Do Aliens Also Have Arranged Marriages? - Chapter 11

Chapter 11 – He Ate It?

Jian Ning walked to the entrance of the passage and found that it was very narrow, only able to accommodate two people side by side at a time. Looking inside, there was no light at all, and the thick ink-like black color seemed to have swallowed up all life.

He threw his heavy backpack aside, picked up his weapon, and walked in carefully.

Entering the passage, his vision suddenly turned dark and the sound of heavy breathing echoed in his ears. Even though he knew that the sound was made by himself, in the absence of any light, the sound of his breathing seemed to come from all directions.

Jian Ning pursed his lips and vigilantly watched the changes around his.

Ten minutes later.

Jian Ning stopped.

He chose the wrong way.

He remembered what he saw on the map. According to the map,the length of this passage should be about sixty meters, but now, he had been walking for ten minutes, and the passage in front of him still showed no end.

“Never mind…”

Jian Ning closed his eyes and opened them again. His originally black pupils suddenly turned blood red. After switching to alien eyes, his vision improved significantly.

He narrowed his eyes slightly and began to observe the abnormalities around him.

The entire passage seemed to be filled with a layer of slowly surging thick black fog, making it impossible for people to observe the surrounding environment. As far as the eye could see, there was only a passage in front, as if it was a road specially designed for visitors, and no one knew where it led to.

Jian Ning continued walking forward, and after more than ten minutes, three forks suddenly appeared in front of him.

The three forks were close together, separated by black fog. If Talia and her team had entered this passage, they would’ve accidentally walked into different passages because of the dark fog.

If he hadn’t switched his eyes back to normal, he probably wouldn’t have noticed the fork in the road either.

Jian Ning stood infront of the three forksand observed each one. Every path was equally dark, and there was nothing unusual about it. There were no traces left around either.

After hesitating for a moment, he chose to take the middle fork first.

After walking in, the fog in the passage dissipated a little, and the originally hard ground seemed to have become a little soft, as if he was stepping on the body of some animal.

The current environment made Jian Ning have some associations——

He felt like he was food that was actively entering the mouth, moving in the alien’s esophagus, sending himself step by step towards the alien’s digestive organ.

The further he went, the more fishy and unpleasant smell wafted out from the depths, which seemed to be mixed with a hint of blood.

Jian Ning quickened his pace.

Finally, the passage came to an end.

Looking up, there was an open space in front of Jian Ning, with thousands of two or three meter long vines growing in the middle. These vines grew in clusters, and yellow-brown moist mucus accumulated at their roots.

These vines were like living insects, with their slender roots wriggling and lifting the humans in the middle into the air.

Looking closely, the vine’s pointed tip was deeply embedded in the man’s skin, as if sucking his blood.

Jian Ning paused for a moment. The person whose blood was being sucked by the vines was a member of their team.

John.

He still remembered the man’s name, the annoying guy who smoked in the car when they first met.

But at this time, he was face down, his body entangled by countless vines, and he didn’t know whether he was alive or dead.

Jian Ning called him tentatively, “John? Are you okay?”

As soon as he finished speaking, John’s body twitched, as if struggling to respond to him.

He is still alive!

Jian Ning raised the gun in his hand but hesitated to pull the trigger.

There were too many vines entangled in the man. If he shot at those vines, he would hurt the seriously injured man once again. And once the vines were broken, John’s body would inevitably fall completely into the deepest part surrounded by vines.

There were at least thousands of blood-sucking vines around, and there was no way Jian Ning could get through so many obstacles and leave with the seriously injured man in the middle.

How come there are so many blood-sucking vines growing in the middle of the aquarium?

Jian Ning put his gun down irritably. He glanced at the man who was about to lose consciousness. There was no time to dwell on it. Two hideous and huge white bone wings suddenly broke out from his back. The bone wings stretched out wantonly, as if they had been suppressed for too long and seemed particularly excited for a moment.

“Well, be obedient and don’t move!”

Jian Ning controlled the two bone wings to flap and his feet left the ground.

His pair of bone wings were like a problematic child in his rebellious period- they often disobeyed his orders, were not good at flying, and were conspicuous. Once he saw other alien species, his bone wings should immediately wave in excitement, as if they were afraid that he wouldn’t be able to attract the alien species’ attention.

He had always felt that this pair of bone wings was a burden, but now, these wings capable of short-distance, low-altitude flight could be of some use.

Jian Ning flew towards the man wrapped in vines, waving his bone wings downwards. The sharp bone spikes cut off the vines that were entangled on the man and sucking his blood. Jian Ning lowered himself, hooked his hands on John’s shoulders, and flapped his wings vigorously, trying to move John away from the area covered by the vines.

The moment Jian Ning lifted up John’s body, his face suddenly changed.

Too light.

John was a sturdy man, but now in his hand, he felt as light as a piece of human skin.

He lowered his head and looked down.

John’s expression was frozen in the moment of terror before his death. It seemed as if something was wriggling under every inch of his skin, constantly stretching his face into a distorted form.

John had been killed a long time ago!

So…what did he see moving just now?

Jian Ning felt a strong sense of uneasiness in his heart. At this moment, a vine suddenly emerged from John’s open mouth and attacked Jian Ning’s face.

“Shit!” Jian Ning was terrified. He dodged the attack and let go of the man who was already dead.

Just now, at a closer distance, he finally saw clearly that those things that were sucking blood and flesh were not vines at all, but insects!

The insect has no eyes, only a mouthpart for eating at the top, which is covered with dense fangs. It could easily bite through human skin, drill into the body, and swallow human flesh and internal organs in big mouthfuls.

Jian Ning suddenly recalled that this worm looked very similar to one of the genetic samples to be collected this time, a marine alien called the giant tubular worm.

John’s hollowed-out body no longer attracted the worms’ attention.

At the same time, thousands of worms emerged from the ground with their entire slender bodies, completely blocking the surroundings and exits. Giant worms four or five meters long twisted their bodies excitedly, as if they had captured some extremely nutritious prey.

Jian Ning seemed to have stepped into a trap set by these worms. The worms from all directions contracted their mouthparts at the same time, and seemed to be gazing at him greedily. The next second, thousands of worms rushed over at the same time, trying to press him into the densely wriggling swarm to share their food.

Jian Ning waved his bone wings to fight back. One worm after another was cut in half by the bone spurs and fell to the ground, turning into nutrients. Countless new worms grew from the moist roots again.

There were so many insects that Jian Ning was not careful and got a worm entangled around his wrist.

He felt a sharp pain in the palm of his hand, and in the blink of an eye, a bloody hole had been bitten on his palm by the worm. Jian Ning gritted his teeth and tore off the worm that was wrapped around his hand, while waving his bone wings vigorously to prevent other worms from approaching.

No, that’s not right! These aren’t worms at all!

Is it a different species?

His heart was beating violently in his chest like a drum, and panic and anxiety completely enveloped him at this moment.

In the chaos, Jian Ning knew he had to calm down.

There were other people who were also trapped in similar situations, unable to take care of themselves, and their situation is even worse than his. He must find a way to save himself.

Recalling the scene of the worm falling to the ground and being absorbed, something seemed to flash through Jian Ning’s mind.

The alien body will heal itself, but the worms just now were absorbed as nutrients after death and grew again, which means that these worms are not an alien species, but… some kind of organs that look like alien species?

——Eating organs.

Jian Ning looked down and saw dense vines growing from below, seemingly coming from the same place. He ignored the interference of the surrounding worms and finally sensed an alien breath coming from just below the roots of those worms, and there was something attracting him.

Jian Ning glanced at the disgusting worms around him, took a deep breath, and prepared himself mentally. He folded his huge bone wings, tightly wrapped them around his body, opened his bone spurs sharply, and flew suddenly downwards.

The bone spurs in the attacking state were extremely sharp, severing the bodies of countless worms and quickly cutting open the layer of skin underneath that looked like the ground.

Attacking only the feeding organs would be a waste of time. He had to find the weakness of this alien species.

After passing through the epidermis, it was as if he had entered another space. The surroundings were empty and the surface of the walls were covered with uneven lumps of flesh.

Jian Ning ignored all of this and focused all his attention on the black mist in front of him, which contained large amounts of active dot-like particles floating in it.

The ball of mist stayed where it was, and seemed a little stunned, perhaps not expecting to be suddenly intruded by food.

Jian Ning stared at the mist, and after a moment——

“Gudong——”

He swallowed his saliva.

That strange thing inexplicably aroused his appetite strongly.

The alien seemed to have sensed something, and all its eating organs growing outside followed Jian Ning through the gap he had made.

Without hesitation, Jian Ning suppressed his appetite and reached out to grab the black mist. He had a hunch that this thing might be the alien’s weakness.

The black mist played a chasing game with him for a while, eventually falling into Jian Ning’s hands.

The black mist struggled in his hand for a moment, but before Jian Ning could launch an attack, it suddenly penetrated into the wound on his palm that had not yet healed.

“…”

Jian Ning was stunned.

He looked stiffly at the palm of his hand. There was nothing abnormal there and the damaged skin was recovering rapidly.

Was…was he being parasitized by an alien species?

No, he was also an alien species. How could other alien species parasitize him?

Just when Jian Ning was feeling a little panicked, he suddenly burped.

“Belch–”

He touched his stomach and felt as if he had just eaten a big meal. Even the meals he had eaten in the base were not as satisfying as this one.

Jian Ning raised his eyes and looked behind him. The feeding organs that had just been squirming and chasing him were shriveling up at a speed visible to the naked eye, and lost their vitality in the blink of an eye.

He looked at his palm, thoughtfully.

That thing…

Did it die because he ate it?