terribly hot.
As if he suddenly remembered something, he took out his other hand from his pocket. Ke Lan was shocked to find that the hard shell of the syringe had been crushed by his hand, and the seed embryo inside had seeped into his body through his palm.
His eyes couldn't help but widen slightly, and he didn't even notice that the fusion form not far away finally broke through the last layer of the barrier.
"But... it seems... there is no reaction?" Ke Lan turned the palm over and over several times, but did not find anything unusual.
Even the abnormally high body temperature had subsided at this time.
Ke Lan raised her head and bumped into a wheat-colored face.
The fusion stopped in front of him, and the head that originally belonged to Camilla Claudia lowered down and stared straight at Ke Lan.
Ke Lan stared at the pair of somewhat cloudy eyes, and a somewhat absurd idea popped up in his mind.
"This Camilla... doesn't she still have self-awareness and memories from her previous life?"
Just when Ke Lan decided to try to have a conversation with the other party, "Camilla" spoke first -
"You...are...the same kind?"
