Volume 15 Gray Fog Forest Chapter 764: Embryo of...
This embryo has completed late differentiation. In terms of time, a normal human embryo takes seven to eight weeks to complete this stage.
The embryo has already taken shape as a human fetus. Its tiny body is curled up in the amniotic fluid. Its huge head, which accounts for nearly half of its body, has two round black spots. These are the embryo's immature eyes...
In the embryo's abdomen, there is a thin and curved umbilical cord, which is connected to a placenta that is almost the same size as the embryo itself and shaped like a kidney. Densely packed capillaries can be clearly seen inside the placenta, beating rhythmically with the newly formed heart in the embryo's chest.
But when Ke Lan carefully observed the limbs of the embryo, the scene he saw made his heart suddenly tighten - although the limbs of the embryo were not fully developed and tightly attached to the torso, it was still clearly distinguishable... the fingers and toes of this embryo were completely different from those of humans... Its fingers and toes were actually soft and slender tentacles, and there was no bone inside them at all!
This... this is not a normal human embryo!
Ke Lan imagined the scene after the embryo matured and grew into a "human", and suddenly his scalp felt tingling - because the imaginary picture in his mind overlapped with an image in another memory.
This is not a human embryo at all! This is an Alpha embryo!
Why did the embryo appear in the chest of the "Erosion"? According to the information in the archives, the captain of the "Shaojiang Kai" frigate, Heruni Yang, is a 100% man. Even if there is no reproductive isolation between Alphas and humans, Heruni, as a male creature, cannot get pregnant? !
Could it be... that Heruni Yang's body was transformed after it turned into a "corrupted skeleton"?
With this thought in mind, Ke Lan walked forward.
He first carefully avoided the embryo on the ground, then inserted the engineering shovel into the chest of the upturned corpse, and with a light pry, he tore the crack that expelled the "embryo" even wider.
Ke Lan observed Shi Hai's chest cavity intently - except for the tiny tentacles growing out of the flesh and internal organs, Shi Hai's chest was almost no different from that of a normal human, and there was no extra organ similar to a "uterus".
This vesicle containing the Alpha human embryo exists independently in the chest cavity of the Erosion Corpse and has no connection with the Erosion Corpse Corpse's body.
But if this is the case, the embryo would not be able to grow that big relying solely on the nutrients in the placenta...or in other words, the embryo would have died before the placenta appeared.
"We cannot rule out the possibility that fluid exchange is used to provide nutrients to the embryo in the vesicle..." Ke Lan thought, twisting his jaw with his index finger and thumb.
But this is not the point... The point is, why would an "eclipse skeleton" that was transformed from a human "super-eclipse" have an Alpha embryo in its body?
Judging from the "destructive" way this embryo was removed from the body, it did not seem to have been inserted into the body of the Erosion Corpse later... In other words, this thing was probably born from the body of the Erosion Corpse.
Ke Lan felt that his brain was in an unprecedented state of confusion.
Alpha people...Earthlings...Alpha civilization...Earth civilization...
Monsters resembling humans from Earth appeared in the engine wreckage, canned food from Earth civilization, and Chinese characters inscriptions on steel structure materials...
The more Ke Lan thought about it, the more frightened she became...
But at this moment, there was suddenly a burst of intense gunfire and explosions outside the bridge!
The space barrier set up by Ke Lan is one-way . The sound inside cannot be transmitted to the outside, but the sound outside can be transmitted in.
Ke Lan quickly took out a freezing can for preserving living specimens from her backpack, carefully placed the vesicle containing the embryo in it, and then injected a full can of LCL liquid into it before closing the lid.
When communicating with Shi Hai just now, Ke Lan used Ze Luo's ability to conduct a comprehensive investigation of the other party. Although due to the existence of that "mysterious power", Ze Luo did not discover the embryo hidden in Shi Hai's chest cavity, body temperature data could still be obtained - Shi Hai's internal body temperature is similar to that of normal humans, which is also 36.5 degrees Celsius.
Ke Lan adjusted the freezing tank to a constant temperature of 36.5 degrees Celsius. Logically speaking, when facing a living sample of an alien creature, the most correct way to deal with it is to directly freeze it at ultra-low temperatures. Placing it in a constant temperature environment may cause some uncontrollable changes in the sample. But this embryo is too important to Ke Lan. He is very worried that if it is frozen at ultra-low temperatures, it may never be revived... The research value of a dead embryo and a living embryo is simply very different.
The safest way is to maintain the environment in which the embryo originally existed inside the body of the eroder - as for the issue of nutrition, apart from the LCL liquid, Ke Lan could not find a better solution for the time being.
"Let's just give it a try..." he said to himself.
The sound of the exchange of fire outside became more and more intense. Ke Lan could distinguish the roar of the large-caliber Vulcan cannon of the Blasphemer mecha, the charging sound of the Gauss rifle used by Ivan, and the crisp clinking sound of the shells falling on the metal floor of the battleship when Mo Jue's TAC-50 sniper rifle was pulled.
With Ze Luo's help, Ke Lan's hearing and perception abilities are now no less than Asano Akira's.
Asano Showa and Sanjusan were still guarding the entrance of the bridge at this time. According to the team's operational guidelines, before Ke Lan came out, no matter what happened, the two of them could not leave their positions without permission. Sanjusan could only shout loudly to ask about the situation of the three people outside.
However, the situation outside seemed to be far worse than expected. The radio communications between the team members were all cut off. Valentina and Mo Jue had no time to respond to Thirty-Three's shouts. Only Ivan's intermittent voice came from outside the corridor: "Indigenous creatures... attack... request... support!"
Indigenous creatures? Attacks?
Ke Lan took a deep breath... Were they attacked by those biological weapons?
But don’t those biological weapons only attack invaders whose height exceeds the tree canopy? They have always been disdainful of “down-to-earth” explorers.
Otherwise, Mo Jue and his team of lumberjacks would have been buried in the Gray Mist Forest long ago.
According to the time, these biological weapons should have rushed here the moment the Erosion Corpse died and the embryos left the body... Could it be that they were afraid of the Erosion Corpse's existence before?
However, judging from its physical strength, this corpse does not seem to have much combat capability...
Ke Lan took a look at the corpse of the "Erosion" on the ground. He really wanted to bury it, but the increasingly fierce fighting outside did not allow him to delay any longer...
Ke Lan immediately removed the space barrier, put his five fingers together into a knife shape, and with two clicks, he cut open the airtight door nearly half a meter away and jumped out.
Before Asano Showa Sanjusan could even open his mouth, he had already said, "Go support Ivan and the others!"
Compared to how cautiously they came in, the three of them rushed out much faster. It took them less than two seconds to cross the entire corridor and reach the "battlefield" outside.
The Blasphemer mech held a twin-mounted large-caliber Vulcan cannon in one hand, firing at the densely packed monsters, and wielded a heavy armor-piercing sword in the other hand, smashing the fish that had escaped the net and rushed to the front. Mo Jue and Ivan each found a ruined wall as a cover, and kept shooting at the monsters rushing out of the thick fog.
After confirming that the three were not injured for the time being, Ke Lan turned his attention to the monsters emerging from the fog. These monsters were obviously the ghost-faced giant owls and gray fog giant bats that had previously attacked the two warships in the air, but their appearance had changed drastically: the wings originally used for flying had completely degenerated into a layer of dispensable flesh covering the upper limbs, and the hind limbs had become extremely developed, giving these creatures extremely strong ground running abilities... Although they still largely maintained their original appearance, these flying creatures that were originally the overlords of the sky now possessed terrifying ground combat capabilities.
"What a strong mutation ability! Is it because we are now on the ground that these monsters have become like this?" Sanshisan exclaimed while driving the black flying blade to harvest monsters. "But the problem is, those who entered the Gray Mist Forest before, as long as they did not leave the ground, basically did not suffer from monster attacks, right? That person, Miss Mo Jue, you are right?"
The addition of Sanshisan and Asano Akira greatly relieved the pressure on the three people who were originally left outside. Mo Jue finally got a brief respite and picked up the empty magazines, loading bullets into them one by one.
"I don't know... I know too little about the Gray Mist Forest... Besides, the lumberjacks have never been so deep." Mo Jue shook her head repeatedly, her expression looked a little ferocious, and her chest was heaving violently. Her protective clothing and mountaineering jacket were thrown at her feet, and she was only wearing a tight tactical vest on her upper body.
A large amount of sweat flowed down her neck, and the clothes from the collar to the waist were completely wet, outlining her well-developed muscles.
The entire right sleeve of the mountaineering jacket she threw on the ground was torn off. If she hadn't reacted quickly enough, it would not only be the sleeve that was torn off... but also her entire right arm.
"In order to make flying indigenous creatures mutate into a form that adapts to life on the ground, it will take at least tens of thousands of years of evolution in nature. But if it is a biological weapon, the situation is different." Ivan said while panting. His situation was not much better than Mo Jue's. He had thrown aside the Gauss rifle that was scrapped due to the overheating of the charging array. At this moment, he was holding a large-caliber hunting pistol and shooting at the monsters that kept pouring in.
However, given the toughness of these biological weapons, Mo Jue's TAC-50 anti-material sniper rifle could hardly cause any effective damage to them unless he hit their vital points, and large-caliber hunting pistols like these were just scratching the surface.
"But I just can't understand why these monsters suddenly came out to attack us now... There was no movement before... If they wanted to attack, wouldn't it be better to choose to attack us on the way to the battleship crash site? At least at that time, we didn't have any cover to rely on. It would not be pleasant to be attacked from both sides." Sanshisan said, and suddenly turned to look at Ke Lan, "By the way, Ke Lan, what happened to the monster that could speak human language in the bridge just now?"
"Dead." Ke Lan answered simply, "According to the time, these biological weapons launched the attack only after the monster died."
"Could it be that these biological weapons did not move before because the monster that can speak human language is still alive?" Thirty-three showed a trace of disbelief. "This...what's the reason...If these biological weapons are afraid of that monster, why did they dare to attack the warships floating in the air before?"
"What monster?" Ivan couldn't help but ask after hearing the conversation between the two.
"It looks a bit like the container of the Seed of Corrosion, but it doesn't seem quite like it... By the way, Ke Lan, did you kill the monster?"
"I didn't kill it, it died on its own." Ke Lan sighed, "It wasn't actually a monster. It was once the captain of this 'Shaojiang Kai' frigate, Heruni Yang."
"Is it Heruni Yang? Then why did it become like that? Was it infected by something?"
"This is a long story. I'll tell you slowly after the crisis is over." Ke Lan waved his hand, and an invisible spatial blade more than ten meters high passed through the group of monsters. All the monsters that came into contact with the spatial blade had their bodies cut in half silently.
"Have you noticed something?" Mo Jue suddenly said, "The gray fog... seems to be getting closer to us."
"I found it." Ivan frowned. "In the past twenty seconds, the gray fog has moved four meters closer to us and has now invaded the interior of the battleship wreckage."
When Ivan mentioned the wreckage of the warship, Ke Lan suddenly had an idea and said, "I was thinking... these biological weapons attacked us, could it be because there was no gray fog inside the wreckage of the warship? When we were in the sky before, we had to fly out of the thick fog before these biological weapons attacked us."
