After Being Parasiticized By A Monster - Chapter 57
Chapter 57: “It Says There’s Food Nearby.”
Fear of the Unknown Language
“Merfolk?” Qu Ying slowly leaned back against the shock-absorbing padding, her expression unreadable.
The vehicle bounced along the uncleaned, remote road, its tires kicking up thick salt crusts that loudly impacted the bulletproof windows.
“Yes. In the main stations across the entire 65-degree eastern coastline, the signals recorded at those two locations are orders of magnitude stronger and clearer than elsewhere. We were played. The Merfolk we brought back last time had problems.”
“What about other regions?”
“The same,” the analyst replied. “Including international data. The disaster is forcing cooperation again.”
Humans had long sought reasons for their superiority: tools, labor, language. But what if other species possessed equally complex communication methods? This question remained unanswerable because two species lacked a shared language.
Qu Ying, however, could bypass the language barrier through direct neural communication, though it severely damaged the subject. The Defense Center preferred to keep its rare samples intact, but that luxury was gone.
“You’re too hasty. I recommended she undergo psychological counseling first,” the biological doctor, her long braids swinging, looked up from her tablet, which displayed Qu Ying’s vital signs.
Dr. Chen Ke was notoriously calm, often giving the impression of an artificially intelligent being observing humans—or, more accurately, a human creator observing their flesh-and-bl00d creations.
Qu Ying hated her gaze.
Gray light streamed through the narrow window. She tilted her head, a wicked smile playing on her lips in the gloom. “What’s the matter? My ‘safety catch’ is gone, and you’re afraid the ‘weapon’ might misfire?”
The Perfect Bait
“Hey, kid, safety catch!”
Just as Cheng Ming put on her protective battle suit, Lu Qian, Group Leader of Team 2, smacked the back of a new recruit’s head, pointing at the gun on her waist.
“Forget something that important? Do you have a death wish?”
After watching the panicked recruit reset the weapon, Lu Qian delivered a swift kick. “Go copy Article 31 a hundred times!”
The recruit, fresh out of the military academy, yelped and scrambled away.
Due to personnel shortages, the Security Department was relying on interns to get through the post-disaster reconstruction.
Cheng Ming suppressed a shiver as Han Xuhua, looking tearful, leaned over. “Group Leader, you were so nice. You only made me copy it ten times when I first arrived.”
Cheng Ming maintained her blank face.
The entire temporary team of eight—the two survivors from Team 1, the four remaining members of Team 2 (led by Lu Qian), and two recruits—boarded the vehicle.
Their mission was to assist with the repair of the coastal defense wall. They were headed to coordinate 33.97, 5, a far-flung segment near the boundary of the 300 km headquarters zone. Any emergency here would be hard to reach.
However, the area was deemed safe enough for a mission requiring combat personnel but without high danger—perfect for “Yan Li’s” current status. The configuration was also ideal for Cheng Ming: the presence of nervous recruits meant they would ask all the questions she needed answered.
“Captain, I’ve seen the drones spraying medication. Why can’t we just use drones to patrol outside the defense wall?” the recently punished recruit asked.
“Radiation!” Lu Qian snapped. “You can’t control them without a signal! The closer you get to the sea, the worse the radiation is. Do you think it’s easy to maintain internal signals? We can’t afford to waste resources on drones. We’re on a tight budget!” Lu Qian complained.
Cheng Ming listened with one ear, the other on Han Xuhua’s nervous chatter, easily mastering the core of playing “Amnesiac Yan Li”: say little and show no emotion.
The massive, gray coastal wall, resembling the skin of a giant beast, gleamed under the lights. It was 80 meters high and 10 meters thick, protected by constant high heat along the top to prevent even microorganisms from passing.
They were headed to a high cliff section that was structurally difficult to protect but naturally defended against sea creatures. The damage wasn’t severe, which was why the repair was scheduled last.
After passing through the gate, the team parked and geared up. Two would stay behind for comms and monitoring, three would carry detectors, and three would provide heavy fire support.
Cheng Ming deployed a sleek mechanical sphere from her pack. The palm-sized metallic device shot out red light and rolled forward, using structured light to scan the terrain for a 1 km x 2 km area.
After a half-minute wait, the probe returned. Cheng Ming connected it to a display. After the 3D data was imported, she paused. “There is a void 1,054 meters away, 30 degrees south-southwest. Unknown diameter. Possibly hiding a mutated creature.”
Lu Qian let out a low whistle. “Finally, some real action.”
“Let’s go,” Cheng Ming said, instinctively lowering her voice, despite the helmet.
They moved into the dense, salty fog. The land, abandoned to nature 30 years ago, was rugged, strewn with rocks, mud, and decomposing plant and animal remains. The tsunami had been catastrophic to sea life; the decaying corpses of fish were everywhere, their skeletons covered in a white crystalline salt crust.
The fog was thick, obscuring the coast. Finally, a gray-black silhouette emerged from the white: the destination.
Lu Qian looked at the pile of rocks. “How did you detect a void here?”
“Here, here, and here. Looks like tracks left by a climbing animal,” Cheng Ming said, pointing to a few spots on the display.
“Group Leader Yan has great eyesight!” her teammates exclaimed, impressed by her ability to discern information from the muddled screen.
Cheng Ming calmly put the display away. She hadn’t seen a thing. Little Ming had told her there was something there. More directly: it said there was food nearby.
Lu Qian wasted no time, signaling the fire support team to set up the grenade launcher.
Boom!
The high-explosive grenade hit the target, scattering rocks and mud. The impact revealed a large crater. There was a void.
Smoke, water vapor, and sparks obscured the view. The biological monitoring equipment screamed an alert as the team noticed movement within the pit.
Lu Qian raised her arm. “Keep firing!”
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Grenades continued to fall, generating billowing white steam. The view deteriorated, forcing their helmets to switch to infrared. Splat! A charred segment of flesh flew near the three distant members.
More indistinct, smoking, serpentine masses were writhing, trying to escape the pit. They were quickly twisted and scattered, either shredded or struggling over the charred bodies of their comrades.
“Is… is that a snake?”
The distinct shape and flat tail shocked the team.
“Sea snake,” Cheng Ming confirmed.
Each was over two meters long, writhing in panic. These sea reptiles were vulnerable on land. The hole had contained seawater, but now they were trapped and did not seem interested in attacking humans.
Strange… Cheng Ming frowned.
“It’s strange,” Lu Qian’s voice echoed in the comms.
Little Ming’s excited tone had suggested an MR-level monster and a serious fight. The high-radiation reading had prompted Lu Qian’s direct order for a mass attack. But what they were seeing wasn’t a high-level threat.
As she pondered the discrepancy, a tremendous force grabbed her ankle.
She looked down. A dark green snake head—no, a tail—shot out from between the rocks and wrapped around her. The creature, widely venomous, was acting like a land python, coiling its body. Its true head, raised high like a cobra, was now staring directly at her.
It had a human face!
Cheng Ming’s eyes widened. Her helmet’s comms were still transmitting the sounds of her teammates shelling the nest. The danger was right in front of her.
A feint? This thing has intelligence! This is the high-risk monster that triggered the alarm!
But with so many people present, why had it targeted her? Was she unlucky, or…?
No time to think. The snake’s tail wrapped tightly around her and dragged her backward into the rocks. She stumbled, her feet hitting nothing—the soft mud was concealing a hollow!
Her nearby teammates rushed to help, but were too late. The distant ones hesitated, unable to fire heavy weapons without hitting her.
Cheng Ming briefly considered letting Little Ming take over, but the surrounding heat had evaporated the fog. If her teammates saw her transform, she had three seconds to find a plausible explanation, five seconds to kill them all, and ten seconds to be blown into fragments by their heavy weapons.
She didn’t believe a flesh-and-bl00d body, no matter how strong its regeneration, could resist heavy artillery. She hesitated for a fatal second, and then was dragged away.