Chapter 8.3 – Incomplete Mission
Su slowly lowered his arms from his face. At the moment of sudden change, Su’s arms protected his face, but he couldn’t do anything about the other areas. His arms were badly mutilated, and only his face and eyes were unscathed. Blood poured out from the bandages around his ears. Against the ferocious attack of these soundwaves, his ears which were capable of overclocked hearing were just too fragile.
Su stood there while looking at the place where the alcohol bottle exploded. What remained was an electrical circuit board that was smaller than a fingernail in size, and its edges were all scorched. All of the deadly soundwaves and motion sensing devices were integrated into this nearly unseeable piece of electrical circuit board.
This kind of trap and technology were things Su had never seen before.
Su slowly raised his hand to grab a piece of glass that was inserted in the his chest. With some force, the glass fragment was rigidly pulled out from his sternum. As soon as he exerted himself, large amounts of blood poured out from his arms and the upper half of his body. The shining red blood flowed down his body, gathering into a small pool next to Su’s feet.
Glass and bone rubbed against each other and released sharp and ear-splitting sounds, and only then did it unwillingly separate from the flesh in his chest. This was the base of the bottle. There was still blood on its surface, and bits of flesh were stuck to it.
Su pulled down the bandages covering his face and raised the bottle’s base to his mouth. He stuck out his soft and flexible tongue and licked the blood that was mixed with alcohol. The fishy taste of blood was transmitted from the tip of his tongue, along with the dense smell of alcohol and bits of flesh.
He completely downed this cup that had alcohol, blood, and flesh.
Su stooped over and placed the bottle’s base at the feet of the Falcons’ leader. This cup of bloody alcohol was the rest of the balance for the mission he promised the Falcons!
Su’s green eye became incomparably deep. He bent down and picked up the chunks of flesh that fell from his body one after another, and then he placed them in his mouth piece by piece. He was extremely careful in his search, not even letting the chunks that were slightly larger go. Finally, in front of the puddle formed from his own blood, he began to lap it up like a wild beast!
Su needed physical strength, and physical strength originated from food. Right now, the best food was his own flesh.
When Su stood up again, the only thing left on the ground was the dark colored soil. Blood no longer flowed from his body, but hundreds of wounds covered his body like small gaping mouths. Deathly pale flesh was visible around his wounds.
For Su, the entire world was currently silent. His ears couldn’t hear any sounds. The world before his eyes would scuttle with various colors from time to time. WIthin his brain, hundreds to thousands of nerves were endlessly firing and releasing lacerative pain. Despite this being the case, he still smelled danger from the winds that suddenly stirred.
Su tore apart his clothes that were as tattered as they could be and ripped off the strips of cloth. He placed two pieces of bulletproof porcelain plates one in front and one behind his body to forcefully cover these wounds. He abandoned all of his equipments and only brought twenty rounds of hand-crafted bullets and the rifle.
Su did not flee towards the distance, and instead welcomed the wolves head on.
RIght now, he was a wounded lone wolf, as well as a soldier that had been employed for a mission.
The advancing wolves suddenly stopped. The electronics expert supported his ear and patiently listened for a moment. He raised his head and said, “Someone has triggered my trap.”
At this moment, their group was only forty kilometers from trap set up within the Falcons’ headquarters. A deep glint appeared within Laiknar’s eyes, as if he was a wolf eyeing his prey. He promptly gave out orders for his party to quickly set for the Falcons’ headquarters. Together with O’Brien and Li Gaolei, he took the lead and hurried towards the Falcons’ headquarters.
An hour later, the pack of wolves had already gathered inside the Falcons’ headquarters. Sure enough, there were many nice surprises waiting for them here. The biochemical specialist collected the earth that was dyed with Su’s blood, and he even used a magnifying glass to collect every single piece of flesh that might have came from Su. What was rather unexpected was that the amount of flesh fragments here was truly rather pathetic, but there were still some. With the advance technology of the Black Dragonriders, this amount of specimen was already enough.
“I’ve found intruder cells, but they are all dead.” The biochemical specialist announced.
These news still caused everyone to release a breath of relief. Those present all understood the intruder cells’ terrifying capability to massacre anything. Even though they came precisely for these cells and were all rather capable individuals, they still didn’t have any confidence in dealing with an infection from the intruder cell. When faced with a live specimen, they were still somewhat anxious and frightened.
The biochemical specialist used the portable apparatus he carried with him to conduct a simple inspection on the acquired specimen. As expected, what he saw was the wreckage of already dead intruder cells as well as other dead cell types. After a preliminary dye was applied, he found that the intruder cells’ genome was completely fragmented and impossible to restore. There was no way to find out the intruder cells’ true appearance.
“I need more time to see if I can find samples of intruder cells that are still alive.” The biochemical specialist raised his head and revealed a rather discontent expression.
Right now, his only hope was that the intruder cells’ activity and invasive nature were equally vicious. He could only try to find live intruder cells from the earth or other places and use the cryogenic spray to immediately freeze them. Only then could he hope to obtain the complete genome.
As for how terrifying the intruder cell was, no one knew better than the biochemical specialist. No matter how committed he was to his field, he still wouldn’t be willing to come in contact with this kind of stuff, let alone outside of the laboratory with only a few crude tools and simple defensive measures. Only heaven knew which route the intruder cells could infect the body through or what type of effect it would have once it entered.
Within a ten meter area inside the scene of attack, the biochemical specialist was hurriedly working. The others all strictly followed regulations and stayed outside the ten meter area.
The biochemical specialist picked up piece after piece of specimen and hurriedly sprayed the cryogenic liquid over them. He carefully placed them inside separate pouches and then properly marked them.
Laiknar left behind two people to assist the biochemical specialist. Everyone else followed the hunter to pursue Su’s tracks. However, as soon as they left the Falcons’ headquarters, Su’s trail completely vanished. O’Brien’s hunter was equipped with two or three levels of Perception Domain ability and two levels of dexterity in the Combat Domain. He had even struggled for survival in the wilderness for almost twenty years and possessed extensive experience in tracking, yet despite all of this, he still had to look extremely carefully before finding a tiny trace of Su that was nearly undetectable.
“He is extremely cunning. The performance before was just to confuse us.” This was not the first time the hunter’s expression became serious like this, and each time, he wouldn’t fail to add another sentence. “Of course, his injuries are extremely severe.”
From the fragments of flesh splattered about and the large amount of bloodstains, anyone could see that Su’s injuries weren’t light. However, repeating this obvious fact wasn’t enough to calm down everyone’s distress and irritation, especially Laiknar’s. As long as he was able to capture Su, he would be able to obtain endless glory, rewards, and status upon his return. In Laiknar’s mind, Su was the same as a moving treasury. Even though they had never seen Su for themselves, they could see from the portrait alone that Su was a man who could greatly move others. If not for the horrifying intruder cells, Laiknar truly would have wanted to have a taste himself before offering Su up.
Even though he knew that this treasury was already within reach, he still had to endure his impatience and search bit by bit. Something like this was truly a great test of patience.
Calmness and patience were values that every single member of the Black Dragonriders repeatedly ingrained within their minds. Laiknar was an irritable individual by nature, but the strict education he received allowed him to suppress his inner agitation and prevent himself from berating the hunter. That was O’Brien’s subordinate, and within the Black Dragonriders, it was common sense to trust a professional.
The troops advanced at an extremely slow speed. After several hours had passed, they had already circled the Falcons headquarters three times, yet they’ve only travelled two kilometers at most from the central point.
Su did not leave; this was the conclusion that the hunter and O’Brien came to. In this short period of time, while suffering such severe injuries, there was no way Su could move quickly without leaving behind any traces. The traces Su left behind were distributed around the manor’s surroundings, making it seem as if he went around in circles to confuse his pursuers. Currently, within this land full of ruins, abandoned villas, broken highways, isolated transmission towers, as well as warped vegetation, Su had enough areas to hide in. If they couldn’t find any trace of him, even if this area was only a kilometer in diameter, a thorough search would still take an entire day. This was all under the assumption that the target didn’t move.
Time passed by bit by bit. The night scene quickly surrounded this land. Even though these people couldn’t move at night as freely as in daytime, they had a third level hunter among them, so they still didn’t give up, because Su definitely couldn’t have traveled far. Toward this kind of cunning prey, they definitely couldn’t give him any time to catch his breath.
The hunter turned on his advanced flashlight, but no visible light was released. This was an ultraviolet flashlight, and with the hunter’s specially modified eyes, he could see the ultraviolet rays.
While the hunter was carefully inspecting the traces on the ground, the others were aimlessly searching around in the pitch-black night. Most of them had no idea what the hunter could obtain from the ground that seemed to have practically nothing, but there had to be some clues, or else he wouldn’t be searching so carefully.
