Chapter 166: Little Fellow [Part 2]
It was normal that there were some beasts in the surroundings. As long as the beasts hadn’t attacked them, they would not purposely hunt them down. A large majority of these beasts were modified creatures whose primitive genes had been altered a long time ago. Strictly speaking, they did not qualify as food, which was why neither Cillin nor Lung had the intention of hunting them on their own accord at the moment.
However, when Cillin followed the direction the gray cat was looking at, he saw a small half a face.
Yes, a face.
It was a young and tiny face.
It looked almost like a human’s face. It’s just that dust had blurred its original appearance. The red fur above its head was very obvious.
Right now Lung had noticed the creature as well. The fellow was hiding behind the rock of a shot hill not far away, revealing the upper half of its face. Its eyes brimmed with curiosity.
Seeing that all three pairs of eyes were looking at it, the fellow hiding behind the wall quickly withdrew its head. However, it poked out of its cover once more after just a few seconds.
“Hey, little fellow. Where did you come from?” Cillin asked.
Seemingly sensing no ill will from the owners of the three pairs of eyes, the little fellow slowly walked out into the open… well, despite the fact that it was walking on two hands and two feet he supposed it still counted as walking. Its ears were sharp, and the edge of its ears were also covered in fur. It also had a tail behind its back. The tail swayed around once, and its gaze seemed to indicate that it possessed no ill will.
Cillin and Lung looked into each other’s eyes. A hellhound!
But why was there such a small hellhound? Was it given birth to by the hellhounds who had been abandoned at this place?
They knew that the ones with excellent genes had all been taken away by their researchers when they left the research institute. The ones who were left behind were all slightly inferior. However, this little fellow seemed to be a success if they were to view it as a research subject. It was just like two rank B genotype humans giving birth to a rank A genotype baby.
There were some wounds on this little fellow’s body. The wounds were very fresh and still bled. Looking at the soil and sand attached to its body, it was probably hurt by the explosion’s shockwave just now.
Cillin took out a sack of jerkies and tore out a hole in it. He then tossed the sack over to the little fellow. If he walked to it directly, it would most definitely escape.
Upon sighting an unknown object being tossed at its direction, the little fellow trembled and backed away several steps. However, it was quickly attracted by the fragrant smell of the jerkies and walked carefully closer to give it a sniff. Sensing no problems, it then swallowed the whole sack of jerkies that had yet to be unwrapped into its stomach.
As Lung used a human’s standards and watched this fellow who looked like a six or seven years old kid swallowing a whole sack of jerkies along with the sack messily in two gulps, he suddenly felt that his throat was a little tight.
Just what kind of monstrous construction was this fellow’s esophagus?
After the little fellow had finished eating the jerkies, it licked its lips while wanting for more. It stared at Cillin with bright eyes, and the tail behind its back was wagging at a larger angle than before.
Cillin was just about to toss another sack of jerkies to the little fellow when its eyes suddenly changed. It changed from its original innocent and harmless look to one that was filled with murderous intent. In that instant, both Cillin and Lung could sense clearly its strong intent to kill.
Pop!
Claws more than ten centimeters long stretched out of the little fellow’s hands, and with a push of its feet it charged towards a particular corner of the area.
It ran on all fours like an animal while letting out low roars from its throat. At this moment, it finally and truly looked like a protector hound of this ‘Hell’.
Lung summoned the footage he captured with the probes in the air. Inside the footage, the little fellow was charging towards a ferocious lion-like beast that was more than ten meters tall.
Its speed and attack strength was completely different from before.
“This is a ‘hellhound’, even if it is still just a child. Their reactions towards lifeforms that aren’t prey could be considered friendly, and they would not attack on their own accord. They would only react this way when they are facing a prey.” Lung sighed, “My old man once said that hellhounds are slaves from the very bottom of their genes. Either they or their offsprings were completely slaves. They will forever remember their master’s words only, and they will never think from their own sake. Even if they look like human, their humanity has already disappeared.”
The order was implanted into the very bones of even the offsprings of a hellhound. It was like nature to fully replicate a kind of memory from its parents and memorise the scent of the preys it needed to hunt down. This scent born of their prey’s very genes would cause them to chase after them forever from birth to death.
“Let’s go.” Lung patted Cillin’s shoulders, “This planet is just an example of the entire Sector S. There are thousands and tens of thousands of similar planets. In fact, it is not just Sector S, but also other Sectors that are experiencing similar situations. There are quite a lot of places where such experiments are conducted.”
Naturally, Cillin understood Lung’s words. Wasn’t that underground research lab at planet Brown Earth back then the same? It had been there for several dozens of years without being known to anyone. If Cillin hadn’t accidentally broken into the place, the darkness would have persisted.
Lung could not be bothered to collect samples in person. The robots he sent out had completed the task especially around areas with an abundant amount of water such as lakes. Those were the key areas of the task.
When Cillin and Lung rode their hoverboards back to the spaceplane, the robots Lung sent out was just moving the collected items up the spaceplane. The robots had also attended to the protection and care of some big-sized skeletons very well and were in general much more reliable than Lung himself. This was probably one of the reasons his father had sent so many robots to come after him.
“The wind is starting.” Lung looked at the gray, blurry sky, “A gust of wind at such a place may turn into a storm. Let’s leave quickly. I have no intentions of experiencing a storm in ‘Hell’.”
Lung sat inside the control room of the spaceplane while ordering the robots to work faster. They would take off immediately after the final few samples were carried up the vehicle.
Cillin did not stay inside the control room like Lung and instead stood outside the spaceplane. Looking downwards from where he stood, he could see the changes that was occurring around this area. The early signs of the formation of a storm, the air pressure and the temperature etc were all very obvious. Those animals started to worry and set off to look for shelter.
Suddenly, a small shadow entered Cillin’s field of view. It had lost its earlier liveliness and became much slower.
Its entire body was covered in wounds, and one of its hind legs was twisted and propped on the ground. Its arms had different degrees of wounds, and it was trembling unsteadily while it was supporting itself on the ground.
It limped towards Cillin’s direction just like that. Its drooped tail at the back gave it a terribly pitiful appearance.
“Cillin, it’s time to go!” Lung cried out from inside the spaceplane. Now that all of the items had been carried into the spaceplane, Lung could not wait to leave this place immediately. He just felt uncomfortable all over staying at this place.
The gray cat walked closer and asked hesitatingly, “Should we help it a bit?”
Cillin shook his head, “Don’t go there.” he then turned around to look at the little figure before stretching out five figures, exclaiming, “I will count down from five. If you can come over, then I will take you away from this place!”
Cillin had a feeling that this little fellow could understand his words. The time Cillin gave out was just enough for the little fellow to make its way here with its current abilities. If it hesitated for even an instant, it would not be able to make it before Cillin in time. In that case, Cillin would absolutely turn his head and walk away.
But what gladdened them was that the little fellow had quickened its footsteps after Cillin had finished saying his words. Its eyes were bright. It dragged a trail of blood droplets along the way it walked. The trail was quickly buried by the increasingly strong wind and dust.
The little figure wobbled left and right amidst the wind, but its footsteps were incredibly firm. It headed towards Cillin direction in a straight line without the slightest decrease in speed at all.
Lung saw this scene from the screen inside the spaceplane. He adjusted the image captured by the probe, and discovered that the ferocious lion-like beast the little fellow had pounced onto earlier had been torn into many thick pieces of flesh and skin while lying motionlessly on the ground. It was even being eaten as a delicious meal by other weaker carnivores before the storm.
Yeah, if a hellhound were to set out, then either it dies, or its prey dies.
But why had the little fellow chased after them?
Still, looking at this little fellow’s wounds and this storm, it would probably not be able to hang on if no one helped him.
The little fellow watched as Cillin’s five outstretched fingers became four, three, two…
Faster, faster!
Even an adult would find it hard to endure with such wounds, wouldn’t they?
When Cillin put down his final finger, the little fellow collapsed on the ground before Cillin. However, it wore a smile on its face and revealed two sharp fangs.
After lifting the little fellow with him, Cillin and the gray cat leaped up the spaceplane.
“Leave now, the storm has arrived!”
“Don’t rush me. Now you know how to hurry?!” Lung motioned for the robots to pilot the spaceplane and take off. They swiftly flew away from this place.
As the spaceplane flew higher and higher, the sceneries on the ground surface became covered in gray once more. However, the ring of the storm was incredibly obvious. After they had made it out of the planet, they looked at the lightning strikes beneath the gray clouds as Lung summoned the footages captured from the probes that were temporarily left behind on the planet.
It was hell on earth, no, it was hell on hell.
The wind blew and the rain poured. The earth shook and the mountains trembled. A gigantic hurricane that spiraled down from the sky snapped a protruding mountain in half, and it was at this moment the crust actually began to move once more.
Anything that survived such a disaster was only deserving of admiration. Be it those seemingly weak animals or the large ferocious beasts, anyone who could survive this was a capable being and a victor.
There was no right or wrong in survival.
While they were on the spaceplane, Cillin gave the little fellow a simple treatment of its wounds. He would give it proper care once they returned to the starship. After all, the medicine on board the starship was more complete.
However, judging from the way the little fellow’s wounds healed, it would survive with just a little bit of help. After Cillin had finished treating the little fellow’s wounds and had injected it with a syringe of nutrient fluids, he gave it space to rest. As long as the nutrients were kept up, it would probably recover very quickly with its animalistic constitution alone.
The little fellow laid sideways on top of the operation table. Its broken leg could not be moved yet after it was repaired. Right now, the little fellow was bending its two arms and putting its head on them. Its eyes rolled everywhere as it watched its surroundings. The gray cat that was walking back and forth before it attracted the little fellow’s attention.
After circling the little fellow on top of the operation table twice, the gray cat moved closer for a sniff and shook its whiskers, “You smell like dogs.”
The little fellow responded with two whining cries. There was no telling if it understood the gray cat’s words.
Perhaps it was too tired before, but now that it had relaxed it quickly fell into sleep. When the gray cat saw this, it too let out a yawn, raised a paw to scoop over the little fellow’s furry tail, wrapped it around its own body, closed its eyes and slept.
When Cillin was done dealing with the little fellow’s wounds and had returned to the control room, Lung was frowning and staring right at the screen.
When he saw Cillin walking in, Lung cast a glance at him, “You’re done?”
“Mm. What are you looking at?” Cillin pointed at the full screen of garbled codes and asked.
“It’s a transmission code that I’ve just now intercepted. It’s encrypted, and the analysis system failed to solve anything. This full screen of garbled codes is the result. It gives me the headaches.”
“Bring up the original code. Let me give it a try.”
Lung relinquished his seat and returned the transmission code to norm. He stood expectantly beside Cillin.
Five minutes later, both Cillin and Lung stared at the huge butterfly image on the screen and fell silent.