Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 897: Duel in the Mist
"The hunt begins..."
As soon as Neto's voice ended, Ke Lan felt a strong warning sign, and quickly bent down and rolled into the big pit he had just dug. The next moment, the sound of a large-caliber hunting pistol sounded again, and a strong wind passed through Ke Lan's back, bringing a hint of burning pain.
Obviously, the "hunting" that Neto mentioned refers to Ke Lan.
As for who the hunter is...
"Bang!"
Before Ke Lan could climb out of the pit, another gunshot rang out. This time, Ke Lan failed to avoid the second shot. The large-caliber bullet hit his right shoulder. The huge kinetic energy caused Ke Lan to flip over on his back and fall heavily back into the pit. His entire right arm was torn off his torso by the bullet and thrown far away.
Intense pain came from the broken arm, but what made Ke Lan feel even more uneasy was a feeling of exhaustion and dizziness - his self-healing ability and limb regeneration ability were not completely consumed. In the battle with Sanshisan just now, his body's energy had been almost completely consumed. To grow a new limb, the energy and substances required would be hundreds or even thousands of times more than that of healing a wound.
Ke Lan would rather be pierced through by the black flying blade than have an arm or a leg chopped off.
He looked back at the broken arm. The bleeding had stopped, and tiny buds began to emerge from the torn flesh. A light gray viscous liquid began to secrete from the white bone stump. When this liquid dried up completely, new bones would be formed.
However, compared with before, Ke Lan's limb regeneration speed has slowed down a lot... Although he can use his mind to speed up the regeneration of his limbs, this will cause dizziness and side effects similar to "hypoglycemia symptoms". Of course, there is no problem under safe conditions, but the current situation requires Ke Lan to keep his mental power highly concentrated at all times. If his eyes go black at this time... I'm afraid it will be dark forever.
"If I can pick up the broken arm and reconnect it, the drain on my body would be much less..." Ke Lan lay on the edge of the pit and looked out. The broken arm flew more than ten meters away. With his speed, it would take no more than a second for him to rush over, pick it up and jump back into the pit.
But he didn't dare to gamble.
The opponent's reaction was also very fast. Ke Lan just raised his head and the opponent pulled the trigger directly. Even though he had a keen sense of danger, he only had time to avoid the vital parts of his head and used his right shoulder to take the bullet... If he jumped out of the pit, in the absence of cover, getting shot was completely unavoidable.
And the most deadly thing... is the bullets used by the opponent.
It was a special bullet. The bullet had three layers. The first layer was an armor-piercing layer made of a depleted uranium alloy with a low melting point. It would burn and produce self-sharpening properties after hitting the target. It was an improved version of the famous depleted uranium armor-piercing bullets of the old era. The third layer was a core forged from pure Nino alloy. Even if the depleted uranium layer failed to break the target's armor, the needle-shaped Nino alloy core could still penetrate it like a nail...
But neither of these two layers is the key; the key lies in the second layer in the middle.
The second layer is called the "biomass digestion layer". It is a new material that the institute just successfully developed last year. It is also called "active ammunition version 2.0" within the institute and the military. It is not a material, but it is actually a special kind of genetically modified bacteria. This kind of bacteria will devour all organic matter it comes into contact with and transform it into a substance similar to rotten cotton wool...
This type of bacteria was originally developed to deal with giant mutants. No matter how hard the shell or how tough the skin is, a big hole will . Combined with the 1.0 version of active ammunition, in theory, a single soldier can also use light weapons to hunt down powerful mutants.
Of course, the God Hunting Group was also allocated a batch of trial products. Ke Lan had tested it privately and found that this kind of bacteria could easily penetrate even living armor... Just now, Ke Lan had actually condensed a two-centimeter-thick layer of living armor on his shoulders, but he still failed to block the bullet.
The only function of the living armor was probably to protect Ke Lan's torso from being torn apart by the huge kinetic energy transmitted from the shoulder...
“Hoo…Hoo…”
Ke Lan panted, used his only remaining left hand to pull out the pistol stuck in his ribs, and loaded the bullet with the help of his teeth - he really wanted to learn from the ruthless protagonist in "John Wick" to load the gun with one hand, but the spring of the military pistol he used was extremely hard, the stroke was long, and it had multiple safety devices. It was impossible to load the gun with one hand.
"There are five bullets left, counting the one in the chamber, a total of six." Ke Lan pulled out the magazine, glanced at the transparent observation window on the side of the magazine, then pushed it back against his leg.
The fog outside was very thick, with visibility of only about five meters, but judging from the sound of the gunshot, the man using the large-caliber hunting pistol was about thirty to fifty meters away from Ke Lan - even if there were no tree trunks blocking the view in a straight line, it would .
"Either the other party has special visual abilities, or... has additional detection tools..." Ke Lan suddenly caught a glimpse of a dim red light hidden behind the white mist. He immediately raised his pistol and fired a shot directly upwards.
The next moment after the gunshot, something fell next to Ke Lan. He turned his head and saw that it was a palm-sized drone. This type of drone has a built-in thermal imaging camera that can easily lock onto the target's position in the fog.
Seeing this drone, Ke Lan felt relieved - if he had to choose, instead of letting his opponent have the advantage of mysterious abilities, he would rather let the opponent have the advantage of technology.
At least Ke Lan is familiar with things on the technological side, and can use known theories and knowledge to deal with them... As for the abilities on the mysterious side, that thing is simply unreasonable.
After shooting down a drone, Ke Lan did not stand up rashly - he vaguely felt that there were more than one pair of eyes watching him. The opponent might have more than one drone, or perhaps the shooter could directly access the observation system of the jungle hunting ground.
Neto said that heavy fog is one of the multiple simulated weather conditions in the jungle hunting ground. As a viewing activity or competition, the organizer will certainly not let the spectators outside the venue only see a vast expanse of white fog. Therefore, even in a foggy environment, there must be a way to see the entire hunting ground clearly.
"If we only rely on thermal imaging..." Ke Lan tried to lift one of his legs and wrapped it with thick enough living armor, so that the external temperature of the leg dropped to almost the same as the environment...
No gunshots were heard.
Ke Lan took a deep breath, let the living armor cover his entire body, and then moved out of the pit little by little.
There was still no gunfire.
"It seems that the target is really locked by the temperature difference." Ke Lan calmed himself and ran quickly to the place where the broken arm fell... However, he had only run a few steps when a grenade with the pin pulled out flew out of the fog and fell accurately into the pit where he had just been lying.
"Damn it!" Ke Lan leaned over to pick up the broken arm on the ground, then rolled over and hid behind a thick enough tree trunk.
"boom!!"
A huge explosion was heard. It was a defensive grenade with a large enough equivalent, filled with crystalline explosives. Its power was enough to blow through the front armor of a standard walker.
A violent vibration spread along the ground, and sand and gravel, still with a trace of residual warmth, fell on Ke Lan's head and shoulders - the pit that could only accommodate one person was instantly expanded several times, and the skeleton whose identity Ke Lan had not yet figured out was blown to pieces without even a trace left.
"It seems that he discovered through thermal imaging that the target had disappeared, so he threw a grenade into the pit to test it." Ke Lan muttered to himself, "If this guy's only means are modern weapons such as guns and grenades... It shouldn't be difficult to deal with him."
As long as you can keep your body surface temperature consistent with the environment, you will be "invisible" in this fog.
Just when Ke Lan was about to use "invisibility" to move towards the direction of the shooter, the tree trunk he was leaning against suddenly sank, and countless strange-shaped branches penetrated the bark and circled Ke Lan's body!
The shape of these branches was like the withered arms of a mummy, tightly hugging Ke Lan, and the tree trunk behind him began to dissolve. A large amount of gum with a strong pungent smell was secreted, sticking Ke Lan's back firmly to the trunk.
"Trap?! No, that's not right! This tree is also a mutant! It is also a 'hunter' in this jungle!" Ke Lan reacted suddenly.
Many sharp thorns had grown on the branches . These thorns pierced Ke Lan's skin and began to suck her blood and flesh...
But just when Ke Lan was about to break free by brute force, an unexpected scene happened - this "man-eating tree" died within just a few seconds after sucking his flesh and blood. The branches that were tightly holding Ke Lan in the last second withered in the blink of an eye, and then turned into ashes. Even the extremely sticky gum turned into smelly pus with the texture of egg white.
"Oh my god, it seems that my blood has poisoned it..." Ke Lan couldn't help but sigh in his heart... He knew that his body was very special, but he never thought that he could poison a mutant plant that seemed to be of a high level in such a short time...
If that's the case, then Miss Soma, who had intimate relations with him, was madly testing the brink of death every time, right?
This toxicity should only be limited to flesh and blood, right? Certain special body fluids shouldn't be toxic, right?
But the problem is... when the two of them entered a state of ecstasy, they would bite each other. Ke Lan had been ridiculed by the hound before because of the teeth marks on her neck... Why didn't anything happen to Zofia at that time?
Could it be that this change occurred after I entered the Gray Mist Forest?
As the erosion deepens, the degree of mutation of the body is gradually increasing... Even though it still looks like a human, in fact...
Perhaps the flesh-and-blood monster covered with tentacles that Sanshisan saw in his hallucination was actually closer to humans than himself?
Ke Lan didn't have time to think about more irrelevant things. After getting rid of this " man-eating tree", he began to crawl on the ground - this movement posture may not seem elegant enough, but at least it can avoid being discovered by drones in the air to the greatest extent. At the same time, even if the opponent adopts a blind shooting method, crawling close to the ground can minimize the area affected by bullets.
"If I were that person, after the thermal imaging function failed, I should control the drone to lower its altitude and search for targets within the visible distance... However, the sound of the propellers of these drones is still very obvious. As long as I hear the sound approaching, I can shoot it down before the drone finds me." Ke Lan said silently in his heart.
The last time that person fired a shot was at one o'clock, about thirty-five meters away... and that defensive grenade weighed nine kilograms. Although it was called a grenade, it was actually heavier than many bombs... Unless one was a high-level enhanced human or a modified human with the assistance of a mechanical arm, ordinary people would not be able to throw this thing more than thirty meters away.
The other party is also approaching this side.
Ke Lan held the gun in his left hand, grabbed the engineer shovel with his right hand, and bent his knees slightly - he had already crawled forward fifteen meters. If the other party was also moving towards him, they might collide with each other at any time.
As long as anything that moved appeared in the white fog, Ke Lan would jump up immediately, first chop at the opponent's lower body with an engineering shovel, then point his pistol close and shoot, sending the bullet directly into the opponent's body.
He held his breath, crouched on the ground like a toad, waiting for the opportunity to come.
However, before Ke Lan could wait for the shooter to enter his attack range, he was met with another grenade.
This is a lightweight offensive grenade, which mainly relies on the steel balls stuck to the grenade shell to cause killing effect. The grenade was not thrown directly at Ke Lan, but landed about five meters away from Ke Lan's right side.
This means that the other party did not discover Ke Lan's exact location, but instead judged that Ke Lan was lying in ambush in this area and planned to use a grenade to clear a "safe zone".
Ke Lan did not choose to pick up the grenade and throw it back. Instead, he used his living armor to withstand the flying steel balls, remained motionless, and lowered his pulse and heart rate to the lowest level.
The effective killing radius of the steel balls of this type of grenade is ten meters, which means that the opponent is likely to be within ten meters at this time.
