Above The Sky -
Chapter 282 - 282 268 Auxiliary Memory Organ 810
282: Chapter 268: Auxiliary Memory Organ (8/10) 282: Chapter 268: Auxiliary Memory Organ (8/10) At this moment, the tumultuous sounds of the gargantuan eel’s hissing could still be faintly heard from behind in the underground river.
The Tenglan Giant Eel is a species of magical beast unique to the Southern Sea of Nanling Province, or rather, it is a magical beast firmly bound to the natives.
While the Swamp Crocodile Dragon had subspecies in many other areas, and Decay Shadow Spiders similar to those prowling the rainforests of Canaan Moore, only the Great Redwood Forest and the Tenglan Giant Eel were bred and tightly bound to the Redwood Natives.
This type of eel had two paths of advancement, one was similar to an electric eel’s discharge, and the other was controlling water currents—the one pursuing Ian and others was the one that controlled water currents, while those controlling electric currents were male eels, it was unknown if any had also entered the ruins.
“That eel seems to be parasitized too, but it looks like it sped up instead?
Could it be that magical beasts related to the natives are immune to the parasitic infection and have instead turned it into an extension of their flesh?”
—What exclusive flesh extension to the Bloodline!
At this moment, Ian had no way to perform surgery on Shasha to remove the parasites, he could sense that the Ironclad Shark underneath him was in quite some pain, but being cornered, it could only forge ahead with all its might.
The faster they pushed forward, the faster the blood flowed, and the easier it was for the parasites to reach the brain.
If it weren’t for Shasha’s near-complete metallization, the high internal temperature curbing the parasites’ activity, the brain would probably have been eaten away already.
But the situation was still far from optimistic.
Ian could not determine the current situation of the gargantuan eel, but its exceedingly violent state was definitely not normal—the Tenglan Giant Eels were, to some extent, pretty laid-back creatures, which could be seen from the fact that they even allowed Harrison Port’s fleets to fish for eels near the Odell Reef…
Without the natives’ sacrificial rites and commands, their usual state was to do nothing.
Even if Shasha had bumped into its waist, with their intelligence, they couldn’t have remembered it for so long!
The gargantuan eel’s pursuit was fierce, and Shasha was merely using its instincts to speed up and dodge, simply relying on luck to not get trapped in a dead end.
Now with Ian directing, it quickly dodged into a slightly narrower fork in the path, where a sturdy standing rock could block the riverway.
But the gargantuan eel didn’t slow down at all and rammed straight into it.
Boom!!!
Instantly, the rock that might have stopped the gargantuan eel was completely shattered, but its speed was significantly reduced.
After that, Ian continuously chose narrow entrances, forcing the seemingly irrational gargantuan eel to repeatedly collide with the entryways and slow down.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Straightaway, five earthquake-like tremors occurred in the cave system, filling the air with mist and dust, and the eel’s injuries and bleeding dyed the riverways it passed through a pale blue.
It continued to emit enraged hisses, although it was also unclear what it was so angry about.
It’s a pity that it was no use.
Before long, Ian led Shasha to shake off the gargantuan eel—during the escape, he even activated the Silent Voice Ring, so even if the eel could pinpoint their location by sound, it had no way of knowing which direction they had fled to.
This was the difference between the escape of a Prophet and an ordinary shark!
Some time later, when Ian was sure the gargantuan eel could no longer follow, he calmed Shasha down and stopped it at a moderately spacious stretch of river that was not too deep.
The river here seemed to have been artificially altered as well, with a small stone platform nearby.
The inscriptions on it, after thousands of years of being washed over by overflow, were hardly recognizable.
Only the words “3…Central Expressway…” could be barely made out.
It was probably part of the internal transportation water system of Redwood Base from long ago.
“Oh…”
Shasha let out a voice filled with exhaustion and pain, and without many words, Ian’s eyes shone with a silvery cyan halo as he prepared to perform clairvoyant surgery directly.
Shasha was not in good shape, having suffered quite serious injuries, missing one of its fins—no wonder its movements during the escape were not very agile—and that area was overrun by parasites, infested with tiny bugs swarming through the wound.
His heart heavy, Ian carefully checked again and found the situation wasn’t as bad as he’d feared—the number of parasites inside Shasha’s body was not as numerous.
As it bled from its wounds, it had expelled a large number of parasites.
Plus, being a metal-based lifeform with high body temperature, even though there were Brain-Eating Parasites around its internal organs, they were all scorched to death.
“It’s going to hurt a bit, bear with it,” Ian said.
After patting Shasha’s shark skin, Ian reached into its body with his hand and began extracting handfuls of juvenile Brain-Eating Parasites.
It was at this moment that he discovered these parasites could combine like jellyfish, forming one large ‘ganglion’ from multiple individuals.
At the site of Shasha’s wounds, because they couldn’t enter its body, a large number of Brain-Eating Parasites had even combined to form a small brain-like cyst.
In other words, his previous assessment of the Brain-Eating Parasites was mistaken—they weren’t creatures that devoured brains at all, but more like some kind of cephalopods.
They were a living neural tissue that could look for a body to inhabit!
And the white cysts in Master Gossay’s body he had pondered earlier could actually be a small Brain-Eating Parasite brain…
After removing the main lesions, Ian used his Origin Quality to cover and kill the parasites’ eggs deep inside Shasha’s body.
It was indeed a painful process for Shasha, akin to the most primitive form of chemotherapy, but it understood that it was better than continuing to be parasitized.
“That should do it…
It’s a pity I don’t have enough Regeneration Potion for what you need…
You’ve suffered,” Ian lamented, feeling guilty for Shasha’s ordeal since it was under his command that Shasha had crashed into the Gargantuan Eel, leading to the chase and subsequent parasitism; he felt responsible for all its injuries.
Meanwhile, the Frost Butterfly that had been perched on Ian’s head suddenly flew up and clumsily made its way to hover over Shasha, settling down for a while.
But probably due to the rough and hot shark skin, which was very different from Ian’s touch, the Little Fairy clumsily drifted back to him.
“Oh~”
Seeing the Frost Butterfly, Shasha perked up for a moment, apparently enjoying the fleeting coolness.
Unfortunately, the coolness was only temporary, and after seeing the Frost Butterfly fly away, Shasha displayed some regret with a wriggle of its body, feigning an ‘I’m still spirited!’ attitude before succumbing to a deep sleep.
The Ironclad Shark wasn’t a real shark, and it could breathe even in the riverbed.
Watching Shasha quickly fall into a restful sleep, Ian turned his head to look at another figure by the riverbed who was almost out of breath.
“…
Considering you did save Shasha’s life to some extent.”
The young man shook his head slightly and drew a small knife from his waist pouch: “There’s no anesthetic, so bear with it.”
Pirate Captain Andor was of course still alive—after he and Shasha plunged into the main waterway, they had been fleeing the pursuit of the Gargantuan Eel together.
Due to the severe vibrations when Ian used Fairy Wings to pay for Shasha’s acceleration, Andor had semi-fainted.
Still, he had clung to Shasha, managing not to be thrown off.
He had lost a leg during the earlier flight, likely severed on the spot after being parasitized, but as a Sublimator himself, his condition was not too bad.
After removing the lesions, Ian hadn’t even found scattered eggs inside Andor’s body, which was completely different from Master Gossay who had been parasitized while unconscious.
At this point, one man and one shark lay unconscious in the waterway, while Ian sat cross-legged on the ground, his brow furrowing as he stared at the Brain-Eating Parasite conglomerate that was already beginning to lose its activity in front of him.
It was like a shell-less snail, a mobile and sticky brain.
“What exactly is this parasite?” he muttered to himself, considering the possibilities: “Thinking about it, it can replace a person’s brain and then connect to the Spirit Energy Network…
Master Gossay, while weakened, was even forced into the Spirit Energy Network and learned a strange engineer’s manual.”
“Could it be…” Ian’s eyebrows rose, and he picked up the corpse of a Brain-Eating Parasite from the ground, examining it carefully: “This thing is actually some type of auxiliary memory organ?
Just that it has been modified into something vicious, even initiating forceful symbiosis…
and eventually taking over the host?”
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