SEC Chapter 1342 Uninvited Guest
Chapter 1342 Uninvited Guest
The troublesome parasite has been dealt with. Now all we have to do is wait for her to wake up so we can get accurate information about the Alien King.
Lin Yi stood in the medical tent for a while, his gaze falling on the woman on the operating table who had been put into a deep sleep by anesthesia.
Tasha's breathing was steady, and her complexion was much better than during the surgery; at least it was no longer that almost corpse-like grayish-white, and a faint tinge of color was beginning to show through her skin.
Lin Yi used props to fix her limbs to the metal rings on both sides of the operating table. There was also a reinforcing strap across her hips and fastened it tightly. The edge of the strap was pressed into the folds of her clothes, leaving several shallow indentations.
Before leaving, he checked the tightness of the straps one last time, running his fingers along the edges of the straps to make sure that each buckle was properly engaged.
Tasha's wrists were secured to metal rings on either side of the table with straps, as were her ankles. A reinforcing strap above her knees ran horizontally from her chest to her lower back, firmly pressing her torso onto the table, rendering her immobile.
"Teacher, are you sure this won't be too tight and affect blood circulation?" Qinna stood in front of the folding chair next to the operating table, the textbook on nerve suturing in her hand still on the first page. She had been reading the book, but she looked up when Lin Yi tightened the restraints.
“The bandages are elastic and won’t strangle anyone.” Lin Yi put the roll of tape back into the cabinet. “Her bodily functions recover much faster than normal people. If they’re loosened, she can break free when she wakes up. A master swordsman who could exchange blows with me for so long, even if she’s just had major surgery, is not someone an ordinary person can hold down.”
"So she struggled after she woke up?"
"It's uncertain. The parasite has been inside her for a long time. Although I have completely removed the insect body, I cannot guarantee that the alien species did not leave any other tricks in her body. If she is controlled again after waking up and goes on a killing spree in the camp, that would be even more troublesome than the alien species attacking the city."
Qinna thought for a moment, closed the book and placed it on her lap: "Then what should I do after she wakes up?"
“Normally, she will be in a state of confusion for a while after she wakes up. That’s a side effect of the anesthetic, plus a rebound after her mental strength has been suppressed for a long time. She may have a headache, feel nauseous, want to vomit, or she may just stare blankly without doing anything. Observe her condition first. If she just lies there quietly, don’t move. If she starts to struggle and try to break free of the straps, go out and call for help. Don’t deal with her alone.”
"What if she breaks free of the straps?"
"Don't worry, there are people watching here."
He took the dark coat from the hook next to the cabinet and draped it over his shoulders. He took two steps toward the tent entrance and then stopped, turning his head to look at Qinna: "If she speaks after she wakes up, write down every word she says, especially the part about the Other King."
Qinna nodded, reopened the book, rested the spine on her knees, and began reading the second page.
Lin Yi lifted the curtain and went outside. The snow was still falling, but it was much lighter than when the surgery started.
Fine snowflakes drifted down from the gray-white sky, landing on my face with a slightly cool touch, like being gently patted by a cold hand.
He walked along the main road toward the base camp. The snow on the road was trampled into grayish-white ice crystals, making a soft crunching sound as he stepped on it, like stepping on a thin layer of broken glass.
We passed several tents along the way, and could hear voices and laughter coming from inside.
Someone was telling a joke loudly, and after they finished, several people laughed at the same time, the laughter echoing muffledly in the canvas walls of the tent.
Someone was complaining that the food in the cafeteria was too salty today, and another person chimed in, saying that it's better for you to die from saltiness than to starve to death.
The sounds blended together, forming a loose, relaxed hum, like the background noise of an old radio tuned to a blank channel.
Lin Yi pushed open the metal door of the main hall of the headquarters, and a gust of air mixed with the smell of alcohol, sweat and the warmth of the heater rushed in.
The main hall was very warm, with a temperature difference of about twenty degrees compared to the snowy outside. His glasses fogged up as soon as he entered, so he took them off, wiped them with the corner of his clothes, and put them back on.
King Kong was standing next to a low table in the center of the main hall, holding a bottle of dark brown liquor in his right hand. There was a crooked handwritten label on the bottle, with the handwriting so messy that only a few letters could be barely made out. Judging from the packaging style, it should be a local specialty of some original world.
His left hand rested on the table, on which sat a row of inverted glasses, each filled with amber-colored liquid, with fine droplets of water clinging to the outside of the glass, as if they had just been taken out of the refrigerator.
The ghost girl was squatting on a folding stool on the other side of the low table, her pink hoodie hood pulled up to cover half of her face, only revealing her eyes and the tip of her nose.
The two rabbit ears on the hat stood up, while the other drooped limply down, clinging to her shoulder.
Her face was already red, spreading from her ears to her cheekbones. Under the light, the blush looked like a thin layer of strawberry jam had been poured under her skin.
The glass in front of her was still full, but she had already picked it up three times, each time only bringing it to her nose to smell it before putting it down again.
"What do you mean by just smelling it and not drinking it?" King Kong tapped the bottle neck on the edge of the table. "I went through all the trouble of rummaging through my storage space to find this bottle, just so you could smell it like perfume?"
"This smell is too strong." Ghost Girl picked up the cup again and smelled it, then frowned and sneezed. "It's even stronger than the fissioner I blew up on the battlefield last time. At least that fissioner didn't smell this pungent."
"Then I'll get you something lighter." King Kong bent down and rummaged under the table, pulling out another bottle of wine, glancing at it, and then tossing it back. "Never mind, they don't have anything lighter, this will do. Drink up!"
"I won't drink it, I'll just smell it."
"Why weren't you this cowardly when you were exploding mutants on the battlefield?"
"That's different. The explosive variant can light up, while drinking alcohol will only make you dizzy."
Ronnie sat on a chair on the other side of the low table, her legs dangling over the edge of the table, her ankles dangling.
She had already drunk her third cup. She picked it up, tilted her head back, and took a big gulp. When she put the cup down, she wiped her mouth with her sleeve, then took out her half-charged phone from her pocket and took a picture of the empty cup.
The screen lit up briefly. She glanced at the playback, made a satisfied "tsk" sound, and then put the phone back in her pocket.
As Lin Yi passed by the low table, King Kong grabbed his sleeve: "Doctor, sit down and have a drink. You've been busy all day, you won't miss a drink."
"Not for now. I might have to meet that woman later, and it wouldn't be good to drink too much."
King Kong glanced at the bottle in his hand and released Lin Yi's sleeve: "Alright, alright, go sit down first, I'll talk to you again after we finish our drinks."
Lin Yi walked around the low table to a spot in the inner part of the main hall, where the dean and the widow were sitting at a long table.
The glass in front of the dean contained only a thin layer of transparent liquid, which looked more like water than wine.
Widow West held a slender cigarette between her fingers. The ashtray was already piled with several cigarette butts, some of which were mostly burned to white ash, while others still had a small piece of unburnt tobacco attached, with lipstick stains on the edges.
Lin Yi sat down next to the dean, the chair leg scraping the floor with a short creak.
"Have you finished that surgery?" The hospital director picked up the cup in front of him and took a sip.
"It's done." Lin Yi pulled the chair forward. "The parasite has been completely removed. We'll have to wait until she wakes up to check her mental state. I've added several layers of defense to her."
"Are you afraid she'll wake up and go on a killing spree in the camp?"
"This is the first time I've dealt with a fully-fledged parasitic species. I'm not sure if the aliens have left any other tricks in her body. If she wakes up and gets controlled again, and goes berserk in the camp, that would be even more troublesome than the aliens attacking the city."
The dean nodded: "It's better to be cautious."
The dean placed the water glass back on the table, the bottom of the glass making a soft sound as it hit the wood: "Your student is quite good, what's his name again?"
“Seri Mikimi, from the Trinity Rescue Knights.”
"The Order of the Aid?" The dean's lips twitched slightly. "The names of the organizations over there in Kivotos are quite interesting. What was that seminar again? And that committee? And now there's the Order of the Aid."
"There are many organizations over there, and they come up with names quite casually. You get used to them after hearing them a lot."
Lin Yi looked around towards the bar, where Luo Luo was wiping cups behind the counter.
She was wearing a white shirt with the cuffs rolled up to her elbows, and her hair was tied into a loose braid at the back of her head, with a few stray hairs hanging down from her temples.
Lin Yi beckoned to Luo Luo. She put down her glass, glanced at the bar, and gestured with her chin towards the liquor cabinet: "The usual?"
"The same as always."
Luo Luo turned around and took out two bottles of wine from the wine cabinet, placing them on the table. One was dark and the other was clear. She unscrewed the caps and began to mix them.
She turned the measuring cup several times in her hand, and the liquid slid down the side of the cup to the bottom, with a layer of fine bubbles rising to the surface.
She placed a small slice of lemon on the rim of her glass and then pushed it to the edge of the bar. Lin Yi walked over and picked it up; the glass was icy cold, and the aroma of lemon mixed with the smell of alcohol wafted into his nose.
He took his wine glass, walked back to his seat, sat down, took a sip, and placed the glass on the table.
"What's the situation in the crash zone now?" he asked the dean.
The dean chuckled, put down the cup, and twirled two fingers around the rim of the cup.
"After being attacked by you in two waves, the aliens were completely enraged, so the other parks suffered the consequences."
Lin Yi picked up his wine glass and took another sip: "Who's the most miserable one?"
"Death Paradise. As a tough nut to crack, Death Paradise was the one that fought the most brutally against the aliens. After Cohen died, the remaining people did not collapse. Instead, under the leadership of the deputy commander, they tightened their defenses and continued to hold on. But the problem is that what the aliens hate most now is this kind of meat grinder-like battle, especially after being beaten up twice. Death Paradise has become a substitute for the aliens to vent their anger."
"Several elite mutant units were drawn from the main battlefield to carry out decapitation strikes and night raids against Death Paradise. The mutant commanders personally led the operations, infiltrating with parasitic mutants while the ground-dwelling mutants launched a feint attack from the front, cutting through the defensive line from the flanks and then pouring in the mutants. Death Paradise was caught off guard. Previously, they had been fighting a frontal defensive battle with a solid line and even firepower, but after the mutants changed their tactics, their defensive line became less flexible. Several key points were breached simultaneously, and the gaps widened. Now, only a few dozen people are left holding the fort at the entire headquarters. The main hatch of the spaceship is closed, and everyone is holding their ground inside the spaceship. All the positions outside have been lost."
"Now Death Paradise no longer has any seventh-tier combatants on the Beast Continent. The remaining dozens of people are essentially trapped inside the spaceship, waiting to die."
"The alien species now sends tens of thousands of ground-dwelling creatures to circle around that spaceship every day, much like a flock of vultures waiting for their prey to die."
"What about Holy Light Paradise?"
"Even worse, it's completely gone."
"The overall combat strength of Holy Light Paradise is relatively weak. After being attacked by the orc army, it was severely weakened. Many people were injured and had not yet recovered before being pulled to the defensive line. After the aliens suffered a setback on your side, they divided their anger on Holy Light Paradise, and the continuous high-intensity general offensive caused the defensive line to collapse."
"That seventh-tier contractor did her best. When the last line of defense was about to break through, she held the gap alone for nearly ten minutes, buying time for the rest of them to evacuate. But a support class really couldn't turn the tide of battle. No matter how good the buffs were, they couldn't cut down the aliens for her teammates. In the end, she led the remaining twenty-odd people out of the war world."
How did you get there?
"The emergency teleportation function of the main base spaceship has been activated, a one-time use one. After activation, the spaceship will enter hyperspace jump mode and jump directly back to the Paradise Space. However, if everyone can get back alive, it's not a complete loss."
Lin Yi was silent for a few seconds, then asked, "What about Apocalypse Paradise?"
The dean's lips curled up slightly, his expression not exactly serious: "We haven't been paying much attention to Apocalypse Paradise, but one thing is certain—the white giant ape and the giant wolf that you and King Kong beat up have gone in the direction of Apocalypse Paradise."
Lin Yi paused in mid-air, his hand holding the wine glass: "They're not dead?"
"They didn't die, they were just driven back. You broke their entire battle line on the main battlefield, forcing two elite parasitic species to retreat and shrink back. The subsequent alien forces regrouped and pressed towards Apocalypse Paradise along their retreat route." The Dean's smile deepened. "It's obvious that this time Apocalypse Paradise won't be able to resolve things so easily by bribing ore. Those alien commanders are in a state of mind that ordinary ore can't soothe. They're holding back a lot of anger and want to vent it on someone, and Apocalypse Paradise is right in their way."
Has Tianqi Paradise sent anyone to make contact?
"Yes, but it didn't work out." The dean finished the last bit of water in his glass, the ice cubes clinking softly at the bottom. "They sent a rather shrewd person who offered to exchange a batch of high-grade ore for our support, but I refused on the spot. He tried to bargain, but King Kong said, 'If you say another word, I'll throw you out to feed the aliens,' and then he ran off."
"What about the Sacred Paradise?"
The dean's expression changed noticeably at that moment.
He put down his water glass, crossed two fingers on the table, and remained silent for two or three seconds before speaking: "I'm not too sure what happened over there, because the cult did put on a show of force after being pushed to the limit."
"What kind of formation is this?"
"They summoned an avatar of a god."
Lin Yi paused for a moment in mid-air with his hand holding the wine glass, then slowly placed the glass back on the table.
The bottom of the cup hit the table with a crisp sound. The sound wasn't loud, but the noisy background noise in the main hall seemed to be separated by a layer of sound at that moment, making the crisp sound exceptionally clear.
The dean's gaze lingered on Lin Yi's face for a second before he spoke: "Stop, there's something wrong with the way you're looking at me."
What kind of look is that?
“It’s that look in your eyes right now.” The dean gestured between the two of them. “It’s like you’re browsing a flea market and suddenly find something you’ve been looking for a long time piled up in a corner, unsure if the price is right or if you can even move it. I’m warning you, don’t mess around.”
"We've finally found a fat sheep, we can't let it get away like this."
The dean was silent for three seconds: "So you want to dismantle that divine avatar from the Sacred Paradise and take it away?"
"Tell me first what kind of clone it is."
"There are many kinds of clones." The dean leaned back in his chair. "Some clones are a wisp of consciousness cut off by the god himself. Their combat power is far inferior to the original body, but they are flexible and controllable. Some clones are energy aggregates that the god condenses in places where the power of faith is abundant. They have no self-awareness and only instinctive reactions. Their combat power depends entirely on how much faith believers feed them. There is also a more troublesome kind. The god projects his true aura onto a sacred object, which is like a remotely controlled puppet. The original body sits in the divine kingdom and manipulates the strings, while this side is responsible for the movement."
"This time, it's an aggregate, so its combat power isn't too outrageous."
"Either is fine," Lin Yi said. "They're all materials anyway."
Just as Lin Yi was about to stand up to ask for a drink, a surge of mental energy appeared unexpectedly near the base camp.
The ripples had a gentle, dense quality, like the very fine, shallow ripples created when a feather falls on the water.
It spreads slowly and covers a small area, like a person cautiously releasing their senses in an unfamiliar environment to test whether there is anything dangerous around them.
Lin Yi stopped moving and turned his head to look in the direction of the main hall entrance.
The dean's gaze also turned to the same side, and the two looked at each other without saying a word.
Everyone else in the main hall was still doing their own thing, but one person's reaction was different from the others.
Ghost Girl lifted her head off the table. Her hair, disheveled from the drink she had just had, clung to the sides of her face. Her entire face was as red as a boiled shrimp, even the tip of her nose was red.
But her eyes were unusually clear at that moment, her pupils slightly contracted and focused on a non-existent point in the air, as if she were looking at an object that only she could see.
She raised her hand to rub her eyes and glanced at them again. When she spoke, her voice had a strange tone that was somewhere between confusion and excitement.
"What a huge light bulb!" Ghost Girl said. "Who is it?"
The moment Ghost Girl spoke, Lin Yi stood up from his chair, quickly walked to her side, squatted down, and lowered his voice: "What did you see?"
Ghost Girl raised her hand and pointed towards the entrance of the main hall. Her finger pointed very accurately in the direction from which the spiritual energy fluctuation came: "A woman in white clothes, with long hair, and her body is glowing. She is floating and walking, and her feet are about this high off the ground."
She gestured with her hand to indicate a height of about ten centimeters: "The way she walks is strange. She doesn't take steps, but rather seems to be being lifted up and gliding forward by something. She came in the form of a spirit, so it's normal that other people can't perceive her."
Which direction did she go?
"She's heading towards the main road, parked next to the power distribution room." Ghost Girl shielded her eyes with her hand as if looking at something. "She's looking at the heat sink, and seems quite interested in its shape. She's been squatting there watching it for a while."
What kind of aura does she possess?
“It’s a very strange aura, neither the kind of alien nor the kind of human.” The ghost girl frowned. “It’s a bit… how should I put it, like a mixture of the two.”
Lin Yi stood up and glanced at the other people in the main hall.
King Kong put down the wine bottle and turned his gaze toward him.
"What's going on?" King Kong's voice was eight octaves lower than before.
"There might be a guest loitering around here." Lin Yi's voice was soft but clear. "A spiritual form infiltrated to scout ahead, Ghost Girl saw it. A woman in a white dress is currently still lingering near the power distribution room."
King Kong emerged from behind the low table: "Then what are we waiting for? Go out and catch him."
"Don't rush." Lin Yi raised his hand to signal him to stop. "If you rush out now, you might scare them away. Leave this to Ghost Girl." (End of Chapter)