Chapter 361. Bomb (1)
-Boooom!-
“Woah… What are these things, Captain?”
R-Libera Nell spoke towards the leader up front, R-Zairon Nell, muttering as he looked around.
Although they had seen it briefly from above, seeing it up close was different.
Kyaaaaak!
“What the hell… Isn’t this just an insect hive?”
-Boooom!-
R-Libera Nell mumbled as he smashed away the strange creature that charged towards him and thought:
The separated section of the city.
Nothing lived in this part of the city.
Other than the insects, of course.
‘Ugh…’
Kyaaaaak!
As he dealt with the strange insects jumping at him, R-Libera Nell could see the countless women lying on the floor, with their stomachs burst wide open.
Although they were aliens, they looked just like them on the outside.
‘Tsk.’
The scene made R-Libera Nell feel uncomfortable, and he checked the status of the Dragon God Armor, lifting up one of his barrels.
-Whoooosh!-
Powerful flames swept over the corpses on the ground.
-Flicker, Flicker-
The leader, R-Zairon Nell, frowned at this scene.
Not because of the flaming corpses, but rather from R-Libera Nell’s actions.
“Save your energy, there aren’t much now but we don’t know what will happen.”
A giant city with a diameter of 41 km, Angkara.
They had merely entered one of the hundreds of sectors within the city.
And the location they had to reach was the very center of this giant city.
Looking at the situation on the outskirts of the city, the inner parts of the city would definitely be abnormal as well.
It was best to preserve their energy.
Since nobody knew what would happen.
At R-Zairon Nell’s words, R-Libera Nell started to make excuses, an awkward expression on his face.
“No… Uh… Well, you don’t know what could happen, right? They might crawl out from inside those corpses too.”
Kyaaaak!
And R-Libera Nell fired at an insect that had just crawled out from a woman’s corpse.
-Booom!-
“Look! They might ambush us from behind, so dealing with the roots like this is important.”
“…”
R-Zairon Nell shook his head.
‘Imbeciles, they never listen.’
They were royals of the royals from the three families.
They had gained approval for their abilities and had reached the level of a Dragon God Soldier.
They were born with a silver spoon in their mouths, and they had killed and massacred in place of learning manners.
Actually, it would be weird if their personalities were normal.
He had only become their leader because he’d fought longer and was a bit stronger, so he wasn’t someone who could fully control these guys.
‘Fine. Fine, let’s just do it your way.’
R-Zairon Nell decided just to let loose.
He was a bit disgusted as well.
“Kuhuk… Ugh.”
R-Zairon Nell wore a disgusted expression as he looked at the crawling alien woman.
Well, at the woman’s destination.
‘… Disgusting.’
In the center of the sector was a giant container.
And below it, there seemed to be a mechanism that looked like it was meant to feed them.
The mechanism seemed to constantly drop something to the container at the bottom.
A mysterious-looking feed.
“Ah… Ahhhh…”
“Ugh…”
The infected women were continuously shoveling food into their mouths.
As if they were never satisfied.
It was not something that someone would do when they had a giant hole in their stomach which insects kept crawling out from.
A strange sight indeed.
A panel appeared before R-Zairon Nell’s eyes, and he found out the feed’s ingredients.
-Tiriririk-
‘T-HTD and Hydrogen. Growth accelerator… A weakening agent and anesthesia.’
Until now, he had thought the women were acting crazy because of those strange creatures inside their stomachs.
But apparently, he was wrong.
The chemicals within that feed were messing with the minds of the women.
So they wouldn’t be able to feel the hole in their stomachs and would only focus on eating.
And he realized why the feed was packed full of nutrients and growth accelerators.
‘It’s not to fatten up the women…’
Kyaaaa!
Insects continued to crawl out from inside the woman’s’ stomach.
Cells were dividing at hundreds of times their normal speed inside the woman’s stomach.
And as they supported this growth, the alien woman continued to shovel the feed into her mouth to compensate this loss of energy and nutrients.
As if she would die if she stopped.
-Chomp! Chomp! Chomp!-
The powerless bodies continued to feed themselves as they supported the birth of the strange monsters.
R-Zairon Nell frowned at seeing their numbers continue to multiply, and he aimed with his Dragon God Armor.
-Boooooom!-
A huge sound occurred as it destroyed the pen containing the women.
“Woah, captain. You just told us not to waste our energy just a second ago, hehe.”
R-Zairon Nell frowned at R-Libera Nell’s snickering and then warned the others.
“I’m just making a path for us. We… We might need to fall back. If these things have multiplied then this might become troublesome.”
A few of the Dragon God Soldiers asked in shock,
“Huh? Captain, are you insane? Aren’t you going to listen to the fleet commander?”
‘Securing an escape path? Is he saying we might need to run away?’
The commander had told them that they needed to breach the center and figure out what Melchizedek was hiding.
Although they, the Dragon God Soldiers, were at an extremely high position in the Neropa Union, the fleet commander, R-Korinaita Nell, was different.
That man was a level above themselves, who were already at the peak of the ladder.
Although they were a bit arrogant, they were still a part of Neropa’s military.
If they went against military laws and didn’t follow the orders of the fleet commander, then they would get in trouble.
And R-Zairon Nell shook his head.
‘Retards.’
Born as geniuses and accepted by the Dragon God Armor, and yet their visions were still too limited.
Although a soldier should focus more on their duties today rather than surviving until tomorrow, they should still care about their own lives.
-Kacha!-
R-Zairon Nell crushed one of the bugs beneath his feet and picked it up with his hands.
“Look. Look at these things.”
“What the hell are you doing?!”
The Dragon God Soldiers freaked out as he brought half of the insect closer to them while it spewed out a green liquid.
Some even stepped backward.
But looking at the serious Zairon holding up the insect, they approached him again and inspected it.
‘Ugh… Why is he telling us to look at it? It looks weak. We can just sweep past it.’
Although the process of birth was disgusting, it was just some random insect.
Couldn’t they just massacre them all on the way there?
Its body was made up of three parts and had eight legs.
Sharp legs made to cut meat, with extremely powerful muscles for an insect.
But that wasn’t all.
-Didididik-
Information continued to display on R-Libera Nell’s panel, one after another.
— … Metamorphosis under way.
— Integrating alien DNA…
— Probability of evolution… 99.4%
Something was constantly squirming inside their hard exoskeletons as its body continued to change.
Their outer shells kept shedding off as it made new shells underneath.
And the Dragon God Soldier’s expression froze at this sight.
***
-Rumble!-
A bright light exploded outwards, and lightning smashed down onto the ground.
Unlike the Dragon God Soldiers, who were creating escape routes while slowly advancing… Hansoo merely continued to charge deeper and deeper like a madman.
-Boom!-
Even if he blew off their heads, the infected would continue to move.
To continue to breed the Abyssal race, <Quirae>.
Only after burning both the outer and inside forms of the infected to a crisp could one stop their movements.
“Ahh…”
“Ugh..”
Even as she fell, the woman continued to push the <Quirae> coming out of their stomachs to Hansoo.
Their actions weren’t an attack.
“Ah… Ahh…”
Kyaaak!
Hansoo glanced at the woman holding the insect gnawing on her hands.
It wasn’t just because of the drugs.
These women seriously thought that these insects were their children.
The Quirae had already infected their brains.
“Please… this child…”
Hansoo nodded and received the Quirae, staring at the woman handing over the insect even while her own body burned up.
“Ahh…”
Hansoo looked at the brightening expression of the woman after he’d received the Quirae, and he thought:
‘… Rest in peace.’
-Boom!-
The woman’s head was gone.
Hansoo stared at the fallen woman and then clenched his right hand.
Kyaaak!
After blowing up the Quirae in his hand, Hansoo clenched his hammer tightly.
‘You really have gone too far.’
Hansoo gazed towards the distant center of the giant city, towards the one who had caused all this.
There was something he didn’t understand.
‘… He doesn’t even control them.’
Melchizedek had only focused on raising them. It didn’t look like it had any thoughts of controlling them.
It would be a tremendous force if it could control the Quirae.
No.
The <Quirae>, if raised properly, could be among the most powerful races even within the Abyss.
-Boooom!-
‘They would be useful… so where is Melchizedek planning to use them?’
Hansoo created a hole in the wall, looking at the scene beyond it.
Kyaaak!
Unlike the insects from before, these things had a different appearance.
Maybe they had grown up, but these things looked half-human and half-insect.
Hansoo charged towards them.
***
“Mmm…”
R-Zairon Nell continued to speak.
“This is just a newborn. The issue is, we don’t know how far they can grow.”
“…”
“These things could be crawling in that place, isn’t it better to be reprimanded under military law instead of becoming some insect’s meal inside this place?”
“…”
The Dragon God Soldiers nodded to themselves.
-Boom! Boooom!-
They started to fire their weapons in every direction.
To not leave behind a single trace.
Kyaaaak!
Ahhhh!
The screams of the insects and the aliens filled up the surrounding space.
Some of the Dragon God Soldiers frowned as they heard this.
The Dragon God Soldier continued to fire their attacks.
If they let these things survive…
The place they were standing in might end up swarming with these insects by the time they escaped.
If they were running away, it meant the situation was already in a horrible state.
If their escape path ended up blocked then it would make things even worse.
-Chiiiiik-
R-Zairon glanced at their surroundings, which had turned to dust, and said:
“Proceed to the next sector.”
‘Anyway, what is this crystal? These things keep dropping.’
A weird crystal dropped whenever they killed the insects.
R-Zairon Nell then shook his head at the thousands of crystals that even his armor’s panel couldn’t detect the properties of.
‘Well, I guess I can take a few back for the researchers.’
And soon…
-Tatatata-
R-Zairon Nell and the other Dragon God Soldiers quickly dashed away.
“Mmm…”
Somebody approached the location they’d just vacated and picked up a crystal from the floor.