Alien Relic Hunter

"I would rather meet a cockroach, even a giant cockroach hundreds of times bigger." The hound whispered, "Compared to those ghosts, cockroaches are cuter."

When the hound said this, Martin couldn't help but think of the hand that just disappeared under the ice. He nodded in agreement: "I really think... it seems that this is indeed the case."

"Don't think about things too simply." Ke Lan patted Leighton on the shoulder, "Try to see if you can dig out an egg sheath from it."

"It should be possible. These things are not embedded in the ice. They just need to melt away the bit of ice that sticks to them." Leighton nodded.

"It's best not to use heating. I'm worried that the rising temperature will cause the contents of the egg sheath to hatch out." Ke Lan said again, "Use pure physical means as much as possible."

"Okay." Layton's robotic arm made a crisp "click" sound, and a palm-sized circular saw protruded from his palm and began to rotate at high speed.

The circular saw's tooth blade is completely black, a bit like carbon fiber, but it also has the unique luster of metal materials. Ke Lan knew at a glance that the tooth blade of this circular saw was made of 100% pure Nino alloy. It is no exaggeration to describe it as cutting iron like clay.

Leighton raised the circular saw and cautiously approached an egg sheath at the outer end. When the whirling tooth blade came into contact with the ice, there was a tooth-piercing friction sound, and the fist-sized egg sheath responded. And Luo fell into the specimen box that had been connected below.

The next delicate work cannot be completed by an electric circular saw - Ke Lan asked Layton to use a mechanical arm to fix the egg sheath, while he held the lancet in one hand and a handle in the other. Use the smallest file, first use the file to remove the remaining ice ballast on the surface of the egg sheath, and then push the blade along the edge of the egg sheath little by little.

Ke Lan's hand was very steady, and the blade almost did not tremble at all, and it was inserted into the egg sheath very smoothly.

"There was something in there...I felt like the tip of the blade was hitting some soft tissue."

But whether the thing inside is dead or alive can only be known after opening the egg sheath.

Ke Lan began to use slight force, using the edge of the egg sheath gap as a fulcrum, to slowly pry open the upper part of the egg sheath...

Generally speaking, an earth cockroach egg sheath can hatch from ten to fifty nymphs, depending on the species, but this giant egg sheath that was pried open contained hundreds of tiny nymphs. of translucent vesicles, each of which is a separate larvae...

But what are wrapped in these translucent vesicles are not cockroach nymphs, but curled up into balls... red flesh worms!

The flesh worms inside these vesicles are still squirming slightly... they are alive!

Ke Lan, Hound and Leighton raised their heads and looked at each other at the same time. In each other's eyes, they all saw the kind of fear and fear that was difficult to express in words.

They are no strangers to this kind of bugs... Ke Lan still clearly remembers how the people of the Mitsui Consortium were swallowed up by the "tide" composed of these bugs - they only take a few seconds to kill a person. All the flesh and blood on his body has been chewed up, not even the bones are left!

"Why did this thing appear here?!" the hound said with a serious face.

He raised his head and glanced at the ice road in front of him that was almost completely covered by such egg sheaths. He couldn't help but feel a sense of retreat: "If these egg sheaths are filled with this kind of bugs..."

He did not continue speaking, but Ke Lan and the others knew exactly what he wanted to say - if these red meat worms with egg sheaths broke out of their shells when they passed through this passage, the entire team would be destroyed in an instant. destroyed in between.

When he thought of those bugs burrowing under his skin and walking freely through his flesh and blood, Ke Lan couldn't help but feel bursts of itching all over his body - even if he really had to face death one day, he would never choose this way. Just thinking about it is a way to die that makes one's hair crawl.

"Then what should we do? We can't go back, right?" Leighton frowned and said, "Old Gou, Ke Lan, you two have many ideas, you decide."

At this moment, Qin Zhao's voice suddenly came from behind: "That's it, this kind of insect...is there anything wrong with it? You seem to be very scared."

Ke Lan glanced at her. In view of the confidentiality agreement they signed, the truth about the Leviathan incident cannot be revealed, but it is still very simple to explain the horror of this insect.

"These bugs feed on humans...or rather, not just humans. They will devour any living organism they can come into contact with and can digest it in a very short time. They move very quickly and gather like a tide. They are unstoppable, even flamethrowers and energy shields can hardly stop these bugs... If, I mean if, all the bugs in these egg sheaths hatch out, the few of us are far from enough to fill their teeth. ."

Hearing what Ke Lan said, Qin Zhao's originally light-skinned face suddenly became paler, and Martin even began to frantically groping at himself with an unnatural look on his face.

"I...I feel so itchy...could...could there be bugs crawling on me?" he said hurriedly.

"If there were really bugs crawling on your body, even if it was just one, you would have lost several pieces of flesh by now." Ke Lan glanced at him and said in a deep voice, "Itching is due to psychological effects. Don't scare yourself." Own."

"Oh...oh." Martin nodded hurriedly, "Then, is there any way to kill this kind of insect?"

"As I just said, flamethrowers, energy shields or other explosives can easily kill individual bugs, but it's useless."

"Useless?"

"The number of them is really too huge...you can't kill them all...and when the bugs in front die, the ones behind will immediately eat the corpses of the same kind and turn them into parts of themselves...you can even reduce the insect tide." It’s impossible to do it on such a scale.”

"Hiss..." Martin grinned and couldn't help but take a breath of cold air, "Senior, what should we do now?"

"Go forward or retreat, there is no other choice." The hound looked back at the ice road behind him and said, "To go forward, you have to step on the egg sheaths of these insects. No one knows whether they will hatch suddenly... … From now on, I can only go back to those nine stone rooms and be suffocated to death there.”

"There is a third way," Ke Lan said. "There was a crack in the ice where the hand was. If the crack is dug, there may be a third passage below."

"Ke Lan, are you crazy? Then I would rather step on these egg sheaths and walk forward." The hound couldn't help but said.

"Actually, my choice is the same as yours. I'm just talking." Ke Lan shrugged, "The temperature in the ice tunnel is very low. These egg sheaths should be sealed here by the Alpha people, so I think there is a high probability that they will not incubation."