Volume 2: The Undersea City Chapter 86: Footprints of the Predecessors
No wonder the team marked this place with a star... If there are seeds of erosion on this deserted island, then this cave is the only "safe zone".
Not only that, if these stalactites are used to make weapons - for example, by grinding them into bullets, then anyone, even a child, as long as he can aim and pull the trigger, can easily kill a Seed of Erosion at a safe distance.
Even if the Seed of Corrosion cannot be killed completely, at least it can be pushed into the same state of suspended animation as before.
It's a pity that Ke Lan doesn't have any tools at hand now, otherwise, as long as he can process dozens of such bullets, he would even dare to take the initiative to challenge the Seed of Erosion in a duel.
But what surprised Ke Lan was that these stalactites were well preserved, with no signs of mining at all... If this thing was really effective against the Seed of Erosion, the Ark's top management would never abandon such a precious resource on this deserted island... It didn't make sense that it hadn't been touched for decades.
Could it be that this team was completely wiped out and failed to send the message back?
Or is there something else going on?
After taking off his diving suit, Ke Lan began to walk deeper into the cave. These things could not be concluded by just guessing. He had too few clues in his hands. About this deserted island, about this mysterious team, about what happened here decades ago... everything was still shrouded in heavy fog. All he could see was just the tip of the iceberg above the water.
"It would be great if we could find more bodies of the other members of this team... it would be best if we could find their captain, as he must have a complete mission record on him."
Thinking this, Ke Lan lowered his head to avoid a stalactite that was about to form a stone pillar, but when he looked up again, he directly hit a pair of black eye sockets!
"... Shit," Ke Lan was stunned for two seconds before realizing that it was a skeleton leaning against the rock wall, "I was almost scared to death by you, old man."
He shone the flashlight on the skeleton - there was no doubt that the dead man belonged to , but due to the environment, the clothes on its body were almost rotten away. It could still be vaguely distinguished that it was a very old-fashioned army training uniform.
After decades, even the sturdy nylon fabric had become crumbly. Ke Lan simply pulled it lightly, and the bag hanging on the skeleton's waist was torn apart, and the things inside fell to the ground in pieces.
Two flares that had been damaged by moisture and were scrapped, a rusty multi-purpose folding knife, a magnesium rod for making fire in the wild, and two unopened condoms.
Ke Lan checked all these things carefully, but what made him feel a little regretful was that there was no valuable information left on them - except for the name engraved on the side of the folding saber.
"Connelly..."
Ke Lan glanced at the skull. This Cornelius should be his last name when he was alive.
Although Ke Lan did not find anything on these relics, when Ke Lan focused his attention on Cornelius's sternum, his expression changed.
"Eh... Could this be..."
There were obvious signs of fracture on the ribs on Cornelius' left chest, but the fracture angle was opposite to the common traumatic fractures, bending outwards, and the spine was also deformed to a certain extent. As for the sternum, it was gone... It looked as if a huge foreign object was forcibly stuffed into his chest cavity, breaking his entire chest cavity...
Ke Lan couldn't help but think of the huge heart in the second corpse... That heart almost filled the entire chest cavity of the corpse, and inside that heart was the "core" of the Seed of Corrosion.
It seems that this Cornelius was also once parasitized by the Corrosion Seed. Judging from the damage to his bones, the Corrosion Seed in his body should not have been removed manually, but seemed to have directly broken out of his chest and voluntarily abandoned its host...
"Why does it feel like the plot of "Alien"... " Ke Lan took a deep breath. However, judging from the performance of the aliens in the movie, the Seed of Erosion is obviously much stronger than this horrible creature made up by the screenwriter.
"The Seed of Erosion voluntarily abandoned its host. It seems that this is related to the environment of this cave... It must have sensed a fatal threat." Ke Lan used his fingers to measure the volume of Cornelius' chest cavity. The core of this Seed of Erosion is at least twice as large as that in the second remains... In other words, there must be more than one Seed of Erosion on this deserted island.
"Could this island be a breeding farm used by the Alpha people to cultivate the seeds of erosion..." Ke Lan couldn't help but twitch the corners of his mouth, thinking of the hatchery in the abyss and the pieces of meat sealed under the glacier... These Alpha people seem to be particularly keen on breeding monsters, but... why do they do this?
Is it true, as it says on the stone tablet, that they are trying to create warriors strong enough for that "true God"?
The height of Alpha civilization is already beyond the reach of humans, so what level of civilization is the "God" in the eyes of the Alpha people?
A chill suddenly ran up Ke Lan's spine... He suddenly thought of the fungus culture experiment he had done in school - for the fungi on the culture dish, that piece of culture medium was the whole world.
They will not understand human existence, just as humans cannot understand the existence of more advanced civilizations.
Humans only need to sprinkle a few drops of inactivating agent in the petri dish to destroy their entire world.
…
"Fuck... why am I thinking about these things..." Ke Lan shook his head vigorously, "It's more important to find a way to escape from this damn place first."
Ke Lan’s plan was very clear. First of all, he had to stay alive. Only by staying alive would he have a chance to wait for rescue, otherwise everything would be in vain.
Given that there may be multiple types of erosion on the island, if he wants to protect himself, he must rely on these peculiar stalactites - although he doesn't know what is so peculiar about these stalactites.
Secondly, he had to find a way to continue tracking the clues of this team - since they came to this place decades ago, then by reversing the path they came from, Ke Lan might know a way to leave here.
Thirdly, judging from the stalactites nailed to the second corpse, these people obviously knew something about the Seed of Erosion and how to restrain it. If they could find a way to resolve the invasion of the Seed of Erosion cells from the clues they left behind, then Ke Lan’s original purpose of this action would be achieved, and they wouldn’t have to risk going to the bottom of the sea again to look for the damn flesh-eating worms.
Fourth - if these people had left behind any usable means of transportation, it would be like winning the jackpot for Ke Lan.
