Listening to the footsteps that were gradually moving away, Todd pressed his hand to his beating heart, gasped and asked others, "What is that giant?!"

"'Hive'. ”

To his surprise, the knight actually answered the question.

Leaning on the door, Leslie looked out through the small hole, adding, "One of the toughest xenos is the one that no one wants to touch. But...... It's kind of weird...... This guy doesn't seem to be the same as the 'hive' we've encountered before......"

"Wait a minute, wait a minute!" Todd made a stop gesture with his hand, "First of all, what is the 'Hive' xenomorph?"

Leslie glanced at Alfonso, who nodded, and the former began to introduce: "The Hive is a special alien species that has no combat power of its own, but it can control other creatures, and the controlled creatures are called 'puppets'. Golems can be insects, fish, beasts, or even humans. "Hives" that control humans are quite rare, and xenos that can control so many humans are even rarer. ”

Todd heard a key point: "Is there a limit to the number of creatures that the Hive Xenomorph can control?"

"That's nature, if there is no limit to the number of individuals you can control, wouldn't it be invincible in the world? We have met people who can control one or two human beings, and there are also four or five people, but there are very few 'hives' like this that can control more than fifty people. Leslie confirmed that there was no threat outside the door, and his body completely relaxed: "The 'hive' xenomorphs can secrete black bugs from their bodies and bury them in the 'puppets', so that they can be controlled at any time when needed, and can be severed from them at any time when they are not needed. ”

Todd remembered the "black liquid" he had just seen, and thought about it, those things might be "foodborne parasites", which should have entered the host's body through food and water.

"Boss, what do we do now?"

The knight stood up and raised his broadsword: "Keep going, the goal is still Watchcastle." ”

Todd watched the two push the door open and set off, and his mind was relieved that Alfonso and Leslie hadn't mentioned Karin's ability throughout, as if they hadn't seen it just now. Although he didn't know what they thought, if the other party didn't mention it, he naturally wouldn't talk about it.

After another ten minutes or so, the outline of the Watch Fortress in the darkness of the night was already in plain sight. Facing the gate to the south, in front of the iron fence driven by gears and rockers, more than fifty "puppets" gathered, but the "hive" was nowhere to be found.

Todd hid himself in the grass, looked at the monsters that were hovering near the castle gate not far away, wailing and twisting, and asked the knight, "Well, how shall we get in now?"

Alfonso carried his weapon behind him, looked around the edge of the castle, pointed to a depression in the outer wall of the night, and said to the others, "Follow me." ”

Bypassing the enemy at the door, the group of four came to a hidden wall. The knight picked up a small pebble, looked at the sloping window in the wall, and threw it with all his might. The stone struck the stone edge of the sloping window, bounced a few times, and made a crisp sound.

After a few seconds, a bearded head sticks out.

Tapping the city wall rhythmically with the hilt of the sword, one long and four short, Alfonso's movements suddenly reminded Todd of the joint code in the anti-Japanese war film.

After another minute or two, there was the sound of the crank turning in the night sky, and a wooden "elevator" slowly approached the ground. First came the underweight Leslie and Karin, then Todd and finally Alfonso. In this way, the team came to the outer wall through this primitive means of lifting.

When Alfonso came down from the elevator and stood on the city wall. The four soldiers let go of their wheel levers and bowed down to him in surprise as Todd watched.

A man with a full beard, wearing a cuirass engraved with a silver crown, walked quickly, pounded Alfonso's chest with his fist, and laughed happily: "Oh you can still remember the original code!"

When Todd saw this scene, he was even more puzzled. The emblem of the silver crown, he knew, was the emblem of the Silver Ring Kingdom. Judging by the costume, the bearded man should be a knight of the secular kingdom, but he is so familiar with Alfonso de Cavo, a knight of the church, that it is difficult to figure it out.

Seeing who it was, Alfonso rarely relaxed his body, knocked on the other party's armor with his knuckles, and his eyes behind the iron mask brought a hint of warmth: "Wilder, you look much older than before." ”

"Because I care more about life than you, I have a wife and four children, and I have to worry about my livelihood every day. How can you be like you, who gave up the fiefdom of the kingdom and donated all your property to the church, becoming a papal knight, a true warrior under the command of the Heavenly Father!" Wilder touched the back of his head, looking a little ashamed: "Although I am confident in my faith, I don't think I can do what you do. ”

Alfonso didn't seem to want to dwell on this topic, and asked straight to the point: "Do you know what is going on in the city?"

Wilder nodded: "I've listened to the reports of my subordinates in detail, and things have become a little troublesome." ”

Looking in the direction of the castle tower, Alfonso asked suspiciously, "You know that's not what I want to hear, why don't you send troops to maintain order?"

The bearded man scratched the beard on his chin with the palm of his hand, looking embarrassed: "There are some things that I may not be able to explain clearly for a while, so you should follow me to take a look." ”

Led by friends and soldiers, the group of four arrived at the training ground in the center of the castle.

Alfonso didn't care about the twisted and croaking 'puppets' outside the fence gate, he was first attracted by the dozens of corpses on the ground, hidden by white cloths.

Wilder crouched down, re-covered the windswept white cloth with his hand, and sighed, "There are thirty-five corpses here. They went to the town of Watch in the afternoon for dinner or a party, and when they returned, they vomited and diarrhea, and then their hearts stopped beating and they couldn't breathe. ”

Looking up at the soldiers in the square, Alfonso's brows furrowed deeper and deeper: "Added up here, there are less than one hundred and fifty soldiers, what about the rest, what about the other knights? What about Commander Adams?"

Wilder pouted at the two corpses at the farthest distance, "The one on the left is the Knight of Adelino, and the one on the right is Sir Adams." As for the others, they went to town and never returned. I'm the only knight here......"

The Iron Mask Rider was silent.

He thought it could be bad, but he didn't expect it to be so bad.

Just as he opened his mouth to speak, the sound of heavy objects falling to the ground was heard in the distance, which attracted people's attention. The more than 50 "puppets" outside the fence gate fell to the ground in unison like puppets that had lost their strings.

Wilder turned his head to look, and when he noticed this strange appearance, he said in disbelief: "The enemy has retreated?"

Wrong!

Something must be wrong!

Words popped into Todd's head, things he had heard before, but for a moment he was vague and unreally.

In desperation, he tried to ask Leslie, "I remember, you seem to have said that the method of controlling the 'puppet' by the 'hive'......"

"Hmm? When the Hive doesn't need a Golem, it can cut ties with them at any time. ”

"No, no. Not this sentence, the previous sentence. ”

"I want to think about it...... The Hive can control them at will whenever they need it......"

Hearing this, Todd's brain was excited, and his hairs stood on end!

Slowly turning his head back, one corpse after another in the square straightened up from under the white cloth......