Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 875: The Origin of Biology
In fact, it cannot be said that there was no damage at all... At the front end of the hammer head, there were several severely deformed black scales. These scales should have been torn off by the huge force of the impact, but the weakness of was not exposed because of this - under the surface scales, there was a second layer of smaller but denser scales.
This structure is similar to the ancient layered armor.
The next moment after being smashed into the ground, the monster jumped up with flying mud and pounced on Ke Lan again. Just when Ke Lan was about to swing the armor-breaking hammer again, the monster, which had closed the distance, used the same trick again, and its powerful tail swept towards Ke Lan's neck!
Ke Lan had just used his chest to block the opponent's tail swing, and even his spine was broken and dislocated. Compared with the torso, the neck is thinner and more fragile. If it is hit, the whole head may be separated from the body and fly far away...
By then, even if he had a super strong recovery ability, Ke Lan couldn't guarantee whether he could survive with his head and body separated...
Ke Lan had no choice but to give up the attack and retreat.
Living armor seeped out from his back and condensed into a tentacle as thick as a fist. At the end of the tentacle was a three-pronged hook, which hooked onto the ground the moment it was thrown out and pulled Ke Lan's body backwards.
The monster's tail just brushed past Ke Lan's cheek and didn't hit him directly, but the strong wind it created cut Ke Lan's cheek, revealing his white facial bones and teeth.
Compared to losing my head, this little flesh wound is nothing, it will heal in a few seconds anyway, Ke Lan thought.
He wanted to take out the gravity gun to attack several times, but he changed his mind and thought that the effect of the gravity gun was just to multiply the gravity applied to a certain area. It couldn't even collapse the inner wall of the garbage channel made of lead alloy, let alone the monster made of steel and iron in front of him.
In the physical sense – “iron bones”.
Sanshisan on the side could only watch anxiously - Ke Lan was obviously at a disadvantage. He also wanted to help Ke Lan, but he was completely unable to do anything and could only wait for Ke Lan to create opportunities for him to attack.
But the problem was that Ke Lan could only retreat in a panic. Not to mention attacking, even dodging was becoming increasingly difficult.
The monster kept swinging its tail to sweep across a large area. Ke Lan didn't even dare to use his weapon to confront the tail head-on - as long as he made contact with the tail, the huge force attached to it would directly carry Ke Lan, who was holding the weapon, and fly away, unless Ke Lan softened the living armor at the moment of contact. But in this case, it would be difficult for the soft weapon to burst out with enough power, and he couldn't even smash down a few scales like he did just now.
It's not that Ke Lan had never thought about transforming his weapon into a chain weapon like a meteor hammer, but now the monster was chasing him closely and the distance between them was very tight. If Ke Lan was a little slower, he would be hit by the tail. There was no room for him to swing the meteor hammer or accumulate power.
The previous idea of wanting to make as little noise as possible was now thrown to the wind. In the fight between Ke Lan and the monster, large tracts of forest were razed to the ground. When giant trees were hit by the tail, trunks that were as thick as several people hugging were torn and broken easily as if they were made of paper. Rumbling sounds and tremors in the ground rose and fell one after another.
Fortunately, the monster in front of him seemed to be the overlord of this area. Even though it caused such a big commotion, no other creatures were attracted nearby, allowing Ke Lan to focus all his attention on a single opponent.
"We can't go on like this!" Ke Lan began to become anxious.
If Ze Luo assists, this battle will become very easy. Spatial force can even be used to forge Nino alloy, and it is not a problem to flatten and round this monster... But the problem is that Ze Luo's ability cannot be used in the upper city... The only way is to lead this monster to the garbage channel...
But will this guy really be led away from the jungle hunting ground by himself?
There seems to be an invisible and intangible restriction on the edge of the jungle hunting ground. Not only will the trees in the hunting ground not cross the edge line by half an inch, even the animals in the hunting ground will not run outside the hunting ground.
Although this cannot be confirmed for the time being, apart from the two people's previous brief investigation of the upper city, no living creatures were found in the eastern half of the upper city except for some insects similar to mutated cockroaches.
Those "cockroaches" probably didn't escape from the jungle hunting grounds, but originally lived in the corners of the upper city. After the humans in the hive city disappeared, they became the only creatures active among the ruins of the buildings.
There are definitely more creatures left in the jungle hunting grounds than just the crocodile-like monster in front of us. But no matter what kind of creature it is, they would rather risk being eaten by stronger creatures than leave this dangerous hunting ground and go to the outside world where competition is relatively smaller but the area is larger... This is very telling.
"Thirty-three!" Ke Lan suddenly shouted.
"I'm here!" Thirty-three, who had been watching the battle for half a day, responded quickly, "What do you want me to do?"
"We." Before Ke Lan could finish his words, he was interrupted by a messy roll. Before he could pull back his right hand, it was hit by the monster's tail. The entire palm was cut off at the root, and blood spurted out like a broken faucet.
"Your hand!" Sanshisan bit his back teeth hard. Although he knew that with Ke Lan's recovery ability, a brand new palm would grow out from the broken ground in a few minutes, he could also see that Ke Lan's dodging space had become much smaller than before, and the choices left for him were becoming more and more embarrassing.
"It's okay, it will grow out soon!" But in fact, Ke Lan couldn't wait for those few minutes. He could only use the living armor to condense a bright red "prosthetic hand" at the broken wrist. He pushed hard on the ground, and used the power bursting out from his wrist and elbow to push his body to the side.
After narrowly avoiding an attack, Ke Lan finally had time to finish the sentence he had just spoken: "Let's retreat to the edge of the forest! I guess this guy can't leave this place!"
"What if it can?" Thirty-Three asked as he retreated.
"Then we can only use the wreckage of the buildings in the upper city to deal with it... To be honest, I actually hope to see this situation... As long as we can lead it to the garbage channel, I can use Ze Luo's power to get rid of it."
After paying the price of an arm and a part of his calf, Ke Lan finally succeeded in leading the monster to the edge of the jungle hunting ground. Strangely enough, when Ke Lan retreated beyond the boundary line, the monster immediately stopped chasing... Although it was very close, it seemed as if there was a space barrier between it and Ke Lan, completely separating the two.
"It really won't chase us anymore!" Sanshisan said while panting - the speed of movement between Ke Lan and the monster was extremely fast, and Sanshisan had to move at full speed to ensure that he could withdraw from the jungle area before them. Otherwise, if Ke Lan retreated first, the monster would turn around and attack him.
He didn't have the confidence that he could survive the monster's violent attack like Ke Lan .
"Ha, we've finally retreated to the safe zone." Ke Lan looked at the boundary line three steps ahead of him. It felt like he was looking at the light curtain of the main city's safe zone in an online game. He couldn't help but let out a long sigh.
He had experienced many tough battles before, but this was the first time he had experienced such an embarrassing situation as having his hands and feet broken, and his stomach cut open and his internal organs shattered.
But at least it also made Ke Lan realize the limit of his recovery ability - as long as his head was not smashed, he could recover on his own no matter how serious the injury was.
Only Thirty-three and his teammates would not be surprised by this. If it were anyone who was not familiar with Ke Lan, they would definitely suspect that Ke Lan was a monster, a monster that maintained a human appearance but was even more "monster" than the crocodile with eight pairs of legs.
Strictly speaking, this statement is actually correct.
"I am a monster, but I am also a human being." Ke Lan muttered to himself.
The monster - here referring to the crocodile with eight pairs of legs, not Ke Lan - did not leave, but stared at Ke Lan across the border of the hunting ground.
Even at this point, Ke Lan still couldn't figure out where its eyes were... or maybe this guy didn't have "visual organs" in the conventional sense.
Although the boundary of the jungle hunting ground could block its steps, it could not block its perception. It just squatted at the edge of the hunting ground, as if waiting for Ke Lan to set foot in it again.
Ke Lan was naturally not in a hurry to "give away heads", which was the same as fighting a boss in a game. Repeating the challenge blindly was the least efficient way to pass the level. Only after each attempt, summarizing experience, improving skills and equipment, and adjusting the state, could the most scientific strategy plan be made.
Ke Lan first waited for his broken limbs to grow back, then walked back and forth along the edge of the jungle hunting ground for a few circles, carefully observing the monster from different angles.
No, now it should be called "Epsilon-class mutant No. 14". To be more precise, it should be " 500,000 years evolved version of Epsilon-class mutant No. 14".
Just when he was fighting with this monster, some memory fragments deep in Ke Lan's mind were unlocked, but the battle was too intense, and his brain had no time to process other information except fighting, so he put the matter aside temporarily.
The monsters that the Hive City puts into the hunting grounds are all "mutants" artificially created and bred based on the genes of Earth creatures. Different levels are assigned according to the strength of the mutants. The levels are taken from the order of Greek letters, with "α Alpha" of sequence one being the smallest and "Ω Omega" of sequence twenty-four being the largest. (The Alpha here has nothing to do with Alpha Planet or Alpha Civilization.)
Of course, according to the information mentioned in the memory fragments, it is not just that the "Omega level" only exists in theory. In fact, all levels after "θ Theta" are "empty titles". The strongest mutant creatures created by the Hive Civilization are only limited to the "Theta level" of Sequence Eight.
The giant saber-toothed tiger that "No. 32" encountered previously was only a "gamma-class" sequence three, while the "crocodile" that Ke Lan encountered was a "Epsilon-class" sequence five, the fourteenth registered "Epsilon-class mutant".
However, this is data from 500,000 years ago. At that time, the appearance of this crocodile was no different from normal crocodiles on Earth except that it was big. It only had four legs and no layers of Nino alloy scales on its body. It was just that the stratum corneum of its skin had the ability to enrich metal elements... There are a lot of creatures with similar abilities in the wasteland of Alpha.
Nino alloy is definitely not the same as ordinary metal elements... The smelting conditions of Nino alloy are extremely harsh. Not only does it require an ultra-high pressure environment, but it also requires a new element outside the periodic table that can only be obtained on a mysterious planet.
This new element only exists on the planet where the escaped engineering ship once docked. It does not exist on Earth or on Alpha... It is for this reason that the Alpha civilization, with such a high level of technology, can only replicate energy crystals, but cannot replicate Nino alloys.
If it was just an ordinary "Epsilon-class mutant", Ke Lan's strength alone could easily kill it... But in half a million years, this "Epsilon-class mutant" has obviously undergone tremendous changes.
If it were to be re-evaluated, Ke Lan felt that it could at least reach the "Kappa Level" of Sequence 10, or even higher.
Judging from the information provided in the memory fragments, even the strongest mutants created by the Hive Civilization, "Theta-class" No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3, are definitely not as powerful as the crocodile in front of them.
Although only one of the names of "Theta Class" No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 was mentioned, there were successful hunting records - No. 1 was successfully hunted by fourteen hunters, and the number of No. 2 rose to fifty-one. As for No. 3, it was a bit less impressive and was killed by the Dichao people in the "qualifying round", but the Dichao people also paid a price of nearly two hundred casualties for this.
Suddenly, a very bold idea popped up in Ke Lan's mind...
These mutants of what level, could they be... the ancestors of the native creatures on Planet Alpha? !
Many of Alpha's native creatures can find some similarities in these mutants! It is also because of this that many of Alpha's native creatures make the people on the Ark feel that they have many similarities with some creatures on Earth.
