Volume 2: The Undersea City Chapter 82 Nuclear
Judging from the clothes and equipment, the remains and Sergeant Collins should belong to the same unit, but compared with Collins, his death was simply horrible... It looked like he had suffered a famous torture in the old era, "being torn apart by a chariot".
However, after a rough inspection of the remains, Ke Lan's doubts were mostly dispelled - the ends of the limbs of this remains had shown a certain degree of abnormality: a large number of fleshy tentacles grew out from the gaps in the muscles, some of them were entangled in the blood vessels and nerves, and some penetrated the skin and extended out of the body... Ke Lan could easily imagine that if this situation was allowed to develop, then this arm would definitely become like Ivan, with all human tissue except the bones replaced by a large group of tangled tentacles.
This soldier's alienation was not as severe as Ivan's, but it was only a matter of time.
In the absence of any means of suppression, cutting off the limbs is the only way to prevent the mutation from spreading to the torso. However, there are not enough medical conditions on this deserted island. Even if the amputation is successful, it is difficult for the infected soldier to survive more than 24 hours.
"They are still a little slow..."
On the cross-section of the torso, Ke Lan found a small number of tiny tentacles that emerged like granulations. These tentacles were less than half a centimeter long and not much thicker than a hair in diameter, but this meant that the alienated cells had already invaded the torso of the infected person.
Before this, when Ke Lan cut off the infected part of Ivan, there was no abnormality at the incision. But even so, the erosive cells that were invisible to the naked eye still spread into his body.
The cells of the Seed of Erosion are like viruses, and their speed of spread is unimaginable. Unless the contact point is cut off immediately after direct contact occurs, mutations will soon appear in various parts of the body. By then, it will be too late to take drastic measures.
However, judging from the condition of the remains, the mutation seemed to have stopped after the host's death. Not only the torso, but even the severed limbs still retained most of the human body tissues.
After a human dies, tissue cells will die within a few hours due to lack of oxygen supply. Inactivated cells cannot be assimilated by the seeds of erosion, so the progress of mutation is stopped...
"That's not right... Even if human cells die, the cells of the Seed of Erosion will actively snatch oxygen and nutrients from the outside world. Even if it doesn't occupy the host's entire body, it should be separated from the host as a new individual, instead of being buried with the host... Could it be because..."
Ke Lan's gaze fell on the stalagmite that pierced the trunk of the remains... The piercing point of this stalagmite was not chosen randomly, but it pierced right where the heart was.
At first, Ke Lan thought it was to end the suffering of the infected as soon as possible, but now it seems that things are not that simple.
He pulled out a dagger, cut open the chest of the remains along the puncture point of the stalagmite, and then pried it open with force. With a crisp sound of broken ribs, the entire chest cavity was exposed directly in front of his eyes.
The heart pierced by the stalagmite was abnormally enlarged. Even in a dehydrated and shrunken state, it was about four times larger than a normal human heart and occupied almost half of the space in the chest cavity.
"Is this the mutated heart..."
Logically speaking, the more developed the heart muscles of a creature, the stronger its athletic ability. But the problem is that this abnormally large heart can no longer be said to be strong. It is a pathological enlargement. When it grows to this size, not only will the function of the heart itself be affected, but it will also compress other organs in the chest cavity. There is only one result, and that is death.
"It looks like a tumor..." Ke Lan carefully examined the heart, his eyes sweeping over the wrinkled membrane on the outside of the heart, "Does it seem like there is really a foreign object inside?"
This foreign body naturally could not be a tumor. The incidence of cardiac tumors is extremely low, and malignant tumors that can proliferate indefinitely are even rarer...and these soldiers undergo a full physical examination before each mission. If there is a tumor in the body, it would have been discovered long ago.
"It should be the invasion of cells of the Seed of Erosion..." Ke Lan thought about it and it seemed that Ivan's heart had not yet undergone such changes.
He carefully inserted the tip of the dagger, but before it went in two centimeters, the tip of the dagger came into contact with a hard object, making it difficult to move forward any further.
"Sure enough, there is something."
Ke Lan cut open the cardiac pericardium along the stabbing site, and suddenly, a translucent egg-shaped object appeared. It had a hard and smooth outer shell, and the dagger that Ke Lan had just stabbed was blocked by this shell.
Through the pale yellow translucent shell, one can vaguely see that it is covered with purple blood vessels, which are wrapped in milky white nerve fibers. On the periphery of the egg-shaped object, there are many shriveled and withered fleshy tentacles.
And that stalagmite just pierced this thing.
To Ke Lan, this egg-shaped object was not unfamiliar... He had seen it once when he killed the first Seed of Erosion. And not long ago, at the bottom of the Abyss Hatchery, each of the young developing in the egg shells had such a thing in their bodies.
This thing is the heart of the Seed of Erosion - in the information left by the Alpha people, it is called the "core".
"It turns out that smashing the core can also kill the seeds of corrosion... As long as we can replace this person with an artificial heart, he might still be able to survive..." Thinking of this, Ke Lan was suddenly stunned, "If we can find the 'core' in Ivan's body, then even if we don't get the flesh-eating worms, we should be able to kill those mutated tissue cells, right?"
However, Ivan's heart did not undergo such a change. Could it be that the erosion cells in his body had not yet developed a "nucleus"? Or, not all "nuclei" would be generated ?
The Seed of Corrosion in the Exile Settlement was taken away by DAS agents before. This time, a nearly complete "core " appeared in front of Ke Lan. Naturally, he wanted to study it carefully... But just when he pulled out the stalagmite, something strange happened!
The pierced "core" recovered almost instantly, and the blood vessels inside the "core" began to beat vigorously like a heart, pumping black and red viscous plasma into the tentacles connected to the "core". These originally shriveled and withered tentacles suddenly became plump and began to grow rapidly!
It... is resurrected!!
