Volume 5: Bottomless Sinkhole Chapter 272 Teratoma
But at this moment, the giant tumor hanging on the top of the cave suddenly "spoke"!
Although its tone was strange and its voice was dull, Ke Lan and the hound could tell that it was speaking the most widely : Chinese!
"The test... was aborted... an error occurred during the test... the emergency plan was activated..."
"This... this thing is talking?" The hound looked up in astonishment and stared at the tumor with an incredible look on his face. "Fuck... why can I understand what this thing is saying?"
"Because it uses Chinese..." Ke Lan murmured.
"Did it really speak Chinese? Did I hear it correctly?" The hound stretched out his fingers and dug his ears hard.
"You heard it right." Ke Lan said, "It's not hard to understand. This thing can invade our thoughts and consciousness, so it's not surprising that it can master our language. But what concerns me is the content of the sentence it just said."
"It seems to be saying that it wants to activate some emergency plan... Damn, we are out of time, hurry!" The hound reacted immediately, ran to Layton's side in two steps, grabbed the fleshy hose on Layton's head, and began to pull it out with force.
"Error! Process error! The connection of the third test subject was abnormally disconnected!" Sarcoma's voice began to become sharp and piercing. At the same time, the cave began to shake slightly, and small pieces of gravel continued to fall from the top of the cave.
"Test subject number four was disconnected abnormally! Test subject number five..."
"Shut up right there!" The hound suddenly raised his gun and fired several shots at the tumor on the top of the cave. As the deafening gunshots echoed in the cave, several blood holes the size of bowls suddenly appeared on the surface of the giant tumor. Unlike most of the Alpha Star natives with thick skin and flesh, this thing's defense is pitifully low. It has only a thin layer of fascia protecting its surface, and beneath this layer of fascia is soft pink-white tissue like fat.
A large amount of blood mixed with broken flesh gushed out from the wounds, but soon, countless tiny granulations began to emerge from the tissues around the wounds. These granulations squirmed wildly, and soon, the wounds were completely blocked by the granulations.
"This damn thing...has a strong ability to heal itself!" said the Hound. "Bullets can hurt it, but they can't kill it."
"There's no need to waste bullets." Ke Lan said. He put his left hand around Qin Zhao's waist, turned the girl's body horizontally, and laid it flat on his knees. He grabbed the fleshy hose with his right hand and pulled it out with all his strength. Because Qin Zhao had long hair, the tiny tentacles that pierced her scalp were entangled with her hair, and it was more difficult to pull them out than for others. Ke Lan couldn't cut the tentacles off with a knife like cutting hair, otherwise, if the broken tentacles got into her head, it would be difficult to take them out.
Layton and Zhuo Ligetu have fully woken up, while Asano Akira and Ivan are still within the effect period of the dream preparation. Apart from Qin Zhao, only Cao Feng has not escaped from the dream world.
"You two, find a way to exit. I'll go deal with the last guy." The Hound said to Layton and Zhuoligetu. At this time, the vibration amplitude of the cave had become very large, as if it would collapse at any time.
"Activate... the emergency plan... abandon test subject number nine..."
"Give up?" Hearing this word, the Hound was stunned for a moment. When he came to his senses, he found that Cao Feng in front of him had opened his eyes.
"Did this ghost thing admit defeat on its own? No! Wasn't this guy injected with the dream date preparation? Why did he wake up--" Before the hound could finish his words, Cao Feng suddenly jumped up from the ground, stretched out his hand from his waist, pulled out a piece of black thing, and stabbed it hard in the hound's ribs!
"Ah--!!" The hound screamed and fell to the ground, his whole body bent like a shrimp due to the severe pain - fortunately, all the weapons on Cao Feng had been searched away, and what he used to stab people was just a dagger sheath made of plastic steel... If it was the dagger inside, the hound would probably be in great danger now.
Ke Lan turned her head and saw Cao Feng staggering towards her. Above his head, the fleshy tube had penetrated his skull and pierced deeply into his brain.
Dark red blood slowly flowed out from his mouth, nose, eye sockets and ear canals. This was a fatal injury... However, Cao Feng did not die from it. Instead, he suddenly sped up and rushed towards Ke Lan, who had just helped Qin Zhao remove the meat tube.
"Ke Lan, be careful! This guy seems to be controlled by this ghost thing!" Layton shouted, his gun was already pointed at Cao Feng, but Cao Feng jumped up at this moment and fell on Ke Lan, and both of them fell to the ground!
"Damn it, I can't shoot! Damn it!" Layton yelled anxiously, "Ke Lan, can you get rid of him? I can't shoot like this!"
"I'll go help him!" Zhuo Ligetu said as he ran towards Ke Lan and Cao Feng. However, before he could get close, the ground of the cave suddenly cracked, forming a crack more than four meters wide between Zhuo Ligetu, Ke Lan and Cao Feng!
With Zhuo Ligetu's strength, it would be easy for him to cross the crack, but the giant tumor obviously couldn't let him do so - dozens of tentacles stretched out towards this side. They did not attack directly, but hung in the air with a fierce look, as if telling Zhuo Ligetu clearly: as long as you dare to jump, these tentacles will immediately knock him down in mid-air.
"... Layton! Beat... break this... piece of... fucking... rotten meat!" The hound half lay on the ground, shouting in pain.
"I know! How are you? Are you not going to die?"
"It seems... it seems like I have two broken ribs. I shouldn't be dead! Damn it, what are you still talking about? Hurry up!"
Layton stopped talking nonsense and raised the muzzle of the machine gun, aimed it at the giant tumor diagonally above, and pulled the trigger hard!
Tongues of flame spewed out, and dense rain of bullets instantly tore open the surface of the giant tumor, crushing the soft tissue inside into pieces - although the customized Minigun that Layton carried with him was small in shape, the caliber of the barrel was a solid 25mm aircraft cannon standard, and the recoil generated by this thing could only be barely controlled by Layton, a fourth-level cyborg, with the assistance of a mechanical exoskeleton.
The four heavy gun barrels fired continuously. In less than five seconds, the entire box of ammunition that Layton was carrying was used up, and the huge deformed tumor was completely smashed into minced meat, falling into the bottomless crack.
For the research institute, this thing is definitely a priceless treasure. If it can be brought back to the Ark intact, its value will be enough to allow the God Hunter Group to easily advance to the top three in the hunting group rankings... But for the Hounds, how to get back alive is the first issue to consider.
"Tsk, what a pity." The Hound threw the empty bottle of painkiller spray into the crack, and then climbed up from the ground with difficulty. Although he said it was a pity, there was no regret in his tone. Instead, he looked very happy.
"Old dog!" Layton's voice came from the side. The hound turned his head immediately, but found that Layton's expression did not relax at all because the tumor was blown up. "It's useless, completely useless! This big tumor is not the key!"
As Layton spoke, he pointed to the top of the cave. After the tumor was blown up, a huge hole appeared there. Hundreds of tentacles were madly pouring out of the hole and rolling towards everyone.
As for Ke Lan, he was still wrestling with Cao Feng - even though the fleshy tube had been broken, Cao Feng still couldn't break free from his control. His strength became extremely huge, and he could equal the power burst out of Ke Lan's entire upper body with just one hand. He put one arm in front of Ke Lan's body, and used one hand to continuously punch, attacking Ke Lan's vital points in the chest and abdomen.
Faced with such a fierce attack, Ke Lan could only choose passive defense. He retreated step by step, trying to use distance to gain a chance to counterattack. In a close combat situation, even if he had the ability to stop time, it would hardly be of any help: even if he could see the angle and direction of the opponent's attack, the moment the time stop ended, the fist would have landed on him, and it would be impossible for him to dodge, let alone counterattack.
Cao Feng's strength was still growing. The giant tumor seemed to have used some special method to squeeze out all the potential in his body. This was a method close to self-mutilation. Ke Lan knew that he could only hold on until Cao Feng's strength faded. Even if he didn't actively attack, the opponent would fall down on his own. But the problem was that he had to hold on until that time...
During combat training, Ke Lan had fought with Layton before. He knew how terrifying the power of a full-strength punch from a level 4 cyborg was - even if both sides could only use 30% of their strength during training, Ke Lan would definitely not feel good after taking a punch from Layton. And the Cao Feng in front of him, each of his punches was almost as powerful as Layton's 30%. The outside of Ke Lan's arms were already torn apart, and the blood that seeped out even soaked his thick winter clothes.
His parrying began to become more and more ineffective - although Cao Feng had lost his mind, the fighting style he used was very standard Sanda technique: swinging punches, jabs... From time to time he would turn around and throw a powerful whip punch. If Ke Lan had not been wearing an exoskeleton to help share some of the attack force, Ke Lan's arms would probably have been broken long ago.
The hounds were of no help at the moment. Just dealing with the attacks of the tentacles was already too much for them, not to mention that the rift between the two sides was still widening.
Ke Lan can only rely on himself... He must find a way to get rid of Cao Feng.
The pistol had been knocked out during the fight and no one knew where it had fallen. The only two weapons on were the grappling hook mounted on the exoskeleton and Asano Akira's sword on his back.
However, under Cao Feng's continuous attacks, the mechanical parts of the exoskeleton had been severely deformed. Ke Lan pulled the mechanism several times but failed to get the hook to eject. As for the sword behind him, there was no chance for him to draw it at all.
There was a rock wall behind him. Ke Lan had no way to retreat, and the cracks were constantly spreading towards this side. The ground was like an old and brittle plastic plate, cracking, crumbling, and breaking under the stress... The gap gradually expanded into an abyss. Ke Lan felt that before Cao Feng's strength was exhausted, there would be no place for them to stand.
At this critical moment, Ke Lan's elbow seemed to hit a hard cylindrical object. He glanced at it with the corner of his eye. It was a rocket booster installed on the exoskeleton. Because the exoskeleton was deformed, the position of the rocket booster moved from the waist to the ribs...
"I hope... there's still fuel left in the thrusters..."
Ke Lan muttered to himself, and while taking Cao Feng's punch, he reached out and unscrewed the manual control valve on the side of the thruster.
After a short delay, there was a "boom!" and a long tail flame spurted out from the nozzle of the thruster. A huge force pushed Ke Lan sideways for several meters before the rocket suddenly went out with a "puff".
Although the fuel was only enough for the thrusters to work for less than half a second, this half second was enough for Ke Lan!
"Time stops."
Everything around him turned into a frozen black and white scene in an instant. Ke Lan could clearly see that after he moved sideways for several meters, Cao Feng immediately turned around - his feet were already on the ground, his knees were slightly bent, and his leg muscles were contracted. In the next moment, the power bursting out from his legs would make him leap up from his original position and pounce towards him.
His right fist was raised to the side of his face, his elbow was folded, his spine was bent to the right, and the strength of his waist and back was completely concentrated on his arm. This was a punch ready to be delivered. Ke Lan could fully imagine how terrifying the power attached to this fist was.
However, this punch will never hit me.
As long as he could create some distance, even just a few meters, he would have secured victory.
Time stopped and released - squatting, bending over, sinking the center of gravity of the whole person, while lowering his head, Ke Lan's right hand had already grasped the hilt behind him. With the help of the twisting force of his waist, he pulled the sword out of the scabbard with a "swoosh", and the blade just met the rushing Cao Feng.
From the perspective of the hounds, it didn't look like Ke Lan had chopped the knife, but rather like Cao Feng had bumped into the blade himself...
“Puff——”
The sound of a sharp weapon cutting through flesh was as crisp as tearing silk, and the spurting hot liquid instantly turned Ke Lan into a bloody man.
