Chapter 638: Gaia

Chapter 638: Gaia

To the north of River Valley Province, Origin City of the Great Rift.

In that spacious conference room, an old man with graying temples and a dignified countenance sat alone at the long, empty table.

He was the Chief of the Great Rift, and the last remaining member of the Post-War Reconstruction Committee.

No one knew how old he was, not even himself. The distant memories of the old era had long been left behind in the faraway past.

Gazing unblinkingly toward the south, a trace of astonishment gradually crept onto the old man's face.

After a moment, he lowered his eyes and muttered to himself in disbelief.

"...It actually succeeded?"

……

The Chief of the Great Rift was not the only one shocked.

Yang Kai, a researcher dispatched by the Academy to the Alliance, also wore an expression of utter astonishment.

The spore cloud shrouding Clearspring City was slowly collapsing!

They had observed this mother nest for two centuries, and this was a miracle that had never occurred in those two hundred years!

Not only that.

Through analysis of the pheromones in the spore cloud, he could clearly hear the mother nest's agonized wails.

"...How did they do it?"

Was it some kind of specially crafted virus?

Or had they introduced some organism capable of countering the mutant slime mold...

But the genetic information contained in that creature's gene pool almost exceeded the sum of all biological genetic information on Earth; it had nearly become a being akin to the gods of ancient religious faith!

They hadn't even fully grasped that creature's gene pool—where could they find an organism to counter it?

Yang Kai muttered to himself, his face etched with incredulity and confusion, utterly baffled.

He couldn't understand.

How had this survivor faction, born less than two years ago, managed to eradicate a blight that even the Post-War Reconstruction Committee could not eliminate?

……

The spores accumulated in Clearspring City were seething like a pot of boiling water.

Not only the mother nest in the city center was roaring, but also the young Sia.

It felt its mother's pain.

A terrifying force had invaded its body and was slowly devouring it bit by bit!

Amidst her fury, Sia couldn't help but feel a hint of fear.

What was that thing?

Even its mother couldn't handle it!

The spores floating around it rippled with furious waves.

The gray-green smoke, like a raging torrent, spread along the streets centered on the edge of the North Second Ring Road, enveloping every sub-entity and evolved form.

A silent scream echoed in the consciousness of every sub-entity.

"Kill them!"

"Tear them all apart!"

Resonating with that furious emotion, both the gnawers and the crawlers let out hoarse, piercing howls, like echoes of that cry.

"Roooar——!!"

On the defensive line less than a kilometer from the Great Wall, watching the increasingly ferocious tide of attacks, the soldiers of the Penal Battalion involuntarily showed fear on their faces.

Less than an hour after the gunfire erupted, 5,000 men had suffered a 20% casualty rate.

Two centuriae had been completely wiped out!

They had seen with their own eyes brothers on the same line overwhelmed by a swarm of corpse-eaters.

In just a few breaths, that creature was torn into shreds by countless claws, not a single intact bone left.

Those sub-entities were like demons.

And now they had gone mad, charging at them recklessly!

After all, they had only received three months of military training, and unlike the players, they couldn't die and come back.

Some soldiers, unable to bear the fear, involuntarily stepped back.

As if sensing the wavering morale, the shouts of the disciplinary squad came from behind them.

"Hold the line! No retreat!"

At the same time, two machine guns from the rear unleashed fierce firepower, accompanied by the rattle of gunfire, streaks of tracer rounds like a rain of arrows falling ahead of the crowd.

Bit gritted his teeth, grabbed his rifle, and charged forward with a shout, leading the way. After shooting dead several gnawers that had pounced on the frontline machine gunners, he pulled aside the mangled corpse and crouched into the machine gun nest.

He knew it well.

If they took even one step back, not only would the rain of bullets before them retreat, but the artillery fire from behind would also fall on their heads.

Retreating meant certain death.

But if they held on, they might just survive!

"Aaaaah!"

Bit grabbed the machine gun, squeezed the trigger, and while spraying bullets at the gnawers charging at him wave after wave, he used his roars to dispel fear.

Just then, from the other side of the street came the sound of booming cannon fire.

That sound was all too familiar to him—it was the Alliance's 37mm cannon!

As if confirming his guess, a line of armored vehicles entered the battlefield from the flank, overturning large swaths of mutants with their broad fronts and steel anti-collision nets.

The 37mm autocannons mounted on top of those armored vehicles opened fire, their thick, serpentine tracer rounds weaving a net of death across the shattered street.

In the middle of the tide, strings of black blood mist burst open, and the charging sub-entities fell like cut wheat. Many gnawers had their bodies blown in half in a most miserable fashion.

The pressure on the once precarious defensive line was instantly halved, and the morale of the Penal Battalion climbed back from the abyss to the hillside.

Seeing those armored vehicles and the pitch-black skull insignia, many let out joyful cries, and some even whistled.

"It's the Skull Corps!"

"Reinforcements! Our reinforcements!"

"They didn't abandon us!"

Not just the Skull Corps!

And the Boulder City Militia!

Militiamen in exoskeletons, led by a squad of power armor, advanced in step with the armored vehicles, launching a counterattack against the surging tide.

The cannons firing from the great wall and the bullets from the penal battalions had already annihilated a sufficient number of fruiting bodies; some satiated Devourers attempted to carry nutrients back to the incubation chambers as resources for spawning troops.

The Alliance naturally would not let these creatures succeed; they intended to grant that Xiya no respite whatsoever.

Seizing the moment when the tide weakened, the Skeleton Corps, which had long been lying in wait nearby, immediately launched a counterattack in conjunction with the Militia Corps of Boulder City.

Watching the clamor of guns and artillery raging in the streets, Bit’s pupils dilated, then revealed a glimmer of incredulous ecstasy.

And the soldiers behind him felt the same.

A few months ago, they had harbored a deep hatred for the Alliance’s tanks and armored vehicles, for it was these very machines that had blockaded the slums beneath the great wall, trapping them all without a shred of martial honor.

Especially after being conscripted into the penal battalions, nearly everyone had despaired, convinced they were doomed—that the Alliance would use them as cannon fodder until they died.

Yet, to their surprise, the Alliance did not do so; instead, it honored its pact with them—after they had fulfilled their role as cannon fodder and held off the tide’s assault, the Alliance and the Militia Corps would take over the offensive.

Only through loss and recovery does one truly know the value of life.

At this moment, survivors of the ordeal felt such gratitude that they could have knelt on the ground.

Even the most vicious prisoners offered heartfelt praise.

“Praise the Alliance! Praise the great Administrator!”

After escorting the Militia Corps infantry to the vicinity of the incubation chambers and eliminating dozens of troublesome Evolved forms, the Skeleton Corps left behind only a hundred Awakened to assist, while the rest of the players followed the armored units along the main road, advancing toward the Death Corps stationed at the edge of the North Second Ring Road.

According to intelligence relayed from the front lines by the human-radio station, the Death Corps had encountered the remnants of the former 111th Orbital Airborne Division, corrupted by slime mold.

Among them were not only dozens of Rotten Knights but also a Titan six stories tall!

Half a head poking out from the top of an armored vehicle, Mole grabbed a loudspeaker and shouted.

“Full speed ahead!”

“Our Edge brothers have run into a Titan! Can’t let that bastard hog all the glory!”

The resounding roar echoed through the communication channel.

“Ooh-rah!”

With the counteroffensive underway, the situation in the war zone near Boulder City had turned.

The incubation chambers scattered along the tide’s path were essentially the slime mold’s “barracks”; once the spawning structures were dismantled, the corpses littering the ground could only serve as raw material for refining nutrient paste.

The western front had largely concluded, while the northern front’s battle still raged on.

Especially in Sector 06 of the defense line.

All ten positions—front, middle, and rear—had been completely submerged in the tide’s fierce assault.

The Blazing Corps, airdropped into the city center, seemed to have stirred up a hornet’s nest; that Xiya, as if mad, recklessly charged the Alliance’s positions.

But the Alliance was no less formidable; the Goblin Corps’ aircraft whirred and circled among the shattered high-rises, raining death upon the ground from time to time.

The artillery in the rear fired without cease, hurling shells onto positions already filled with fruiting bodies.

Though those positions were nearly drowned in the endless tide, no matter how Xiya urged her fruiting bodies to attack, she could never fully occupy those battlegrounds.

The sound of resistance never ceased; even with casualties exceeding half, the players did not retreat a single step, instead pressing forward relentlessly.

Inspired by the shelter residents who led by example, the Alliance’s NPCs also erupted with astonishing fighting spirit, surging wave after wave toward the positions.

The battle entered a stalemate.

Every street seemed to become a meat grinder; both sides employed every conceivable means to contest every inch of ground before the final defense line.

And then, something no one expected happened.

The slime mold fruiting bodies, which had been surging like a tide toward the positions, suddenly retreated!

Whether they were Devourers serving as cannon fodder or Rotten Knights wielding massive weapons,

They all turned around as if by common accord, like receding seawater, and hurried back along the path they had come.

Standing on Position 4 in the middle sector of the defense line, panting heavily, Kakarot changed the magazine of his rifle and cast a quick glance at the street outside the building’s window.

When he saw the Devourers turning back, a look of surprise immediately spread across his face.

“What’s going on?”

The tide was retreating?!

Last year when the tide came, they had fought for days, pushing all the way to the endlessly spawning mother entity, killing it before the tide finally ended.

He had been enjoying the slaughter.

Why were these fruiting bodies starting to run back?

Standing nearby, Legless Kevin wore the same expression, as if the sun had risen from the west.

“Did that Xiya get cold feet?”

Watching the slime mold fruiting bodies continuously withdrawing from the buildings, Kakarot shook his head with a subtle expression.

Just then, the voice of Brother Springwater came through the communication channel.

“…Brother Mosquito over there saw the slime mold fruiting bodies falling back to defend the North Second Ring Road. I reckon it’s the Blazing Corps brothers… Unbelievable—they actually succeeded?”

As he spoke, the commander Springwater’s voice carried a hint of emotion.

To be honest, though he agreed with Brother Fang’s “bodyguard plan,” he had harbored doubts about that guy’s scheme to raid the city center.

Perhaps his understanding of the game wasn’t deep enough.

In his view, for a game still in closed beta, the damn developers had no reason to let them take down the big boss in the city center.

Wouldn’t it be fitting to add an invincibility cheat?

But unexpectedly, the damn developers were so generous, truly making everything possible as they had promised in their pitch.

If they could also kill that Xiya, from now on, the tide might become history.

At least in Clearspring City.

“What do we do now?” Kakarot tapped his helmet and asked over the communication channel.

After only a moment’s thought, Springwater replied without hesitation.

“Chase them!”

Legless Kevin beside him was taken aback.

“Chase them? Now?”

“Exactly!” Springwater said without a second thought. “This is the perfect opportunity. The Death Corps has already reached the edge of the North Second Ring, and the Skeleton Corps is also advancing toward it. If we can just slow down the retreat of those little ones, we can wipe out the whole lot—old and young alike!”

“Heh, I like that idea!”

Kakarot grinned, chambered a round in his rifle, switched to squad-wide voice, and bellowed at the top of his lungs.

“Brothers! The tide is retreating—time for the counterattack!”

“Time to switch to our BGM!”

As if in response to his call to charge, the broadcast that had been blaring noise suddenly sounded the familiar melody—the bugle call of the charge!

When that resounding tune pierced the smoke-filled battlefield, the players, whose stamina was nearly spent, suddenly felt as if their bloodlines had awakened, erupting with astonishing morale!

That earth-shaking roar even dispersed the gray fog piled up in the streets.

Every player charged forward like they’d been injected with adrenaline, rushing at the retreating slime mold.

“Kill!!!”

“Howl!!!”

The soldiers of the First Corps standing on the battlefield were dumbfounded, staring wide-eyed at the shelter residents who had gone berserk, chasing after the slime mold fruiting bodies.

Li Shudong swallowed hard, his eyes filled with shock and awe, which gradually gave way to boundless respect.

They were true warriors!

Fearless of death, and ignorant of fatigue!

Inspired by that overwhelming battle spirit, he felt the blood in his chest boil over, and he couldn’t help but shout a cry whose meaning he himself didn’t understand.

“Kill!!!”

…

As the Storm Corps and the various units of the First Corps began their pursuit, the counteroffensive battle in the northern suburbs of Qingquan City fully erupted.

Just as Xiya was struggling to cope with the pressure from two directions at once, straining every nerve to dispatch her fruiting bodies for defense, Luo Yu and Xiao Yu’s devouring of the mother nest was also drawing to a close.

That ever-weakening consciousness no longer pleaded, but instead sank into a pitch-black abyss amid venomous curses.

Luo Yu felt his consciousness merging into Her body, flowing through Her veins and spreading throughout Her entire being.

Gradually, he could sense not only Her body, but also the part beyond it.

The billions of spores floating in the air were like his antennae.

Through those drifting neurons, he could vaguely perceive every fruiting body.

They were all Her children.

Including Xiya.

And including the fungal mat crawling over the walls.

He saw clearly that Xiya—Her most beloved child in life—was looking up at him with fearful eyes.

As if he were a terrifying monster.

At that moment, a word he had only ever seen in novels suddenly surfaced in his mind.

“Could this be… soul possession?”

It seemed the most fitting description.

And realizing this, Luo Yu quickly fell into ecstasy.

Ignoring Xiya, who feared him, he tried to focus all his spirit, merging his consciousness into that vast ocean of awareness.

Just then, a flash of bright white light suddenly intruded into his consciousness.

With a thunderous roar, he felt his body being sucked away, forcibly drawn into a boundless expanse of darkness.

Suddenly losing perception of his body, Luo Yu’s heart panicked, thinking he had overplayed his hand and suffered backlash from the mother nest.

Fortunately, at that moment, a soft murmur drifted into his ears, instantly calming his restless mind.

“Ee-oo!” (Don’t be afraid, I’m here too!)

Luo Yu took a deep breath and looked at the bright white light floating beside his consciousness.

“Xiao Yu?”

“Ee-oo!” (Yes!)

“Where am I?”

“Ee-oo.” (This is Her memory.)

“Her memory…”

Repeating these words, Luo Yu suddenly realized that they had devoured not only Her body, but also Her memories.

Thinking this, Luo Yu felt a flicker of curiosity, wanting to see what lay hidden in the depths of the mother nest’s memory.

Just then, tiny specks of light began to emerge from the darkness around him, and soon that boundless darkness transformed into a vast, starry sky.

Floating amid the colorful starlight, Luo Yu’s eyes widened—though as an abstract consciousness here, he had no real eyes.

Gradually, a bright star emerged from that starry sky.

And beside that star hung a beautiful planet.

It was like a meticulously crafted work of art.

The land was a twilight red, the seas a vibrant green.

Endless rainforests covered the world, where lush species thrived and rested.

But even more incredible than this was yet to come.

Those endless rainforests were not made of trees, but of giant “mushrooms.”

The “animals” active on the planet were also fundamentally different from those on Earth.

They were born from the soil beneath their feet, returned to dust after death, and then began a new cycle.

All things fed on Her fur, needing no struggle or slaughter, able to play and frolic all day long.

Here, there was no concept of a food chain, only a nearly perfect circle.

In a sense, whether they ran on the ground, flew in the sky, or grew from the earth—

Everything on this planet was Her fruiting body, and over the long river of time, they had finally achieved eternal harmony.

All things were nurtured by Her, and all things also nurtured Her.

Gazing at that beautiful planet, Luo Yu couldn’t help but be captivated—mainly because he had never seen anything like it.

So this was the “Hive”?

It seemed…

Not as terrifying as he had imagined?

“Who is She?”

A distant voice came from the depths of his consciousness.

“She has no name.”

“After you arrived, you called Her Gaia.”