Star Hunter.

Chapter 212 One Thing Subdues Another

"Back off! All of you, back off!"

Xilin and his team retreated a distance, leaving the battlefield to the charging Lovagmon. If they remained there, they would definitely be caught in the crossfire by these excited Lovagmon.

Xilin estimated the number of these Lovag beasts. The ratio of adult Lovag beasts to mutants was close to two to one, meaning roughly two Lovag beasts were fighting one mutant.

Judging from their physique, the mutants are more robust than the Lovag beasts, but without witnessing the true fighting power of these Lovag beasts, no one can say for sure.

Xilin had never understood why the Lovag beast had so many claws, and all of them were large claws. Many animals Xilin had seen only had one pair of large claws, so when he first saw these creatures, he felt a little strange and couldn't quite put his finger on why.

But now, Xilin finally understands why these Lovag beasts have so many pairs of large claws.

The Lovag Beast that rushed forward did not bar its fangs and claws like some of the insect beasts that Xilin had seen. Instead, as it approached the mutants, it suddenly moved its three pairs of large claws. The joints on the claws twisted in a strange way, forming a circular shield by pairing them together.

The mutant was sent flying a great distance, as if it had been directly hit by a speeding armored vehicle.

Xilin and the others, who were standing on the outskirts of the battlefield, were stunned by what they saw.

"This...this is their battle strategy?" Kari swallowed hard. If they were hit like that, they would fall apart instantly.

After knocking the mutant away, the Lovag beasts didn't stop. Instead, they continued charging in that direction, knowing their enemy wasn't so easily defeated.

The mutants landed and stood up, their twisted bodies quickly recovering. Seemingly enraged by the Lovag Beast, they roared and charged at it, sharp bones protruding from their fingers. However, this time they were smarter; instead of charging straight at it, they suddenly leaped up just before meeting the shield of claws, attacking from above.

The Lovag Beast reacted swiftly to the mutant's attack.

  

Xilin saw a Lovag Beast detach a claw from its round shield, quickly clamp down on the mutant's arm, and then slam it hard onto the ground, slap slap slap... just like slapping a fish.

Kari and the others were stunned again.

Look at the Lovag Beast. It seems to be slamming a mutant of that size to the ground with ease, clamping it down as if it were doing it with remarkable ease. Who knew the Lovag Beast was so strong?

Like ants, which seem to have little meat on them, yet can lift objects more than 400 times their own weight. They can also haul objects more than 1700 times their own weight. And these are just ordinary ants; modified ants are several times taller. Xilin suspects that Lovager possesses genes that grant them similar abilities.

Looking at the scene on the battlefield, Xilin and the others realized that the Lovag Beasts' attack power was indeed not to be underestimated. No matter how you looked at it, the Lovag Beasts had the upper hand, not to mention their numerical advantage.

Even if a Lovagmon has a claw forcibly broken off by a mutant, it can quickly grow a new one. Similarly, if a mutant's hand is cut off, it can quickly grow a new arm.

"Monsters with monsters, they're a perfect match," Kari exclaimed.

"Hey, how about we make a bet on how long it will take these Lovag guardian beasts to take care of these mutants?" Xiao Shang slung his gun over his shoulder and looked at Kari.

"Alright." Kari surveyed the situation on the field and held up two fingers. "Twenty minutes. I bet they can sort this out within twenty minutes."

Xiao Shang shook his head and held up three fingers: "Twenty minutes is too short. These mutants have too strong a recovery ability. I think it will take at least thirty minutes. Twenty minutes is definitely not enough."

Kari glanced at Xilin. "Hey, vice-captain, do you want to get a share?"

Instead of answering Kari immediately, Xilin turned around and took out an ultra-low temperature cold beam freeze gun from a box containing weapons.

"What are you doing with that thing?" Kari asked, puzzled.

"Something's not right." Xilin pointed in a direction where there was a mutant who had just been cut into three pieces by a Lovag Beast.

The mutant was cut into three segments: above the shoulders, torso, and below the waist. However, quickly, while the Lovag beast shifted its target, the muscle tissue at the cut surfaces of the three segments immediately began to contract strongly. Some muscle tissue rapidly dissolved, forming new cell clusters. Blood cells also quickly gathered at the cut surfaces, forming special callus cell clusters. Then, under the watchful eyes of Kari and the others, these three segments formed three new, independent entities, each mutant identical to the previously severed mutant.

This scene repeated itself, except that just minutes earlier, Xilin had cleaved the mutant in two, while this mutant was cut into three pieces.

"this……"

Kari and Xiaoshang now retracted their previous opinions. If every mutant could be cut into several pieces and become several independent clones, how could this war be fought?

Do we really have to blast them to smithereens?

Xilin took the freeze gun, selected a mutant, and fired a cold beam at it.

The mutant who was fighting the Lovag Beast and was hit by the cold beam of light froze rapidly, but unlike ordinary people, it wasn't instantly turned into a block of ice from the inside out. These mutants could still move, but much more slowly, and each movement would shake off the ice shards that had formed on their bodies.

Only their outer skin is frozen; the falling ice crystals are the frozen outer layers. Once these frozen outer layers have all fallen off, the mutants will return to their original state.

Imagine the pain of an ordinary person having their skin peeled off inch by inch.

But these mutants seemed completely oblivious; their eyes were filled only with killing and numbness.

Regardless of whether these mutants felt pain or not, that was not Xilin's goal.

For the Lovagmon, their custom is to first knock down and kill their enemies, then turn around and eat them. The killed enemies are then fed to the baby Lovagmon; this time, they originally planned to cut the intruders into pieces for the newly hatched baby Lovagmon to eat. But who knew that as soon as they turned around, the cut-up intruders would regenerate!

Lovag's anger escalated once again.

The mutant hit by the cold beam bullet was suddenly slowed down and was cut into more than ten pieces by the enraged Lovag Beast.

But the same thing happened again.

These pieces of meat began to change again, but it took them much longer to become fully formed than when they were cut into two or three pieces.

Xilin raised the freeze gun again. He fired several shots, hitting the same mutant.

The mutant, struck by multiple cold beam projectiles, had become quite slow. Before being hit by the cold beam projectiles, the mutant was preparing to jump to avoid the Lovag Beast's round shield impact, but was struck by Sirin just before he could jump.

Snapped--

The frozen mutant who was hit head-on was reduced to palm-sized pieces.

Kali and the others couldn't help but shudder at the sight.

Blood-soaked fragments were trampled on by passing mutants and Lovag beasts, eventually turning into almost a bloody pulp.

"Now that he's like this, he probably won't..."

Before Kari could finish speaking, several bumps appeared on the meat sauce, and then those bumps grew larger and larger. Meanwhile, the guard's meat sauce was slowly disappearing.

"Damn it, what the hell are those things?!" Kari cursed.

Yudi checked the time. "Ten minutes have passed, but the number of mutants has increased several times. Now the Lovag Beasts are at a disadvantage."

"Although the number has increased, each newly grown clone has a lower ability compared to the original clone," Xilin said.

"How could this happen?"

"The totipotency of cells means that the cells in those mutant humans are almost always in a state of high stimulation. When a mutant is destroyed as a whole, the best cell will be selected from the isolates to differentiate, and the other cells will provide this cell with the immediate nutritional and energy supply. Therefore, clones with fewer pieces will grow stronger than clones with more pieces, because these clones absorb more energy during differentiation."

As Xilin said, these mutants are not necessarily aware of this flaw. Rather, they instinctively begin to absorb the shredded flesh of their own kind, assimilating it into their own body.

"What should we do then?" Kari scratched his head in frustration.

There's no way to start. And now the mutants and Lovagmon are locked in a fierce battle, which is escalating rapidly.

The little Lovag beasts didn't approach without permission. They only stayed on the perimeter, and when the mutants who had been chopped into pieces were not yet fully evolved, the little Lovag beasts would rush over and take a few bites.

However, precisely because of the greed of these little Lovag beasts, some fragments were completely eaten by them before they could become complete. This resulted in fewer cloned mutants.

Seeing this from a distance, Snowball glanced at Xilin and Tangqiuqiu, and seeing that they hadn't noticed him, Snowball rushed over and bit down on a mutated human that was splitting and taking shape on the outer edge of the battlefield.

"Snowball, come back quickly!" Sugarball called out urgently from the other end.

No matter how strong Snowball's adult form is, it is still in its juvenile form. Its abilities and mentality are not mature. If it is accidentally injured by Lovag and cut by his pincers or stabbed by the mutant's claws, it will be enough to make the fat white guy suffer.

Snowball was just greedy; it was only tempted by Little Lova's food. It still had some self-awareness and a little fear of death. After rushing over and taking a bite, the chubby white creature quickly ran back, chewing on the meat in its mouth as it ran.

Kari and the others were horrified. "Fatty, what you're eating is human flesh! Whether it's mutated or not, it's still human flesh! You're eating human flesh right in front of us!"

As soon as Snowball got back, Sugarball grabbed his ear and started smacking his fat bottom with the toy gun. Diaz had said that disobedient children deserve a spanking.

However, the chubby white creature clearly didn't take Tang Qiuqiu's seemingly fierce but actually cowardly beating to heart. Besides, it wasn't afraid of pain, and Tang Qiuqiu's strength wasn't even enough to pluck a single hair from it.

Snowball stubbornly stuck out its bottom to let Sugar Ball hit it while happily chewing the meat in its mouth.

"How does it taste?" the gray cat asked, its eyes sparkling. It seemed that if Snowball said "good," it would try it too.

"Mmm... crunch crunch..." Snowball chewed and swallowed the meat in his mouth, grinning as he said, "Not bad."

The gray cat took off running in that direction to eat the meat.

Snowball watched the gray cat's retreating figure. It looked pitifully at Sugarball, but Sugarball's grip on its ear didn't loosen at all.

Playing the victim won't work!

Just as Snowball was looking at Sugarball with a wronged expression, Xilin walked over.

Snowball wasn't afraid of Sugarball. It wasn't afraid of Kari, nor of Shorten, but it was afraid of Xilin, for reasons it couldn't explain. It could usually play around with Xilin, but once it made a mistake, it was too afraid to face him. So when Xilin approached, Snowball froze, its round head drooping.

Xilin crouched down and looked at the snowball.

Snowball tilted its head to the side.

Xilin raised his hand and turned Snowball's head to face him.

Snowball's eyes darted to the side, avoiding direct eye contact with Xilin.

The wrist blade in Xilin's hand popped out.

Hearing this sound, Snowball shuddered, raising its thick hands to cover its head: "I was wrong, I shouldn't have been greedy..."

"I didn't mean that." Xilin pinched Xueqiu's cheek. She'd picked up this weird habit of pinching other people's cheeks from following Mo Heng around. "Good boy, give me a lick."

Snowball blinked, not understanding what Xilin meant.

Xilin brandished the wrist blade in his hand, then pointed to Snowball's tongue, "Lick it all over the blade. It'd be best to spit a lot of saliva on it. Didn't I see you spitting on the dough ball last time? Just spit a lot more on the blade like that."

The dough ball, which had been gloating on Yudi's shoulder, twitched its tail and turned its head away, refusing to look at Yudi. How could such a stupid thing have been discovered?!

Snowball, being stared at intently by Xilin, pitifully spat at Xilin's knife, glancing at Xilin's expression with each spit. It seemed ready to roll away at the slightest sign of Xilin's anger, but Xilin didn't appear angry at all. So the chubby guy spat even more enthusiastically.

The others didn't understand why Sharp was doing this. However, when Yudi pointed to the mutant who was differentiating after being bitten by the snowball, they gradually understood.

The mutant that was being differentiated after being bitten by the snowball has not yet fully differentiated. In particular, the bite mark from the snowball's mouth is still visible.

These mutants can quickly differentiate into new individuals even if they are cut in half, so how could they leave a mouth mark? Moreover, it seems there is no sign of recovery in the near future. The reason why this differentiated entity remains like this lies with Snowball.

Xilin had seen the mutants that the gray cat had bitten; although there was a tendency for the mutations to be suppressed, it was far less obvious than that of Snowball.

Unlike snakes, snowballs don't have venom sacs, meaning the inhibitory factor must be in the snowball's saliva. That's why Xilin did what he did to make the snowball spit.

After his wrist blade was covered in Snowball's saliva, Xilin adjusted his equipment and charged forward alone. With lightning speed, he cleaved a mutant fighting a Lovag Beast in two, then quickly retreated without lingering.

The group observed the mutant that had been split in two by Xilin. Unlike the mutant at the beginning of the battle, this mutant did not immediately begin to regenerate. The two halves trembled, and no healing cells formed at the cut. Instead, the bluish blood that had been tightly adhered to the flesh gradually melted and flowed out.

Kari and the others gaped in surprise. They all turned to look at Snowball, their eyes gleaming.

Snowball shrank closer and closer to Sugarball.

Kari turned around, grabbed his large knife, and rushed to Snowball: "Snowball, come here, spit one out for your brother!"

After Xilin made a few cuts to confirm the effect, he went back to Sigma, who was watching the battle, and said, "Later, tell the Lovag Beasts to share some of the work of killing the mutants with us. They can just provide cover and eat. They'd better eat as quickly as possible."

Everyone knows that Sigma is capable of working with Lovag, and he's also the one who implanted the chips in them. Therefore, the task of discussing the operation with Lovag was entrusted to Sigma.

After Xilin briefly explained the situation to Sigma, Sigma assured him that he would complete the mission.

"Are you ready?" Xilin asked Kari and the others.

"It's all ready. Licklab has already taken some saliva samples back for research, and the results should be available soon."

The weapons in Kali and the others' hands were all covered in Snowball's saliva. Snowball's mouth was dry from spitting on all the weapons, and he even drank a lot of water.

"That's fine then." Xilin gestured, signaling the operation to begin.

After holding back for so long, Kari and the others grabbed their knives and charged toward the battlefield.

Xilin assessed the situation and concluded that as long as the differentiation and cloning speed of those mutants could be slowed down, the Lovag beasts would devour them before they completed their differentiation and formation.

Having solved this problem, Xilin prepared to investigate another matter.

This incident was clearly premeditated. Those mutants were specially developed humanoid weapons, and the spacecraft's flight path was aimed directly at the planet where the Sixth Fleet was stationed. But who sent them? Xilin needed to find clues.

The person who orchestrated this will definitely try to cover it up and erase the traces, but Xilin still needs to go and look for it. If his estimate is correct, by the time all these mutants are dealt with, the spaceship will no longer exist, and it will be even more difficult to find clues then.

Xilin approached the aircraft, quickly weaving between the mutants and Lovag beasts, flashing past so fast that it was difficult to catch a glimpse of him.

All the openings on the aircraft that had previously deployed the cylindrical pods were now closed, leaving no gaps for anyone to enter. After circling the aircraft once, Xilin summoned the gray cat, who was currently engaged in a fierce battle, over.

"What?" The gray cat smirked, squatting down in front of Xilin and licking its paws.

"Try opening the hatch, but be careful not to let the systems inside detect any signs of intrusion."

The gray cat paced back and forth a couple of times, then crouched down near the aircraft, its eyes flashing with strings of text.