Chapter 65 Overlord

The red and yellow indicator lights were inserted in the clearing in the forest.

The rotating projected lights swept through the dense forest shrouded in the night at a specific frequency, and a few sharp beeps were emitted from time to time.

Tang Bin held a shotgun, his expression nervous, and kept looking around, exhaling cold air.

Although the temperature in Jinghu Forest has warmed up a little after the cold wave, it has officially entered winter. The night temperature often hovers around minus 15 degrees, and the cold wind never stops.

Behind him, two members of the hunting group who were in a relatively normal state were carrying the wounded on the back of the off-road vehicle. As for their hunting group's car, it was parked on the road outside. It was too big to drive in.

Taking a deep breath and suppressing his nervous mood, Tang Bin glanced back and saw the hunting group members lifting a corpse with a bloody hole on the chest. The broken flesh and blood fell to the ground with a thud, and a few sobbing nasal sounds could be heard faintly.

There were a total of seven members in this hunting group. When Tang Bin arrived at the scene, he only saw two who could still get up and move.

The remaining five people, three dead and two seriously injured, were miserable.

"Don't move the bodies, save the living first, now is not the time for you to cry, the Shadow Moon Leopard is not far away!"

Tang Bin did not sympathize with their plight. In his opinion, provoking the Shadow Moon Leopard at night was just courting death.

This group of people belonged to a registered civilian hunting group, and they were willing to pay, otherwise he would not care at all.

The premise for the forest ranger to help others is to ensure their own safety.

This is written in the rules and regulations.

What he has to do now is to send those who can still move to the off-road vehicle and take them back. As for what happens next, it depends on their luck.

The cold wind shuttled through the forest.

The fallen leaves rolled and rustled, Tang Bin frowned, and suddenly seemed to notice something and turned around.

He caught a glimpse of a vague black shadow on the high tree trunk.

Damn! It really didn't leave!

The fierce murderous intent rushed in front of him, giving Tang Bin goose bumps all over his body.

He knew very well how terrifying the Shadow Moon Leopard was. Even a momentary distraction could give the beast a chance to kill him with one strike.

But just when Tang Bin thought something was going to happen, the killing intent that locked onto him disappeared in an instant.

Before he could react, he heard someone calling his name not far away.

Looking back, he saw Yu Ke, holding a sharp-toothed bow and arrow, running over the indicator light.

"Are you okay? What's going on here?"

Yu Ke breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that Tang Bin was intact. He glanced at the members of the hunting group behind him and couldn't help but frown.

"What else could it be? It's the same old story. You can meet the same fool every few months."

Tang Bin, who had recovered from his shock, had cold sweat on his forehead. Thinking of the critical situation just now, his tone was a little harsh. He looked at Yu Ke with gratitude.

"Thank goodness you came in time, otherwise it would be difficult to end tonight."

"It should be. I also want to eat the barbecue you made. Help them and collect the wounded and corpses as soon as possible to prevent the bloody smell from spreading and attracting other monsters."

Yu Ke didn't want to stay in the jungle for a long time in the middle of the night. He wanted to finish the things here and rest early.

With a master in charge, Tang Bin didn't need to be fully alert. The two worked together to move the wounded and corpses onto the off-road vehicle.

"Tang Bin, your camp is close to this place. We will place them there. The medical team at the transit station is expected to be back tomorrow morning. We will do some emergency treatment first and survive tonight."

After sending the last wounded person to the car, Yu Ke discussed with Tang Bin how to place these people.

The medical team in the transfer station is indeed very good, but it is not free service.

It costs a lot to get them to go out on a cold winter night, and the level of the hunting group in front of them is obviously not very good. The remaining two don't seem to be able to pay at all.

"We can exchange it with prey."

The voices of the two people discussing reached the other side of the carriage, and the young man with blood on his face said,

"Please help us contact the medical team immediately."

And prey?

Yu Ke curled his lips. He was almost wiped out by the Shadow Moon Leopard Group. Where did the prey come from?

"We spent a lot of effort to catch a mutated mandrill. The neck and back are full of gorgeous flowers. It must be a strange beast. If the leopard hadn't suddenly attacked us, the prey would not be far away. We should be able to find it now."

In order to save his companions, the young man didn't care about much now. He wiped his red eyes and spoke anxiously.

This made Yu Ke and Tang Bin look sideways.

According to the young man, it seems that they did not take the initiative to provoke the Shadow Moon Leopard, but the latter ambushed and attacked them?

This is somewhat inconsistent with the habits of the Shadow Moon Leopard.

Could it be that the prey in the Mirror Lake Forest decreased after the cold wave ended, which made the Shadow Moon Leopard hungry and indiscriminate?

"I think you are so anxious that you are confused. I know what a mandrill looks like better than you. How is it possible..."

Mandrills are not uncommon in the outskirts of the Mirror Lake Forest. Tang Bin shook his head, but Yu Ke grabbed his shoulder halfway through his words.

"Describe the mandrill in more detail. What color are the flowers on its body and how are they growing?"

Walking to the side of the carriage, Yu Ke half-closed his eyes and asked in a deep voice.

"Yellow, red, in short, there are all kinds of flowers. The flowers are blooming brightly, as if they grew out of the flesh and blood of the mandrill. The mandrill has thorns on its back and a second head is growing on its neck."

The young man thought that it was their prey that attracted Yu Ke. He hurriedly recalled what he had discovered at that time and said repeatedly,

"We went deep into the Jinghu Forest and wasted time just to catch it. Otherwise, it would have come out in the evening."

"Where is the specific location? Point it out to me!"

After confirming the specific location of the prey, Yu Ke turned to Tang Bin and said,

"Old Tang, send them back first and contact the medical team at the transfer station. I will bear the expenses."

After saying that, without waiting for Tang Bin to respond, Yu Ke went straight to the location of the mutated mandrill with a serious expression.

If the young man in the hunting group was not talking nonsense, then the mutated mandrill he described was most likely a monster infected by Pandora, which also meant that the source of infection had reached the outskirts of the Mirror Lake Forest.

According to the direction indicated by the young man, Yu Ke quickly found the mutated mandrill under a tree, with a mark next to it.

Previously, in order to escape, the hunting group had no choice but to give up the prey.

They threw it here specifically, probably hoping to come back to pick it up after escaping.

Unexpectedly, the Shadow Moon Leopard chased them relentlessly, causing them to suffer heavy casualties and no chance to come back.

Walking to the side of the mutated mandrill, seeing the still bright flowers between its back and neck, as well as the deformed limbs hidden under the petals, although he was mentally prepared, Yu Ke couldn't help but breathe heavily when he really saw it.

Previously, the flowers seen in the small garden workstation were grown on the corpse of the human-faced owl. Only a few days later, the mutated mandrill actually had a deformed body while still alive, with blood and flesh blooming.

Is this the external manifestation caused by the spread and deepening of the infection?

Looking around the mutated mandrill, Yu Ke was full of confusion. He pulled out an arrow and poked the hidden points of the mutated mandrill's body.

No, that's not right.

This speed is too fast!

Yu Ke had seen with his own eyes the extent of the pollution in the nest and surrounding areas where the human-faced owl hid. The mutation of animals and plants was completely inferior to the mutated mandrill in front of him, and that was the result of Pandora's long-term invasion of streams.

It has been less than two days. Even if it has been strengthened, it should not be strengthened to this extent, right?

Just as Stationmaster He said, if Pandora wants to completely infect or even transform the ecosystem, it is definitely not something that can be done in two or three days. After all, the biological cycle itself takes time.

The location where this mutated mandrill appeared was too strange, and there must be something fishy.

With this thought, Yu Ke decisively contacted Ansai Li. He didn't even have a pair of gloves now, and he couldn't deal with the mutated mandrill in front of him.

In order to obtain information about the mutated mandrill, the research team of the Forestry Bureau needs to perform an in-depth autopsy on the corpse.

Involving the Pandora incident, Ansai Li immediately said that he would come by helicopter after receiving the information, and asked Yu Ke to watch the corpse and not let any passing wild animals take it away to cause secondary infection.

While waiting, Yu Ke couldn't help but recall another thing mentioned by the young man in the hunting group.

The Shadow Moon Leopard took the initiative to attack the hunting group and wanted to kill them all.

Yu Ke originally thought that this was caused by food shortage, but now it seems that there is another hidden reason.

Recently, the Shadow Moon Leopard has been wandering around the periphery of the Mirror Lake Forest, and now it has specially attacked the hunting group that captured the mutated mandrill.

These two things may not be surprising if taken separately, but if put together, Yu Ke quickly realized that the Shadow Moon Leopard may be consciously looking for the beast infected by Pandora.

This is just like the birds and beasts will take various disaster avoidance actions before an earthquake.

It's just that the Shadow Moon Leopard is the overlord at the top of the food chain outside the Mirror Lake Forest.

It doesn't want to passively suffer the disaster, but wants to take the initiative to stop the spread of the disaster!

Half an hour later, the searchlight of the helicopter lit up in the night sky.

Yu Ke, who was resting against the tree trunk, stretched his waist, got up and walked to the open space to signal the helicopter with the light he carried with him, indicating that the body of the mutated mandrill was here.

Yu Ke, who looked up at the helicopter, did not notice the figure quietly disappearing in the shadows in the distance.

He didn't know that he was not the only one guarding the mutated mandrill.

In the deep forest still shrouded in darkness, the purple-black terrifying beast stepped on the fallen leaves on the ground.

Until he found a huge rock with a relatively flat surface, he jumped on it.

The huge body was lying in a coil, with two front paws on the lower jaw, and the muscle contour was particularly conspicuous.

It looked extremely tired, breathing heavily while resting, turning its head from time to time to lick the wound on its abdomen, and growling in pain. Those were not caused by gunfire, but scratches left by another monster.

The Shadow Moon Leopard was not in pain because of the wound.

How could the overlord outside the Mirror Lake Forest be affected by such a minor injury?

What really made it gasp for air was the bacterial hyphae that gradually grew between the flesh and blood of the wound.

They absorbed the energy of the Shadow Moon Leopard's flesh and blood, preventing the wound from healing. They were still constantly connecting with each other, trying to mutate into a plant-like existence.

The Shadow Moon Leopard was also infected!

Even if it kept scraping off the hyphae with its tongue, this behavior itself was also aggravating the erosion of the alien energy.

The moonlight fell on its forehead through the branches of the dense forest, and the red animal eyes had been stained with some strange phosphorescence at some point.

The power of the Shadow Moon Leopard is unquestionable, but this time it is facing a more terrifying existence.

Perhaps it had a premonition of its own fate, and the Shadow Moon Leopard suddenly stood up and roared towards the dark dense forest on all sides.

That should have been the area it was most familiar with, but now it was filled with a sense of strangeness, as if there was some kind of monster hidden in it, approaching it with an irresistible attitude, eroding its body and polluting its mind.

It was also at this critical moment of life and death.

Fluorescent green light spots drifted from the depths of darkness and poured into the wound of the Shadow Moon Leopard.

It was still furious a second ago, but suddenly it calmed down, looked at the emerald green light emerging in front of it, and bent down.

A translucent emerald green palm stretched out from the void and gently stroked the forehead of the Shadow Moon Leopard. Instead of being angry about this, the beast took the initiative to move forward, making a low "snoring~", with eyes full of attachment.

A few minutes later.

The emerald green light dissipated in the woods, and the Shadow Moon Leopard stood up again. The injury on its abdomen had completely recovered at some point.

It just jumped lightly, and the moment its body rose, it merged into the shadow.

It still has to rush to the next battlefield!

I will update three chapters today.

The listing was a temporary notice, and I didn't have much preparation here. It also caught up with the New Year. What can I do? Please forgive me.