The Ultimate Evolution
chapter-1103

Sheyan took another look at the group and found that they were paying full attention, so he continued.

"When I found that the captives were not eagerly consumed by the Violent Beasts right away, it made me think about their motives for capturing the humans. They were obviously hungry and short on food, so the possibility of them raising humans in preparation for the future is non-existent. So then, what other purposes do the humans serve besides being their food? The humans may very well be used as offerings to the superior beings in their community - the Xenomorphs! The humans are the Xenomorphs' favourite breeding hosts!"

"And why did they spend so much time and effort to use the captives as bait to lure more humans into an ambush? So that the Xenomorphs can have more hosts!"

*cough* *cough* *cough*... "There's no need to argue any further. They ARE Xenomorphs." A hoarse voice was suddenly heard coming from near the campfire. It was the voice of Paul who had just regained consciousness. He said without much strength, "Let me tell you how I made it out alive."

All of them looked at Paul with admiration in their eyes. This guy was actually powerful enough to escape without any help in that kind of situation. Paul seemed to be enjoying their admiration. He continued with a hint of pride, "When I found myself in a desperate situation, I took the opportunity when Vassily self-destructed to summon my baby, Achilles. I then seized a blind spot in the enemy's plan - together with Heracles, we went deep into the monster's nest instead."

"Deep into the monster's nest? How?" asked Sheyan curiously.

Paul stared at Sheyan in misery.

"You escaped really early, so of course you wouldn't know that there's a huge hole a few centimeters below the two captives' feet. The Xenomorphs seem to treasure the two captives highly; the facehuggers must've already injected embryos into their bodies. Therefore, the creatures won't tolerate the captives being rescued - that's like having their descendants taken away from them. As soon as we approached within ten meters of the captives, they had dropped down the hole."

"I rushed down the hole where the hostages were dragged away, and caught the foolish monsters by surprise by doing so! The emergency situation called for three Xenomorphs to come chasing after me! Hmph! If I hadn't attracted the attention of those monsters back then, only Seaman and Aldaris would've made it out alive."

"I followed the tracks of the two captives and reached a cavern under the swamp, in which I found five Xenomorph eggs. I left Achilles there to destroy the Xenomorph eggs to attract their attention while Heracles covered me as I continued my escape. In the end, Achilles bought me enough time for me to run away."

Ronnie suddenly frowned.

"Does that mean there'll be a Xenomorph queen among the enemies we have to deal with?"

Paul shook his head. "I didn't see any. Maybe I was just lucky. If I'd met one, I would've been torn into pieces for sure."

"When we attacked the flying ants previously, Dardanian told us that if a biological community has yet to fully mature, it won't give birth to something like a queen that has a single purpose and is unable to hunt, because they won't have enough food to feed it," said Pokan thoughtfully.

"There are only three Xenomorphs in this Xenomorph community. Based on Dardanian's theory, we can infer that one of them should be a female that can hunt. It may not be as professional as a queen in laying eggs, but it's capable of doing so."

"For example, maybe a Xenomorph queen can lay one egg a day, but the female Xenomorph can only lay one egg a week. Once the number of Xenomorphs increased to a certain extent, and the community can provide enough food for the female, the female will feed crazily, then burn away its life to lay its last egg - the egg of the queen."

Sheyan heaved a heavy sigh as he shook his head.

"That's really bad news for Hedi Curry and the rest. Originally, I estimated that their chances of survival were about 50%. But after what Paul did, they probably have no chance of surviving anymore."

Everyone immediately understood what Sheyan meant. If the Xenomorphs still had eggs, then according to their preference for parasitising powerful humans, the contestants may very well be turned into hosts.

A host would not die immediately after being parasitised. The embryo would grow slowly in them. Even in an ordinary human, the embryo took around 24 hours to grow into a chestburster. The contestants were much stronger than ordinary humans, so it should take longer in their case.

But now all the Xenomorph eggs had been destroyed. The female Xenomorph would also take a long time to lay another egg. As a result, the only use left for the contestants was to become food.

Chills crept down their spines when they thought of the fate befalling their former companions. What was most depressing was that their companions had died without displaying their full strength! If it was a direct confrontation and everyone's abilities were brought fully into play, they might have won that fight. At the very least, they would not have lost so tragically.

The atmosphere turned quiet out of sympathy for their fallen comrades.

After staring into the campfire for a while, Sheyan broke the silence.

"Everyone get some rest. Mage-type contestants, make sure you rest and meditate well so that you'll have better MP recovery rate tomorrow. I'll make two grown creatures to keep watch."

　　***

Meanwhile, the bad news had reached the Kitty Hawk base 2.7 million kilometers away.

Fiji paced back and forth in frustration in the office like a trapped animal, while Mungo sat at the table with his head buried in his hands, showing a rare defeated look.

"Fools! Those fools! Why would they seek their own death?!" roared Fiji.

The video feedback from the cyborgs was being displayed on a big screen in the office.

Sure enough, just as Sheyan had predicted, neither the Violent Beasts nor the Xenomorphs had any interest in the cyborgs that were made of plastic, rubber and artificial additives. They prefered steaming-hot guts, sweet blood, and strong, delicious muscles.

Therefore, the motionless cyborgs and the metallic objects they carried were swept into a "store room" underground. To be exact, it was a "store cave". Intermittent screams could be heard coming from outside the screen.

Mungo sighed. "How many of them survived?"

Mungo's experience was evident from this question. Faced with setbacks, his first reaction was not to get angry or to play the blame game, but to start thinking about the future. He was like a gambler who had lost but had immediately started calculating how much money he had left to turn the tables in order to bounce back from the defeat as soon as possible.

In comparison, Fiji, also known as the Dark General, was still too green.

Fiji did not answer Mungo's question because he did not know the answer himself. Fortunately, an expert soon answered Mungo's question through the communicator.

"Under that situation, there should be no more than three survivors."

Mungo abruptly lifted his head with a resolute look in his eyes. He pressed down on the communicator and ordered, "Contact the commander of the Eleventh Fleet right away. Tell him that we've made a major breakthrough here. Ask him to approach the Asir wormhole and hold a large-scale military drill right away to force the Predators' spaceship to make another detour!"

Fiji looked at Mungo like he was looking at an idiot.

"You....Don't you get it? We've lost! We've made the wrong gamble! You still dare to use the old man's resources? Are you out of your mind?"

Mungo replied coldly, "It makes no difference to me whether I'm demoted to a Lieutenant Colonel or a First Lieutenant. I can only win; I can't afford to lose! If there are only 3 survivors, then so be it. Even if they only have a 3% chance of success, I'll do everything I can to help them so that the 3% becomes 4%!"

"You're a damn lunatic...." Fiji was shocked. He then pushed open the door and left in a hurry. He said this before he left:

"I won't go down together with you. My family can still provide me with some protection; I just won't be able to gain promotion while the old man is in power. Goodbye, Mungo."

Mungo watched Fiji close the door and run away like a terrified dog. He laughed hysterically all of a sudden. He laughed until the hysterical laughter turned into tragic laughter, and finally into a long sigh.

　　***

Once again, Sheyan was right. As he had guessed, there were other humans who came looking for their missing companions, and they actually came faster and earlier than he had expected.

Three hours after everyone had fallen asleep, Sheyan's temporary grown creatures issued the first warnings. Then, Aldaris' Sentry Wards exploded and made some really loud noises. Anyone would have been woken from their sleep unless they were deaf.

Pokan used his power to quickly lower a piece of rectangular ground, exposing a group of fierce-looking soldiers who were crawling towards them. Besides "fierce-looking", other adjectives that could apply to them were "tattered", "tough" and "well-trained".

Sheyan took the lead in stepping forward. He was immediately pointed at by numerous weapons. These weapons included high-tech ones like plasma guns and primitive ones like javelins. Sheyan raised his hands to show that he had no weapons and bear no hostility. He then shouted, "I'm a human; a real, living human. Can I interest you in some beer and hot dogs?"