Chapter 502: Investigate
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
A Mark-1 drone circled in mid-air.
It flew thousands of kilometers into the distance and only returned when the battery was low. Everything it photographed along the way was automatically compiled by the computer to form a detailed map of the other world.
On the other side of the light spot — in reality, this sea region had been completely blocked off by warships from the four continents of the Earth Federation. Except for the ships of the foundation, any ships of any other parties were not allowed to approach within a radius of 100 miles of this area.
At this time, several survey ships transformed from freighters were parked side by side under the light spot. Countless materials, android, and drones were constantly being transported into the light spot, turning the previous outpost into a st.u.r.dier fortress.
The purpose for doing this was to prevent possible attacks from other world’s creatures.
Currently, many researchers had also been transferred to one of the modified freighters and a large number of research inst.i.tutes had been built on the flat deck. At this time, a group of researchers was in a hall, looking at the huge suspended screen with great surprise.
“What the h*ll is this...”
Everyone stared at the picture taken by one of the drones. In the picture, an endless jungle had blanketed the ground, but unlike ordinary jungles, this jungle was all made of flesh and blood. The endless flesh and blood had formed a sea and it was still spreading all the time. It seemed ready to devour the entire world at any time...
The jungles, mountains and rivers, and even the ruins of a city were all covered by that peculiar flesh and blood.
“The map has been charted within a radius of thousands of kilometers...”
One of the young researchers came to Professor Will and reported in a low voice, “Compared to reality, it has been determined that the location of the Rosen bridge in the other world is Oregon, Northern America, and its many landforms and towns seemed to correspond to the real world’s. The only difference is that these towns have been occupied by that weird flesh and blood.”
“Have you found a living person?”
Professor Will frowned and asked.
“No.”
The researcher shook his head. “There are indeed many plants and animals in this world and they are the same as in reality, but there are no traces of human beings or you could say, the endless flesh and blood once used to be...”
At this point, the young researcher did not continue.
Professor Will suddenly understood.
After studying the earliest batch of flesh and blood, Professor Will discovered that the flesh was composed of human DNA and it was the DNA of many humans. It seemed that countless humans’ flesh and blood had mixed to form what they encountered today.
“It’s really scary...”
At this moment, a new professor-level researcher came in. He walked to Will and sighed. “Will, you should come and see what we’ve found. There are new discoveries in the living areas. ”
“Oh?”
Will turned his head in surprise. “Eugene, what did you find?”
“You’ll know soon enough.”
The professor called Eugene turned around and walked out of the research hall without explaining.
Seeing this, Will followed him out. He and Professor Eugene came to a workshop by the side. This workshop was different from the hall earlier. It was specifically responsible for monitoring the outpost. At this time, this workshop’s screen was showing footage from the four living areas.
“Living Area A has been completely sealed off and all members of the task force inside have died due to resistance”
Professor Eugene stated, “But before they died, I observed many unusual phenomena.”
As he said, he tapped the thin air lightly, and suddenly, on the screen suspended above everyone’s head, the video clip that was recorded before automatically played.
In a room full of red secretions, four weird-looking monsters with tentacles and flesh and blood all over their bodies were sitting on their beds like human beings. They were also wearing gray pajamas given by the task force. At this time, their pajamas had already been stained red by the secretions.
However, this red was not the dark red of blood but a light red like ketchup and it was more viscous than blood. These four monsters were in non-human form and their necks were stretched to over half a meter long. The faces that once had human features had also become a ma.s.s of flesh and blood and it was no longer possible to tell who was who.
However, they still seemed to maintain human behavior...
One of the monsters. .h.i.t the wall with a tentacle, but the monster next to it stood up and pulled the monster back, seeming to be dissuading it.
Another monster placed its head against the wall and then spit out sticky bubbles as if to say something.
Then, the other three monsters also came to the wall one after another, copying the actions of the first monster and sticking their heads to the wall.
“Can you hear what they are saying?”
Seeing this, Professor Will could not help being a little curious.
“Their pitch is somewhat like a human pitch, but it’s vague and indistinguishable.”
Professor Eugene shook his head. “But the amazing thing is that they were communicating in this language and there was no barrier at all. This is incredible...”
“In other words, they are likely to still retain a human mind?”
Professor Will’s eyes lit up.
“No, they don’t have a human mind.”
Professor Eugene sped up the video. Soon, one of the monsters suddenly stood up and slammed into the door with a horrifying roar!
“Boom!”
In the video, the door of the dormitory was only hit a few times before being knocked down by a huge impact. Then, the four monsters rushed to the XTN robot guarding the door.
Then, the XTN robot started shooting...
When the shooting ceased completely, all the monsters were pulverized.
“This is the last dormitory in the Living Area A and those in the rest of the dormitories also died because of the monster’s loss of control.”
Professor Eugene concluded. “The members of the task force who are infected and mutated will become very emotionally unstable and will even actively attack XTN robots, yet they show signs of communication similar to those of humans. I’m not very sure whether they still retain their consciousness after the mutation.”
“I have some doubts too.”
Professor Will nodded. “If they still keep their consciousness, why don’t they cooperate with us but instead attack the robot with the gun? If they don’t keep their consciousness, what are they doing when they seem to be communicating? These are all mysteries.”
After this exchange between the two, the video fast-forwarded again and soon Professor Will discovered that a new and unusual situation had appeared...
The corpses of the task force that had been shredded into several pieces were fusing at a visible speed. In the end, a new mud-like creature with several monster heads and dozens of arms and tentacles, was formed on the ground!
“They fused...”
Seeing this scene, Professor Will’s pupils shrank even more because no matter how he looked at this puddle of flesh and blood, it looked like the flesh and blood jungle he had seen before. The only difference was that this one was much smaller.
“The jungle formed by flesh and blood, as expected, was made from humans...”
Professor Eugene said in a deep voice, “Will, what do you think?”
“I just want to know how are things in the three living areas of B, C, and D, and are there any signs of infection?”
“None so far.”
Eugene replied, “We’ve determined that this ‘infectious disease’ was brought back by Boris. He brought the ‘infectious disease’ back to the living area due to his injury, which caused the entire Team East Crow to be infected. Plus, this kind of ‘infectious disease’ cannot be detected by modern medicine. In addition to the dermatosis-like rash, there’s only one other early symptom and that is... Hunger.”
“Hunger?”
Will turned his head. “Will the infected person eat a lot?”
“Yes.”
Professor Eugene nodded. “Perhaps it’s to store energy for their future mutation. My team has summarized the corresponding patterns — in the early stages of infection, all task force members had ingested large amounts of food and the earliest infected patient, Boris, as he was outside, constantly injected himself with highly concentrated glucose. This is something that the other teams have seen, so the evidence is sufficient.
“Then, in the middle stage of infection, the infected person will experience extreme excitement and secrete a lot of adrenaline at the same time, which will cause them to become abnormally worked up. At the same time, their bodies will also grow many sarcomas close together. For this reason, in such an agitated state of mind, they may engage in self-harm behavior because their brains have received enough adrenaline to block out the pain.”
Professor Eugene continued to say, “After that, in the late stage of infection, the skin of the infected person begins to decay and fall off, and the muscles and fat of the whole body are automatically transformed into this special flesh and blood structure. This flesh and blood will gradually cover the entire body of the infected person. Their necks will be elongated and their faces and limbs will be deformed, losing their human appearance. During this mutation, they will enter a state of suspended animation. When they wake up again, they will have completed the mutation and become a walking lump of flesh.
“From the early stage to the late stage, the infection time is about 48 hours, which means that once you’re infected, you’ll only have 48 hours to live.”
Hearing Professor Eugene’s a.n.a.lysis, Will nodded. “Well done. So what’s the method of infection? Have you figured it out here?”
“Airborne.”
There was a dark glint in Professor Eugene’s eyes and then he smiled. “It’s certain that many infected people had not come into contact with the ‘first infected body’, Boris. The only thing they have in common is that they are in the same living area as Boris... It’s terrible to think of. Such a horrifying infectious disease is spread through the air...
“And we found many spore-like particles in Living Area A. These particles were suspended in the air and are invisible to the naked eye. If our guess isn’t wrong, this is the culprit of this infectious disease.”
“I see.”
Will sighed. “Now, we can only pray that there will be no incubation period for this infectious disease. For at least three years, I don’t want the remaining three task forces to return to reality.”
“Of course, for the safety of the earth, I hope they are prepared to die in the other world.”
Professor Eugene shrugged. “Let’s move on. I need a new batch of experimental materials including mammals, cold-blooded animals, primates, and even fish. I want to experiment with all animals and plants, see if they are immune to this type of infectious disease. At the same time, I still need death row prisoners to carry out more complete experiments.”
“Understood, these will be delivered.”
Will replied. As the person in charge of this operation, only he had the right to apply to the foundation for all experimental supplies.
...
Next, experiments on this infectious disease continued.
In accordance with the importance of this infectious disease, most of the best biologists, physiologists, and various doctors had been dispatched from the four continents. These people would sign a confidentiality agreement to ensure that they would not divulge anything about this matter, otherwise, they would be severely punished.
In the outpost of the other world, at this time, a larger experimental center was being built. Hundreds of animal and plant samples were transported here and a group of death row prisoners from all over the world was also brought here.
The most precious ones here were these death penalty prisoners. Today in 2028, many countries in the world had abolished the death penalty. These death penalty prisoners were even purchased from foreign countries at the expense of the four continents. They would bear the heavy burden of the human experiments, providing enough clinical data for humans to find out the regularity of this meme.
At this time, in an open-air courtyard surrounded by a 30-meter-high steel wall, several monsters composed of flesh and blood were huddled together. These monsters kept spitting bubbles as if they were talking about something and during the conversation, they also did small movements similar to humans such as scratching their heads and touching their noses.
This was the third day that the death row prisoners were infected with this meme.
It was only at the end of the second day that these condemned prisoners had mutated one after another, gaining an appearance filled with flesh and blood and deformed limbs.