Hell's Handbook

Chapter 233: Massacred By Worms

Wu Chen collapsed heavily onto the ground. A worm-like creature was sucking his blood rapidly like a leech.

“NO!” Su Jin roared angrily and made a grab for the worm, but the worm was even faster than him and wriggled further down Wu Chen’s throat.

Su Jin was furious but he didn’t want to dig into Wu Chen’s throat. At the same time, Wu Chen’s head began to swell up unnaturally.

PFFFFT! It was like the sound of a watermelon being smashed open. Wu Chen’s head exploded and turned into nothing more than a huge cloud of blood.

A thin and long shadow shot out from the bloodied mist. It moved extremely quickly and Su Jin couldn’t stop it from getting away at all.

He stared down at the headless Wu Chen on the floor and felt a little lost. Death had happened just like that. A man who had gone through dozens of Challenges had died in an instant, and as his team leader, he had been unable to do anything to stop it from happening.

Su Jin’s heart ached, but he knew that this wasn’t the time to blame himself. He gritted his teeth as he got up and said, “Fearless, connect me to Kano Mai and Situ Jin.”

The connection was made quickly. Kano Mai and Situ Jin seemed to be speaking to some others, so they had to turn to look at the screen on the wall.

“Jin, what’s the matter?” asked Kano Mai.

Su Jin’s lips moved, but he couldn’t seem to get the words out at all. He took a deep breath to calm himself down, then said, “Wu Chen… is gone!”

“He’s gone? Where did he go?” asked Kano Mai without thinking. But she quickly realized what Su Jin was actually saying and her expression fell.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself. When going through Handbook Challenges, everyone has to be responsible for their own lives.” Situ Jin was now familiar with Su Jin’s character, so after displaying a rare show of consolation, he continued, “It’s begun? Those aliens have appeared?”

Su Jin nodded and said, “I will report this to Captain Jefferson so that he can tell everyone to keep a lookout. Take this chance to gather more people, I’ll bring some weapons back.”

He disconnected the call, leaving a silent Situ Jin and Kano Mai on the other end.

Su Jin proceeded to call Jefferson and showed him what had become of Wu Chen.

“Aliens! There really are aliens!” Jefferson was practically shouting. Su Jin was certain that this had something to do with the nightmares that Jefferson was talking about earlier. Otherwise, it was hard to imagine a well-trained captain going berserk like this.

“Captain Jefferson, I think the most urgent matter at hand is to tell every crew member to be on the lookout. Also, please allow everyone access to the weapons in the fighting area so that we can all be prepared to fight,” said Su Jin.

Jefferson was an outstanding captain and he quickly understood what Su Jin was getting at. “You’re right. Those aliens are formidable, but our weapons are still capable of destroying them. I’ll tell the other captains to open the access to weapons.”

“Fearless, connect me to all the Level 1 access holders,” said Jefferson.

In no time, all the Level 1 access crew appeared on different screens. Two of the captains were with a professor at the place where the biologists stayed. They seemed to be conducting inspections on the biologists.

“How’s the situation?” asked Jefferson.

“Everyone’s been cooperative, but Miss Tracy has refused to allow us to inspect her,” said Arkas with a frustrated sigh.

Su Jin’s pupils constricted. That was the same lady who had reacted oddly earlier.

“I refuse to be checked! You don’t have the right to do this to me! This is an invasion of my privacy!” yelled Tracy loudly.

Jefferson frowned and said, “I’m afraid you don’t have any rights like that. All of you signed an agreement to listen to every command given by the captain in charge on the Fearless when you boarded this spaceship. I am the captain in charge right now, so I am ordering you to let yourself be inspected.”

Tracy’s expression turned to one of horror and shock, while Jefferson had lost all patience. He called out, “Fearless, scan her right now and broadcast the results at the same time.”

“Yes, Captain Jefferson!” said Fearless.

A red beam of light rose from the floor and covered Tracy in it. She frantically leaped aside, but several more beams appeared and she had nowhere to run to.

“You can’t do this to me! This is an invasion of privacy!” she continued to yell.

But nobody cared about protecting her privacy anymore, because everyone was shocked by what they were seeing.

A scan of the inside of her body was projected on the walls of the spaceship. Her body no longer had any human organs. They had been replaced by worm eggs that were jumping about.

“Oh my god!” someone exclaimed. They had clearly been terrified by this sight.

“Miss Tracy, we need you to give us a reasonable explanation on what’s going on,” said Jefferson with a stern look on his face.

Tracy knew that it was pointless to continue hiding, so she suddenly started yelling hysterically, “An explanation? Why do you need one? It’s all because us biologists have been treated unfairly!”

“Treated unfairly?” Everyone went into an uproar.

Jefferson shouted angrily, “Miss Tracy, please do not make baseless accusations like that. When did we treat you unfairly?”

The elderly professor, Abbas, was trembling as he said, “Tracy, what… what are you talking about? You are my student! How could you do such a thing?”

Tracy remained hysterical as she said, “Prof, you have been so wise all these years! How did you become so foolish?”

“We gave up everything we had in human society to explore the Hiding Place of God. We gave up our families, our lives, our friends. For what reason? To go deeper in our understanding of biology.”

“But what did we get in return? Compared to the others, we seem to have come all the way here just to watch a blockbuster movie with really realistic special effects. We’ve gotten nothing else in return.”

“The historians and archeologists have seen ancient relics about deities, the linguists have found a few dozen new languages, the physicists have proved dozens of hypothetical laws of physics. Even the philosophers and sociologists have gained some knowledge.”

“What about us biologists? We couldn’t even bring a specimen back with us onto the ship. If we bring these incredible creatures back to Earth with us, we could attain vast amounts of knowledge from them. We would have a deeper understanding of these lifeforms.”

When Abbas saw how hysterical yet passionate Tracy was, he suddenly felt like he could understand where she was coming from. Like the old Chinese saying went, if one understood the truth in the morning, one wouldn’t mind dying that very same night.

But Jefferson remained rational. “This is not a good reason for you to go against orders and put the Fearless in danger. Two people have already lost their precious lives because of your foolishness.”

Tracy froze, then shook her head. “That’s not impossible. I’ve hidden them in my body. There was a little problem at first, but things have always been within my control. I have used a special drug on them, so they can’t even leave my body, never mind kill another person.”

“You crazy woman! Do you think anybody would still trust you after what you’ve done?” yelled Arkas. He said to Jefferson, “Captain Jefferson, I suggest that we imprison Miss Tracy immediately and use medical means to remove all the aliens in her body.”

Jefferson hesitated for a moment, then nodded in agreement. Arkas marched over and grabbed hold of Tracy.

Tracy struggled violently in protest. Abbas and the other two biologists were Tracy’s fellow biologists and were close to her, so they immediately blocked Arkas’ way and hoped that Jefferson could show Tracy some leniency.

Things became more and more chaotic. Just then, Abbas grabbed hold of Arkas’ arm and exerted a little strength.

To everyone’s surprise, Arkas’ arm broke right off.

Abbas stared in shock at the arm in his hands and blurted out, “He doesn’t have bones?”

“No bones?” Su Jin was stunned for a second before he yelled, “Run! RUN! Arkas is an alien in disguise!”

Unfortunately, Su Jin’s warning came too late. A worm-like alien burst out from Arkas’ broken arm.

The worm wriggled into Abbas’ throat. It looked just like the one that killed Wu Chen.

Arkas had a creepy smile on his face as several more worms came spewing out from his broken arm. In an instant, the small room belonging to the biologists turned into a slaughterhouse.

The worms massacred everyone inside the room except Arkas and Tracy. It took no more than a minute for all of them to lay strewn all over the floor, their heads exploding like watermelons.

Arkas walked over to the completely stunned and horrified Tracy. His finger gently pulled her chin up and he said in a grating voice, “Be good, my children. Don’t be afraid, I will make sure all of you grow up well!”

“Fearless, cordon off all passageways leading to Zone G and tell all the crew in the surrounding areas to move to a safe area,” barked Jefferson furiously.

The sound of a mechanism whirring could be heard through the screens as steel doors came down from the top and trapped Arkas inside.

Fearless sounded the alarm, while Su Jin saw that Arkas had commanded the worms that had come out earlier to corrode the steel doors. Also, these worms had gone through a change after consuming the humans’ blood. Their meaty worm shaped bodies now had an additional metal claw.

Su Jin wasn’t going to count on the steel doors to protect him for long.

“Captain Jefferson, please allow us access to weapons! We need the best one you’ve got!” yelled Su Jin from the other end.

Jefferson looked shaken as he said, “No, it’s not possible anymore. There are now fewer than five people with Level 1 access so we can’t get the weapons. I’m afraid you’ll just have to settle for some ordinary guns.”

“Damn it! Su Jin punched a hole in the wall. Arkas was trapped for now, but there was one more who wasn’t trapped.

Captain Reginald was the real headache!

Su Jin immediately said to Jefferson, “Captain, get everyone to hide as best as they can!”