"Damn it!"
Gaia cursed. He had pulled up his protective suit the moment the spores started to spray the powder, covering his entire body without leaving any gaps. However, he was still a step too slow.
The skin on his neck was already tingling with a prickly itch. If it was just a simple allergic reaction, he would be able to recover in a few days after taking some vitamins and some penicillin.
However, these spores were infected with the bacteria, they would become parasites on his skin.
Eventually, they would spread into blood vessels. Once Gaia's brain was infected by the bacteria, he would fall into the control of the bacteria and become a zombie-like existence.
"Put me down, I can run by myself. Otherwise, we'll die here together," Gaia screamed.
William and the others then put Gaia down.
Gaia ran while thinking of countermeasures.
"We must find a safe place and deal with it as soon as possible!"
Gaia could not see the road clearly, accidentally breaking some spore clusters as he ran, causing even more insects to get infected, letting out loud cries.
Shing!
After cutting down the spore cluster in front of him, Gaia ran forward quickly.
Hearing the sound of the approaching him from behind, he did not hesitate. He immediately lunged forward, rolled, pulled out his machete, and slashed at his rear.
Whoosh!
The amber snails growled in pain, as the sound of blood splattering could be heard.
Gaia did not have the time to check the results of the battle. He got up and continued running.
When he was cut down the spore cluster, his eyes were also caught in the powder, causing him to tear up.
COO COO! COO COO!
More than a hundred amber snails rushed out of the spore forest and chased after Gaia. Their tails were raised high, preparing to spray their pus. Some of them went so fast that they crashed straight into a big tree, turning into slug paste.
"As expected, they aren't conscious of their actions. These amber snails only have one instinct right now, which is to spread the infection in their bodies as far as possible," Gaia thought as he looked at the slug paste.
"Here goes nothing!"
Seeing some of the amber snails zip past him, Gaia knew that if he did not escape, he would be surrounded.
Thus, he pulled out a stun grenade from his waist and threw it at the pile of amber snails. Then, he immediately dropped down, curled up his body, using the explosion-proof shield to protect himself.
Bzzzzzzzzt!
A shockwave spread out from the stun grenade.
The next second, all the amber snails in the area exploded one after another.
For a moment, pungent viscous liquid sprayed all over the ground, as a strong corrosive gas vaporized into the air.
Bam!
The shockwave also sent Gaia flying more than 60 meters away. Fortunately, there was a thick layer of fallen leaves on the ground to break his fall, otherwise, he would definitely have hurt himself. He rolled a few times to using ukemi principles. Once he stopped rolling, he got back up.
"Urgh!"
The stench of the gas and liquid was so bad that he almost vomited.
"As I expected, after being infected by the bacteria, the bodies of these amber snails are not as resilient as before," Gaia said to William and the others who had rushed over to check up on him.
"What's going on? Why did the amber snails explode?" William asked curiously.
"Since their bodies were no longer as resilient, they would naturally explode under the pressure," Douglas suddenly realized.
The main attack method of these amber snails was to compress their tails and shoot the pus inside at their targets. Therefore, the bodies of these amber snails were had to be resilient.
If they were in the same state, these amber snails would not die no matter how the stun grenades were thrown.
However, Gaia had learned that the infected amber snails had turned into minced meat after hitting the tree.
When he looked back at the amber snails that had finished spraying the acid, he discovered that their bodies had already ruptured.
From this, Gaia deduced that after the amber snails were infected by the bacteria, the toughness of their bodies would be greatly reduced. After reaching a certain pressure, they would explode.
The stun grenade that Gaia threw out was different from ordinary stun grenades. They were special EAQ-38 stun grenades.
The biggest characteristic of these stun grenades was that they relied on powerful shock waves to deter the enemy, not on loud sounds.
Given that danger lurked everywhere on Planet Mushu, using loud weapons would easily attract the attention of even more dangerous creatures in the distance. Who would have thought that this type of stun grenade would come in handy here?
The shockwave produced by this type of stun grenade when it detonated was equivalent to the impact force of a car crashing into an object. With such a huge pressure acting on the fragile amber snails, they would naturally be annihilated easily.
"Take some samples. Let's retreat quickly. It's not safe here," Gaia instructed.
"Understood," Douglas replied.
He took off the protective suit that had been torn up and changed into another one. Then, he used the remote-controlled mechanical arm he brought to collect the amber snails that looked relatively intact and put them into the huge sampling jar.
The sampling jar was sealed with high pressure to prevent the bacteria in the sample from leaking out. It was common practice in the exploration team.
Of course, the tradeoff of doing so was that the sampling tank would become very heavy, weighing dozens of kilograms.
No one knew how Douglas could run thousands of meters with this thing on his back without even panting.
After the sampling was completed, the exploration team quickly left the scene and walked to a mountain stream a few kilometers away before stopping.
They had found this place when they were exploring just now, but they did not expect it to come into use so quickly.
According to the analysis of the Higher Scientific Research Center, the bacteria that infected the wolf monster should be anaerobic. They would die quickly if they were exposed to the air.
Therefore, most of the bacteria manifested as parasites in their hosts, relying on these hosts to spread the virus.
Therefore, the solution given to them by the Higher Scientific Research Cente was to take a bath. Soaking in cold water for half an hour would completely kill these bacteria.
The members of the exploration team followed Gaia's lead. One by one, they took off their clothes and soaked in the water.
They ran for one full hour, the friction of their body parts had given them rashes all over the place. Soaking in cold water now, they let out a sigh of relief.
"Achoo! The work of the exploration team is really not something ordinary people can do." Gaia climbed onto the bank of the stream and changed into a new set of clothes.
The clothes that were covered with the powder could not be used anymore. Before burning them, Douglas carefully extracted some bacterial strains from them.
"I wonder if this is the bacteria that infected the spores?" Douglas muttered.
After dealing with the bottles containing the amber snails from afar, he returned to the team.
They did not start a fire to warm themselves up. They were afraid that they would attract more monsters.
They just leaned against the giant tree and sat down, watching Douglas take care of the amber snails.
He only grabbed a sample the size of a fingernail. He crushed the rest and mixed it with water and some sort of blue liquid.
This was a kind of catalyst, which could allow multiple solutions to be fully combined together.
After an organism died, after a period of time, its body fluids would dry up and lose all of its properties, so it would be impossible to chemically analyze it.
After being treated with this catalyst, the body fluids in the amber snail will all bind to the catalyst in the bottle.
After being extracted by this special technique, the freshest body fluid sample of the amber snails could be obtained.