Age of Cosmic Exploration
chapter-318

Chapter 318: Infestation!

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

"It’s light ray hypnosis and deep hypnosis. So far, there are still 140 plus people still in a hypnotized state."

At the military hospital in the Noah One, military doctor Yang Yun Si was explaining everything to the group of Noah One high officials.

The high officials naturally included Captain Norton. It had only been two days since the appearance of octopus aliens, but Norton seemed to have aged 10 years. He wasn’t this distressed even when he heard about the disappearance of parts of the Noah One after the warp.

Norton immediately asked, "The theory of the hypnosis is something of relevance to scientists and you doctors, I only need to know two things, whether this hypnosis can be undone and whether it can be defended, these are the two things I care about!"

Yun Si waved his hands helplessly. "Even if you say so, Captain, our understanding of this hypnosis is only a hypothesis. I know you might not want to hear this… but our understanding of hypnosis is very surface level. We know that this is some kind of psychological suggestion; however, this hypnosis method by the octopuses is even more complicated than the deepest hypnosis method we know. In fact, this sounds more like fiction than reality!"

"In other words, there is no way to undo the hypnosis?" Austin, who stood behind Norton, suddenly asked.

Yun Si shook his head before nodding. "That is not entirely true, but at least for these 140 plus people, their hypnosis cannot be undone. From my observation, instead of being hypnotized, they appeared to have fallen ill, and their illness is almost similar to the mental patients I’ve worked with back on Earth. They are not the simple mental patients, but the most dangerous violent mental patients.

"However, I do have an idea regarding the way to defend against this hypnosis."

The second sentence brought back the hope that had been vanquished by the earlier sentence. Norton immediately pressed, "What do you mean by that? You have come up with a way to deal with the octopus aliens?"

Yun Si said directly, "It is not entirely true to say that we have found a way to deal with the octopus aliens, but we can still try it. Within our medical knowledge and our knowledge regarding human hypnosis, hypnosis can be separated into sound hypnosis, light hypnosis, smell hypnosis, language hypnosis, and mannerism hypnosis. In conclusion, all of these hypnosis types have something in common: they have to deal with human beings’ five senses. Like earlier, the alien octopuses used some method to cause vibration in the air to cause hypnosis. In other words, we have to be able to see, hear, smell, touch, or taste to get hypnotized."

When Yun Si reached this point, Austin seemed to have understood something. He said immediately, "You mean there is a way to completely isolate ourselves from interacting with the octopuses? Actually, this could work…"

Others hadn’t caught up. Norton asked, "What does this mean? If we shut down all our senses, how would we discover the octopuses’ presence?"

"Easy, by infrared…"

According to Austin and Yun Si’s analysis, there had to be an upgrade to the spacesuits to make it so that the spacesuits isolated its wearer from the surroundings, including sound and touch. At the same time, the part of the helmet that looked out would be changed into an internal screen, and the screen would showcase the external world’s difference in temperature and infrared sight. Actually, this was going to help human beings see better, since they were underground.

In the next few days, a large number of workers emergency upgraded a new batch of spacesuits. Five Blue Berets were selected as test subjects. They would wear the spacesuits and venture out of the Noah One and deep into the underground.

9 hours later, only one Blue Beret returned to the Noah One…

The experiment had failed.

When the five Blue Berets entered the underground tunnels, they soon discovered the remaining heat patterns using the infrared vision. To their surprise, other than the heat patterns left in the air by the alien octopuses, there were many traces of human activity. How was that possible? Were there human beings who were immune to the alien octopuses’ hypnosis and survived? Or was there some kind of human-like alien lifeform?

The 5 Blue Berets went deeper underground, and the deeper they went, the more heat patterns they noticed. Finally, they stumbled across the living alien octopuses. They were gathered in front of a giant, underground tunnel. A rudimentary reading said that there were several hundred octopuses, but to the shock of the 5 Blue Berets, they found about 10 humanlike lifeforms among the group of alien octopuses. There were intense heat readings near the brains of the lifeforms. To put it simply… it was like the alien octopuses had infested the lifeforms’ brain cavities. In fact, the alien octopus’ tentacles were still visible within the cavity!

Unless… After these alien octopuses consumed a creature’s brain, could they still control the creature as if it was still alive?

This knowledge sent chills down their spines!

After that, the five quickly prepared to return to the Noah One because the purpose of this experiment had been achieved. The use of infrared could avoid the hypnosis. It could be used to discover the trail of the alien octopuses and would not be affected by their hypnosis. This was good enough; at least human beings wouldn’t be completely defenseless.

However, right then, the hundreds of alien octopuses started moving. However, instead of surging towards the five of them, they started arranging themselves in space into a certain pattern. It looked like a mixture of picture, code, and words…

"…Then, the four people beside me seemed to have gone crazy. They removed their spacesuits and ran headfirst into the school of octopuses. Only I managed to run away."

This was the testimony given by the one remaining Blue Beret. After he returned to the Noah One, he was under heavy surveillance. Other than his testimony, the technicians extracted information from his spacesuit to validate his story. It was as he said, other than him, the remaining four soldiers shrugged off their spacesuits and ran happily towards the alien octopuses.

So the question was, why only four? Why was there one survivor? The alien octopuses were kind enough to leave one survivor to report the situation? Or had this person already been hypnotized and he returned as a mole for the aliens? Or… there was something unique about this soldier that made him immune to the octopuses’ hypnosis?

Regardless, this one Blue Beret’s return brought with him many questions. The most important was the group of alien octopuses and the humanlike lifeform they controlled… Were those husks of humanlike lifeforms or were they hypnotized, humanlike lifeforms? And were they human beings?

This question didn’t last for long. On the second day, around 10 surveillance outposts around the Noah One were completely ruined. The sabotage happened with such expedience that the Noah One didn’t receive any alerts. They didn’t even know what kind of creatures attacked these outposts.

But the officials had a pretty good guess…

"In other words, the creatures that attacked the outposts and neutralized them were most likely the human beings whose brains were consumed?" Norton asked with a drawn face.

A scientist among them immediately retorted, "That is not possible! Captain, I can still understand something like hypnosis or having one’s brain consumed, but how could the body still be controlled after the brain is consumed? That is impossible! How can this alien octopus control a body that has no brain? Do you think that is really possible?"

A few related scientists nodded along to this scientist’s argument. Norton asked in return, "Then what kind of creature do you think could have ruined our surveillance devices? How can they know about the location of the hidden devices? Don’t tell me normal animals can tell that the devices are hidden between rock crevices!"

Immediately, the room was silent. Norton turned to look at Yun Si. "What about the medical team? Have you come up with a solution to the hypnosis? And that returned Blue Beret, is he under any kind of hypnosis?"

Yun Si stood up and said, "Our team didn’t find any trace of hypnosis in his mental condition. Other than shock, he is perfectly fine, so we don’t think he is under any hypnosis… Unfortunately, there is still no solution, but we did discover how this soldier is different from the other four."

Many were shocked. Norton asked immediately, "What is it? How is he different?"

"He was, like myself, the survivor of the mysterious virus…"

While the high officials were discussing this stuff in the meeting room, the workers that were in the surveillance room when the group of alien octopuses first attacked wandered towards the Noah One’s bridge with a blank expressions. They were heading towards… the Noah One’s biggest entrance!

Translator's Thoughts

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