Great, I'm surrounded by villains.

Chapter 260 The Night Before
In the Gear Hotel, patients and injured people can be seen everywhere.

People were speechless, as if the end of the world was approaching.

The planet is becoming "cocooned". This is the news that the summit directors learned from the injured Mechanical Star nobles. According to the prophecy, Mechanical Star will be destroyed by the plague of the curse of flesh and blood, and all living things on the planet will be transformed into machines, and no human will survive.

The owl also learned that the queen had passed away and no one could stop the spread of the plague.

The worse news is that the road leading outside the Mechanical Throne was blocked due to the "cocooning" process, which was also the reason for the large-scale crash of flying equipment. Only a few nobles rushed out of the royal court before the road was blocked.

Despair spread quietly, and the owl picked up the camera and recorded everything he saw.

This is undoubtedly quite valuable news material.

The premise is that they can leave this planet alive.

But before that, every "cocooning" process was accompanied by countless deaths and injuries, and no one had ever been able to stop the "cocooning" process.

The Church of Embers is not good enough, the Universal Company is not good enough, and the Flash Flag Chamber of Commerce is not good enough either.

All struggles ended in failure, and being able to leave the planet on a spaceship is the best outcome.

However, the situation of the Mechanical Royal Court is special. They are located in a "mirage". The energy of the "mirage" has protected them from the invasion of space pirates and adventurers, but now it has become an obstacle for them to escape to the outside world.

Everything that came into view looked like the planet's revenge on humanity.

The craftsmanship of the Mechanical Star People is famous throughout the universe, but they will eventually be destroyed by their creations.

The voice in my mind appeared more and more frequently. The voice called on the owl to embrace the machine. As long as I looked at the problem from a different angle, there would be no need to despair.

Shedding their flesh and blood and being reborn in a mechanical way, they will become an important part of this new planet.

Compared to the "cocooning" methods of other planets, the Curse of Flesh and Blood is much milder.

There was no explosion caused by fusion, no radiation that would kill life on the entire planet, but rather a disease that spread quietly.

When night fell, his entire right arm turned into a mechanical one. He found that the mechanized arm was not so difficult to control. It was no longer stiff and was even more flexible than his original flesh and blood body.

Compared to being destroyed and dying, Owl felt that this thought was the most terrifying.

He observed that many people in the quarantine area had begun to adapt to their transformed bodies. The plague had a much more serious impact on the Mechanical Aliens than on others. These people had expressionless faces, and Owl had no way of knowing whether this was due to despair or if they had already begun to transform.

He got a number.

39 years and 4 months.

It is now 39 years, 3 months and 26 days, and there are still four days before the entire planet completes its "cocooning" process.

The Gear Hotel is not safe, and the security team can only set aside a separate floor to isolate all patients infected with the flesh and blood curse, because when these people complete the transformation, they will become aggressive, regard others as "abnormal", and spare no effort to inject the curse into other people's bodies.

However, due to the special identities of these patients, Coyote Twelve cannot completely eliminate the source of infection with a one-size-fits-all approach like he does for ordinary people.

What's more, even if the source of infection is temporarily eliminated, it will be of no avail.

Mechanized mosquitoes are everywhere, and ordinary insect repellent methods can no longer effectively kill them. Moreover, there seems to be an intelligent leader among them, commanding a large number of their kind to use ventilation ducts and sewers to lurk into the Gear Hotel.

Directors and their entourage were attacked every moment, and even security personnel were not spared.

In order to prevent the infection from spreading further, Coyote Twelve had to gather all the uninfected people together and concentrate manpower to ensure that several floors were not disturbed by mechanized mosquitoes. However, it is foreseeable that as more and more security personnel are infected, the fragile line of defense will be breached sooner or later.

Owl looked around the lifeless quarantine area and knew that it wouldn't be long before the security personnel would have to deal with more problems than just mutated mosquitoes.

When the patients in the isolation area were completely transformed and headed downstairs in a mighty procession, the survivors would have to make a decision sooner or later.

Coyote Twelve immediately reported the situation on Jiqiao Star to the Flash Flag Chamber of Commerce. He believed that sending rescue boats to evacuate the survivors would be the wisest decision given the current situation on Jiqiao Star. However, this report fell on deaf ears. The liaison officer who spoke to him simply said that they knew about it and that the Chamber of Commerce would make its own arrangements.

There was no detailed plan, let alone the number of rescue boats or when they would arrive.

This brought back some bad memories.

When he and the Rangers asked the company for help on the "cocoon" planet, the operator's attitude was basically the same.

In the end, they were unable to obtain any rescue craft, nor were any troops sent to the cocooned planet to support them.

The Rangers held out against the waves of monsters for fifteen days, but eventually the endless stream of monsters broke through the last line of defense.

This seems to be the case now.

The curse of flesh and blood will infect everyone on this planet sooner or later, and the trapped nobles of the Mechanical Star generally believe that they only have four days.

After four days, only a group of transformed mechanical creations will remain in the Gear Hotel.

"Is it possible to cure the flesh curse?"

Coyote Twelve lit a cigar, the smell of nicotine would help him concentrate better.

In the conference room were all the ingenious doctors he could gather. They fell with the crashed aircraft and eventually had to go to the Gear Hotel for help.

After asking, Coyote Twelve cursed in his heart.

The current situation was exactly like those zombie movies he had seen, and he was playing the role of a useless boss in the movie, asking useless questions.

The doctors' answer was as expected, "No, it can only be delayed, but the prerequisite is that the patient no longer actively uses mechanical energy and is not interfered with by external energy."

Those mutated mosquitoes are external sources of energy.

According to the mechanical doctor's theory, these completely transformed creatures will inject the mechanical energy in their bodies into the bodies of "abnormal people" for assimilation and evolution. This is why non-mechanical aliens can also be infected.

Moreover, the severity of this plague is unprecedented. Among the nobles of the Mechanical Star, some people have undergone transformation without being disturbed by external energy.

"So how did you deal with the infected people before?"

Coyote Twelve's question made the ingenious doctors look at each other in bewilderment. They hesitated and looked as if they wanted to say something but stopped themselves.

"say!"

"When Doctor Ling and Linglong were still around, they would isolate them and alleviate their symptoms by extracting their mechanical energy. After the mechanical energy was extracted, some patients' emotions stabilized and they were no longer aggressive." An older doctor said timidly.

"Dr. Linglong? Where is she now?"

"She...she was executed by the Queen."

"I****!"

Coyote Twelve cursed loudly. He had just heard a glimmer of hope, but before he could be happy, the hope was extinguished.

"In theory, the curse of flesh and blood is the result of the influence of mechanical energy. As long as the mechanical energy in the body can be completely extracted, the disease can be eliminated or even cured."

"Then why don't you do it?"

"Because that is too difficult for the people of the Mechanical Planet. Our bodies have been modified to varying degrees, and have been inseparable from the Mechanical Energy since the moment we were born."

Even when Linglong was still alive, her treatment theories were not widely used.

Almost all patients gave up treatment.

Rather than having all their mechanical energy drained away and becoming an ordinary person, they would rather be completely assimilated by the curse of flesh and blood.

The Mechanical Stars, especially the nobles, cannot tolerate living in a "mortal" way.

"What happened next? What did you do next?"

The doctors fell silent again.

After an unknown amount of time, the elderly doctor spoke again, but he did not dare to look Coyote Twelve in the eye. "The Queen has ordered the execution of all those who have been afflicted with the Curse of Flesh and Blood, even the nobles are no exception."

Doctors have always felt that this might be the reason why the Queen became mentally ill - after using the power of the "Golden Hourglass", her body also showed symptoms of the flesh and blood curse.

The Queen knew better than anyone that there was no way to cure the curse of flesh and blood, and Linglong, the only one who glimpsed hope, had been executed decades ago.

The reason why the Queen did not transform as completely as the other infected people was simply because her mechanical energy was stronger than anyone else's, which seemed to have delayed the transformation process to a certain extent.

But the Queen was ultimately unable to completely defeat the curse of flesh and blood. Someone found her body, which had completely turned into sand, in the hall, embedded in blood-red crystals like a statue.

Coyote Twelve stared at the revolver on the table and fell into long contemplation.

Eliminate the source of infection.

Reason told him that this was the only way to delay the curse of flesh and blood.

But that was only a delay, and even the Queen of the Mechanical Star, who implemented this policy, was unable to recover from the disease.

If the Mechanical Star will eventually "cocoon", it will be nothing more than a meaningless death struggle, and will not help in any way except to add a few more lives to itself.

Coyote XII would not hesitate to dispatch any opponent with a gun on the battlefield, but attacking a group of terminally ill patients is not something Cowboy Bebop would do, especially since it looks more like a compromise made out of fear.

This made him feel ashamed.

But in any zombie movie he has seen, even if there is only a slim chance of hope, the decision makers will not hesitate to sacrifice most people in exchange for a glimmer of hope.

Before Coyote Twelve could make up his mind, another piece of bad news came.

The intensive care unit has undergone a transformation and the situation has gotten out of control.

Those who have been completely transformed by the curse of flesh and blood will have greatly enhanced strength, agility, and vitality. Even if their bodies are cut in two, they can continue to attack.

The only way to make them quiet down is to blow their heads off like zombies.

"Block the passage and don't waste manpower."

Coyote Twelve ordered.

At the same time, Owl on the other side strode past the gate that was about to be blocked. He felt that he must be crazy, because behind the gate was the intensive care isolation area that was the first to begin transformation.

All he had left in his hands were the tablet and the camera.

The screams were endless, and he picked up his camera to capture this scene of hell on earth.

After being knocked down, the patients gradually stopped struggling and then joined in knocking down others.

There was only one thought left in Owl's mind.

Perhaps no one can escape from the Gear Planet in the end, but at least someone can record the scene on the eve of the "cocooning". When someone gets his camera in the future, they will know what happened in the Gear Hotel.

He stood there and recorded this crazy eve with his camera.

Until all the roaring and commotion stopped, and everyone in the quarantine area focused their attention on him.

The gate behind me had already closed.

The owl held the camera and faced all the transformers who came towards him.

The corners of his mouth curled up slightly. Compared to dying in despair and fear, this was a more suitable ending for a frontline reporter.

He was surrounded by transformers, and the faces in the camera turned into stiff and expressionless machines, all of them speaking the same sentence in a flat electronic synthesized voice.

"Those who are abnormal must be cured."

Owl placed his camera on a cart beside him, opened his arms, closed his eyes, and faced the crowd approaching him.

The darkness seemed particularly long, and he felt like he had spent more than ten minutes in darkness.

Then, a different voice tore through the darkness.

——"Boundary."

(End of this chapter)