Volume 15 Gray Fog Forest Chapter 791: Facing the Super Eclipse
"He...they are alive again!" Mo Jue exclaimed.
"Now, we should call it 'they'..." Ke Lan corrected, even though there is no difference in the pronunciation of these two "ta" in Chinese.
"Should I fire at them?"
"Well, help me stop them before I finish my homework." Ke Lan nodded.
"What did you say?!" Mo Jue glanced at Ke Lan, who was still busy, in disbelief... The number of Erosion Corpses in the bridge was in the double digits. In her opinion, it was a bit too much to ask her to stop so many Erosion Corpses by herself.
"Don't worry, not every corpse is as strong as the one Thirty-three encountered. For example, Heruni has basically no combat power... Besides, I don't want you to kill them all, as long as you can help me buy a few minutes." Ke Lan said.
"But, these... uh, 'Erosion Corpses'..." Mo Jue paused for half a second before saying the unfamiliar and somewhat difficult term "Erosion Corpses", "Look very different."
Just as she said, most of these eroded corpses in the bridge are covered with hard stratum corneum and sharp bone spikes, and some are covered with powerful tentacles... In addition, the "vine armor" wrapped around their bodies, like power armor, it is no exaggeration to describe them as "both offensive and defensive".
These guys obviously mutated specifically for fighting... or were "transformed" into this state.
In the midst of his busy schedule, Ke Lan raised his head and glanced at the corpses that had already fallen to the ground, and said, "They have all turned into combat-specialized types... It seems that the situation is becoming more and more difficult..."
Compared to when the two of them entered the bridge just now, the appearance of these Eclipse Corpses has changed greatly. I just don't know whether it is the Gray Mist Forest or... "Him" that caused the Eclipse Corpses to change.
If it is the latter, it means that "Him" is most likely watching this place... Even if it is just a glimpse of one of "Him"'s countless gazes, the development of the incident will be disastrous for Ke Lan and the others.
But considering that "His" gaze will cause extremely serious erosion to all creatures that receive the gaze, and that Mo Jue's mutation symptoms have not yet shown signs of worsening, Ke Lan feels that the probability of the latter possibility should be very small.
But... can the Gray Fog Forest alone change the form of the Erosion Corpse?
If it were just to use vines to put on a few pieces of "outer armor" for these corpses, it would be understandable, but to allow these already "dead" corpses to undergo secondary mutations, that would be a bit unreasonable.
The reason why these erosion corpses mutated from humans into this appearance is because they have accepted too much "forbidden knowledge", causing their own erosion level to exceed the critical value. If the Gray Mist Forest can induce the erosion corpses to undergo a second mutation based on "super-erosion", does it mean that the Gray Mist Forest can also use this method to make a normal person's erosion level instantly exceed the critical value?
To put it in an analogy, it is like forcing "forbidden knowledge" into someone's head... Even if the person being indoctrinated actively closes his or her senses and does not see, hear, or perceive anything around him or her, the degree of erosion will soar uncontrollably.
But it didn't make sense - if the Gray Mist Forest really had this ability, everyone in the exploration team, except Ke Lan, would have turned into corpses. The will of the forest had tried to kill them more than once, so if it really had this method, there was no reason not to use it.
From this point of view, either I understood it wrongly from the beginning, or there are various conditions and restrictions that prevent it from directly affecting living people like them.
Ke Lan divided his brain into two parts. One part was desperately trying to invade the operating system of the "Genoa"'s central control computer, and the other part was frantically thinking about the reasons for the secondary mutation of these corpses. Behind him, Mo Jue had already started fighting with several corpses that had first broken free from the vines.
The targets of these corpses were very clear. As soon as they landed, they rushed towards Ke Lan. Mo Jue switched the grenade launcher to three-shot mode without hesitation and pulled the trigger.
Three crystal energy bombs the size of a baby's fist flew out of the chamber and landed in the middle of the corpses in the blink of an eye.
The deafening explosion suddenly resounded throughout the bridge.
The explosive power of the resonance of the three crystal energy bombs should not be underestimated. The corpses were directly blown away by the terrifying air wave and smashed heavily on the wall in the distance... or in other words: they were embedded in the wall.
Although these corpses looked miserable, Mo Jue could see that they had not suffered any substantial damage. The three crystal energy bombs could not even tear open the vine armor on their bodies.
The reason these corpses were blown away was entirely because the ground their limbs were clinging to was torn apart. Otherwise, they could have remained motionless in the explosion and even continued to charge forward...
"Even the crystal energy bombs can't cause any damage..." Mo Jue's heart sank, but the current situation did not leave her much room for thinking, so she could only choose to continue firing.
“Anyway, as long as we can hold these guys back... Ke Lan and the others should be able to deal with these... ‘monsters’, right?” Even Mo Jue herself didn’t notice that her level of trust in Ke Lan and his group was now the same as her teammates who had worked with her for many years. Compared to the attitude of mutual suspicion when they first entered the forest, she could now completely trust them with her back.
But the current situation is just the opposite - Ke Lan has his back to her.
Three more Erosion Corpses broke free of the vines that pierced their bodies and fell to the ground. They rushed over from Mo Jue's right side, and formed a double-sided trap with the Erosion Corpses on the left side that had been blown away before and now came back. Mo Jue suddenly felt a great deal of pressure -
"How long will you take? I feel like I can't hold them off for much longer!" Mo Jue roared. She turned the muzzle of the grenade launcher and fired three crystal energy bombs in each direction.
The shock wave produced by the explosion of the crystal energy bomb can indeed have a certain suppressive effect on the Corrosion Corpse, but the prerequisite is that the continuous firepower cannot be interrupted... and now there are only three of the twelve crystal energy bombs left in Mo Jue's grenade launcher, and less than half a minute has passed.
Mo Jue picked up this grenade launcher from the ground, and there was no spare magazine or other supplies - weapons and ammunition of this level were locked in high-authority weapon boxes, and even Ke Lan could not open these weapon boxes before obtaining control of the battleship.
Ze Luo was able to use his spatial ability to "pry" open the lock of the weapon box without triggering the self-destruct device of the weapon box, but before that, Ke Lan would never have thought that there would be a situation where he would need something like a grenade launcher next time.
Even the shooter originally equipped with a bolter on the "Genoa" rarely carried spare magazines - generally speaking, only one to three crystal energy bullets were needed to solve the problem, and if twelve crystal energy bullets could not solve the problem, then another twelve bullets would often be of no help.
"I'm out of ammunition." Mo Jue said to Ke Lan after firing the last three crystal energy bombs.
"Give me three more minutes!" There were even afterimages of Ke Lan's fingers typing on the keyboard. Fortunately, he was using a highly sensitive military-grade virtual keyboard. If he had used a civilian-grade mechanical keyboard, it would probably not be able to keep up with even one-third of his input speed.
"But I have no ammunition!" Mo Jue emphasized again. She was really out of ammunition now. Not only had she used up all her crystal energy bombs, but she had also lost her own TAC-50 anti-material sniper rifle. The only firearm left on her was a large-caliber pistol for self-defense at her waist... But this thing couldn't hurt the Erosion Corpses, let alone hinder their movements.
"Two minutes!!" Ke Lan shouted through gritted teeth. Although the vines had gained control of the central control computer through "physical hacking", they obviously did not know how to set up defensive measures. The only security measures they used against Ke Lan were those that the "Genoa" central control computer originally had.
There are a total of six firewalls, Ke Lan has broken through four of them, and the computer virus he wrote has been uploaded to almost 70%. The defense line of the entire central control computer is in a precarious situation... The dawn of victory is just around the corner.
Ke Lan couldn't stop now . While cracking the firewall, he had to constantly modify the virus program code so that the central control computer could not recognize the virus program. Once he stopped, the mutated virus would be locked by the security program, and then isolated and deleted...
Then all his previous efforts will be wasted, and the difficulty of the next invasion will increase exponentially.
"There is only one firewall left!" Ke Lan roared. Although the temperature in the bridge is now close to zero degrees, huge beads of sweat on his forehead are still oozing out, dripping along his cheeks and jaw to the ground, and the "patter" sound can be clearly heard.
Mo Jue turned her head to look at Ke Lan. When she turned back, the closest Erosion Hai had already rushed to her. He raised his two arms covered with bony spikes and hit her fiercely.
“Ahhh!”
Mo Jue let out a low roar, and the only four thrusters of this operational power armor were all released from their restrictive valves in an instant, soaring into an overload state, and the tail flame ejected instantly became more than twice the original one - and with the blessing of this explosive force, Mo Jue crashed headfirst into the arms of the Erosion Skeleton!
She put the arm armor on her left hand in the front. This was the part of the power armor with the highest content of Nino alloy besides the spine and feet. It was as strong as the front armor of a chariot. Even the bone spurs on the body of the Erosion Corpse could not penetrate this arm armor for a while.
Mo Jue's right hand pulled out the large-caliber pistol from his waist, put the muzzle against Shi Hai's chest, and pulled the trigger repeatedly at close range. The terrifying recoil continued to come from the handle. Although the power armor could offset this backward force, the palm that was in direct contact with the pistol handle was completely numb from the shock, and blood was flowing everywhere from the torn knuckles.
Mo Jue could feel that the bullet she had shot had successfully penetrated into Shi Hai's chest, and the force coming from her left arm had been significantly weakened, which made her feel happy: These monsters... don't seem to be unkillable...
But the next second, she felt a burning pain in her back. The arms of the eroded corpse were bent at an angle that was completely opposite to the joint structure of humans. The bone spurs more than ten centimeters long plowed across Mo Jue's back, and the places not protected by the power armor were instantly torn apart. In some of the deeper wounds, the white bones could even be seen...
Mo Jue felt as if blood was flowing back into her trachea , which caused her to cough violently. However, the situation immediately became worse as soon as she coughed: the coughing caused the closed wound to split open, allowing more blood to flow back into her respiratory tract...
At the same time, the dizziness caused by lack of oxygen continued to attack her brain. She staggered involuntarily and was immediately pinned to the ground by the corpse in front of her.
She felt like she would faint at any moment, but her instinct for survival forced Mo Jue to stay awake. At this critical moment, she first locked the movable joints of the power armor, turning it into a hard metal frame, then opened the quick-release locks on the side of the armor, flipped over, and rolled out of the power armor frame.
It was a beautiful move of "escaping from the shell", but Mo Jue had no time to appreciate her own operation at the moment. Blood was constantly pouring out of her nostrils and mouth... If her judgment was correct, both of her lungs had been punctured.
This kind of injury is fatal... If you want to survive, you must be sent to the medical cabin for treatment immediately...
But here, the only place with a medical warehouse is the ship's infirmary, but in order to open the door of the infirmary, start the medical warehouse and a series of supporting medical equipment, you must first take back control of the battleship from the Gray Mist Forest.
After going around in circles for a long time, I finally returned to the starting point.
Mo Jue didn't ask Ke Lan how long it would take. She was already unable to speak, and foamy blood kept overflowing from the corners of her mouth... She stumbled back a few steps, leaned against a railing, and reached into the first aid kit at her waist.
She was too lazy to see what she was touching. As long as her fingers touched a syringe, she would just take it out and stick it into herself. After five or six injections, a powerful force finally burst out from her heart, and Mo Jue, who was already in a dying state, woke up again.
She didn't know whether it was the effect of the medicine or her body showing signs of "last breath"... But no matter what, her already broken body seemed to be recovering rapidly. She could even feel granulation tissue growing rapidly from the wounds to fill the damaged areas.
Faintly, she seemed to hear a voice whispering in her ear... She couldn't understand this language at all, but she could sense a very familiar breath...
