The Ultimate Evolution
chapter-1091

The old man on the wheelchair carefully inspected the recordings Major General Fiji had produced with penetrating eyes that seemed to peel away the surface layer of everything they gazed upon, directly peering into the essence.

A long time passed before the old man slowly said, "Sending the savages to planet Uplos seemed to be a good move. Unfortunately, the Predators have noticed. They'll surely strengthen their defences after this and won't give us another chance -- unless we launch a full-blown war against them, but the Parliament will never agree to that."

"The savages still have nearly eighty hours; hopefully they can deliver some good news to us. I think all of them are really strong, so they may very well surprise us," said Major General Mungo in a low voice.

Right after Major General Mungo had said this, the military rank insignia worn on his and Fiji's chest suddenly started blinking. This time, he did not give Fiji a chance. He instantly told the General, "Excuse me, General, but it looks like there's new information being transmitted over."

The old man gave an interesting "oh" and immediately instructed, "Display the signal right away."

Soon after, a holographic projection was played. It depicted the scene where Cyborg No. 1 discovered the dog tag. The dog tag was given a close-up shot.

The reaction here upon seeing the dog tag was huge too. The first assumption of Mungo and Fiji regarding the dog tag was, of course, similar to the contestants'.

They assumed that the owner of the dog tag was one of the people who had been previously sent to planet Uplos and had miraculously survived.

However, the cyborgs' offline database obviously did not have the same level of clearance as an Imperial General. Using the serial number on the dog tag, the General quickly found out which branch of the army Douglas belonged to. When he obtained the information, his face immediately grew gloomy. Although he already had an answer in mind, he must first make sure that the people under him had not violated any regulations, so he immediately questioned the two Major Generals, "Before we conscripted those savages, we'd sent three batches of people to Uplos. From which war zone did you select the people for those three operations?"

Major General Mungo and Major General Fiji were visibly shocked at the question. Major General Mungo took the lead in answering, "I wasn't in charge of the first three operations, but I've read all the available information about them when I took over. The last person in charge was from war zone 156 and he had a close relationship with the higher ups from Andromeda, so all the personnel he applied for the operations were from the Andromeda Lightspeed Special Forces. I'm sure of that."

The old man closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he started typing on his keyboard. After about a minute, the holographic projection fluctuated. Then, a series of information poured out like a waterfall.

[ Name: Private First Class Douglas, Tony ]

[ Unit: S. Bermuda Experimental Special Forces ]

[ Gender: Male ]

[ Age: 25 ]

[ Current Status: Went missing six months ago in a bizarre manner while on a mission on the 87th star of the Southern Cross. Due to his highly sensitive identity, his disappearance is currently being investigated by the Imperial Bureau of Investigation. At present, there is an estimated 53% probability of him defecting after being bought by the Alliance! ]

[ ..... ]

Major General Mungo and Major General Fiji's pupils shrunk after checking the information. It must be known that anything that could be named after familiar terms from Old Earth belonged directly under the jurisdiction of the Empire. For example, the name Alps Base 7 showed that the base was the seventh copy of the Alps Base... And the real Alps Base was rumoured to be the palace of the Emperor!

The Andromeda Lightspeed Special Forces mobilised for the previous operations were obviously several tiers below the S. Bermuda Experimental Special Forces in terms of importance. It was like the difference between a high school basketball team and an NBA team.

Thus, they could almost completely rule out the possibility that Private Douglas was one of the people sent to infiltrate the planet in the past, because even an Imperial General did not have the authority to give orders to the special forces directly under central jurisdiction.

"Then, after ruling out all the impossibilities, the remaining answer, however bizarre, should be the truth of the matter," Major General Mungo said in a low voice.

"Uplos is a hunting ground prepared by the Predators, and all the creatures they selected were those deemed capable of providing sufficient trials and training for their next generation. Don't forget, in their eyes, humans are no different from sharks, lions, or even pet dogs and cats..."

Obviously, Private Douglas met the requirements of the Predators, so he was secretly captured by the Predators and abandoned on planet Uplos. He was not an explorer like they initially thought, but prey in captivity!

　　***

Sheyan and the other contestants obviously had no way of knowing the astonishing conclusion the people in the space station 2.7 million kilometers away had come to.

The Kitty Hawk was already running on overload to suppress the interference put in place by the Predators, but even so, they could only one-sidedly receive the data transmitted by the cyborgs and had no extra energy to support the transmission of data to the planet.

This undoubtedly meant that the contestant team could only continue to sink deeper and deeper in a quagmire of confusion...

Under the urge of the two MTs, the whole team had started to work diligently to try and find some clues to lead them to the surviving "exploration squad members".

The strength of the collective was indeed much more impressive than the strength of an individual. First, Ronnie purchased all the details on the Slaadi (TL: Slaadi is the plural form of Slaad). Although they had procured a sample themselves and had obtained a lot of data from it, they still needed more than 30,000 utility points to buy all the extra information on the Slaadi.

Ronnie's eyes soon lit up.

"I found it... These chaotic and ferocious creatures have clear territorial boundaries. Because a water source will bring to them a steady stream of food, these lazy monsters will usually move only within five kilometres of a certain area!"

"This means that Private Douglas must've been attacked no more than five kilometers away by the river! We won't need too much time to find the crime scene! Plus, keep in mind that Douglas's hand was tightly holding onto a laser gun. The energy scale on the gun shows that he had fired two shots before he died, but they both missed, so there should be obvious signs around the crime scene!"

"Well done, my friend." Hedi Curry slammed his hand hard on Ronnie's shoulder.

However, Ronnie's expression turned a little awkward. He went on to read, "The Slaadi have a rather strange biological power. They only mate once in their lifetime, during which they will produce an egg case. The egg case will store between 5,000 to 10,000 fertilised eggs within it. Every time a Slaad attacks an enemy, it will implant a fertilised egg into the enemy's body."

"....The fertilised egg will rapidly hatch in the host's body and become a blood tadpole. The blood tadpole will secrete a lot of anesthetic substances and quietly feed on the host's flesh and blood. The host will usually only feel its existence when the blood tadpole erodes into a main nerve. Once the blood tadpole has absorbed enough flesh and blood, it will mature and secrete a large amount of toxins. When that happens, the host's attributes will be forcibly reduced by 50%, and the blood tadpole will break out of the body...."

Curry and Azsa's expressions sank at the same time. They immediately looked towards their arms. Although they had blocked most of Slaad's attacks, they still suffered some injured because they both used small-sized shields.

They were both powerful MTs with over 100 points in Physique after all, so they did not pay the injuries much heed. It never occurred to them that the biological power of the Slaadi was so crazy. Hedi Curry trusted Ronnie the most, so he immediately took a dagger out and ruthlessly sliced open his right hand. The previous wounds had already closed and scabbed thanks to the MT's strong recovery ability. Blood instantly gushed out of the newly-made cut, but Curry was unconcerned about the blood. It was something else that made him frown.

After making the cut in his arm, Curry could see that a deep, bloody hole had been burrowed underneath his skin. He had lost all feeling around the hole. The hole had obviously been made by a blood tadpole. He immediately extended the cut all the way to his armpit without any hesitation. Only then did he manage to flick away a blood-red tadpole the size of his thumb.

The pattern on the back of the tadpole looked like a laughing devil. At this time, two hind legs had already grown out of its body. The tadpole had a strange mouth that was full of sharp teeth like a piranha's, and it looked really malicious. It's tail kept swaying, splashing blood about.

After the tadpole was ejected to the ground, there was actually a look of resentment in its eyes. Its mouth kept opening and closing, so its sharp teeth kept colliding with each other to make a clicking sound.

Ronnie immediately stomped on the disgusting creature as soon as he saw it. The blood tadpole uttered a cry of agony when it was stepped on! But that was normal; the Slaadi were highly intelligent humanoid creatures after all, so it was not surprising for them to have some human reactions.

Azsa was even more unlucky. She had to remove two blood tadpoles from her arm while gritting her teeth and sweating from the pain. A chill crept down Sheyan's back as he watched the two MTs cut their own flesh. If his identity as an MT had been exposed, he would surely have had to tank in front in the previous fight too, turning the number of current victim to 3. He did not even have a shield....

Sheyan was glad he did not have to share their burden.