Chapter 632: Assimilation Warriors?

Chapter 632: Assimilation Warriors?

A pitch-black underground tunnel.

After being knocked unconscious, the three newbies were dragged here by a group of slime mold fruiting bodies, then transferred to a confined room.

It seemed to be part of the underground transportation network of Qingshui City, but it had been completely transformed by the fungal plaque, making it impossible to tell where they were.

The first player to wake up shook his head, pressed his hands against the ground, felt something sticky, and opened his eyes to a fright.

All around was a crimson, pulsing fungal carpet like living flesh, emitting an unsettling stench.

Big Pig Hoof stared blankly around, finally managing to squeeze out a sentence after a long while.

“Holy shit? What the hell is this place?”

How could he have been offline for just a moment, only to return online and find his location changed?

At that moment, the other abducted couple also woke up, trembling in fear at their surroundings.

Hungry Force: “I giao... have we been swallowed by the slime mold?”

Bow to Hungry Force: “Wake up, you’re such a big lump, how could it swallow you without chewing you up first?”

Hungry Force: “...?”

Bow to Hungry Force: “I was wrong.”

Just then, a strange figure appeared in the dark entrance ahead.

It was as tall as two men, its burly frame nearly filling the entire passage. Its face had only abstract features, an upper body that was robust and muscular, and a lower body with a spread skirt, the edges rolling with cilia like octopus tentacles.

It bore some resemblance to Xiaoyu when she was still a mother entity, but it was noticeably larger and had fewer human elements.

The three were startled by its abstract appearance, backing away with expressions of terror.

Unfortunately, they were in a dead end, with a wall behind them and no room to maneuver.

As the creature slowly wriggled its tentacles and moved in front of them, sweat beaded on Hungry Force’s forehead. She swallowed her saliva, stiffened her neck, and spoke defiantly.

“Grr... kill me, I won’t say anything!”

She had wanted to try that line for a long time, and besides, as newbies, they really didn’t know anything anyway.

Whether it understood her words or just heard the sound, the alien turned its abstract face toward her, and the skirt pressed against the ground suddenly opened a slit.

Just as everyone wondered what it was about to do, countless tentacles burst out from the slit, instantly dragging her into its gaping maw.

Before she could even let out a cry of “Ugh,” the stubborn Hungry Force vanished into the closing “mouth.”

The spread skirt pulsed up and down, as if chewing slowly.

Seeing his girlfriend devoured alive by the monster, Bow to Hungry Force, after a brief daze, let out a heart-wrenching wail.

“Wife!! I’ll fight you to the death!”

With that, he struggled to his feet and charged at the two-man-tall monster with his fists.

But his fate was no different from the previous player.

Before he could take two steps, a tentacle slipped out from under the skirt and tripped him. Like a mosquito before a frog, he was licked without a doubt into the gaping maw that had opened a slit.

The pair of lovers both perished.

Having feasted, Xiya swayed her tentacles beneath her, slapping the ground happily, as if chewing on a steak in her mouth.

But her abstract face still held a hint of confusion, as if pondering something.

Watching the pulsing crimson skirt, Big Pig Hoof’s face turned pale with tension. In a flash of desperation, his eyes darted.

“Boss! Don’t eat me, I don’t taste good... I-I surrender! Do you need a translator? I’ll be your turncoat!”

He’d heard this game had high freedom.

What if it worked?

Xiya turned her abstract face toward him, thought for a moment, then suddenly opened the skirt pressed against the ground again without warning.

Seeing the clothes falling out and the tentacles rolling like a meat grinder, Big Pig Hoof foresaw his fate, and his expression changed instantly.

Fuck, it’s death either way!

“I fuck—”

Before he could finish cursing the dog of a game designer, the gaping maw swallowed him. Without even a chance to resist, his remaining consciousness dissolved into that crimson sea of blood.

Feeling the life force melt into her body, Xiya chewed quietly for a while, her confusion gradually turning into an incomprehensible frustration.

“Strange...”

As if sensing her child’s bewilderance, the mother’s voice silently appeared in her hazy sea of consciousness.

“What’s wrong, my child?”

Facing the empty crimson wall and the indigestible impurities left at her feet, Xiya let out a silent murmur.

“They are empty.”

Those beings were empty shells.

And emptier than simple organisms like cockroaches or mice—like a blank sheet of paper with no information.

Since her birth, she had never seen such strange creatures.

Such things could not be assimilated, or even if they were, it would be meaningless. They were just walking corpses.

She couldn’t understand what kind of existence they were.

Were they, like her mother’s “fruiting bodies,” puppets controlled by some consciousness outside their bodies?

But they showed strong autonomy.

Confusion crept across Xiya’s face.

Could it be...

Did these humans also have a hive?

...

“They are assimilated aliens.”

404 Shelter, B4 floor reading room.

Hera, sitting on the sofa, briefed Chu Guang and Yin Fang on the preliminary test results from the Alliance’s Institute of Biology regarding the two fruiting body samples.

Hearing this unexpected and intriguing statement, Yin Fang put down his coffee cup and raised an eyebrow with interest.

“Assimilation?”

Hera nodded solemnly and continued.

“That’s right... The slime mold collected their DNA data, and while absorbing their organic matter, it retained a portion of the neural tissue originally belonging to those organisms.”

She paused, then went on.

“Do you remember Bachi? The guy infected by the slime mold? His situation is similar to those special fruiting bodies, except the slime mold in Qingshui City is clearly more aggressive than in Yongdong City. Here, the assimilation is more thorough, turning most of the captured organism into part of its own body, retaining only a small part of the host’s brain tissue.”

In a sense, for the mutant slime mold in Qingshui City, this was actually an advancement.

It was like stepping from the Stone Age into the Bronze Age.

Beyond turning the bones of their prey into weapons, they had also learned domestication—training their quarry into obedient "combat servitors."

Yin Fang pinched his chin, lost in thought.

Chu Guang, who had remained silent until now, let out a soft cough.

"Can you say that in a way I'd understand?"

Heya explained patiently.

"In simple terms, they've made improvements based on unified consciousness. Before, whether it was Gnawers or Crawlers, they hunted under the guidance of the Hive Mind. Now, some special fruiting bodies retain the combat experience they had before assimilation, using the stronger bodies granted by the slime mold to hunt in their original ways."

Yin Fang interjected.

"It's like installing a sentience module—combat robots not controlled by a cloud server."

Heya snapped her fingers.

"Exactly!"

Chu Guang stroked his chin, pondering.

"What's the point of that?"

Yin Fang analyzed based on his own understanding.

"The point is that the Hive Mind can allocate more of the hive's 'computational resources' to strategic command, while certain higher fruiting bodies and evolved forms can make tactical decisions on their own based on experience. Even if their tactics aren't always brilliant, they're more flexible and varied than before... Am I understanding this right?"

Heya nodded with a smile.

"Correct! That's exactly it."

Taking a sip from his coffee cup, Yin Fang sighed.

"To evolve this much in just a year... This thing's evolution rate is absurd."

Heya shook her head.

"It's not just a year; evolution is a long process. They've been learning from us all along—our tools, our society... I'm more inclined to think that the emergence of the Alliance accelerated their evolution to some extent, but the real factor driving their leap from quantity to quality is their long-term observation of us."

Spore clouds blanketed every corner of Clear Spring City. In theory, the Mother in the city center could indeed see them.

Just as the Alliance's Institute of Biology kept searching for ways to deal with the Hive Mind, that creature must have been tirelessly seeking methods to dismantle human society.

Perhaps eradicating them early in the Wasteland Era would have been the better course—back then, the slime mold surely wouldn't have been as troublesome as it is now.

But that's all hindsight.

People back then had their own troubles. Surviving in temperatures tens of degrees below zero was no easy feat, let alone fighting an unprepared war against an unknown enemy.

"Actually... compared to what you've been saying, I'm more worried about something else."

Seeing the two look at him, Chu Guang paused, then slowly continued.

"They're gradually learning to hide themselves during evolution, testing us while consciously preventing us from obtaining their remains."

"It seems they're getting to know us better and better."

...

The official website of *Wasteland OL*.

Unlike the somber atmosphere in the viewing room, the forums were buzzing with excitement.

Ever since the new expansion dropped, players had been eagerly anticipating what the devs would cook up next—and this time, they didn't disappoint.

Previously, a wave was just a swarm of fruiting bodies charging mindlessly. Now, not only could these fruiting bodies maneuver, but they also pulled off jaw-dropping coordinated tactics, even snatching three newbies right under the nose of the "Spring Water" veteran.

No one saw that coming.

QuitSmoking: "Awesome!"

BattleAtmosphereGroup: "Even the dog spring water got owned, that's unreal! (Sarcastic)"

SpringWaterCommander: "Piss off, when did I get owned? I recovered a corpse—that's already a huge win, alright!"

Irena: "Speaking of which, what about the other bodies? Wasn't there a monster too? (Curious)"

SpringWaterCommander: "By the time the fog cleared, it was gone. Either it got dragged back for recycling or eaten on the spot."

FangChang: "Eaten, huh..."

NightTen: "Hiss... This new Mother seems like something else."

MakaBazi: "By the way, what about the bros who got snatched by those fruiting bodies? Haven't they come back down yet?"

BigPigHoof: "That's me... And I think I might have seen the Mother!"

Hearing this, the players lurking in the thread perked up instantly.

QuitSmoking: "Holy crap! For real?"

ElfKingRich: "Tell us what it looked like, bro. (Sarcastic)"

BigPigHoof: "I don't know how to describe it... Kinda like Xiao Yu's old form—bigger and uglier."

Though he'd never seen Xiao Yu in-game, other players had posted photos of her on the forums.

Comparing those photos, Xiao Yu and this creature shared some similarities, but her features and body contours were smoother, and her color was pinker.

To put it in an imperfect but vivid analogy: the Mother called Xiya was more like a shark with a gaping maw, the kind that scares kids. Xiao Yu, on the other hand, was more like a dolphin—still fierce, but closer to human aesthetics.

SpringWaterCommander: "Do you remember where you saw it?"

BigPigHoof: "Not sure... But I feel like it was somewhere underground, like a subway station."

EdgePaddling: "Subway station... That's way too vague."

SpringWaterCommander: "Regardless, we can confirm the Hive Mind and incubation chamber are underground this time... Damn, no wonder we're seeing stuff we've never encountered before."

FangChang: "@BigPigHoof, did that Mother eat all of you in the end?"

BowToHungerPower: "Yeah, it swallowed my wife in one gulp—right in front of me, sob sob."

HungerPower: "Tch, you idiot, don't say it like that! (Angry)"

BowToHungerPower: "I'm sorry."

BigPigHoof: "..."

SpringWaterCommander: "And then? Any other discoveries? Anything at all."

HungerPower: "Hmm... I feel like it reacted to our voices."

SpringWaterCommander: "Voices?"

HungerPower: "At first, it seemed like it was going to start eating my partner. But the moment I spoke, it swallowed me first... I get the feeling it didn't understand what I said at all—I mean, I don't speak Human Federation language."

BowToHungerPower: "Hiss... Now that you mention it, I remember too. I was the second to make a sound, and right after you, I got eaten."

HungerPower: "So this alien hunts by sound?"

SpringWaterCommander: "Doesn't seem like it. I think there's another possibility—it mistook you for the human giving orders... like the alpha wolf in a pack."

HungerPower: "Huh? I have that kind of skill?"

BowToHungerPower: "Holy crap? My partner has that kind of skill?"

Spring Commander: "Then I wouldn't know, but from its perspective, it might well be that way. After all, most mammals rely on vocal cords to transmit information—perhaps in the hive's cognition, sound is interpreted as a kind of biological pheromone."

Big Pig Trotters: "Speaking of which, I also noticed something unusual, though I'm not sure if it counts as a clue... That thing that looked like the mother seemed pretty surprised after eating those two."

Spring Commander: "Surprised?"

Big Pig Trotters: "Yeah, like it had eaten something wrong... I watched it savor for a good while before spitting out their clothes and shoes."

Fang Chang: "Interesting."

Quit Smoking: "Uh, what does that mean?"

Fang Chang: "...What if there's a possibility that, in the slime mold's cognition, other organisms are autonomous 'mushrooms,' and the clones we use just happen to lack self-awareness? So it's puzzled about where our self-awareness comes from."

Spring Commander: "Looks like we're thinking the same thing."

Fang Chang: "But if my deduction is correct, this mother is different from all the ones we've encountered before. It doesn't simply eat its prey—it picks some of them and assimilates them into 'its own kind.'"

Just as the group was discussing, an announcement suddenly popped up on the official website.

["Tide Returns" Expansion Update: New "Assimilated" Concept Added]

[According to the Alliance Research Institute's findings, "Sia" will consciously capture organic beings that invade its territory, assimilating them into part of the hive, retaining their aggression and partial self-awareness, while forcibly implanting bio-prosthetics to modify them.]

[Currently known "Assimilated" types:

1. Fungus-Eating Demon: Possesses strength similar to a demon, with recovery and defense enhanced by bio-prosthetics built from slime mold. Individual combat effectiveness surpasses that of a demon.

2. Fungus-Eating Deathclaw: Retains the speed and agility of a deathclaw, with enhanced recovery and damage resistance. No samples have been collected yet for qualitative biological analysis; based solely on combat footage, it is speculated to have combat power comparable to an evolved form.

3. Fungus-Eating Martyr: Suspected to be a secondary assimilated slime mold fruiting body. No biological prototype found in the ecological environment around Clear Spring City. Ability speculated to be self-detonation, releasing corrosive toxic mist. Other fruiting bodies will throw it as a projectile.

...

]

Quit Smoking: "Holy shit!"

Debt Big Eyes: "666! We were just talking about assimilation, and the assimilation setting gets updated!"

Night Ten: "Guang plagiarized the forum, confirmed! (Sarcastic)"

Fang Chang: "But this server announcement at least proves our thinking is correct. We can extract two pieces of information. First, Sia has the trait of 'assimilating fighters,' converting some prey to use their combat experience, making it better at micro-management than the mothers in previous waves. Second, it's fixated on what makes us different, consciously studying us, learning from us... but limited by its knowledge, its understanding of us might be somewhat skewed."

Spring Commander: "These two clues are critical! Since our opponent is no longer the bunch of idiots from the last wave, the form of the wave might have fundamentally changed. Using the old mindset to devise tactics is very dangerous."

Edge Slacking: "You mean they might not play by the rules? Bypass the defenses we set up in the northern suburbs?"

Spring Commander: "That's highly likely. The experience of predicting slime mold attack direction through spore cloud concentration might be useless in this battle!"

Spring Commander: "I even think the wave has already started, but they're using our habitual perception of them to stay put, deliberately following the timeline we expect. In two weeks, they'll just send a bunch of cannon fodder charging straight at our positions like last time, then dispatch a small elite force to circle around to our weakest flank and swallow our entire defense line in one bite!"

Falling Feather: "Holy crap?! Slime molds have that kind of cunning?"

Construction Boy and Brick: "Uh, aren't you overthinking it..."

Spring Commander: "I've heard that slime molds can plan the shortest path to food based on its location. The mutant slime molds we face are clearly much smarter than real-world slime molds. I have reason to believe these guys could pull off something like that."

Fang Chang: "Agreed. Anything can happen on the battlefield. I share your view—underestimating the enemy will cost us dearly."

Midnight Chicken Killer: "Too troublesome. Do you two have any plans?"

Fang Chang: "After hearing about those two newbies' encounter, I have an idea."

Edge Slacking: "What idea?"

Fang Chang: "As everyone knows, someone who's a little clever but not clever enough is easier to fool than a complete idiot. This mother is smarter and harder to deal with than before, but we can turn that against it."

Edge Slacking: "How do we use that?"

Fang Chang: "Simple. The approach is like WWII intelligence warfare. Since they understand us as 'organisms that use sound waves as pheromones to transmit information,' we just need to fake a 'commanding hive' and act out our 'weaknesses' for it to see!"