vncnus Chapter 18 Embryo
Chapter 18 Embryo
Ant nest, the nest of giant ants during a cataclysmic era.
It is usually very dangerous, with a dark and unsettling atmosphere, and the passageway is filled with rustling noises, occasionally mixed with some kind of chewing sound.
No one knows where those ferocious and terrifying ant-beasts hide; in fact, they could tear at you from any darkness.
But now, it seems that this is not the case.
After entering the anthill, Xu Yang and Lily did not encounter any monsters in the passage, except for having to watch out for the acid pits under their feet.
The nest was more like an empty tomb passage, echoing with their sticky footsteps.
splat, splat...
Xu Yang, holding a torch he had made by hand from the odds and ends of his backpack, lifted his foot with a troubled expression.
The soles of the shoes carried up a few streaks of red, viscous liquid, the ends of which connected to the soft, juicy "flesh-like" ground.
[Accompanying flesh and blood]
[It looks like the flesh of some kind of creature that has been stripped away; it's warm and moist, and still alive, but consumption is not recommended.]
It was the scarlet flesh that had appeared at the cave entrance.
They clung to the smooth cave walls, which had been treated with the saliva of the ant-beasts. As one went deeper, more and more of them covered the cave walls, and the deep passage at this point resembled the esophagus of some kind of monster.
Gradually, the cave wall completely transformed into a ring of flesh.
Xu Yang finally remembered where he had seen this thing before.
Just a day earlier, when he entered the first house he looted in town, a magazine on the living room sofa had described similar carnage.
As a new life form discovered or created by scientists.
Why would it appear in a wild animal's cave? Shouldn't it be in a laboratory or research institute?
"Xu Yang, wait a minute."
Just as he was pondering the problem, Lily's voice came to his ear, her cold and hard tone sounding even more serious this time.
"What's wrong?" Xu Yang asked, puzzled.
There's something ahead.
"..."
"Which one in front?"
Before them lay a fork in the road, with two crimson passages, one on the left and one on the right, each appearing deeper and darker than the previous one.
"Yes, we have them all."
In Lily's eerie perception, there were different dangers in two directions, and her intuition gave warnings to both, but there was something more twisted in the passage on the left.
On the right, deep inside, are some huge and bloated things, but the sense of crisis they bring is far less intense than that on the left.
"Go to the right."
Xu Yang nodded slightly.
Professional matters should be handled by professionals. After dodging the bullets, Lily's ability to sense danger no longer needs further verification.
Rush.
……
at the same time.
Meanwhile, Qi Yuan and the others also found the place where Xu Yang and his companion were hiding.
The dark cave entrance exuded a dangerous aura, which was amplified by the flesh and blood at the edges, making it an obvious place where no living person should venture.
"Are we really going in?" The blond-haired man swallowed hard. "This is an anthill. Maybe we should call it a day."
"It's just one or two bottles of black liquid, consider it a gift to the ants," the long-haired man said hoarsely.
The bearded man stood at the cave entrance without saying a word.
Years later, faced with the same situation, Barto Critamo inevitably recalled that afternoon when he received the bio-plugin.
A city burning in the sky, a giant wreckage crashing into the airlock.
Even though the scars have faded over the years, the flames still seem to be scorching his skin.
Twenty-seven years ago, he traded his life for a possibility...
Now he is forty-seven years old. The biochemical plug-in has given him power far exceeding that of others, but it is difficult for him to go any further. As external objects, they can never compare to mutations before they are fully integrated into his body.
Whether it's the conditions for use or the improvement to the body.
He might be replaced or killed in a few years, after all, the Doomsday Caravan does not allow weak leaders.
The law of the jungle prevails; this is the essence of life!
A tragic fate was beginning to unfold before him, but Gu Xian brought a glimmer of hope.
A frail young man went missing during a robbery, but just two weeks later, he returned to the convoy with a powerful physique and monstrous mutations.
That was exactly what Barto had been thinking about day and night, but he hadn't had time to explore it yet—
Gu Xian is dead.
Now, the one who killed him is in the dangerous anthill ahead, along with a sliver of hope.
It also involves the possibility of risking one's life.
Twenty-seven years later, the choice has come again.
Thus, forty-seven-year-old Barto Critamo made the same choice as twenty-year-old Barto Critamo.
"Walk."
He coldly issued the order.
……
Time passed slowly.
As Xu Yang and his companion ventured deeper into the passage, a few blood vessels began to appear around the scarlet flesh wall.
The walls of the blood vessels pulsated gently, and a giant mouth seemed to open further ahead, with the sound of breathing echoing from deep within.
The torchlight flickered along with a foul, putrid air.
Ahead was a place that looked like a cave.
Xu Yang frowned and stopped. This was the first time he had seen ants since entering the anthill.
To be precise, it was the corpse of an ant. A huge ant-beast carcass was lying next to him, its body covered in a carapace, looking at first glance like a bison wearing some kind of armor.
The guide information appeared in his eyes:
The corpse of a giant ant.
[A giant brown ant, about the size of a cow, had its hard, massive carapace pried open by overgrown flesh, and corrosive liquid seeped from its mandibles.]
[Note: You don't want to arm wrestle with it!]
Pry it open?
Xu Yang looked at the head of the ant-beast.
What was exposed there was a wound that had been completely exposed, covered with flesh and blood in the same color as the environment, which was very obvious on the brown surface of the body.
Next to it, there was a large, round piece of carapace, or perhaps more like a skull, that had been pushed open by flesh and blood. It looked like it could make a decent shield.
But now is not a good time.
Xu Yang kept this idea to himself for the time being.
The gaze continued downwards, settling on the ground beneath the ant-beast's corpse, where blood vessels were eerily distributed, carrying something that was spreading deeper into the ground.
A chill ran through him, and he walked into the cave with a torch in hand.
Each step was like walking on a carpet of flesh and blood, with the corpses of ant-beasts scattered everywhere, beneath which were dense blood vessels that gradually converged into a single stream, extending away from the surface of the scarlet carpet.
Xu Yang and Lili stopped in their tracks.
The blood vessels converged in the air they were looking at, forming several fleshy tubes as thick as an arm.
Like some kind of umbilical cord, they are connected on the other end to several swollen, embryo-like fleshy spheres inside the cave.
Those destined to be born
[A highly unstable physical form is imprisoned within the gradually deteriorating spherical flesh; all its potential has been exhausted, preventing it from becoming a true angel. The dense network of pores on the surface of the fleshy sphere emits a foul stench, and it will explode violently upon being attacked.]
[Note: Metamorphosis from a cocoon to a butterfly?]
Xu Yang stared blankly at the bloated ball of flesh, the umbilical cord flying in mid-air, like some kind of cult-like hell.
What kind of angels can this hatch?
"Come here for a second." Lily's voice suddenly interrupted Xu Yang's thoughts.
Not far away, a human figure was crawling at the girl's feet.