Alfonso was naked to the waist, lying on his side on the soft bed on the second floor of the experimental building, and fell into a deep sleep. He may have been a handsome man in the past, but now his face only looked pale, thin, and had a slightly painful expression.
"This is the first time I saw the leader's face..." Walton curled his lips and whispered to Leslie beside him.
Todd half-crouched beside the bed, looking at the two rows of small, evenly spaced holes on the knight's spine. He carefully disinfected each one with medical alcohol in his hand and applied medicinal powder.
These are puncture wounds caused by the "keel" parasite sucking the host's spinal fluid. Although they are minimally invasive, the wounds are extremely deep. If not treated properly, they may cause myelitis or even paralysis.
Adelina sat on the bedside, wiped Alfonso's forehead with a cloth soaked in water, and asked worriedly: "Sir Todd, when will the boss wake up?"
"Generally speaking, it takes three to four hours. But I feel a little strange. I only anesthetized the "armor" on his body. His mouth and nose did not inhale the anesthetic gas. Why did he fall into a coma?
"Todd's face was full of doubts, and he checked Alfonso carefully again. Apart from the wounds on his spine, the most worrying thing was his physical condition.
Due to long-term reliance on the "keel" to complete daily activities, the muscles of the knight's limbs have gradually atrophied. This is like a normal person who has relied on a wheelchair for a long time. When he got out of the wheelchair one day, he found that his lower body could not use any strength.
Same.
After explaining to Adelina, Walton and Leslie how to help patients recover their strength, Todd returned to the hall of the laboratory and returned his attention to the "Dragon Bone" parasite he had just taken off.
In the huge wooden barrel, two parasites, one female and one male, lay quietly in the nutrient solution. The "skeleton" originally used to bind and support the host's limbs slowly shrank section by section.
Using the powers of "clairvoyance" and "Eagle Eye", Todd repeatedly examined this strange giant parasite. The outermost part of the insect body is a layer of horny skin as hard as steel, and further inside is an "air bag" similar to
’’ space can be called the ‘cutaneous muscle bursa’ in technical terms, and below it is a layer of soft skin and muscle.
This three-layer structure of the parasite can not only resist huge impact forces from the outside world, but also provide a certain degree of buffering by the skin-muscular sac and muscle layer to protect the host's body.
Looking further inside, Todd saw something strange, which was some gray-white medulla, which looked a bit like human nerves. This nerve-like substance was spread throughout the parasite's internal body.
It even includes those sharp hooks used to penetrate into the host's body and absorb nutrients.
Seeing this, Todd thought for a while and came up with a bold hypothesis. Did the ether, which was originally used only to anesthetize the parasites, enter Alfonso's spine through the parasites' "nerve lines"?
If this hypothesis is true, then it can be explained that the knight fell into a coma even if he did not inhale ether.
But this hypothesis is just a hypothesis and it seems that it cannot be proven yet.
Um?
Todd looked at the female's tail vertebra and saw some egg-like objects. Full of curiosity, he put on gloves and prayed that the parasite would not wake up at this time, while carefully removing
The hand reaches for the coital canal of both male and female parasites.
First, open the male's copulatory umbrella with your hand, then pull out the copulatory spines, and finally squeeze the female's reproductive tube with your hand to expel the eggs one by one that can be seen with "clairvoyance".
There are a total of six white eggs, about the size of dates, and the larvae inside can be vaguely seen when facing the sunlight.
It seems that the reproductive mode of the "keel" parasite is heterogametic (sexually differentiated reproductive mode produced by the parent), and the eggs are viviparous (the reproductive mode of larvae has been formed in the eggs produced by the female).
Todd found the glass tank originally used to cultivate rose buds in the laboratory. He first disinfected it with about 70% alcohol and rinsed it with sterile water 3-4 times. Then he created a darkroom in the laboratory and isolated it.
Sunlight; then seal the entire space with wax paper and glass to create a sterile environment; finally, use sugar, coconut milk, oxygen scavengers and biological amino acids to make a "double lactose peptone culture medium" commonly used in embryo breeding.
Place the "keel" insect eggs inside and observe them every 2 hours.
After doing all this, Todd remembered another parasite he had kept - "Hive".
After the battle with "Frankenstein" at Nethergarde, Todd brought the chopped "Hive" parasite back to the laboratory and cultured the parasites.
Now, the "honeycomb" has grown to six times its original size in the culture bottle. From the appearance, it looks like a huge black jellyfish floating on the water. The tentacles below have been growing, and the longest one is
It was even more than one meter long and accumulated at the bottom of the culture bottle.
The "honeycomb" is completely different from the "keel". Its reproduction method is "budding reproduction" (first a child individual splits from the edge of the mother body, and then gradually grows larger).
On the tentacles under the jellyfish, black earthworm-like nematodes are born (used to infect the host and turn it into a puppet). Over time, these nematodes can grow into new "hives".
Taking advantage of the period when the larvae of the "Dragon Bone" were growing, Todd first analyzed the "Hive".
The experimental subjects were four white mice. A small "honeycomb" was transplanted to the spine on the back of one white mouse, and three black nematodes belonging to the former's mother were fed to the remaining white mice.
To be honest, the results of this experiment were a nightmare that Todd didn't want to think about again.
The result of the experiment was that the white mouse transplanted with the "honeycomb" could make vibrating sounds through its mother's body and control the actions of the other three white mice. However, at the end of the experiment, all four white mice died without exception.
White mice fed black nematodes died from neurotoxins. Black nematodes in the body of mice can emit a toxin that destroys the host's nerve center and turns it into a walking zombie.
The white mouse carrying the mother body of the "Hive" died in a horrifying manner. It was destroyed by a large number of black nematodes that sprouted and reproduced. Tens of thousands of nematodes, along with blood and internal organs, exploded the entire glass box into pieces.
It was a mess. Every time Todd thought about that scene, he always felt a sense of nausea and vomiting in his chest.
After inspection and dissection, Todd also got some information. Black nematodes have strict environmental requirements. When the temperature is higher than 40 degrees, the humidity is less than 40%, under sunlight, and when the acid-base difference is large, they will lose their vitality and
Eventually died.
The observation of "Hive" parasites is postponed for a while.
To sum up, there are the following points:
1. The "hive" parasite adopts "budding reproduction" and is divided into mother body (similar to jellyfish) and daughter body (black nematode).
Second, there is a vocal sac-like sound generator inside the mother's body, which can make noises like a rattlesnake to control the host infected by the daughter body.
Third, the host infected by the mother will be eroded by the budding offspring, and will eventually explode and die.
Fourth, the host infected with the offspring will destroy the nerve center with the neurotoxin secreted by the offspring, and eventually become a mindless walking zombie.
5. According to speculation, as time progresses, when the offspring grow into the mother, the fate of these walking zombies is expected to be the same as that of the mother host. They will eventually be eroded by the massive reproduction of offspring and explode to death.
Sixth, the offspring have poor environmental adaptability and are extremely sensitive to light, temperature, acid, alkali and humidity.
Todd wrote the last note of the observation report and sighed as he looked at the "Hive" parasite in the culture bottle. This thing is simply a biochemical and nuclear bomb-level weapon. Fortunately, in the world of his previous life, there was no such parasite.
Insects, otherwise the scene in "Resident Evil" might really happen.
After taking a look at the "Keel" larvae culture tank and the "Hive" culture bottle in the laboratory, Todd blinked and smiled bitterly. Could he be considered a professional parasite breeder?
——————————————
The parasite experiment came to an end for the time being, and Todd walked out of the laboratory and went to visit Alfonso, who had woken up and was recovering from strength on the hills.
According to the retinue, the first thing the knight asked for when he woke up was something no one expected - a hot bath.
Alfonso, who had been soaking in the bathtub for almost a whole day, couldn't use any strength in his limbs. He had to rely on others to even climb out of the bathtub and change clothes.
But at least he seemed to be in good spirits, and the long-lost smile reappeared on his face.
"I feel like a heavy burden has been lifted off me." Alfonso rubbed his legs and said to Todd with a smile: "The power of 'Dragon Bone' is like a shackles from hell, which has imprisoned my soul for many years.
Now, I am finally free."
Hearing this, his followers looked a little depressed.
Adelina accompanied Alfonso back to the cabin, while Walton and Leslie accompanied Todd for a walk outdoors.
The short and fat man looked back at the door and said slowly: "The leader has said more than once that from the day he lost his family and became a mutant, he was no longer a knight."
Leslie found an open space and sat down: "Unlike us, the leader was forced to become a heterogeneous species. He has tried countless ways to take off that 'dragon bone'."
Todd came over and asked curiously: "Can you tell me more about it?"
Leslie glanced at Todd and nodded, seeming to have made up his mind: "There is a strange disease in the family of the leader's wife. It seems that overwork and fatigue can cause heart failure. One day, a traveler
The leader gave the leader a copper pipe, saying that the contents inside could save his wife. Unexpectedly, because of the copper pipe, the leader’s wife became an heir and mutated into a monster.
The leader who returned home happened to witness this scene. At that time, he could not defeat the successor and was about to be killed. The traveler actually appeared again, not only blocking the monster's attack, but also destroying the "dragon bone"
"Armor" was installed on the leader. With the power of "Dragon Bone", the leader finally killed the successor. When he tried to find the traveler again, he had disappeared."
Todd recalled Huggins' words and asked, "Who is that traveler?"
Leslie shrugged: "I don't know, the boss has been looking for that guy for so many years."
Walton suddenly added a sentence at this time: "For the leader, whenever he sees the 'dragon bone', he will think of his dead wife and children. In fact, he doesn't want to become a mutant at all. Maybe he thought at the beginning,
Only when the alien ability tarnishes the knight's honor will he give up his status and become a hunter of the Inquisition..."