Otherworld Girl Development Guide

"I'm not sure either. It was just a flash, but it felt like... a big rat?"

Liu Xin said somewhat uncertainly, wondering if he was seeing things.

"mouse?"

The team leader frowned slightly. There were rats on Mingrui Star, and quite a few of them. It was normal to have rats in the ruins, but what about the big rats?

Less than three minutes later, a buzzing sound came from the sky, and the drone produced by the military industry quickly flew over the research team, with the 5.8mm machine gun mounted on the bottom of the drone pointing in the direction of the spire.

Six minutes later, three Lynx all-terrain vehicles drove into the excavation site along the planned route, and the 105mm howitzers on the assault vehicles turned towards the spire.

Some heavy vehicles cannot be transported down from the underground ruins, but the Lynx assault vehicle and the quadrupedal mech are still usable, and they are the most reliable source of fire support.

On the Lynx assault vehicle, soldiers wearing full-body exoskeleton armor quickly disembarked, and the platoon leader walked to the head of the scientific expedition team to learn about the situation.

"Are there big rats inside?"

The platoon leader nodded and waved his hand. Two squads of soldiers disembarked from the Mountain Cat assault vehicles, while the remaining squad used three Mountain Cat assault vehicles as fire support to protect the scientific expedition team in the open area.

The soldiers, preparing to venture deeper into the ruins, quickly formed ranks.

"Attention! First and second squads, enter the ruins, fire your weapons, disengage safety, and charge!"

With a whoosh, professional soldiers, armed with shotguns and short-barreled submachine guns and assault rifles used in CQB operations, swiftly entered the spire.

Once inside the spire, the soldier pulled out a small, folded quadcopter drone from behind him and released it. The drone explored the area and transmitted the detected terrain data to the soldier's personal terminal via a data link.

The drone quickly flew into the dark passage, and then the soldiers formed a combat formation to explore inside.

The laser beams from the tactical rails are aimed at the pitch-black interior, and the soldiers focus their attention on every corner.

Beep beep beep...

Suddenly, a buzzing sound came through the soldier's headset; a drone exploring a remote area on the first floor had lost contact.

"Stop advancing!"

At the squad leader's command, everyone immediately stopped and took cover.

The squad leader looked at the AR augmented reality device inside his helmet's left eye. The drone's route appeared in front of him, while the location where the drone lost contact was highlighted.

Ban Xing quickly made a sign, and the soldiers who received the order carried it out swiftly. The soldiers holding shields stepped forward to act as human shields, drew their military pistols as close-range weapons, and the other comrades rested their rifles and pistols on his shoulders.

The exploration team slowly made their way towards the location where the drone lost contact.

Suddenly, the sound of a 5.8mm bullet rang out from outside, startling everyone. Before the squad leader could ask what was happening outside, countless rats, or rather rat-men, appeared at the end of the passage!

Some of these rats were incredibly thin, while others were unusually strong, as if their muscles had mutated. They carried all sorts of weapons and charged at the soldiers, baring their sharp teeth.

"Fire!"

Da da da!

Bang bang bang!

The soldiers holding shields immediately placed them on the ground as cover.

Bullets felled one ratman after another, and the walls made of metal pellets made it impossible for the ratmen to pass through.

Soon, some ratmen armed with crossbows appeared in the passage and fired arrows at the soldiers.

The arrows struck the shield weakly, making a clanging sound.

"Nothing! DEA! DEA!"

A rat that looked stronger than the other ratmen roared!

"Huh? This thing can talk?"

The soldiers were taken aback. Encountering ratmen was still within their range of perception, but the ratmen could talk... which meant that these ratmen were intelligent!

This is not good news!

Outside the spire.

In the sky, the drone's electro-optical spheres scanned the surroundings, 5.8mm bullets were ready to fire at any moment, and each member of the expedition team wore an IFF identification badge.

When the photoelectric probe scans a member of the research team, it will add them to a whitelist.

What the human eye cannot see, the photoelectric sphere can! The drone's photoelectric probe suddenly detected some heat sources, which emerged from a crack and surrounded the research team.

The intelligent AI program quickly executes the preset program, issuing an early warning as the altitude decreases.

The 5.8mm squad automatic weapon, fed by a 200-round ammunition box, quickly rotated its muzzle and fired at the heat source emerging from the gap.

Rat-a-tat-tat... Tracer bullets pierced the darkness and shot into the pitch-black shadows.

Instantly, the soldiers protecting the expedition team sprang into action, loading high-explosive fragmentation shells into the 105mm howitzers.

"Flare!"

The platoon leader roared.

Boom!

A flare was fired in the direction of the drone attack. The light from the flare dispelled the darkness, and countless ratmen could be seen approaching the research team.

Chapter 296 Nothing! DEA! DEA!

Senior management office in Shangqiu.

The old man and some bigwigs were reviewing reports and applications sent back from the Xirang Base.

"Tell me about it..."

"Nonsense! Tell Old Li to keep an eye on him. If anything happens to Academician Lu, I'll stuff him into a DF and throw him out!" A hot-tempered old leader said angrily. The academician was his precious darling and could not be used as experimental material.

It is traditional for researchers to use the developed drugs on themselves first, and they cannot stop them for either reason or emotion. However, such parasitic experiments should absolutely not be used on academicians.

"More than that, I'm interested in Academician Lu's conclusion in his report. He said that after two groups of long-term observations, they found that the animals parasitized by the red thread were gradually developing both their physical fitness and brain capacity..."

At this point, everyone became somewhat worried. After repeatedly reviewing Academician Lu's report, one expert slowly said:

"The line has the potential to catalyze evolution and cause mutations in species over a long period of time... Perhaps under the intervention of the red line, after countless generations of reproduction, the parasite will catalyze something that cannot be produced naturally in nature."

The expert's remarks made the bigwigs present frown. The animals in Group Two were almost sentient... Tom, Jerry, and Spike, the three first-generation Red Line parasites, could put on a real "Tom and Jerry" show.

Boom boom boom!

A knock sounded on the door, and then a senior officer from the staff entered the meeting room, his face grave. "Report! Our expedition team has been attacked by unidentified creatures at the underground ruins..."

"It seems that our fears have come true."

The underground ruins have been buried underground for countless years, and their ecosystem has long been self-contained. In addition, the red line RNA was found on the monster, which means that it is very likely that the red line also appeared in the underground ruins, and may even have remained there.

Small-scale personnel movement is relatively quiet, but large-scale scientific expeditions like the one in Shangqiu are likely to disturb these species hidden underground.

"Who is the enemy?"

"mouse..."

"mouse?"

A biology expert frowned. Rats are very intelligent, and they reproduce very quickly. There are also germs they carry... After being isolated underground for so long, who knows what viruses and bacteria they might be carrying?

"After the chemical defense troops are deployed to eliminate the ratmen, all members of the scientific expedition team will be quarantined."

"Yes!"

--------------------------------------

Flares lit up the sky, and suddenly the surroundings were filled with wriggling gray-black rats. Drones in the sky kept sweeping the rats with squad machine guns, but there were just too many of them!

"Howitzers, prepare! Three rounds fired in quick succession!"

"put!"

The 105mm howitzer on the Lynx assault vehicle opened fire.

With three rapid shots, the howitzer slammed into the heads of the underground ratmen along a nearly straight trajectory, activating the airburst fuses inside their heads.

boom!

Shrapnel and steel balls rained down on the ratmen, killing a large number of them.

Three consecutive grenades halted the onslaught of the ratmen, and some ratmen even became fearful and retreated.

Just then, several rats dressed in animal skins shouted loudly, "Hhind legs! DEA! DEA!"

Having said that, he smashed a hammer into the skull of a ratman with hind legs. With a cracking sound of skull breaking, the ratman fell to the ground. Then, pointing towards the spire, it roared:

"Nothing! DEA! DEA!"

The surrounding rats rushed toward the spire. Death meant nothing to the subterranean ratmen, given the rats' terrifying reproductive capacity!

Rats! All kinds of rats... bald, patchy, one-eared, they surged toward the expedition team like a tide.

The platoon leader frowned as he watched the increasing number of rats. Being exposed in an open space at a time like this was a disaster.

After a week of inspection, the only relatively intact building in the vicinity was the spire, which had collapsed halfway.

"Quickly, get into the spire!"

The platoon leader shouted, then shot down a subterranean ratman holding a stone hammer.

"Quick, don't panic, line up!"

The expedition team lined up, letting the older members go in first, followed by the women, and finally the younger members.

"Shen Jing, you should go in too..."

Liu Xin looked at Shen Jing standing at the door and said anxiously.

"You go in first. I'm trained, and besides, I have this..."

Shen Jing patted the pistol at her waist. Although her expression couldn't be seen because she was wearing a gas mask, her squinted eyes proved that she was smiling.

"No, I'm here to help you..."

Before he could finish speaking, the team leader pulled him inside.

"Don't make things worse!"

"Huh? Wait a minute... wait a minute..."

"Liu Xin, you go in first, I'll be back in a bit." Shen Jing waved to Liu Xin.