Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 860: Tunnel Dwellers
After being yelled at by the captain, the armed men suddenly woke up as if from a dream and fired wildly with their guns... However, they failed to hit the black shadow until the magazines of their guns were emptied, and instead killed several "teammates".
The so-called "one-way valve" is just a slightly raised ring-shaped structure on the inner wall of the tunnel. There is no shelter here at all. Except for a staff member who fell to the ground in time, everyone else was more or less hit by several bullets - the guns used by these armed men are extremely powerful. Even if they just grazed the body, they could tear off a large piece of flesh and blood. Arms and legs would be broken with just one hit... If they hit the chest or abdomen directly, the whole person could even be cut in two!
The power of these guns is roughly equivalent to the 0.5-inch caliber heavy machine guns on the Ark. Fortunately, these armed personnel are wearing powered exoskeletons, otherwise the horrific recoil may not be suppressed by human physical strength alone.
"If I had known we would encounter this kind of thing, I should have brought shotgun shells or grenades!" the captain cursed as he changed the magazine - but before he could change to the second magazine, the black shadow had already jumped in front of him and opened a bloody hole in his neck.
From the death of the first armed man to the complete cessation of gunfire, it took only twenty seconds in total. The entire team of ten was wiped out, and the "déjà vu" picture that Ze Luo shared with Ke Lan also disappeared.
Ke Lan was basically certain that the so-called "déjà vu" was the memory of the people living in the hive city - the team of ten was wiped out, and their memory ended there. Naturally, the "déjà vu" could not present to Ke Lan the subsequent scenes that they could no longer see.
"What did you see?" Seeing Ke Lan heaving a sigh of relief, Sanshisan knew that he had come out of the "sense of vision" and asked quickly.
"A team of ten people was attacked by a palm-sized black shadow at our current location. In twenty seconds, four armed men and six maintenance workers were completely wiped out." Ke Lan said.
"A palm-sized black shadow?" Thirty-three muttered, "Could it be a mouse? Don't you have the ability to stop time? Even you can't see the true face of that black shadow?"
"Time stop is not very useful in 'déjà vu'." Ke Lan shook his head. "This thing is like a film that has already been shot. Things that were not clearly captured in the original film cannot be seen clearly even if I press the pause button many times. As for the 'camera' that shot the original film, I guess it should be the eyes and brains of the victims... because after the last victim died, the 'déjà vu' picture disappeared."
"...If that shadow appears in front of us, you should be able to see what it looks like, right?" Sanshisan looked around cautiously. "Although hundreds of thousands of years have passed...but there's no guarantee that that thing...or its descendants, is still hiding in this place."
"Don't be nervous. I asked Ze Luo to set up a space barrier around us. Even if we are attacked, the space barrier can block those things." Ke Lan said.
"I know, this thing is much better than the energy shield." Thirty-three nodded, "I'm not nervous, I'm just thinking... it took five months for the mice to mutate into that state, so what if it took five hundred thousand years... would they evolve into intelligence? For example... ratmen?"
"It seems... you have successfully integrated into us and truly become a member of the God Hunting Group." Ke Lan suddenly smiled bitterly.
"What do you mean?" Thirty-three was stunned for a moment, obviously not understanding why Ke Lan suddenly brought up a topic that seemed to have nothing to do with the current conversation.
"Your mouth is also a blessed crow's mouth." Ke Lan sighed, "Zeluo told me that in the darkness about 200 meters ahead, there are six creatures with humanoid torsos... but with huge rat heads. Obviously, they have discovered us."
"Ha... So that's what you mean." Thirty-three was a little amused. "Only six? Then we can split it into four and two - you four and I two. Anyway, Ze Luo is attached to you, so you count as two people, so you won't suffer any loss."
"You are not as nervous as before. I can feel that your heartbeat seems to be much more stable than before." Ke Lan glanced at Sanshisan out of the corner of his eye and teased.
"The unknown is what scares people the most... Now that I know what I'm going to face, it's not that scary." Thirty-three touched the back of the hand axe and lowered his voice, "Don't forget, I was once a soldier, a soldier who experienced many battles personally."
"I think they've already sensed that we've discovered them," Ke Lan whispered, arching his body slightly. "Their heart rate is speeding up—they're moving!"
The sound of chaotic footsteps like raindrops suddenly sounded from the depths of the passage, and quickly approached Ke Lan and Sanshisan in the chaotic echoes. In less than three seconds, the "rat man" in the front had already crashed into the light of their tactical flashlights.
It was pretty much the same as Ze Luo's description, this was a large rat that could stand on two feet, with extremely long soles and toes. Only the forefoot was on the ground, the heel was lifted up, and the entire ankle looked like an insect's reverse joint - this structure allowed their legs to burst out with extremely terrifying power like springs, and it would be more appropriate to describe their movement as "jumping" rather than running.
These "rat men" have hunched bodies, with their spines bent almost to a ninety-degree angle and their upper bodies leaning forward - even so, their height is still close to two meters. If they could straighten their spines and stand their entire bodies completely upright, the height of these creatures would easily exceed three meters.
It was twice as big as the mutated giant rat that Thirty-three encountered in the Prism Basin that year.
The "rat man"'s body was covered with dirty, thick, long gray hair, but the long tail behind him was completely hairless, with only clusters of growths and rotting, festering wounds - in this respect, it was somewhat similar to most of the acute radiation sickness patients Ke Lan had seen. In the "sick village", there were countless people with this symptom.
But unlike the patients, these "rat men" have extremely well-developed muscles, and their strength and speed are far beyond what the radiation patients who are nearing the end of their lives... but judging from their explosive power in sprinting, these "rat men" are at least at the level of sixth or seventh enhanced humans.
Their heads were covered with white bone helmets that fit tightly to their heads. These bone helmets tightly covered the only part of their bodies that could be associated with the image of mice, except for their tails. Only a few long whiskers poked out from the gaps at the front of the bone helmets.
What surprised Ke Lan the most was that these "rat people" actually held simple weapons in their hands!
There were broken steel pipes, iron sheets with extremely sharp edges, metal blocks that were removed from something unknown... there was even a rusty chainsaw sword with a broken chain saw!
They know how to use weapons and tools, which means they are intelligent creatures.
Sanshisan was right!
But before Ke Lan could tell Sanshisan this, these "rat men" had already rushed up to them and swung their weapons at the two men!
The space barrier successfully blocked the first round of attacks. The ratmen seemed surprised at why the two "invaders" in front of them had "shields" that were invisible to the naked eye. After the first round of attacks failed, they quickly retreated, keeping a distance , and made rapid and threatening "hissing sounds".
"Can you understand what they are saying?" Thirty-Three asked.
Just now, neither Ke Lan, Sanshisan nor Ze Luo made any attack - with the combat effectiveness of the three of them, facing these "rat people" whose individual strength is about equal to that of level six or seven enhanced humans, any one of them could be killed instantly without even any effort.
To them, these "rat people" are not a "threat".
"I don't understand." Ke Lan shook her head. "Zeluo is the same... We are not Doraemon, and we don't have translation bread. How can we understand what mice say?"
"What is translation bread?" Thirty-three, who neither liked watching cartoons nor collecting antiques from old-era culture, was completely confused by the new words that Ke Lan suddenly came up with.
"Nothing. It's just a virtual prop in the comics." Ke Lan shrugged, signaling Sanshisan not to worry about such a trivial matter.
"So are we going to take action now ?" Thirty-three didn't like to complain or ask questions like the old dog did, so he quickly brought the topic back to business. "These ratmen seem to be very afraid of us..."
"Let's try catching one first." As soon as Ke Lan finished speaking, Ze Luo's spatial force condensed into an invisible big hand, grabbing the strongest ratman holding a rusty chainsaw sword in his hand .
No matter how the ratman struggled and screamed, it could not break free from the constraints of the power of space. Ke Lan just pulled lightly and pulled the motionless ratman in front of him.
The other five ratmen looked at each other in panic, then turned and ran away.
But the next second, they crashed heavily into an invisible wall - while Ke Lan was using the power of space to "catch mice", he also created a cage condensed by the power of space for the other five ratmen and locked them inside.
"Are you planning to... dissect them?" Thirty-three glanced at the rat-man held in the air by the force of space, then looked at the other five rat-men running around in the "cage". For some reason, he suddenly felt that these creatures with terrifying appearances were gradually becoming no .
This is probably... the special feeling brought by power suppression, right? Any fear comes from insufficient firepower... and firepower and power, in essence, are not much different.
"I want to tear off this guy's 'mask' first, but this bone mask seems to be growing on its head..." Ke Lan said, "At first I thought it was the skull of a fellow human being that they picked up and put on their own heads."
The "mask" he mentioned refers to the white bone helmets that the rats "wear" on their heads.
"Growing on the head... that should be considered an exoskeleton, right?" Thirty-Three was slightly stunned and said subconsciously.
"Maybe..." With a horrifying tearing sound, the bone helmet of the ratman was torn off by Ke Lan with brute force. After the bone helmet was separated from the ratman's head, the ratman finally stopped struggling and was completely lifeless.
"Hmm, it really is an exoskeleton. There's still some brain tissue attached to the inner side of this layer of bones." Ke Lan took a look at the torn bone helmet, "It seems that I just tore off the top of this guy's head."
"It's not the top of the head, but the entire upper part of the skull." Thirty-three pointed at the bloody head of the dead ratman and said, "This bone even includes the upper jaw of this creature... Look, from here to here, it's a complete oral structure, and you can even see a muscular tongue, but the root of the tongue has been torn off by you."
Seeing that Ke Lan did not respond, Thirty-three turned his head to look at Ke Lan with some confusion, only to find that Ke Lan was staring at the rat man's brain tissue in a trance, wondering what he was thinking about.
"You...you don't want to eat it, do you?" Thinking of what Ke Lan had done on the second floor of the Tower of Babel, Thirty-three suddenly felt like something was churning in his stomach.
Fortunately, it had been a while since the last time I ate, so there wasn't much food left in my stomach, only a stream of spicy and sour water rising up my throat.
"To be precise, this is not called 'eating', but absorbing." Ke Lan sighed, "There is no other way. We have very little information at the moment. Otherwise, do you think I like doing this kind of thing?"
The blood-like living armor oozed out from Ke Lan's pores and turned into a palm, grabbing the apple-sized ball of rat-man brain tissue. The next second, countless tiny hollow tentacles extended from the bright red palm and pierced deep into the brain tissue.
The information contained in the rat people's brains was very chaotic. Ke Lan felt dizzy and double vision appeared in front of his eyes... After a long time, he recovered and shook his head at Sanshisan, saying: "You overestimated them... These rat people are not intelligent creatures at all. They only have animal instincts and do not have the ability to think like humans."
"However," Ke Lan continued, "a piece of memory in my mind has been unlocked just now... The Alpha civilization seems to have come into contact with this kind of creature and named them - 'Tunnel Dwellers'."
