Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 802: The Hanging Cemetery
But when Ke Lan moved his gaze to the faces of these corpses, he discovered something that made his back chill - except for one corpse with serious facial damage, all the other corpses had exactly the same face.
This is a face that looks ordinary, so ordinary that you will forget it after just one look...but it can make people feel strangely familiar, as if they often interact with such a person in daily life.
He could be the security guard at the entrance of the hunting group's headquarters, he could be the vendor selling skewers across the street, or he could be the ground staff member whom Ke Lan and his companions had met once at the airport before they set off... Ke Lan was sure that this face must have appeared in his memory, but when he tried to think carefully about who it was, he could not remember it at all.
This face seemed to fit in perfectly on many people... Ke Lan was a little horrified to find that when she began to recall her memories, she discovered that many people with different identities but almost identical looks appeared.
Is this an illusion? Or has my memory been ?
Not only the faces, but even the body shapes of these corpses are exactly the same, as if they were dolls pressed out of the same mold.
These people... are clones?
Are these clones created by the undead crew or by this Tower of Babel?
The mysteries came one after another, like a long string of knots... As long as the first knot could be untied, the rest would naturally be solved with ease... But the problem was that Ke Lan couldn't even figure out which knot was the first one.
"By the way, is this considered the second test?" Thirty-three pulled a floating corpse closer and began to examine it carefully.
Apart from the tattered Field Corps uniform on the body, there were no personal belongings on the body, and no trace of weapons or ammunition.
"Not sure...By the way, what do you think about these corpses?" Ke Lan asked.
"To be honest, I think these dead people... are probably the 'clones' you mentioned before. They are like they were carved from the same mold, and they probably use the same set of genetic genes."
"I thought so too." Ke Lan nodded. "But if these are clones created by the Undead Crew, if so many clones with the same faces join the army, it will probably cause panic and unrest, right?"
"So what you mean is...?" Sanshisan glanced at Ke Lan. He dared to guarantee that what Ke Lan was guessing in his mind now should be the same as his, but he just couldn't say it out loud.
The reason is simple: even Sanshisan himself feels that this guess is outrageous.
"Could these clones be made by this tower?" Ke Lan said.
"If they were made by this tower, why are they wearing Field Corps uniforms?" Thirty-Three nodded first, then slowly shook his head, "If the Alpha Civilization wanted to copy humans, they could just copy the original body. There's no need to put on these Field Corps uniforms that are almost indistinguishable from the real thing, right? This is not an imitation show."
Thirty-Three used his fingertips to stroke a uniform that was stripped from a corpse. Both the material and workmanship were exactly the same as the real field corps uniform. There was also a multifunctional interlayer between the two layers of special non-woven fabric that was puncture-proof, corrosion-resistant, and resistant to high temperatures and radiation. Most of the imitations on the market did not have this interlayer.
Because the cost of this interlayer accounts for at least two-thirds of the total cost of the garment.
This uniform, which No. 33 had worn for at least twenty years, was very familiar to him.
He did not even need to look at the label sewn on the inside of the shirt, he could tell from some details that this was a sixth-generation field corps combat uniform produced in the year 937 of the New Era. He could even tell with certainty that this was a batch of goods produced by a textile factory under , because only they would use their own zippers, while the goods coming off the other production lines all used zippers purchased through bidding, which were cheaper but of lower quality and would get stuck easily.
Zippers can get stuck, which is one of the main drawbacks of the sixth-generation combat uniforms. However, this problem does not exist in the batch of goods processed by the Lee Group. This batch of uniforms is generally supplied to front-line combat troops. If soldiers from other troops want to get this set of clothes, they have to spend extra money to find the head of the logistics department to exchange them privately.
The combat uniforms worn by these corpses were all tattered, as if they had experienced extremely brutal battles before they died. Combined with the damage and wounds on the corpses, it can be basically determined that they had experienced a "pure hand-to-hand combat."
Yes, purely bare-handed. Not only were there no guns, but even weapons like daggers and engineer shovels were not used in the battle.
This is quite consistent with the clue that "no weapons were found at the scene, not even anything that could be used as a weapon"...
For example, the corpse whose combat uniform was stripped off by Thirty-Three, at least half of the twelve pairs of ribs were broken by the huge force, and the entire chest was sunken. Combined with the wear marks on the fibers of the combat uniform on the chest, it was probably that the enhanced man kicked him in the chest with all his strength.
As for the corpse closest to Ke Lan, there were a lot of scratches on its face, its nose was collapsed, its eye sockets were torn, and even its eyeballs were gouged out... and in the mouth of this corpse, it was tightly biting a large piece of "meat" with fragments of combat uniform on it. In the gaps between his fingernails, a large amount of naturally dried flesh and blood was also found.
"Hand-to-hand combat of this magnitude... I've only seen it a few times in my military service," Sanshisan sighed.
The last battle in which these people fought could not be ranked among the many battles of mankind in the new era, either in terms of scale or casualties. Whether it was the battle to suppress the rebellion within the Ark or the battle against indigenous creatures and heretical sects after landing on Alpha, there were many battles more intense than this one - however, intensity and cruelty are not synonymous.
There was no heavy firepower, no guns and ammunition, no sharp daggers and swords, not even stones and sticks... These people were like wild beasts, using their hands, feet, teeth and all the parts of their bodies that could be used to attack each other...
Even in the ancient arena, which was known for its bloody cruelty, gladiators would at least be provided with some crude weapons, and people would not fight each other in such a primitive way. The bloody scene of wild beasts killing gladiators in the arena could make the blood of those high-ranking spectators surge and their adrenaline rush... But if humans turned into wild beasts and bit off the throats of their own kind, I am afraid that no matter how much people like to watch gladiatorial combat, they would feel a chill deep in their bones...
"I'm really curious, what on earth did they go through?" Thirty-three's frown never relaxed.
"We'll know soon." Ze Luo said suddenly.
"What?"
"The body functions of these 'corpses' are reviving... I think they will soon become our enemies." Ze Luo said expressionlessly, as if he was talking about a trivial matter.
"No way?!" Sanshisan was suddenly shocked and kicked the corpse floating in front of him away.
The corpse rolled several times in the air, knocking away several corpses floating on its path... Just after the corpse stopped rolling, its originally stiff neck suddenly lifted up, and it opened its eyes and looked at Thirty-Three!
There were no black pupils in its eyes. Instead, the cloudy white eyeballs were covered with deep red bloodshot. Dense blue veins suddenly bulged out from the corners of its eyes. The blood that had long since dried up and coagulated began to flow in its blood vessels again.
"A resurrected corpse? Are these human corpses or those things called corroded corpses?" Sanshisan waved his hand, and the only remaining dozen intact black flying blades flew out instantly, cutting through the body of the resurrected corpse, and black and red sticky blood spurted out immediately.
"They are not Eclipse Corpses." Ke Lan shook his head. "The birth process of Eclipse Corpses is completely random, and these corpses are obviously mass-produced ' weapons '."
In just a dozen seconds, thousands of corpses floating around "came to life"... This scene was like a reckless tomb robber in a movie who broke into a cemetery full of zombies.
"Fortunately, these guys have nowhere to gain leverage in midair. They can only wave their arms and legs in vain and can't get close to us..." Thirty-three said halfway, and looked down as if he sensed something. His expression suddenly changed, "Just ignore what I said."
Not far from his feet, a flat ground appeared there at some point, as if it was a battlefield specially prepared for them and these resurrected corpses...
"We will land in thirty seconds at most." Sanshisan asked anxiously, "Ke Lan, have you come up with any countermeasures?"
Thirty-Three has already used the black flying blades to dismember several resurrected corpses, but at the same time he has discovered a very serious problem: although he can kill these monsters, he cannot prevent them from resurrecting again.
No matter if the throat was cut, the heart was pierced, the top of the head was cut open, and the entire brain was chopped up by a sharp blade, these corpses could be resurrected after a short period of "death" - Sanshisan even tried to chop a corpse into tens of thousands of pieces, but these fragments seemed to be attracted to each other by a magnetic field, and soon gathered together and pieced together into a complete corpse again.
Then resurrect.
"This thing is harder to kill than the Erosion Corpse. At least the Erosion Corpse has been cut into pieces like this and there is no way it can survive." Sanshisan complained, "Let Ze Luo do it."
Ze Luo glanced at Ke Lan, and after getting permission, the power of space swept directly across the area. With Ke Lan and the other three as the center, all the corpses within a radius of fifty meters were beaten into minced meat.
Ze Luo used the power of space to squeeze the minced meat into a ball, but even so, the minced meat was still squirming desperately... A few seconds later, a giant over twenty meters tall suddenly appeared in the sight of the three people.
But this giant, apart from its huge size, did not seem to have any special abilities. It was shattered again within less than a second of forming...
Be it the resurrected corpses or this giant, their strength is not very strong, and their muscle strength is about the same as that of ordinary humans. But what gives Ke Lan and others a headache is their extremely abnormal recovery ability - even if Ze Luo uses the power of space to press the flesh and blood into a flat surface with a thickness of less than 0.1 millimeter, they can still recover again.
"Physical attacks are ineffective." Ze Luo said, "It would be better to have antimatter weapons, such as the death ray cannon, to completely annihilate these flesh and blood. Or use a plasma cannon to directly burn them clean... With our current means, we can't completely eliminate them."
"It would be great if Valentina and the Blasphemer mecha were here." Thirty-three bared his teeth in annoyance. "The last level of the trial was an inverted mirror image, and this level is an infinitely resurrected corpse?"
"To be honest, I think the person who designed this trial level lacks the ability to innovate." Ke Lan said in a low voice.
"You're still in the mood to complain at this hour? I'm afraid we'll never be able to reach the next level unless we kill all these monsters, right?"
As they were talking, the three of them and the thousands of resurrected corpses around them fell to the ground at the same time. As soon as these resurrected corpses landed on the ground, they rushed towards the three of them frantically, which was exactly the same as the scene in a zombie movie.
An invisible space barrier blocked the way of these "zombies", but they didn't seem to care about it at all. Many of the "zombies" that rushed over had their brains burst by crashing into the space barrier. Even so, their ten fingers were still scratching and digging at the space barrier fiercely. This madness immediately reminded Sanshisan of the source of those shocking wounds on their bodies.
These resurrected corpses seemed to pose no threat to Ke Lan and the others, but in fact this was still a dead end - Sanshisan was right, these immortal corpses should be the "problem" of this level, and if they couldn't solve this problem, they would be trapped here forever.
"I have an idea." Thirty-three said.
Ke Lan: "Tell me about it."
"Didn't we try to chisel through the tower wall on the last floor? Although we failed, that was because our perspective was in a false mirror image. Now the world we are in should be real, right? How about trying again? Use the space barrier to push ourselves to the edge, and then chisel through the tower wall?"
"Although I don't think the problem can be solved so easily, it doesn't hurt to try." After saying that, Ke Lan took the initiative to walk towards the tower wall in one direction.
But before they had gone far, all three of them discovered the problem.
No matter how they moved, the distance between them and the tower wall did not change, as if the tower wall was moving with them - when they got closer, the tower wall moved away; when they moved away, the tower wall moved closer.
"Everything that happens in this tower is more bizarre than the last... Are we just standing still?" Thirty-three was the first to stop, and threw the deformed Nino alloy dagger in his hand out with some indignation. The dagger turned three times in the air, drawing a trajectory that was completely inconsistent with the laws of physics, and finally pierced into the eye socket of a zombie that was hitting the barrier.
Ke Lan was not surprised at all. She shrugged and indicated that she had given up the plan to drill through the tower wall. "I knew there would be a way to prevent cheating."
