Chapter 120: Eve of Hunt
Two Poison Fang members were holding guns and leaning against a fighter, conversing.
Another two fighters descended, and the person who came out joined in on their conversation.
“You found that bastard who’s tossing bombs everywhere yet?”
“Nah. I got yelled at by the boss several times already.”
“I heard that Cuo Fu and the others got fucked up?”
Cuo Fu was Big Q’s name.
“Yeah, he was ambushed by that traitorous son of a bitch Emmus.”
“…”
While the group of people were conversing, one of them suddenly turned around and looked behind himself.
“What’s wrong?” The person beside him asked.
“I had a feeling that we’re being watched.”
“Ceh, you’re just frightened by today’s events.”
“Maybe… Ah!”
That person let out a miserable shriek, “Something… something just entered my body!” Then waves of griping pain washed through him as a couple more screams followed.
The trio beside him noticed a tiny, bloody hole behind his back and were just about to say something about it, when they themselves felt a sharp pain at their back, abdomen and other body areas and saw the same bloody holes.
People came to them after they heard the noises. Then, the screams multiplied and showed no signs of stopping as the foreign entities bore into their elbows, thighs, shoulders, necks; any body part that was exposed on the outside.
Among these people, there were some who were already greatly frightened by the terrible scene of Big Q’s death earlier. Now that something similar had happened, the person thought that the worms were about to bore out of his body and was so scared that he’d nearly fallen into despair. He wasn’t afraid of death, but he didn’t wish to end up like Big Q and the others. Therefore, he raised his gun and pointed it at his own head.
Bang!
Blood splattered all over the floor.
There was another person who lifted his knife and stabbed into any parts of his body that had bloody holes in them, mutilating himself greatly. But even then, hel wasn’t able to find the thing that had burrowed into his body.
Some people pulled the trigger and strafed the surroundings amidst intense pain. They did not know where this so-called ‘enemy’ was, but they did it because the sound of gunshots made them feel more at ease. As for whether they would hit friendlies, they were too occupied to care about that while blinded by pain. The blind sweep killed many of their own, especially in places where people were congregated.
Panic filled the air, as chaos began to spread.
As he watched the scene unfold from a dark corner of a building, Cillin lifted the corner of his lips a little and said, “You done?”
A gray shadow flashed, and the gray cat jumped onto his shoulders, “Hehe, of course. Who do you think I am?”
After Cillin had learned the address of the weapons warehouse, he then notified the gray cat to intercept, throw down a bunch of grenades and swallow the energy absorption weapons whole.
“Wheeze, why do I feel like you’ve gotten heavier?” Cillin looked at the gray cat licking its paws.
“Did I? I have no idea. I suppose I ate quite a lot of stuff just now. Besides the energy absorption weapons you mentioned, I ate about three quarters of the stuff inside that arms warehouse.”
The corner of Cillin’s eyes twitched. Did it have a black hole in its stomach?
“How is the scarlet desert area?” Cillin asked.
“The little worms are showing their worth. The guards at the arms warehouse are so busy screaming about being eaten alive that they had no time to care about the weapons at all. So? I did a good job, didn’t I?”
“So-so.”
“How can you call this so-so?” The gray cat swiped its paws at Cillin’s face, “I spread the parasite eggs further than you did, and I rescued the prisoners perfectly as well!”
“Yes, yes, oh-mighty cat, you’ve worked hard and done well. Did you leave a message on Akayi’s spaceplane?”
“…” The gray cat’s paw abruptly stopped in mid-air before it withdrew it and curled itself into a ball, refusing to answer.
The answer’s no then.
The situation was like this. At the time, since Akayi and the others were unconscious and the gray cat could not wake them, it held them in its mouth and carried them up the spaceplane one after another. Then, after copying the modified navigation program obtained from the transport Cillin arrived on into the spaceplane’s autopilot program, the gray cat then watched the spaceplane depart while disrupting the surrounding spaceplanes and fighters at the same time to prevent the enemies from locking onto the hostages. That being said, there weren’t many spaceplanes or fighters that attacked the hostages in the first place. This was because the spaceplane had already flown sky high by the time Poison Fang realised that it wasn’t one of them who was piloting the ship. When a number of fighters finally reacted to chase them, Akayi and the others had already flown out of the planet already. It’s not like Carranio issued the order to continue pursuing them either.
The hostages were unconscious when they were brought to the spaceplane, and they had no idea where the spaceplane was set to head to. If they woke up later and made a mess of the controls then… they would probably get lost.
Previously, Cillin had told the gray cat to leave them a message so they wouldn’t touch anything carelessly after they woke up. The gray cat had forgotten about it, however.
“Alright. In that case, we can only pray that Akayi and the others do not wake up too soon.” Cillin pulled the gray cat’s exposed sharp ears and said, “Let’s sleep here for a while. The hunt will begin in five hours.”
The reason Cillin chose this place was because that it was safe for the moment. Even if there was danger, they would notice it in time.
Right now Poison Fang was in chaos, and their attention was shifted to the ‘Birds of Paradise’. Bloodcurdling screams could be heard everywhere, causing those who were aboard spaceplanes and fighters already to stay on air and afraid to return to the ground. From the look of things, the situation on the ground was a lot more severe than on air, not to mention that they would only be landing themselves into a predicament if they landed before the antidote was researched.
While clad a protective suit, Carranio led a group of men and entered Poison Fang’s research base. There were plenty of people who were working inside. He walked into a laboratory and saw a finger-sized worm through the containment screen.
“That’s the thing that’s been causing all this commotion?” Carranio pointed at the worm inside the containment box and said.
“Yes.” A researcher who was also clad a protective suit answered with a mad glint in his eyes, “We’ve never seen this worm’s DNA before, not even among species that are similar to it. Their genetic makeup is somewhat special…”
Earlier today, the researchers here were only dressed in standard lab attire. But when the worms bore into two researchers while they were researching them, thus turning the researchers into their colleague’s test subjects, every researcher within the research base had begun putting on heavy protective suits. Since they had mostly hung around the research base, most of them were not infected by the parasites. The latter ‘Bird of Paradise’ breakout had not reached them yet either.
As he listened to the strings of incomprehensible professional terminologies, Carranio raised his hands and grabbed the neck of a researcher who was talking incessantly to himself, “We are not here to listen to your ramblings!”
Carranio finally let go of the researcher and set him down after his eyes rolled upwards and his neck was about to snap, “How goes the antidote?”
“Cough cough… cough cough cough…” After the researcher had recovered, he answered, “It will take around five more hours before the initial analysis can be completed.”
Carranio let out bouts of low growl. He was obviously very dissatisfied with this answer, “What can we do about these new worms?”
“N… nothing for now. They move so very quickly…”
“Enough!”
Carranio interrupted him and ordered the men behind him, “If they make no progress in the next five hours, then kill them all!”
“Yes, King!”
The researchers were scared. Carranio was serious this time. Originally, they were planning to obtain a few more infected people as test subjects, but now they had to no choice but to give up their initial plans and work faster.
There were a lot of things that could happen in just five hours.
Five hours later, the ‘Birds of Paradise’ had reached a frightening number and hit Cillin’s estimated exponential phase.
When Cillin opened his eyes, they were completely cold. He flicked the ears of the gray cat sleeping soundly in his lap.
“Wheeze, it is time to hunt.”