Chapter 19 I Am Human

Fang Senyan glanced at the others and, finding them engrossed, continued,

"When I realized the captives weren't being devoured by the ravagers, I started considering their motive for capturing them. They were clearly hungry and lacking food, so the possibility of raising humans to prepare for a natural disaster could be dismissed. So, what use could humans be to them other than food? It's highly likely they're being used as sacrifices to the higher-ranking aliens in the group! To provide the aliens with preferred hosts!"

"And the reason they went to such lengths to set up an ambush, using humans as bait to lure humans to the rescue, must be to obtain more human material for the aliens to parasitize!"

"Cough, cough, cough... There's no need to argue anymore, that thing is indeed an alien." A hoarse voice suddenly sounded near the bonfire; it was Paul awakening. He said wearily, "Do you know how I got out?"

At this, everyone looked at Paul with admiration. He was indeed formidable, capable of escaping under those circumstances. Paul seemed to enjoy the attention, and couldn't help but say with a hint of pride,

"When I realized I was in a desperate situation, I took advantage of Vasily's self-destruction to summon my beloved Alux, then seized on a blind spot in the enemy's thinking, and charged into the depths of the monster's lair with Heracles."

Fang Senyan asked curiously,

"The depths of the monster's lair? Where's that?"

Paul gave Fang Senyan a helpless look,

"You ran away so fast, you probably don't know that a few centimeters beneath the hostages' feet was actually a huge pit. The aliens also valued those two unlucky guys very much; they should have already been injected with eggs by facehuggers. So, they wouldn't tolerate the hostages being rescued; it was as if their offspring were being kidnapped. As soon as we got within ten meters, those two hostages sank."

"I then relentlessly pursued them through the hole where the hostages were dragged away. Those stupid monsters were also caught off guard, and in the panic, a total of three aliens came after me! Humph! If I hadn't diverted those guys' attention, only Sailor and Artanis would have escaped the swamp alien's sniper attack."

"I tracked the two dragged hostages to a chamber beneath the swamp and found a total of five alien eggs. I left Alux to destroy the eggs to attract attention, and Heracles covered my escape. In the end, Alux successfully stalled for enough time. My feint worked. So, I successfully escaped alive."

Ronnie suddenly frowned and said,

"Does that mean we have to deal with an alien queen?"

Paul shook his head,

"Anyway, I didn't see one, well, that should be my luck. If I had, I'd probably be in many pieces by now, slowly being digested in gastric juices."

Bokan said thoughtfully,

"When we attacked the unicorn flying ants before, D'Artagnan mentioned that a queen, a creature with a single purpose and unable to hunt, wouldn't appear until a colony grew large enough, because there simply wouldn't be enough food to support it."

"If we reason based on D'Artagnan's theory, then this alien colony only has three aliens, one of which should be a female that can also fight and hunt. It probably can't lay eggs as professionally as a queen, but it can still take care of that aspect."

"For example, if an alien queen can lay one egg a day, then this female probably lays one egg a week. However, once the number of aliens increases to a certain point, and enough nutritious food can be provided to this female, then it should eat like crazy and burn its life to lay the last egg in its life: the queen egg."

Fang Senyan sighed a long sigh and shook his head,

"Hede Curry and the others are really unlucky. I originally estimated their chances of survival at about 50%, but after what you did, there's almost no chance at all."

Everyone immediately understood Fang Senyan's meaning, because if the aliens still had eggs, according to their habit of preferring to parasitize powerful humanoid creatures, they might forcibly parasitize Contractors.

And being parasitized wouldn't mean immediate death, but waiting for the larvae to slowly grow and hatch before bursting out of the body. Even in ordinary humans, the alien larvae's growth cycle is about twenty-four hours, and the much stronger Contractors should be able to last longer.

But now that the alien eggs have been destroyed, and the alien female's egg-laying cycle is also very long, then without a doubt, Hede Curry and the others' only value is to fill bellies.

Thinking of the fate of their former companions, everyone couldn't help but feel a chill down their spines. The most frustrating thing was that they died without even being able to display their greatest abilities and strengths. If they could have faced each other head-on, and brought everyone's strengths into play, they wouldn't necessarily have won, but they definitely wouldn't have ended up in such a miserable situation.

For a time, a feeling of coldness from the death of a rabbit and the sorrow of a fox appeared.

Looking at the bonfire, Fang Senyan was silent for a while, then said,

"Everyone rest. The magic-based classes must rest well, and meditate with high quality, because it affects tomorrow's MP recovery speed. I will temporarily create two cultivation men to stand guard."

*

At the same time, on the Little Eagle base two million seven hundred thousand kilometers away, the unfortunate news had been transmitted.

Feejee paced frantically in the office like a trapped beast, while Mongo sat at the desk with his head buried in his hands, his fingers tangled in his hair, revealing a rare look of decadence.

"Those idiots, those idiots!!! They actually courted death!!"

Feejee couldn't help but roar loudly.

On the large screen in Feejee and Mongo's office, the images transmitted by the androids were being played.

Sure enough, as Fang Senyan guessed, neither the ravagers nor the aliens were interested in androids made of plastic, rubber, and additives. They preferred warm viscera, sweet blood, and firm, delicious muscle.

So, the motionless androids and those metal objects were all swept into the underground "junk room"—no, to be precise, into the junk hole. Faint, miserable screams could still be heard from outside the screen.

Mongo sighed,

"How many of them can survive?"

This sentence showed Mongo's experience. When faced with difficulties, he first thought not of complaining and anger, but of directly starting to consider the future. He was like a gambler who, after losing, immediately calculated how much capital he had left to make a comeback, quickly emerging from the decadence of failure.

Compared to him, Feejee, known as the Black General, still lacked experience.

Feejee didn't answer Mongo, because he didn't know either. Fortunately, a relevant expert quickly answered Mongo's question through the network:

"In that situation, no more than three people have a chance of survival."

Mongo suddenly raised his head, his eyes filled with ruthless determination. He pressed the communicator:

"Immediately connect me to the commander of the Eleventh Fleet. Tell them that we have made a major breakthrough and ask them to immediately approach the Assir wormhole to hold large-scale exercises! And let the Predators' ships detour again."

Feejee immediately looked at Mongo with an idiotic gaze:

"You...don't you understand? We've lost! We lost the bet, and now you still want to use the old man's resources? Are you crazy from losing?"

Mongo said coldly,

"Being demoted to lieutenant colonel and being demoted to first lieutenant makes no difference to me. I can only win now, I can't lose! Since I know that at least three people are still alive, then even if those three people can only give me 3% hope, I will work hard here to cooperate and turn 3% into 4%!"

"You're a damned lunatic... I really didn't see it." Feejee's eyes were horrified, then he pushed open the door and hurried out: "I won't be buried with you, my family's power can still protect me. At most, I won't be able to take over when the old man is in office. Goodbye, Mongo."

Mongo watched Feejee close the door and flee like a lost dog. He suddenly laughed wildly, but the laughter turned into a miserable laugh, and finally into a long sigh.

*

Fang Senyan once again judged correctly. Sure enough, someone came to look for their missing companions, and even faster and earlier than he expected.

Just three hours after everyone fell asleep, the two cultivation men that Fang Senyan had temporarily created first gave the alarm, then Artanis's psionic sentry exploded, making a loud noise that should have awakened anyone who wasn't deaf.

Immediately afterward, under Bokan's evocation magic, a rectangular piece of ground quickly sank, exposing a group of sturdy soldiers crawling forward. If they could be described with adjectives, then "tattered," "lean," and "well-trained" could be added before "soldiers."

Fang Senyan took the lead in stepping out, and he was immediately pointed at by n weapons. Among these weapons were both high-tech plasma ray guns and primitive throwing spears. Fang Senyan spread his hands to show that he had no weapons and no hostility, and then said loudly:

"I am human, a bona fide normal human. Interested in having a beer and a couple of hot dogs together?"