Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 869: The Beginning of the Disaster
"Don't worry about it. Let's just record the points we have earned." The youngest horse rider said, raising the hunting crossbow in his hand and shooting an arrow through the giant saber-toothed tiger's head.
"That's true." The man in the lead drove the mechanical horse forward, intending to use a hunting crossbow to end the life of "No. 32" - but in the gap between the three people's words, "No. 32" actually secretly pulled out the crossbow arrow that nailed him to the ground. The next moment, he jumped up from the ground, grabbed the harness on the chest of the mechanical horse with one hand, and held the hunting knife tightly with the other hand. He turned over and jumped onto the horse's back, and placed the blade directly on the neck of the rider.
"Damn it!" The other two horsemen immediately raised their hunting crossbows, but at this time "No. 32" cunningly shrank his body behind the horseman he had kidnapped, leaving only his arm holding the knife exposed to the two men's shooting range.
The other two could of course shoot the arm with a crossbow, but with the power of the hunting crossbows in their hands, not only would the arrow pierce through the arm of "No. 32", but it would also pierce through their companion's chest and the body of "No. 32" - it would be easy to kill "No. 32", but the person being held hostage would also not be able to escape death.
"Don't move!" "No. 32" shouted sternly, "Take your hands off the joystick!"
As he yelled, he overlapped his body with the hostage's as much as possible. This way, even if the hostage suddenly turned the mechanical horse around and exposed its back to the other two, the other two would not dare to shoot at "No. 32".
A part of the hunting knife's sharp blade had already embedded itself into the skin , and a thin trickle of blood flowed along the neck into the collar. He tilted his head back, and nervously glanced at "No. 32" behind him with his peripheral vision - he didn't dare to speak at all, not even to breathe deeply, for fear that the movement of his trachea would cause the sharp blade on his neck to move even further.
A tingling, numb and itchy feeling came from the wound on the neck - this feeling was not caused by the skin being cut, but came from the blood of the gamma-level mutant... The blood of this creature carries a high concentration of neurotoxins, so when fighting with other beasts, even if it is bitten, it can turn defeat into victory with the toxins in the blood... and its blood will also be smeared on the blades and arrows of hunters as a temporary "poisoned weapon."
He knew very well that if the blade cut inwards a little more, allowing the poison to enter his blood vessels and flow throughout his body, even if there were several medical teams on standby outside the hunting ground, it would be difficult to save his life.
He gritted his teeth, as if he had made a difficult decision—then he gave the other two horsemen a suggestive look.
The other two showed a hint of hesitation when they received this look, but the youngest man still pressed an inconspicuous black button on the horse's back.
At the moment the button was pressed, two faint, soft white beams of light fell from the sky, one fell on the wrist of "No. 32" holding the knife, and the other fell on the head of "No. 32".
Just like an ice cube touching a red-hot iron, the wrist of "No. 32" holding the knife was directly "melted" by the white beam of light, and his palm and hunting knife fell to the ground, followed by his body with only the lower half of his head left.
The soft white beam of light disappeared as if it had never appeared. As for the hostage, there was not even a smear of the blood of "No. 32" on his body.
"I don't think we should call for help. We might be able to get rid of this damn No. 32!" another horse rider said angrily. "If we let the supervisor intervene in the competition, not only will we not get the points that belong to No. 32, but we will also have to pay an extra 10,000 points for the rescue. This way, our group will be ranked last!"
“Ahem… I hope that when it’s your turn and someone holds a knife to your neck, you will be able to say these words without hesitation… Ahem…” The kidnapped man glared at the man who spoke, picked up the package hanging on the side of the horse’s back, quickly found a bottle of gel-textured ointment, and applied it to the wound on his neck.
"The knife is stained with the blood of gamma-level mutants. If No. 32 strikes harder and the toxin enters the blood, no one can save Second Brother." said the youngest horseman, who was also the one who pressed the distress button just now.
"In the final analysis, it was because of your carelessness that you insisted on getting too close. If you had shot an arrow at the prey from a distance, this would never have happened." The third horseman complained indignantly, "Well, now I think we can go to the sidelines to rest... This competition is over for us. Even if we get all the unclaimed points left in the hunting ground, we can't save the situation."
After saying that, he took off his hat and rubbed his shiny and smooth brown curly hair in annoyance. But after rubbing it a few times, his movements paused... He seemed to vaguely realize that something was wrong.
What's wrong?
He was startled and immediately realized what was happening - he knew his second brother's personality very well. Apart from anything else, his cherishing of life attribute was absolutely maxed out. Among all the brothers, his second brother liked to choose conservative strategies the most. It was also for this reason that their group's points could never catch up with other groups...
Logically speaking, even if my second brother didn't refute me, he would at least say a few words. But now, my second brother didn't say a word...
What's going on?
He turned his head and looked at his second brother - he saw that the latter was holding the back of the mechanical horse with one hand and covering his throat with the other hand. His eyebrows were twisted into a ball and his face was distorted, as if he was in great pain.
"Second brother... Second brother, what's wrong with you?" He was shocked. Although he complained, if something really happened to his second brother, that was definitely not the scenario he wanted to see.
Just as he was about to move forward to take a closer look, he was stopped by the youngest horse rider: "Don't go over there, there's something wrong with the second brother."
"Of course I know he's not right now! It must be the blood poison of the gamma-class mutant!" the man said anxiously, "Damn it, the poison must have entered his blood, we must take emergency measures immediately! At least, we can't let Second Brother die in front of us!"
"No, this is not a sign of poisoning!" the youngest horse rider said solemnly, "When the blood poison of a gamma-level mutant attacks, the whole body will twitch violently, the limbs will be out of control, and there will be shortness of breath and shock... Do you remember those people who were shot by our poisoned arrows?... Second brother doesn't look like he's been poisoned at all."
"What else could it be? Second brother is holding his neck, it must be because of the cut on his neck! Damn it, could it be that No. 32 smeared something else on the blade besides blood poison?" The man's tone became more and more urgent, "No matter what the reason is, we must rescue Second Brother immediately! Also, call the emergency medical team immediately!"
Only then did he remember the medical team on standby outside the field, but he pressed the emergency button seven or eight times in a row without getting any response.
"It's useless. I just tried it. The emergency button doesn't work." The youngest rider said, and suddenly took two steps back on the mechanical horse. "Look at my second brother...his neck..."
"What did you say..." The man raised his head and looked in the direction the other person said. After just one glance, his expression froze.
Not only his expression froze, but Ke Lan's expression also froze as he watched this "video" from a God's perspective.
Tiny tentacles like seedlings emerged from between the fingers of the horse rider they called "Second Brother"... "Second Brother" seemed to want to push these tentacles back with his hands, but his efforts were completely useless in the face of these tentacles. More and more tentacles emerged from the wound on their necks, and soon formed a football-sized, wriggling ball of flesh on their chests.
"What the hell is this?!" the emotional rider exclaimed. He also controlled the mechanical horse to retreat backwards. Even his right hand had unconsciously rested on the handle of the hunting crossbow.
"I don't know." The youngest rider was the youngest of the three people in the group, but he was also the calmest. "My suggestion is that we must report this matter to the family immediately and ask the supervisor to stop the competition... What happened here may have gone beyond the supervisor's control."
"I know! But the communication equipment seems to be malfunctioning! I have almost broken the distress button and the emergency communication button, they are of no use!" said the other horse rider with a frown.
At this time, the tentacles that "grew" from "Second Brother's" neck had already wrapped around "Second Brother's" entire head. Ke Lan seemed to be able to vaguely hear a strange chewing sound coming from this huge group of tentacles.
“The communication equipment is not out of order…” The youngest horseman’s expression became increasingly grim. “It’s just… there’s no one on the other end of the communication equipment responding to our calls.”
"How could this happen?! There should be a lot of people watching this game, right? In addition to the elders in our family, other families should be paying attention to this hunting ground... How could such a serious accident happen without anyone noticing?"
"I guess, the outside may be in chaos, but we are in the hunting ground and haven't noticed it yet." The youngest horseman took a deep breath, raised the hunting crossbow in his hand, and aimed at the "second brother".
"Wait! Old Seven, what are you doing?" The other horseman's eyes widened in surprise, "You... do you want to kill my second brother?!"
Although this man subconsciously grabbed his hunting crossbow when the sudden change happened, from beginning to end, he never really had the intention to kill his second brother.
He always believed that his second brother was either poisoned by some strange toxin or possessed by some fungus or other parasite.
"Do you think that second brother... is still alive?" The young man whom he called "Seventh Brother" said word by word.
The sound of bones breaking came from the tentacles. More and more tentacles joined in, as if they were enjoying a gluttonous feast...
For some reason, Ke Lan suddenly thought of a disgusting metaphor.
(Warning: If you are eating or have a low psychological tolerance, please skip the following paragraph.)
When Ke Lan just graduated from a public free school, she lived in a slum for a short period of time - there were no private bathrooms in the slums... Many slums were even converted from abandoned industrial areas, and there were not even water supply and sewage pipes under those plots of land.
People living there have to go to special public toilets if they want to go to the toilet... and although public toilets are called toilets, they actually have another nickname, called "cheap protein breeding tanks"... People's feces will be collected and used to breed a kind of genetically modified maggots. These maggots can grow to the thickness of an adult man's thumb and more than ten centimeters long. They are a very cheap and high-quality source of protein.
Ke Lan once had the “good fortune” to see the staff replacing the culture tank. On the feces piled up at the bottom of the tank, there was a dense layer of fat white maggots, which were wriggling and squeezing each other, greedily devouring the filth… Because there were so many maggots, Ke Lan couldn’t even see the feces pressed down by them…
That scene made Ke Lan retch for three whole days, and she didn't touch any food - even though the labels of those foods stated that the source of the protein was a chemical synthesis workshop.
The tentacles in front of him that were "devouring" his second brother's body naturally reminded Ke Lan of those fat, snow-white... fecal maggots.
The camera turns back to the mirror image presented by the memory fragments.
"You...you..." The other horseman was choked. He kept saying "you you you" for a long time but couldn't utter a complete sentence.
"This thing is devouring my second brother's body... When it eats up my second brother, who do you think will be its next target?" Lao Qi kept adjusting his breathing, changing the aiming point of the hunting crossbow in his hand - the reason why he didn't pull the trigger was not because he was concerned about his second brother's life or death, but simply because he couldn't be sure where the weakness of this group of tentacles was.
"I...this thing...but...but..." another horse rider said incoherently, "How about...let's hand this place over to the supervisor? I...should we leave this place first?"
"Do you think the supervisor has time to take care of our affairs now?"
