After Being Parasitized by a Monster 66

Chapter 66: I told you not to touch me with your feeding mycelia!

MM experimental area at the bottom of the sea.

If this sea area cage were to be compared to a giant living cell, then the dense pipes would be the intricate skeletal network within, supporting and imprisoning the central core, doing its best to nourish it, transporting nutrients to it, while at the same time prohibiting it from moving, and requiring it to continuously command the intracellular operations.

In order to prevent food refusal, a feeding tube was passed through the mermaid’s oropharynx directly to the digestive cavity. At 22:00 feeding time, nutrients should have been poured in, but now, the “breeder” had mixed in an unknown substance.

And so, the mermaid, who was on the verge of death, was awakened.

Through the deep and endless waves, the frames blocked her vision. Cheng Ming could not see more, but her heart was beating like a drum.

Buzz—

The wall she was leaning against was trembling.

Thump. A very dull sound was transmitted from the water. The feeding tube had exploded, and a small, bright red firework had exploded in the water. The blood and water were carried by the salty and fishy seawater and flowed backwards. Under the unimaginable huge water pressure, it had burst open the sealing gate!

Crack, crack, crack. The crisp sound of ice cracking was heard one after another, and cracks spread on the outer edge of the sturdy glass curtain wall. Even though the wall still had many layers, and had been reinforced a second time after a major disaster, this scene was still shocking enough.

The inaudible sound wave had shaken the building that was deeply embedded in the bottom of the cliff.

When she came back to her senses, Cheng Ming felt that her ears were numb and itchy. She raised her hand and touched them. The bright red was dazzling, and blood had actually seeped out from her ear canal.

“Cheng Ming, stay away from the glass,” Xiao Ming quickly reminded.

Realizing the problem, she took a few steps back, and her back hit a cold, hard object. She turned her head and saw that the incomprehensible current symbols on the display screen of the control console were frantically flickering.

Crack, crack, crack, rustle, rustle, rustle, rumble, rumble, rumble… More messy sounds rushed in, overlapping and reverberating, so chaotic that it was impossible to tell if they were from the inside or the outside, or if they were transmitted by air or water.

Cheng Ming almost thought that her ears had been damaged and she was having auditory hallucinations.

Until a sea cockroach the size of a washbasin fell from the sky and almost hit her hand. She dodged to the side, and the thing fell on the metal table. The hard shell shattered and the juice splashed everywhere, and the steel plate was almost smashed into a big pit.

She looked up and saw countless antennae looming above. They seemed to be preparing to chew through this whole area.

This was not the end. She turned her head, and another swish sound came from the left.

The “breeder” on that side was like a passerby who had suddenly been possessed in a horror movie. She tore off her cumbersome protective suit and opened her chest and abdominal cavity.

It was really “opened.”

From Cheng Ming’s point of view, she could only see that the other’s upper body was like a double-leaf door that had been opened outwards. The internal organs could not be seen clearly, but the sternum was protruding, and it was extending like the appendages of an insect.

A pair of human hands were still normal. After digging in the lower abdomen for a while, she took out an oval-shaped thing and stuffed it into the pipe opening again, as if she were going to deliver it to the mermaid through the transport channel.

There were too many wonderful scenes, and Cheng Ming didn’t even know where to put her eyes.

What was she doing?

What was she going to do!

And what was she going to do?

She was like a spectator who had accidentally stumbled into a mysterious ritual. This observation room, which was full of insects and sea monsters, was a large altar, and the pained siren inside was the “god” they wanted to sacrifice.

Yes, it was pain.

She clearly couldn’t hear or see anything, but she could really feel the pain of that half-“kin” in the bay, like a sad song before a whale fall.

Beep—

An even more piercing, sharp sound. The life monitor on the main control console sounded an alarm.

Cheng Ming turned her head to look, and all the curves on the screen had been straightened.

Those were the curves that recorded every heartbeat, every breath, and every physiological change of the creature in the sea prison. They should have been rising and falling.

But now, they were as calm as the waves that had risen and fallen for countless days and nights.

The mermaid’s life had ended.

Cheng Ming stood there, at a loss as if she were facing an absurd nightmare.

Looking at the “breeder” who was still busy by the glass, it was even more absurd.

What was this? An internal conflict? Who would benefit from killing such a rare creature?

The facility had malfunctioned, and the mermaid was dead.

The experimental area had spontaneously entered a state of level one emergency response.

The emergency facilities were instantly activated, and crackle! a burst of electric current exploded. The entire area in front of the observation window was plunged into darkness, and then red lights were everywhere, and the alarm bells rang loudly.

The lockdown procedure was activated, and thump! thump! thump! a series of violent vibrations. Without looking, Cheng Ming knew that every pipe inside and out that a single ant could pass through was blocked.

The news would spread throughout Redstone Bay in three seconds, and the surface would be surrounded in less than a minute. Someone would come to check in at most ten minutes.

It was like catching a turtle in a jar.

And at this time, the culprit who had caused all this, the “breeder” who had opened her chest and abdomen, was walking towards her with a face that could be described as pious, holding something.

The warning lights were still flashing wildly, and the room was sometimes a bloody light and sometimes gloomy. The light and shadow alternated, and the darkness was not as extreme as when she had come in, but it was even more sinister.

Now she could see clearly.

The front of the human body was split open. It should have been supported by a sternum and filled with internal organs, but now, there was only a huge black arthropod monster inside.

It had gnawed away the extra organs and bones, had parasitized the human chest, had filled the gap with its own chitinous shell, and then, like wearing clothes, it was wearing a human body, its head embedded in the cervical spine, to precisely control the human nerves.

The ribs were its feet, and its seven pairs of thoracic limbs, which were covered with scattered flesh and blood, were holding a brown egg sac.

But the most conspicuous thing in its hand was not those immature sea cockroach eggs, but a reddish bead with a diameter of only about 5mm.

It was attached to the pale egg surface, like a sacred and delicate flower that had been watered with blood. It was slowly sinking into the depths of the nutrient-rich egg sac. In the next unknown period of time, it would hide and grow in it.

It was very much like the planula larva that Cheng Ming had once encountered.

And so, she immediately thought of what that bead was—an egg laid by the mermaid before it died.

Killing the main body, but preserving the offspring… was this a golden cicada shedding its shell?

She wanted to step back, but she was stuck in the control console and could not retreat. The “breeder” had already walked up to her, holding this sticky, bloody thing with great solemnity, and ignoring the thick liquid that was still dripping below, she was about to hand it to her.

It was like a high priest on an altar passing on the blessings of a god.

But the height of the other’s raised hands was even higher than her neck, and was level with her chin.

It was not at all meant to be handed to her.

Rustle, rustle, rustle. Countless marine “woodlice” drilled out from various gaps with their flat bodies, and they danced with their thick antennae and surrounded her. Some of them were ridiculously large, with thorns on the edges of their feet, and they made a clanging, crisp sound when they hit the metal structures on the way.

However, these mutated creatures in their primitive form, no matter how many there were, in terms of direct horror, were not as good as the monster in human skin in front of her.

The tide that had seeped in from the broken pipes had already reached her feet, and it was slightly damp and sticky.

She was like being trapped in a swamp and unable to move. Looking at the sticky substance that was so close to her, she realized a not-so-good fact—

She was also a “sacrifice.”

Was it asking her to swallow it?

…

The vibration was transmitted through the solid and liquid, and all the way to the shuttle elevator that was rapidly descending.

Qu Ying also felt it.

She walked out of the car door without any mishaps. She squinted at the traction rope above, suspecting that something was following her.

But she didn’t delay for long and went straight to the entrance and exit she had been to during the day.

Many deep-sea creatures had a strong ability to adapt to low light and could capture extremely weak light. Even if there was no light at all, they still had a variety of mechanisms to identify complex environments. Darkness was a protective color for these creatures.

In the dim light that was sometimes visible and sometimes not, Qu Ying came to the ruins that had been turned into a nest by some soft-shelled crustaceans.

The cables, which were wrapped in insulating material and had steel and copper bars, were broken, and bright sparks would burst out from time to time.

For the sake of concealment, the road to the MM experimental area had been opened in the transport pipes, which was against common sense.

But now, this deep hole was blocked by the collapsed structure.

…

On the other side, Cheng Ming, who had refused to become the new host, had finished a sudden battle. She kicked away the sea cockroach that was still pulling on her pant leg with its twitching appendages, stepped on the tattered corpse of the “breeder,” and climbed up to a high place with her hair disheveled, away from the wet ground to avoid being electrocuted.

The piles of arthropods had almost eaten her alive. Although it was not difficult to deal with, she was inevitably in a sorry state at this moment.

Her clothes were loosely on her, and not to mention protection, even covering her body was a problem. She didn’t know if it was caused by the chaos just now, or if Xiao Ming had taken the opportunity to play a trick.

With such a large number, it was a good time to use spores.

These sea cockroaches had only mutated in size and attack power, and had not developed human-like intelligence.

It was much easier to control the nerves of low-level creatures. She and Xiao Ming cooperated well, and the first batch that had approached had been hit and had turned to attack their own kind.

After a few batches, when Cheng Ming had killed the mother insect inside the breeder, the rest were either spinning in circles in a daze, or had drilled into the gaps by instinct, or had become the puppets of the conidia, and were being controlled by Xiao Ming to run away with their fourteen legs.

So annoying.

She was panting and was leaning against a slanted, dark screen. She frowned and looked around, and commented in her heart.

She had just escaped the fate of being a sacrifice, and now she had to worry about how to get out of this damn place, and how to deal with the Security Department personnel who might arrive at any time.

What was even more annoying was that the “breeder” had also brought a lot of similar solution bottles, which had been broken during the fight just now, and now the whole space was filled with an unknown volatile substance.

Cheng Ming was dizzy from inhaling it, not to mention Xiao Ming.

There were monsters everywhere, but it had no interest in eating. It was half-heartedly using its mycelia on her, trying to take advantage of her weakness, as if she were its big pillow, its human-shaped toy, its placebo.

“Mmph… don’t mess around!” She was caught off guard by a sensitive spot, and Cheng Ming let out a grunt. She curled up even more forcefully, and her face was red as she shouted, “I told you not to touch me with your feeding mycelia!”

No matter how much her body craved comfort, she couldn’t be as careless as it was about the occasion.

“This is not a nutrient mycelia, it’s a spore silk,” it was even a little aggrieved. It responded distractedly, and in this empty darkness, it was like it was speaking right by her ear, with bewitching and sweet honeyed words. “Cheng Ming, you smell so good…”

This monster that only knew how to be driven by instinct!

The way in was collapsed, and Cheng Ming’s mind was in a mess now. She tried to sort out her thoughts.

She probably understood the arrangement of “their” operation.

One was responsible for infiltrating as an internal staff member, killing the mermaid and creating chaos at the same time, and the other was responsible for receiving them as an external staff member, and was responsible for taking the fish eggs out while it was chaotic… then the question was, she had mistakenly taken the identity of the latter. Who was supposed to be here to do this, and where was she now?

How did they arrange their retreat?

The controlled sea cockroaches had already scattered to every corner to explore a way out. This space was too large, and it was difficult to explore it clearly in a short time with just mycelia. The maximum length was also not enough, so she might as well try the newly developed skill.

Xiao Ming’s conidia could carry a part of the nerves, and could spread the perception like a communication network. If in the past, it was just using spores to issue commands, then now it could also receive feedback information.

It was just that the number was limited at present, and maintaining the activity to control a living body was a huge burden on Cheng Ming’s body. A nerve in her brain was throbbing as if it were being drilled, which made it even more incredible that Xiao Ming still had the leisure to tease her at this time.

“How is it?” she trembled and buttoned up her protective suit, and asked while struggling to suppress her rapid breathing. “Share the picture with me.”

“Are you sure?” Xiao Ming transmitted a hesitant message. “It will be a little uncomfortable.”

Cheng Ming closed her eyes and took a deep breath, “Yeah.”

It was even more uncomfortable to just wait and be tormented by it.

Their few neural link experiences had all been bad, and this time was even worse.

With a boom, she was like plunging into the most extreme and complex version of a kaleidoscope, and it was the kind that rotated and zoomed at high speed and moved irregularly. Countless light fragments flashed before her eyes, and it was more dizzying and stimulating than riding a large roller coaster.

Her soul seemed to have been extracted. Cheng Ming could not distinguish between up, down, east, and west. Her spirit affected her body, and she fell down, and almost vomited on the control console.

But it was just a reaction for a second after her consciousness returned.

The strong feeling of palpitation made her quickly support her body and jump up like an antelope that had encountered a cheetah on the grassland. Her knee hit a button and was in pain, but she did not dare to move rashly. She tensed her hand and leg muscles and looked at the source of the danger.

She had accurately captured a fleeting image in the thousands of colored spots—before they had found a way out, the enemy had first found them through an unknown path.

What made her scalp numb the most was that she didn’t know how long the other had been here, and how much she had seen.

More than ten meters away, in an inconspicuous, dim corner, next to a round, large instrument, a figure was standing silently.

No… it should have just arrived.

This person clearly had no intention of deliberately hiding. There was a warning light next to her, and the red light would occasionally turn on and off, and it was sprinkled on her dark clothes, like a devil that had been born from hell and was bathed in lava, making the surrounding environment extremely sinister.

The vanguard of the Security Department in this emergency.

A black jacket, a silver collar, a black glove on her right hand, and she wasn’t even wearing a combat suit. It wasn’t a very professional attire, but her whole body exuded an unusual coldness.

Cheng Ming slowly widened her eyes, Ying…

She almost called out as a conditioned reflex, but was quickly brought back to her senses by the other’s sharp aura.

Her originally somewhat hot body quietly cooled down, and her dizzy mind was as if it had been doused with a basin of cold water. The bold Xiao Ming also became obedient, and all the mycelia retracted, and it clung to her motionlessly, disguised as short hair.

Thank you, Sister Yingying, for helping her to clear her head.

In the tense and stagnant atmosphere, Qu Ying finally moved.

She stepped over the scattered remains of the sea cockroaches, and as she got closer, she looked at the person who was lying face down on the ground, bloody and mangled, and she curled her lips into a “friendly” smile—

“Team Leader Yan, what have you been up to? Tell me about it.”