The Ultimate Evolution

One of the Predator was captured alive thanks to Dardanian. The vines of the Ent he summoned were no less resilient than steel ropes of the same diameters. However, it also had a lot to do with the fact that the caught Predator was a support personnel.

Sheyan walked up to the Predator and gazed into his stone-cold eyes.

“You must be burning with resentment, aren’t you? As a warrior, being captured is a great shame. And barring any accident, I’ll probably hand you over to those people.”

Sheyan pointed to the native humans who either looked lost, or in a daze, or crying.

“They led happy lives before and had stable families, but you captured them and brought them to this planet as game. Their hatred for you knows no bounds. You will be tortured like a worthless bug in their hands, rot, and die, and finally be eaten by those furious humans.”

While describing the process, Sheyan’s spoke slowly and emotionlessly, trying his best to let the mask of the Predator translate the meaning in his words. Unfortunately, Sheyan did not detect any emotional fluctuations in the yellowish-green eyes of the Predator. They remained cold and fearless. This kind of enemy was the most difficult to deal with.

Nevertheless, Sheyan calmly and steadily continued in his endeavour.

“But if you choose to cooperate, I can give you the chance to fight like a warrior. If you can defeat your opponent, you’ll be set free. If you lose, you can die honourably like a warrior.”

At this time, from beneath the mask of the Predator finally came a mechanical synthetic voice, “What, do, you, want?”

“How did you find us?” questioned Sheyan.

“Every creature on this planet is a prey kept for our sacred rite of passage ceremony. When we captured them, all of them were branded by us and some were even modified. On the life detector in our spaceship, the life signals emitted by you unmarked creatures are as conspicuous as bright stars!” the Predator gave a straightforward answer.

Sheyan frowned. “That’s impossible! Surely the creatures on this planet will reproduce too! What about the next generation, then?”

“The branding is directly implanted into a creature’s DNA. After that, its body will automatically absorb trace elements and generate a mark that can transmit a special signal. Even if the creature reproduce, the mark will still be passed down through the genes. Our technology is much more advanced than you think!” claimed the Predator with pride.

Sheyan took a deep breath, then said, “If you brand all of us, I’ll give you the chance for a fair fight!”

The Predator suddenly made a very strange sound which carried a strong intent of mockery and ridicule. He then said in his voice that sounded like grating metal.

“You’re volunteering to be prey? Do you plan to hide among the other prey on this planet? So what? You’ll be found in three days at most even if Lord Veron doesn’t look for you himself. You think it’s worth doing this just to live for three more days?”

Sheyan flashed him a strange smile.

“Three days is exactly all that I need. Make your decision.”

“I agree to your proposal! You’re strong enough to have the honour of becoming our prey!”

As soon as the words left his mouth, the contestants instantly felt aggravated. What the f*ck did he mean by “have the honour of becoming our prey”? It was like someone was going to kill you, but said that you have to be grateful and should thank them for the honour. Who the hell did they think they were?

After saying that, the Predator extended his bound hands. Sheyan was not afraid of him playing any tricks. He snapped his fingers at Dardanian, and the vines slid away like worms, giving the Predator his freedom back.

The Predator stretched his body, then steadily headed to the portable medical & maintenance kit. He took out a tube of purple liquid from the inner layer and handed it to Sheyan.

“Take a sip, and your DNA will be slightly altered. Your body will absorb minerals and elements from the surroundings by itself, and within two hours, a scar will appear on your body. That’s the prey mark.”

Sheyan took it and drank a sip without hesitation. His impressive Physique meant that even if the liquid was cyanide, it could not poison him. Besides, although the Predators were brutal and cruel, they were a powerful race that did not deign to lie, so the Predator’s words should be credible.

Next, the released Predator started to select his weapons and organise his equipments. When he was ready, he turned to Sheyan and asked, “Who’s my opponent?”

Sheyan looked around, then smiled and said, “You can pick any one out of us six.”

The Predator clenched his fist and the wrist blades popped out, gleaming brightly with an eerie glint. He pointed them at Sheyan and said, “I. CHOOSE. YOU!”

(TL: Pikachu!!!!)

Sheyan was slightly surprised.

“If you choose me, it’s almost impossible for you to win.”

“Fighting is about glory, not victory or defeat. If I’m going to fight, of course I must fight with the strongest!” replied the Predator coldly.

Sheyan was slightly moved after hearing the Predator’s reason, and there was a hint of respect in his eyes. He stepped out and stared at the Predator, then extended his hand and said earnestly, “Let’s go!”

***

The result of this battle was, of course, within expectations.

After withstanding two plasma shots from the front, Sheyan reached the Predator and crushed his neck.

Sheyan also experimented with the effect of his virus on the Predator during the battle, but the result was not very optimistic.

The Predators had different internal structures and immune system to human beings, and their masks also filtered the air they breathed in, so the time for the diseases to take effect was prolonged and the symptoms were also reduced. This was not to say that ‘Pestilence Monarch’ was not strong enough, but the enemy was simply too different and Sheyan’s disease collection was simply too small.

It was as if a virus that was 100 times stronger than the SARS virus encountered a creature that breathed through the skin; or like a stubborn gastric cancer that encountered a bastard without a stomach…. What an awkward situation that was.

The only good news was that once the fight was prolonged, the A-virus would erode the Predator’s immune system and the effect of the virus would get better and better. Therefore, in a fight with high-level Predators, Sheyan’s best choice was to stretch the fight as long as he could. Over time, the scale would tip towards him.

In terms of battle spoils, these basic Predators did not leave the contestants with any valuable loot. Sheyan gave a Predator mask to Cyborg No. 1 and cut off the left arms of all the dead Predators.

They had lost two more cyborgs during the raid, so if the team wished to bring along all the stuff Sheyan requested without affecting their travel speed, they had to discard materials worth at least 100,000 utility points. Fortunately, Sheyan’s prestige in the team was well established by now, so even if he did not give an explanation, no one complained much.

Another important reason they stayed here after the fight was to let the crushing extractors process the large pile of Pi ores they got from the bet with the Ten Strongest test subjects.

After sorting everything out, the extraction process of the Pi ores was also nearing completion. It would be done in 10 minutes at most. Although the native humans had previously shown them less than friendly attitudes, Sheyan still instructed Dardanian to give them a hand.

Sheyan, of course, did that for a purpose. First, they were humans too, and second, they also hated the Predators. It would be great if they could recover and give the Predators that were about to arrive some troubles.

But Dardanian soon sent Sheyan a message.

“Boss, that skull guy, Tom, isn’t dead yet! He wants to see you.”

Sheyan’s eyes focused. To be honest, that guy impressed Sheyan deeply, because he was the only one Sheyan had met so far who could suppress Sheyan in close combat by relying on his own skills.

It was shocking that he managed to survive. At the time, five Predators had focused fire on him with their shoulder cannons. Those who had some knowledge of hot weapons would know that, if the damage done by one shoulder cannon was 5 points, the total damage of 5 simultaneous shoulder cannon shots was not as simple as 5+5+5+5+5. It might be as high as 5 to the power of 5!

Sheyan’s curiosity was piqued, so he decided to go take a look. He asked Ronnie to accompany him just in case.

The semi-dead ship had been wrecked by the Predators, but the rooms inside were still more comfortable than the outside. Amidst the complicated gazes of the native humans, Sheyan stepped into the skull man’s room.

As soon as Sheyan saw the skull man, he immediately understood how the skull man had survived. The strange organ on the man’s chest had grown horribly, and like the ‘Stairway to the Sun’, grew along his blood vessels to spread to his entire body. Because of that, striped vegetation had even appeared on the surface of his body. It was truly a shocking sight.