The world enters the age of mythology.

This is indeed a difficult choice.

Li Mingrui and the others still have a lot of affection for these refuges. They have sheltered human beings for a whole ten years.Although many of the facilities in these shelters are already aging, from a rational point of view, it's okay to abandon them.

But after all, they have lived in the home for 10 years!

For a while, these people didn't know what to do.

"Hey..." At the end, Li Mingrui sighed, "Remove a few, keep a few, and leave a small gift for the people behind."

"Relevant broadcasts will be prepared soon. In an extremely cold environment, it should be no problem to continue to work for decades. It should be regarded as a good deed for all mankind... I don't know if civilization will come here. Said Maybe we will come back in the future? Maybe..."

Thinking about it this way, the mood became quite good again.

Anyway, all their human beings will be transferred to the capital of the sea of ​​clouds, and it is impossible to take all these properties away.

They are too big to just be left here.

Of course, precious assets, various computers and high-tech instruments will still be taken away together.Most of the assets left here are fixed assets, and there are also some production and processing equipment, which are absolutely great assets for ancient civilizations.

Lu Yiming added: "About the treatment plan for the infected, is there any better result?"

An expert on the Sea of ​​Clouds beside him shook his head: "I'm sorry, there is no particularly good solution for now... we can only rely on hibernation to delay the process of being parasitized."

This is a brand new parasite, and the previous drugs are basically ineffective, and there is really no targeted solution in a short time.

"There is no other way, so I can only take it back to the capital of the sea of ​​clouds and continue to study." Lu Yiming said: "Next, when the arrangements for the hibernating personnel are all over, I plan to go deep into this world and collect some corpse specimens. What do you think? ?”

An adjutant said: "It is feasible! If the body of this devourer is of great research value, we can return here in the future and carry out regular arrests. These shelters can also be used."

……

In this way, time passed quickly again, and it has been the second month since all 76 civilians were loaded onto the Taihang Mountain.

The volcanic ash above the planet is still thick. Without any light, the average temperature of the planet dropped to minus 40 degrees Celsius. Lu Yiming and others braved the severe cold and came to the Antarctic continent.

Because the climate in the Antarctic region is too cold, the air here is like snowflakes, condensing on the ground in groups.

These snowflake-like crystals are mostly carbon dioxide.

The freezing point of carbon dioxide is minus 78.5 degrees Celsius, below which it turns into dry ice.

"The thickness of these dry ice is already tens of centimeters."

And the ground under his feet is dark purple, like aged frozen meat, that is, the appearance of the original colony carpet frozen into ice.

"This should be the safest place to explore. The temperature is low enough and there is no geothermal heat... But it's really cold." Lu Yiming swallowed, feeling a little cold.

Everyone is wearing S-class protective clothing, which not only has a high defense ability, but also has a relatively high heat insulation performance.

But even with full armor, it was still freezing enough in the extremely low temperature.Everyone has a lot of thermal pads stuffed in their clothes to generate more heat.

Due to the huge temperature difference between inside and outside, a layer of white mist formed on the glass helmet, and it had to be wiped with hands from time to time.

"Will our spaceship be damaged by freezing? This damn place is almost minus one hundred degrees Celsius." Colonel Li Mingrui said worriedly, "If the spaceship is damaged by freezing, how can we go back?"

"No problem. The Hope once encountered a frozen continent, and what broke out on it was the Frozen Disaster, and some loot was obtained there. The spaceship is coated with a special anti-cold material, and it will not be damaged by freezing in general. Yes." Lu Yiming explained a bit.

"I see." Li Mingrui smiled and said, "The Frozen Continent must have had a hard time."

"That's right." Liang Zhenhui, the former captain of the Hope, said, "But that world is different from here. There are some mutated animals and plants, and some indigenous people..."

"Hey, think about it carefully, that world is barely inhabitable."

"Reluctantly, what's the use."

He crouched down and cut a crack in the ground with the rune knife.

"Be careful, just dig it out from here."

A group of soldiers took special rune engineering shovels and quickly shoveled them down.This engineer shovel is of the same style as the rune knife, engraved with cicada-wing runes, and it takes a lot of effort to dig up the hard meat.

Yes, the main task of their line of work is to thoroughly investigate the internal structure of the "Devourer"!

How did this monster breed more monsters?What is the internal structure like?Is there any loot to harvest?These are the knowledge points that must be clarified.

Otherwise, wouldn't it be a waste of time?

As the purple muscles on the surface were sliced ​​open piece by piece by the shovel, people saw the internal structure of the Devourer.

Lu Yiming was already vigilant in his heart, and he didn't sense any special danger.

The inside is really too complicated, there are a large number of huge organs distributed under the skin!

The smallest organ, about the size of a basketball, resembles a bunch of grapes, and looks repulsive looking beside the purple mass of flesh.

The largest organ is as big as a house, some are in the shape of a heart, and some are in the shape of a liver. Thin blood vessels with a diameter of about 3 meters extend in all directions, and all the blood inside is frozen. The liquid swelled, and the blood vessels burst open.

These messy organs were frozen under the extreme cold, and they were quite well preserved.

"Sure enough, the trip was not in vain!"

Everyone was shocked.

If a more complete biological sample is obtained here, the understanding of the devourer will be further improved, and the corresponding clues to treat the infected may be found.

"Be careful, stay alert, and report to me immediately if you find a potential crisis." Lu Yiming ordered, "When experts collect specimens, they can only move around the surrounding area, and don't stay too far away."

"Yes!"

Chapter 643 Devourer Brain

This is a grotesque world of flesh and blood. A large number of organs used to operate in an orderly manner amidst the chaos.

They use the earth, air, and water as nutrients, and use sunlight as energy to grow wantonly in this space.

Each of these organs has its own functions, and it is really novel for people to visit all the way. It is not too much to describe this world of flesh and blood as a "biological factory".

"This is...pure iron? It was smelted from this organ. It can actually smelt steel!" One of the experts discovered a strange organ hidden behind the diaphragm, which can actually smelt iron ore into steel.Of course, the quality of these steels is not very good, as black as an iron pot, and the carbon content should not be low.

"I don't know, what is the use of smelting these crude steels."

It is the first time that people have discovered organisms that can biosmelt steel.

"What is this? Sugar? A high-purity energy source."

The measuring instrument of the ether value kept ringing, and people discovered a light yellow high-energy substance, which was produced by an organ.

"Could it be that these monsters have developed intelligence and want to use tools? It shouldn't be like this... It may also be part of the monster's body."

Everyone was puzzled, and finally couldn't find the answer after much deliberation, so they had to give up.

"Come here, I found it! These should be unhatched transparent monsters, right?" Another expert swallowed, and said, "It looks like human female ovaries..."

"It should be. A more complete parasite is inside!"

In a strange organ like a flower bud, people found hundreds of millions of densely packed egg-like things.

This number makes one's scalp numb. Just one "bud" can corrupt hundreds of millions of monsters. This kind of reproductive ability is really too strong.

The inspection team carefully selected and spent an hour dissecting out more than 100 unhatched monsters, and packed them away.

"It would be great if we could develop drugs against parasites." Li Mingrui was in a good mood.

There is also a "trail" that can barely pass near the flower buds. This trail is like a white transparent leather tube, leading to the deep underground.

According to the guesses of the experts, it may be the "urethra", or it may be the "vas deferens" or "fallopian tubes". It is actually quite clean, not full of miscellaneous frozen mucus like other places.

Lu Yiming hesitated for a while, the climate in this place was too cold, he didn't feel any special danger, so he had to bite the bullet and enter.

"Let's go, everyone is here, you have to go in and have a look."

This pipe leads to a darker area, and people have found a large number of transparent monster corpses around here. Even if these guys die, they still maintain a transparent state.

However, the moist air stuck to the surface of these monsters, forming a thick layer of frost, which made it easy to distinguish them.

Lu Yiming shrugged his shoulders and asked, "I have a question. The skins of these monsters have a certain degree of transparency. If the skins are peeled off, can they directly achieve optical invisibility?"

"No, it's not possible. We once peeled off the monster's skin and conducted a controlled experiment. It turned out that after this layer of skin was destroyed, it slowly melted into blood, and there was no way to guarantee its integrity."

An expert from Dongfang said, "This kind of superpower may be a kind of complex ability, and it is not just distributed in the epidermis, so there is no way to simply copy it."

All in all, a lot of messy corpse specimens were collected.

After going back and forth several times in a row, they were all transported to the anti-gravity spacecraft, and they were strictly guarded by the soldiers on duty.

One slices through the muscles layer by layer, exploring downwards.

Various miscellaneous organs have been observed, many of which have unknown uses.

The inside of the monster was very dark and the air was cloudy, making people uncomfortable. The ultra-low temperature had already killed all life here. Apart from a little nausea, there was no danger.

It took 16 hours to dig down to a thickness of nearly 200 meters, and the heart, liver, pancreas and other similar organs were all found many times.

At last the soil was dug.

"It's finally over. Even the Antarctic region has a thickness of 200 meters. If it is really ordinary land, it will take a full 10 kilometers to dig to the ground." Lu Yiming lowered his body and touched the soil under his feet.

Their current organ seems to be a "stomach", which can secrete strong acid and corrosive mucus, which can corrode the silicon dioxide on the ground.

Fortunately, the strong cold airflow has completely frozen these digestive juices, and the "stomach" has been completely dead.Otherwise all of them risk being digested by dissolution.

"This monster is reproduced according to the organs of humans or animals. The stomach of the devourer is tightly attached to the earth, digesting the entire planet. In fact, its stomach is not only this one, it is about two or three kilometers apart. , a new set of organs will appear... I understand, those organs for smelting steel are similar to our hair and nails!"

An expert made a look of sudden realization, "If a creature wants to grow normally, it must metabolize and excrete a lot of waste elements. It's just that the digestion ability of this devourer is too strong, and normal carbon elements are reused after metabolism. , but its demand for metal elements is not very high, so the organs for smelting steel appeared."

"Instead of smelting steel, it's actually expelling waste elements."

"Sounds quite reasonable..."

"It's really strange that so many scattered organs can be combined to work together."

"The colorless and transparent monster we encountered is indeed just the immune function of this huge living body. The production of the transparent monster only occupies less than one percent of all organs. It's really incredible."

What I saw and heard this time was really eye-opening. The structure of the internal organs of this monster named Devourer completely imitated normal creatures.It even has kidney stones, gallstone-like problems.

"What does this mean? The billions of years of biological evolution really have their own unique principles, which we have not fully explored. There are still many potentials that have not yet been developed. For example, cancer cells that can proliferate indefinitely, why? Can normal cells be transformed into cancer cells? In a few cases, cancer cells will also be transformed into normal cells..."

"That's right. In some laboratories during the civilization of the earth, cancer cells were transformed into normal cells under certain special mechanisms. It is indeed a wonderful thing."

These experts actually discussed some difficulties in biology, and discussed whether the appearance of this monster would bring a series of references.

They collected a small amount of biological specimens from various organs, loaded them into petri dishes, and carefully preserved them.

"Wait a minute, everyone! There are all kinds of organs here, but there is no brain!" An expert on the Vostok seemed to have thought of something, and clapped his hands fiercely: "Everyone, think about it carefully, isn't this very suspicious? What does it mean to have no brain? Means it doesn't have any intelligence... Is it incapable of evolving the most complex brain?"

"No... If it reproduces according to the body structure of humans or animals, it is impossible to have no brain. Even a smaller brain should exist. Even insects and ants have brains, how could it not have brains!"

In addition to single-celled organisms, as long as they are multi-cellular animals, there is a brain.

Colonel Li Mingrui's reaction speed was also extremely fast. He immediately said, "The reason why the brain was not found is more likely because... the brain is not here! This is just a small part of its body."

"Maybe the Devourer has only one brain?! As long as we destroy the brain, can we completely wipe out this monster!"

"Its brain is probably still alive, hiding in a corner of the planet, we have to find a way to find it!"

The proposal of this conjecture surprised everyone for a while.

The Orient Fleet had a deep hatred for this monster, and a large number of soldiers died because of the monster's attack.Therefore, it is naturally the best to be able to kill this monster within one's ability, and it can be regarded as revenge for the deceased compatriots.

"It is indeed possible." Lu Yiming frowned, able to understand the thoughts of these people, "But it does not necessarily have only one brain, maybe millions of them like the heart and stomach. If the number is too large We can't destroy all the brains."

"How about... let's find the location of the brain again?"

After putting forward this conjecture, everyone searched for 6 hours in this intricate world of flesh and blood, and dug out many thin and long ice caves with engineering shovels.In the end, the monster's brain was still not found, but long strips of calcium-like substances like optical cables were found, which looked like the "bones" of the Devourer.

Every organ has tiny neurons that are interconnected with these calcium-like substances.

Each of these calcium-like substances has a length of several kilometers, and it is so hard that it is very laborious to cut it even with a rune knife.

These bones are very slender, only 10 centimeters in diameter, and they are laid in the cavity like optical cables.Bones are connected to each other by slender ligaments.

Cut it open with a rune knife, and you can find a large number of neurons hidden in the middle of the slender bones.These neurons are very large, and the slender nerve endings are as thin and long as hair, and they are protected by bones and extend farther.

This discovery is mind-blowing!

Chapter 644 Finding the Core

An expert checked the neuron slices with an optical microscope that he carried with him, shook his head, and said, "It's probably not the real brain."

"These nerve tissues should be similar to the vertebrae of animals, and some neurons are hidden inside. These neurons alone are not enough to produce any intelligence, and may not be able to coordinate the normal operation of so many organs."