Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 903: Sphinx
"I am the Eclipse Corpse..." Ke Lan was also stunned. "Then why is my consciousness always clear? Isn't this a unique trait of the Phoenix?"
Ke Lan thought of her abnormal recovery ability and couldn't help muttering, "Could it be that I, like Wilson, am also the owner of the 'Phoenix' ability?"
"You are not 'Phoenix' at all! Although Phoenix can be reborn infinitely, it is absolutely impossible for it to devour another 'Phoenix'! Devour... the ability to devour, I get it, you are 'Taotie'! Only the Erosion Corpse with the 'Taotie' ability can devour other Erosion Corpses at will without suffering backlash... No, that's not right, the influence of the 'Taotie' ability on the individual's mind is one of the most serious. If you are 'Taotie', you should be completely crazy ... What the hell are you?!" Neto's mind seemed to be in chaos, and even the weather in the jungle hunting ground changed drastically - it was freezing cold at zero degrees in the last second, and suddenly jumped to a furnace of fifty degrees Celsius in the next second. The snowflakes falling from above melted in mid-air before they hit the ground, turning into heavy rain.
Ke Lan did not dwell on this matter. While Neto was unable to restrain himself, he immediately quickened his pace, crossed the central area of the jungle hunting ground, and ran all the way towards the western half.
He had many questions he wanted to ask Neto, but instead of communicating with the other party in the area controlled by the other party, Ke Lan preferred to put the weapon against the other party's head and then negotiate the terms.
The rain in the forest did not stop, but it was getting heavier. The ground became very muddy and slippery, and some low-lying places even formed large swamps. The mutants raised in the jungle hunting grounds seemed to be crazy, rushing towards Ke Lan fearlessly. Fortunately, after swallowing Wilson, Ke Lan's personal strength had a huge breakthrough. These mutants were basically killed in seconds, and only two mutants of the same level as the crocodile monster slowed Ke Lan down for a few minutes.
"Are you scared? Do you want to use these monsters to stop me?" Ke Lan asked loudly while running.
Although the mutants in the jungle hunting grounds are ferocious by nature, they are actually very smart and would never seek their own death under normal circumstances... and now Ke Lan's route is already littered with the corpses of mutants, but there are still mutants jumping out from every corner, from giant pythons hundreds of meters long to flying insects the size of a fingernail, all blocking Ke Lan's route, and they are not afraid even if they will be split in half by Ke Lan in the next second.
"I have injected all the creatures in the hunting grounds with a frenzy potion containing your pheromones. Before the effect of the frenzy potion wears off, they will do everything they can to kill you..." Neto murmured, "Monsters like you should not exist... You are a mistake, an alien that should not be created... I will carry out God's punishment on His behalf and completely erase you from this world..."
"What? Now you don't want me to merge with your damn god?" Ke Lan asked curiously.
This time, Neto did not answer his question. Instead, the attack of the mutants became more fierce.
Many mutants were already half dead when they rushed up. Their eyes, nasal cavities, ear canals and mouths were all filled with blood, their bodies were festering and rotting, and even chunks of muscle and internal organs fell off while they ran. Even if Ke Lan didn't kill them, these mutants probably wouldn't be able to survive until the effect of the berserk potion wore off.
In addition to making these mutants lose their minds and only identify Ke Lan as their target, the berserk potion can also act as a strengthener. However, the side effects of this strengthener are extremely great, and it comes at the cost of overdrawing the user's life... The stronger the vitality that can be overdrawn, the more significant the amplification effect the potion can provide.
After being injected with the berserk potion, some weak mutants fell to the ground and died before they could even get close to Ke Lan. As for those that were even weaker, they died immediately after the injection, without even being able to unleash their potential.
In contrast, the battlefield stimulants developed by the Ark Research Institute are not like this. They also come at the cost of overdrawing vitality. The institute once provided some special forces of the field corps with a drug called "Hell Lava (Trial Type)", which can maximize the potential of the human body after taking it. After the effect of the drug ends, even if the user does not die on the spot due to a sudden outbreak of accumulated injuries, it is difficult for him to have a chance to return to the rear alive for treatment... Even a completely healthy person who takes this drug for experimental purposes and enters the medical cabin immediately after taking it, his internal organs will suffer irreversible failure after a few hours. Unless all the internal organs are replaced, he will still not escape the fate of death.
But this medicine has a special feature. Before the effect ends, it can keep the user alive - as long as the injury is not a decapitation, even if the heart is pierced, it can allow the user to continue fighting for a period of time. It is a bit like the "blood lock" function in the game plug-in... It is said that in the first two years after the Ark landed on Alpha, this unnumbered trial medicine was mass-produced and distributed to the front-line troops. In the desperate battlefield at that time, the usage rate of this medicine was also quite high...
Rather than being silently swallowed up by the beast tide, it would be better to make one last effort and burn out one's life completely in the most glorious way. This was the idea of most of the soldiers who used these potions back then.
Later, after the situation stabilized, the production of this potion was ordered to be stopped because it was inhumane, and all stocks were destroyed. It was said that even the formula was sealed up - but after Ke Lan joined the Undead Crew, she found out that this potion was actually still in production, it just had a different name.
"Hell Lava" can allow an ordinary soldier to gain the equivalent of a level 5 enhanced human's strength in a short period of time. According to the data on paper, the amplification rate is about 1.3 to 1.5 times... and the berserk potion that Neto injected into these mutants has an amplification rate of two to three times!
To give a simple example, a person who could originally punch with a force of 500 kilograms with all his strength, after being injected with this drug, the force of that punch can be increased to one to one and a half tons. This is no longer a level that can be achieved through strenuous training - without relying on external objects such as strengthening, transformation surgery, or mechanical bones, even if you spend your entire life training, you cannot achieve this level of increase.
Several Epsilon-level mutants have already made Ke Lan feel a little troubled. The only thing that makes him feel fortunate is that although these mutants are strong, they do not have the same high defense as the crocodile... Ke Lan would rather face such monsters with high attack and low defense than encounter an iron turtle that cannot be killed after fighting for a long time.
But just when Ke Lan was about to rush out of the jungle hunting area, he was stopped by an extremely powerful mutant.
To be precise, this is not a pure mutant, but a "stitched monster" formed by the combination of humans and multiple mutants.
A monster with a human head, a chimpanzee body, the sharp claws of an unknown beast, and a long and powerful scorpion tail. Its neck, chest, and joints are covered with crystallized scales. Its legs should come from some giant reptile, probably an extinct dinosaur on Earth, and its back is covered with sharp bone spurs...
This kind of monster should only appear in chaotic and terrifying nightmares, not in the real world.
"This mutant shouldn't have evolved naturally, right?" Ke Lan gripped the engineer shovel in his hand and took a deep breath.
The monster in front of him gave him a strong sense of crisis, which was something that none of the previous mutants had ever experienced... This meant that the strength of this stitched monster was several levels higher than that of the Epsilon-level mutants.
"You should know that in the eyes of people in the upper city of the hive city, people from the lower hive are never regarded as human beings." Neto said slowly.
"I know……"
"In their eyes, the Undernesters are just like the mutants in this hunting ground, beasts and livestock... beasts and livestock can be used as prey, and so can the Undernesters... beasts and livestock can be mutated and transformed at will, so of course the Undernesters can also..."
“…”
"There was a famous biologist in the Upper City at that time. His name has been deleted from my database, but I still remember his deeds... He created many classic mutants, pushing the hunting competitions in the Hive City to peaks one after another... When the residents of the Upper City had become aesthetically fatigued with those mutants, he turned his attention to the 'lower nest prey' who were selected to participate in the hunting competitions ."
Nieto continued, "He selected many people from the bottom nest, and even those healthy residents of the lower city were forced to become his experimental materials in order to increase the success rate of the experiment... He created many mutants that were a fusion of humans and beasts. These mutants have a unified name, called 'Chimera'. At the beginning, he tried to restore the races in those myths and legends, such as combining the genes of wolves and humans, or combining the genes of bats and humans... But without exception, all the experiments failed... The experimental subjects transplanted with animal organs showed strong rejection reactions, and the embryos that had undergone gene editing could only grow into an irregular mass of ugly meat..."
"Just when this biologist was at his wit's end, disaster struck, and the only successful work of his life is now presented before your eyes - the first 'Lambda-class' mutant: Sphinx!"
"Lambda-class?" Ke Lan immediately became alert after hearing this word - the iron crocodile that was killed before was only "Epsilon-class", a fifth-level mutant, and the highest-level mutant successfully cultivated by the nest in the memory fragment was the eighth-level "Theta-class"... As for this "Lambda-class"...
"λ Lambda" is the eleventh letter in the Greek alphabet.
Not to mention that the monster in front of him, named Sphinx, has been injected with a berserker potion that can triple its combat power. Its actual combat power may have exceeded the twelfth level of "μ-error".
What Ke Lan cares about most is... the Sphinx has a human head.
We are not afraid of monsters with strength, but we are afraid of monsters with intelligence... This is a saying recognized by all pioneers and mercenaries roaming in the wilderness. No matter how powerful the monster is, we can always find a way to destroy it with human wisdom... and monsters with IQs similar to humans are the most troublesome.
The Sphinx first appeared in ancient Egyptian mythology on Earth. Its image is the "Sphinx" standing next to the Pyramid of Khufu. The Sphinx has also appeared in ancient Greek and West Asian mythology. Although there are differences in the Sphinxes in various myths, they are basically monsters formed by the combination of humans, lions, cows and eagles.
In these myths, the Sphinx has an extremely high IQ. The most famous story is the Sphinx's guessing game - it perches on a cliff and asks everyone who passes by to guess a riddle. Anyone who guesses wrong will be eaten by it.
Although this is just a legend, it undoubtedly illustrates one point: the Sphinx has wisdom that is no less than that of humans.
"Your name is Sphinx, right?" Ke Lan glanced at the monster about thirty meters away from him and spoke.
The Sphinx lowered its upper body slightly, its head stretched forward, its eyes fixed on Ke Lan, its nasal cavity expanded greatly, and strong breaths continued to spit out. Its throat kept moving, making some meaningless low sounds, and the claws on its hands rubbed back and forth, making a "squeaking" sound like nails scratching a blackboard, making people feel numb.
The Sphinx did not respond to Ke Lan's words, but slowly approached Ke Lan.
"You want to kill me because you were injected with a drug containing my pheromones by the AI controlling this area... But you have a human brain, you are not a beast, you should be able to control that instinct with reason." Ke Lan had to speed up his speech, "I should not be your enemy. Those who created you and brought you pain should be your enemies."
"It's useless." Neto's voice rang out, "You can't persuade the Sphinx... The Sphinx voluntarily accepted the transformation."
"voluntary?"
"He is not a person from the bottom nest, but a resident of the upper city... He was first eroded by the disaster, and then underwent the 'Chimera' transformation operation... He is... the biologist himself."
