Star Rank Hunter
chapter-165-2

Chapter 165: The Final Protectors [Part 2]

They hadn’t walked for long before they discovered a stream. It was probably formed by the snow high above the mountains that had melted into water. There were some animal bones beside the stream, and they looked like they had been there for quite some time. They were probably hunted and killed when they came here to drink some water. Cillin looked at the deep bite marks around the neck bones and surrounding skeletons and said, “This is probably the work of a ‘hellhound’.”

“Yeah, they normally hunt down fugitives only and will not eat them. These bodies only benefited other animals.” Lung played with the water of the steam and answered.

“Should we look around?”

Lung nodded in agreement, “This mountain was probably formed due to the crustal movements just a hundred years or so ago. Maybe we can find some ancient fossils in this place. These are all money, man!”

The facts proved that their trip was worth it.

Lung’s detector discovered the fossil of an ancient creature. Of course, there was no way young master Lung would dig out the fossil by himself. He ordered the robots to bring over the necessary tools with a long distance remote control and tossed the fossil right up the spaceplane once all the processes were complete.

Cillin had also taken the opportunity to obtain some samples. The samples of ancient creatures were too expensive, and there weren’t many people who were willing to spend money to buy them. Naturally, Cillin did not let such a golden opportunity pass by.

While Cillin and Lung were busying themselves with the ancient fossil, the probes they sent out earlier sent back a transmission.

“Looks like we’ve found the location of that former research base.” Lung looked at the transmission and said.

Looking at the transmission sent back by the probe, the research base wasn’t too far away from where they were. Therefore, Cillin and Lung extended their hoverboards and flew towards the place directly.

The research base was buried a long time ago, and it was impossible to find an entrance on the ground’s surface. Cillin and Lung scanned out an underground map and chose a spot to dig a hole into the place.

The spot they chose was one of the many passages of the research base. They would quickly find the passage after they went down the hole they dug. Since this place had been buried for too long, there were plenty of volatile gases made of deadly poison in the air. Therefore, both Cillin and Lung had put on a mask. As for the gray cat, this fellow wasn’t afraid in the least.

“I heard that people were dispatched in search for this research base many times to see if there was anything good left behind in the past. However, they found nothing either because they never found the base, or because it was too buried too deep when they did find it. At the time, the base was probably buried deep underground due to crustal movements. It had only risen back to the surface level after many crustal movements later. We are lucky, or we would not have been able to enter this place. Who knows when the base will be buried deep underground again after this.” Lung said happily.

There were suspended energy lamps at the front of the passage, lighting the many corpses on the floor in clear sight. Judging from the skeletons they did not look like humans, but that was only appearance wise. It did not meant that they were not once humans. There were plenty of convicts in this Sector, and it was common practice to select some humans who fit the standards of an test subject for experimental purposes.

After they walked out of the passage, they saw some rooms they were either tightly shut or opened. However, judging from their appearances these rooms were used to store basic tools and materials.

After venturing deeper into the base, they began to find some isolated research labs and some places were used to preserve research specimens. Only two of the liquid tanks used to preserve the research specimens were still intact. The rest were broken.

Inside the intact liquid tanks were two modified monsters who were so beyond recognition that they were unable to identify even their eyes. One of the monsters was probably an adult test subject, but the other monster was an unborn infant. A severely deformed infant.

“These chosen convicts would be given specific food to consume, and some successful research subjects who went through all of the experiments would be used to reproduce offsprings. If their offsprings were excellent, then they would be used further as a work parent* with a wider range of research value… this is especially true for lifeforms at infant stage.” Lung said.

*basically, it means that they’ll be used like a tool to produce more offsprings.

Both Cillin and Lung knew very well the madness of mad scientists. These were a kind of people who were unrestrained by both laws and morals. For the sake of their research, forget unborn infants, newborn infants or young children, they would use even themselves as a research subject. They were ruthless towards others, and even more ruthless towards themselves.

The specimens in the next storage room were the hellhounds. Some of the research subjects sealed inside the liquid tanks looked like humans, and some looked like dogs. In reality, one could find the traces of both lifeforms on every research subject. It might be their noses, their eyes, their mouths, their ears, their claws…

There were quite a number of newborns among the specimens. They were probably failed subjects. The most classic failed subjects would also be sealed off as a research record.

“I heard that there aren’t that many hellhounds in the first place. Out of the successfully researched hellhounds, the excellent ones would be picked out to breed the next generation. The same process of reproduction by excellence continued to the third generation, the fourth generation and so on… before the calamity, all hellhounds were born by excellent parents. At the time, excellent hellhounds would be sold to other prisons to watch over the prisoners. However, a hellhound’s function was much diminished at the prison zones, so some of them were used as tools of entertainment by the prison guards. The prison guards would have them kill each other, so the fates of these hellhounds were either to die or be crippled. Therefore, true hellhounds only exist in this planet ‘Hell’.” Lung said while staring at a baby that was neither man nor dog who had not yet even opened its eyes sealed inside a liquid tank.

“Don’t they know how to resist?” the gray cat asked.

“Resist?” Lung gave it a smile, “All those who resist are dead. It doesn’t take long for the researchers to identify which specimens may possess rebellious traits after they were born, so they killed any specimens like that right away.”

The gray cat shivered. As it thought, it was best to stay far away from a scientist or something.

After looking at a few other rooms, they arrived at the place where the research subjects were imprisoned. The sealed cage was filled with all kinds of corpses. The life support system was still functioning normally, so the test subjects trapped here had probably killed each other. Some were torn to shreds. When there was no food, the companions beside them could be turned to food too.

The other cage held some of the more troublesome test subjects. They could only imprisoned separately, and they had to be tethered with special chains. Some of these tethered test subjects were either hellhounds or something else. Regardless of whether their skeletons looked like humans or animals, judging from the locations they were imprisoned in and the chains that were used to tether them, these fellows all wielded powerful abilities.

Hmm?

Cillin noticed a fellow that looked like a dry corpse. Its body was tethered with special chains, and the undulations of breathing were absent. It looked just like a dead body.

The gray cat swayed its tail as a hint to Cillin: This fellow is alive.

Cillin and Lung exchanged a glance before they approached carefully towards it.

They opened the cage’s door, but the ‘dry corpse’ did not move at all.

The chains used to tether the fellow were all snucked at a collar, and its length could not be determined since half of the chains were blocked by its body. They looked at the scratch marks on the floor. There were a lot of scratch marks within a certain area, but beyond this area there were no scratch marks. The chains on the earlier research subjects weren’t too long, and it was about the same range as these scratch marks.

When Cillin approached the research subject, he suddenly felt that something wasn’t quite right. Lung did not continue to walk closer either. Right now they were still more than two meters away from that line of scratch marks.

Cillin looked at the fellow that was like a dry corpse once more. Suddenly his eyelids jumped, and he grabbed Lung and retreated backwards abruptly. At the same time, the fellow who was crouched at the corner like a dry corpse opened its eyes and pounced towards them. Its forelimbs abruptly stretched out, and its outstretched claws were almost two meters long. The activity scope of the fellow that looked like a dry corpse had exceeded the scratch marks on the ground by more than a meter!

This was a well planned trap!

The scratch marks on the ground were done on purpose. It was to fool its prey into thinking that they were outside of its activity scope, when in reality they had already entered its predatory area.

The body that was like a dry corpse erupted with unexpected power, and Cillin did not doubt in the slightest that this fellow’s claws could easily cut them into many ribbons. Even though they were wearing masks, they could still sense the rot and stink that was rushing towards their face.

Its movement was very quick. It had acted the moment Cillin decided to retreat.

Cillin raised his gun while in retreat and fired three times. He shot two bullets into its eyes, and one bullet into its head.

Pak!

The head of the fellow that was like a dry corpse exploded and splattered gray blood everywhere.

Looking at the now dead and headless fellow, and then at the chains that had been broken, Lung exhaled slowly, “From now on, if we run into something like this in the future, we shoot immediately! Shoot first talk later! And we’re not getting close to it no matter what!”

(E/n: guess who didn’t play dayZ)

The gray cat walked close to the fellow that had its head exploded, looked at it and sniffed, “What a strange scent. I don’t know what species it belonged to.”

“It’s probably a mix of genes of several types of ferocious beasts, and specifically those creatures with strong endurance. Otherwise, there’s no way this fellow could have lived until now.” Lung said.

Cillin looked once at the place where the chain had been pulled loose. The fellow had bitten a small hole on the chain before this, or there was no way it could have pulled free so easily. However, the fellow had blocked this hole from view earlier.

It knew how to set traps, and it knew how to block the hole on the chain from view. Everything it did was planned.

“Are all these research subjects this intelligent?” Cillin asked.

“I’m not sure, but since they’re successful research subjects, they should be pretty formidable.”

Dididi——

While talking, the alarm on Lung’s hand began to ring rapidly. Both Cillin and the gray cat had noticed the abnormality as well.