Chapter 24: Strange Bird
He saw an unknown creature, completely black, with huge wings, resembling a Monster Bird.
This Monster Bird was about two and a half meters tall, and its wingspan was a full four or five meters when spread. It had a huge mouth filled with sharp protrusions, whether they were teeth or something else, he couldn’t tell.
It suddenly appeared next to that Clone, lowered its head, bit the Clone in half, tore it apart, and swallowed it.
What is this thing!
This thought flashed through Tom’s tens of thousands of brains simultaneously.
This is a vacuum environment! Without space suit protection, a Clone would die in at most one minute! And it’s extremely cold here, a full two hundred degrees Celsius below zero!
Furthermore, there’s intense interstellar high-energy radiation, enough to destroy any creature’s DNA!
How did this unknown creature survive in such an environment!
Tom’s mind raced, and a thought even surfaced in his mind: "How many of these monsters are there? Could the reason for the sudden disappearance of our Earth compatriots be these strange creatures?"
The Human Civilization’s technological level is far beyond his own. If even Human Civilization was destroyed by these monsters, then he probably wouldn’t have any power to resist against them!
Tom’s heart instantly filled with solemnity.
With a thought, in an instant, a total of over one hundred sub-bases scattered outside the Main Base, and thousands of Clones located externally, simultaneously stopped what they were doing and rushed into the base buildings.
At the Main Base, numerous Clones also moved simultaneously, beginning to rush in teams towards the edge of the base, strictly guarding against any unexpected events.
Although only this one base encountered this Monster Bird, and only one was seen, who knew if there were more of these things elsewhere on Loshen Star.
In any case, caution was best.
There were also over a hundred Clones in the 45th Base.
Tom gritted his teeth, controlling these Clones to pick up whatever they could use as weapons—cleavers, steel pipes, wrenches, and the like—and simultaneously charged towards the Monster Bird that had just finished devouring a Clone.
The hideous Monster Bird roared silently, its grotesque and ugly mouth wide open, and it charged ferociously towards the Clones.
The Clones, fearless of death, attacked with their weapons.
These Clones were controlled by Tom to be sacrificed. The purpose was simple: to test the combat power of this unknown creature.
If this creature possessed incredibly powerful combat ability, was invulnerable, could fly and burrow, and could wipe out hundreds of people with a single attack, then he should honestly abandon the current base and quickly escape aboard the Shenkong (Deep Space) Spaceship.
Under these circumstances, over a hundred Clones were torn to pieces, and Clones constantly lost connection with him.
Losing connection meant they were dead.
But Tom felt no worry in his heart; instead, he breathed a long sigh of relief.
He saw that this Monster Bird was not invulnerable.
One Clone swung a cleaver with full force and managed to cut a gash in the Monster Bird’s wing.
Another Clone, holding a sharpened steel pipe, thrust it directly, piercing the Monster Bird’s body by more than ten centimeters. A large amount of unknown liquid flowed out and quickly froze.
Finally, at the cost of over 20 Clone deaths, this Monster Bird finally fell to the ground, motionless.
"The disappearance of Human Civilization was not caused by this monster!"
Tom immediately reached this conclusion in his mind.
A monster that could be killed by Clones wielding cleavers and steel pipes, even if a hundred million of them came, would be mere child’s play for Human Civilization.
Several Clones cautiously approached, and under the illumination of the searchlights, they carefully examined the Monster Bird’s body structure.
Tom saw that the outside of the Monster Bird’s body had a clear layer of ice, hard as steel. But inside the ice, there was a certain temperature, and some unknown substances still remained in a liquid state, able to flow.
At the same time, its wings should not be for flying. Because Tom did not see sufficiently strong muscles, or muscle-like structures.
"Such large wings, not for flying, could it be... some kind of material collection net?
What does it survive on? What is its food?"
They cut open the Monster Bird’s stomach—it was clearly a stomach, because the body of the first deceased Clone was inside.
Besides the body, Tom also saw some melted substances.
He recognized them at a glance.
Inside were methane, ethane, acetonitrile, tolin, formaldehyde, and so on.
These were all organic compounds!
A somewhat shocking thought arose in Tom’s mind.
"This thing isn’t a space creature, is it?
Feeding on simple organic compounds on planets as food and energy sources, after consuming all edible organic compounds on one planet, it migrates through space, using its huge wings as a collection net to gather dust particles in space as replenishment, sustaining itself until it reaches another planet, and then repeating the above steps...
This, this... do such lives really exist in the universe?"
Tom’s biological knowledge made him instinctively deny this possibility. But at this moment, the concrete evidence was laid out before him, forcing him to admit it.
"If that’s the case, then it’s bad.
Clearly, for the vast sea of stars, planets are the most scarce thing.
Each planet here contains a large amount of the organic compounds they urgently need. For this Monster Bird, each of these planets is like a lush grassland full of water and grass in the eyes of cattle and sheep.
What’s more, there are many Clones active on Loshen Star, and these activities produce a large amount of more complex organic compounds.
Even the human body is composed of these complex organic compounds.
Perhaps these complex organic compounds have an even stronger attraction for this Monster Bird.
If simple organic compounds are like wild vegetables and steamed buns, then human bodies and livestock, aquatic products, grains, and other organic compounds are like a grand feast!
Perhaps, it was precisely my activities on Loshen Star that attracted this Monster Bird!"
Tom’s brain spun rapidly.
At this moment, Tom’s only hope was that the number of these Monster Birds coming to Loshen Star would not be too many.
Don’t forget, Tom currently had not developed any weapon technology. Apart from cleavers and steel pipes, he had no weapons!
Who would have thought that such life existed in the universe, and had the misfortune to come knocking.
The Clones dragged the Monster Bird’s corpse, intending to take it back to the Main Base for further research.
But just then, the ground suddenly began to tremble slightly.
As the huge searchlights illuminated the area, the Clones saw a terrifying scene.
The dark red land of Loshen Star was now covered by a dense swarm of Monster Birds.
At this moment, at least a thousand Monster Birds were charging towards the 45th Base!