Volume 15 Gray Fog Forest Chapter 786: Nest City
"You want to know why I haven't broken through the critical point of erosion, right?" Ke Lan responded, "It just so happens that I have a lot of things to ask you. You see, we each have information that the other wants, so we can definitely exchange it... To be honest, I know you have no hostility towards my friend, so I don't want to treat you as an enemy. There is no need for our communication to be conducted in the form of interrogation."
"You... you are not a human... you are seriously... polluted... you... you absolutely cannot... go... to the Ark..." Erosion said intermittently. It struggled in vain, and its eyes never left Ke Lan from beginning to end.
"To be honest, in this situation, you are still concerned about the safety of human civilization. I sincerely respect you." Ke Lan was not wearing a hat, so he could only put on the breathing mask and then take it off, then bowed slightly to the corpse that was pressed to the ground.
His actions were completely sincere.
"You...you...who are you...what are you...what on earth are you?" Ke Lan's bow did not move Xie Hai, who was still struggling. "You...what kind of monster are you?!"
"To be honest, I feel a little depressed to be called a monster by something that looks more like a monster than me." Ke Lan squatted down, "But I have to admit that you are not wrong... I am indeed a monster."
"But I am also a human being." Ke Lan said immediately.
"No...you are just...a disguised...body..." Erosion said with some difficulty.
Shell?
Why does it also mention the body?
This was not the first time Ke Lan had heard this statement. The last time was at the bottom of the underground ice storage in the research institute... The monster that was cloned using his own cells, "Seraphim", also used the word "shell" to describe itself.
This is no coincidence.
Ke Lan always believed that there is no coincidence in this world... The so-called coincidence is just that people are unwilling to trace the cause in depth.
Even if what they said was true and I really was just a body, then what was inside this body?
A soul with both human and Alpha blood?
But this is no different from the current situation... Ke Lan has long known that an Alpha man's gene fragment has been inserted into his gene sequence, otherwise he would not be called a "symbiote" by the undead crew.
But he always felt that this matter would not be so simple.
Especially those memory fragments that were sealed deep in his mind, which he could feel but could never reach... This was not something that could be created simply through gene editing.
They are just too suspicious.
At first, Ke Lan thought that these sealed memory fragments came from the broken stone tablet in the glacial ruins, but as he came into contact with more and more events and obtained more and more information, he felt more and more that his idea was wrong.
That stone tablet was not an object for storing information, but a "key"... Its function was to activate the connection between Ke Lan and these memory fragments... and these memory fragments were already in Ke Lan's head before he became a relic hunter.
"Why do you think I'm a 'shell'?" Ke Lan looked at Xie Hai, "Where did you get this information from?"
"You...you are...His...minion..."
"Can we still communicate properly? I see you are very hostile to me?" Ke Lan sighed helplessly, "If you are worried that I might be contaminated and refuse to tell me the truth, then I don't think that's necessary. You also said that my degree of contamination is much higher than yours. I haven't mutated at all, so the 'forbidden knowledge' you know is just a piece of cake for me."
Seeing that the other party still refused to give in, Ke Lan could only continue to persuade him: "To tell you the truth, I came from the Ark. If I really wanted to do something that would harm humanity, I would have already done it. Why would I come here to argue with you?"
"Your...purpose...is...something...in the nest..." Shi Hai still didn't believe what Ke Lan said, but his words unexpectedly revealed a little information that Ke Lan didn't know before.
"Hive?" Ke Lan immediately asked, "You mean, the core area of the Gray Mist Forest doesn't have the 'engine wreckage site' mentioned in your mission description, but a place called 'Hive', right? Can you tell me in detail? Everything about that hive... and how did you find it? Have you ever left the wreckage of the 'Genoa'? Have Heruni and Mo Zhuorui ever been to this hive?"
Ke Lan asked a series of questions in one breath, and he couldn't help but get excited. After going around in circles for so long, the incident finally had a substantial breakthrough. As long as he could continue investigating along this path, the truth about the core area of the Gray Mist Forest would be revealed.
But just when Ke Lan was about to use some unconventional means to interrogate him, an expression of extreme pain appeared on Shi Hai's face, and black colloids like asphalt flowed out from his nasal cavity, mouth, corners of his eyes, ear canals, and all the damaged parts of his skin. Ke Lan noticed that when these black colloids were in solid form, they could coexist peacefully with Shi Hai's original skin, but when they were converted into liquid, they instantly became extremely corrosive, and wherever they passed, all the skin they touched was peeled off and corroded.
The Eclipse let out an extremely painful roar and spoke incoherently, "I can't... let you... return... to... the Ark... you must... stay... here... forever!"
"This guy has been dead for a long time. It's just driven by a wisp of obsession. You can't convince it." Ze Luo's voice sounded in Ke Lan's ears, "It's just a walking corpse that moves on the remaining energy in its body. It's completely different from Heruni..."
"You mean, the Heruni we saw on the bridge of the Shaojiang Kai frigate was alive?" Ke Lan raised an eyebrow. "A monster like the Erosion Corpse... can it be said that there is a difference between life and death?"
"When I say life or death, I mean only the part of them that belongs to humans." Ze Luo explained, "But if you can still see Heruni, he should have become like this."
"So, Hruni was really dead at that time?"
"Well, not long after you came into contact with him, the human part of him died completely. After that, you can use 'it' to refer to the remaining eroded corpse... If you want to use human words to describe 'this part', I think the word 'humanity' in human language is the most appropriate in all aspects. It is a miracle that Heruni's humanity could persist for so long under the erosion of "Him". "
"So it seems that I killed him?" Ke Lan was a little helpless. "If I hadn't woken him up, he should have been able to hold on longer, right?"
"It's true that his 'humanity' can survive longer in his dormant state, but this is actually meaningless. The nightmare has been eroding his consciousness. Even if you don't wake him up, his remaining 'humanity' will gradually fade away in his slumber... At least you let him have a moment of clarity at the last moment. For him, this ending is not too bad."
"……well."
While Ke Lan was still whispering to Ze Luo, on the other side, the Erosion Corpse, which was pressed to the ground by the force of space, had completed its "transformation" - if its original appearance was like a dried mummy, then it was now a mummy fished out of an asphalt barrel.
"Its power has increased by about three times, and the physical strength of its body has increased by about five times... and it's still getting stronger," Ze Luo said.
However, with her spatial ability, even if the power of the Erosion was increased to a hundred times of its original power, she would not be able to break free from the restraints.
"Is there any way to force it to speak and reveal the information related to the 'Hive'?" Ke Lan asked.
"It is difficult to achieve this goal through normal means of communication." Ze Luo replied.
"Then can you read its memory? I remember that you have read my memory before?" Ke Lan said.
When they first met, Ze Luo's initial human form was a white-haired loli. That was entirely because she read something related from Ke Lan's memory - in the two-dimensional pornographic pictures collected in this guy's computer, more than 90% of the heroines had one common feature: white hair.
"I can try to read its memory, but I need to attach myself to it... The thinking and consciousness patterns of the Erosion Corpse are completely different from those of humans. Every Erosion Corpse is connected to it. If I rashly invade the Erosion Corpse's mind, there is a high probability that I will be noticed by it..."
"Forget it, the risk is too great." Before Ze Luo could finish his words, Ke Lan rejected the idea.
"But this is the only way." Ze Luo continued, "I can find a way to separate a copy and let the copy perform this task. Even if it attracts His attention, only the copy will be destroyed."
"Does the loss of a replica have any impact on you?"
"Yes, but it's not serious. It will recover in three months at most." Ze Luo answered truthfully.
"It still won't work. In the Gray Mist Forest, your combat effectiveness must be guaranteed first... not to mention that we have to go to the place called 'Nest City' next. In addition, if He casts his sights on the replica and glances to the side, none of us can escape." Ke Lan shook his head, "You are wrong about one thing. This is not the only way."
"Huh? Why?" Ze Luo asked in confusion, "I know that in the Ark Research Institute, there are some devices that can forcibly read human memory . But these devices are aimed at humans with basically normal brain functions, and the brain of the Erosion has been severely atrophied and lost all functions. Those devices will not have any effect on it... What's more, it is impossible for you to bring out such equipment that occupies an area of hundreds of square meters."
"No, I'm not talking about a device invented by humans, but a creation of the Alpha civilization." Ke Lan explained, "But the prerequisite is that we have to find Valentina first."
"You mean the Blasphemer mech?"
"Yeah." Ke Lan nodded. "Didn't I mention before that when Valentina and I were driving the Blasphemer mecha together, our consciousnesses were connected through the bodies and we entered a state of 'shared consciousness'? In fact, it's not just consciousness that is shared, but also each other's memories. I can see Valentina's past memories, and she can see mine...but most of my memories are false memories that the undead crew will input..."
Ke Lan paused and continued, "In battle, indulging in the opponent's memory is very dangerous, but if you just use the Blasphemer mecha as an interrogation tool, I think it should be fine."
Although Ke Lan was not sure whether the Blasphemer mecha's neural connection could work on the Erosion Corpse... After all, not only did the Erosion Corpse's brain atrophy, but the nervous system in his body was also basically scrapped. Even if those fleshy tentacles could pierce the Erosion Corpse's tough body, they probably wouldn't be able to connect to the Erosion Corpse's nervous system.
But the brief "synchronization state" before gave Ke Lan a strange feeling: the connection between him and Valentina did not come from the tentacles connected to the spinal nerves... After all, these tentacles only connected to the spine, and did not go deep into the brains of the two people. Logically speaking, what could be synchronized between them was just the various signals sent by the brain to the body, and it was impossible for such an outrageous thing as reading each other's memories to happen.
This magical synchronization function seems to come from another function of the Blasphemer mecha... Obviously, neither Ke Lan nor the Undead Crew are far from fully understanding this machine. As for those "mass-produced fallen angels", they are just clumsy imitations.
Ke Lan suddenly felt that... the name "Blasphemer" did not just sound a bit domineering, it seemed to have another layer of meaning.
Regardless, it's at least worth a try.
"Isn't it more dangerous to synchronize your consciousness with the Eclipse?" Ze Luo said, "As His sacrifice, each Eclipse should be under His surveillance. If you synchronize your consciousness with the Eclipse, isn't that equivalent to actively exposing yourself to His sight? Is there any difference between doing this and my method?"
"My mind tells me that you are right, but my intuition tells me that the Blasphemer Mech can help me achieve this goal smoothly... To put it more concretely, my subconscious mind has always believed that... the Blasphemer Mech can block His gaze to a certain extent."
The subconscious that Ke Lan mentioned was actually some fragmentary information that leaked out from those sealed memory fragments... He found that the more "forbidden knowledge" he accepted and the deeper the erosion, the looser the seal of these memories became.
The closer he gets to the critical point of over-eclipse, the closer he gets to the truth.
