Life's Narrow Path Meets! Mutual Radiation.

Chapter 29: 1.29 Life's Narrow Path Encounter! Mutual Radiation.

In this re-barbarized Yue Region, Wei Keng traveled day and night, retreating towards the northwest. The previous gun and cannon exchange conflict with Jian City had turned the page.

About twenty hours after Wei Keng released Fang Hong and Zeng He, the people eagerly awaiting in Jian City received official news from the city's gazette about the returning expedition:

General White-Beard Zeng Kaomu led the Ironclad Chariot Unit, advanced deep into enemy territory after leaving the pass, and reached the enemy camp. Without a word, they engaged in battle, firing guns and cannons for hours without cease. Finally, their loyalty and bravery moved heaven. This battle utterly crushed the Southern Same-faced People, forcing them to return our people, compensate our wealth, and pay our goods.

Alas, heaven envies talent! Old General Kaomu, during the pursuit, unfortunately fell from his chariot and was severely wounded. One hundred meters from returning to the city, no, five kilometers away, he could no longer bear his injuries. In his final moments, he had a brief resurgence and said: "I have lived a lifetime in the military. To die wrapped in a horse's hide now, how satisfying, how satisfying."

This post-battle team was also reorganized and brought back by Zeng He and Fang Hong. However, this "victorious returning" combat brigade was controlled and quarantined upon their return to the city, cutting off all communication with the outside world.

Nevertheless, there were too many returning wounded soldiers, and those few armored vehicles were severely damaged, their steel plates showing obvious signs of distortion and cracking. Thus, rumors about the ferocity of this battle still circulated in the city.

City Lord Zeng Longmu summoned Zeng He and Fang Hong again in his tower room, inquiring in detail about everything they had witnessed. What decision he would make could not be discerned from his expression at this moment.

Meanwhile, on Wei Keng's side, after forty-eight hours of forced march, Wei Keng had reached the front lines and engaged in combat with the invading External Species of the Gene Colony.

In the jungle, Wei Keng's group sniffed the air. Although they could not visually confirm yet, their minds could always perceive, with a strange sense, the threatening presences in a certain direction ahead.

Guided by this feeling, Wei Keng organized them into groups of twenty, with each group spaced fifty meters apart. Over twelve such squads, they spread out in a wide front, conducting a carpet-like exploration ahead.

At this moment, the entire Wei Keng collective was extremely serious. In this state, they passively entered a state of mental communication, and this state, like tinnitus in the deep night, became clearer and clearer.

Each Wei Keng group, during their exploration, filled out the observed information in a system table according to a standard format. Feces, footprints, and the scents detected by the reconnaissance squad at various downwind locations were used to make a comprehensive judgment about the information ahead.

Now, the Observer Bai Linglu, located at the system terminal, could no longer distinguish which individual the information on the record sheet came from when receiving the information sent by Wei Keng.

In other words, within a squad, perhaps Wei Keng number one saw a bent branch ahead, Wei Keng number two smelled the scent of humus from kicked-up soil, Wei Keng numbers three, four, and five heard sounds from three different angles, and then the entire squad's Wei Keng brains, including those providing perception, made a judgment about the situation, determining that the target was only a few minutes away.

Among the aggregated reports, Wei Keng himself might not even know which Wei Keng's achievement it was. This was like when a normal person plays a game and reaches an excited state, but cannot pinpoint which part of their brain the excitement originates from.

This current state of Wei Keng was very important, and Bai Linglu was meticulously recording this Factor.

Because, according to the Time-Space Administration Bureau's standards for evaluating Transmigrators, the situation where Wei Keng collectively focused on a single objective could no longer be called a group, but was beginning to become a unified consciousness based on the group. Just as dolphins have left and right hemispheres that can alternate thinking day and night, but both brains share one consciousness.

Now, Wei Keng had merged within the search party. What about the future?

The forty-third minute of jungle contact combat.

In a patch of thorny bushes, accompanied by a rustling sound, a Swift Leopard suddenly leaped out.

A leopard? Well, let's call it that for now. Its leg muscles, adept at explosive power, were leopard-like in configuration, but the rest of its appearance was rather random. It had the ears of an elephant, a sabertooth for its upper jaw, and wild boar tusks for its lower jaw.

This creature looked fierce and its speed was very fast. However, Wei Keng was even more ferocious. As it sprang out, three gunshots rang out immediately, hitting its head and both flanks simultaneously, without any discernible order.

As it fell, the Wei Keng, who had been ambushed by the leopard, maintained a calm expression. Gripping the steel spear tightly, as if prepared long ago, he raised his arm and thrust it, piercing the beast's throat. Within 0.3 seconds, two nearby Wei Keng arrived, their bayonets sinking in. Grasping firmly, they drove the blades down, pinning it to the ground without giving it a chance to struggle.

The coordinated actions of the six-man Wei Keng squad were as seamless as humans eating a hamburger: incisors cutting, canines tearing, tongue maneuvering, molars grinding, and finally swallowing. It was incredibly fluid.

At this moment, the Wei Keng were in a miraculous state. Man and sword as one? No, it was man and man as one.

During the jungle hunt, a Wei Keng squad had elevated their mental communication to a new level. As mentioned before, in mental communication, Wei Keng could hear what other individuals heard and smell what others smelled.

Now, it had progressed further. When they smelled something and knew the target's location, they no longer cared who had smelled it. When they heard an opponent's position, they no longer felt it was a specific individual hearing it! They were accustomed to it, just as humans use their eyes, nose, and ears to see, smell, and hear, without prioritizing how their own sensory organs looked.

In the recent battle, each Wei Keng's vision covered a range of no more than thirty meters, and each pair of ears heard only the subtle sounds within seven or eight meters. But! But they acted in unison, guided by the collective perception of their group.

This coordination was like the natural reflex of an arm and body supporting oneself when falling while running. Although this single beast charged out with incredible speed, the Wei Keng's combined speed was even faster! And each individual knew precisely how to restrain the ferocious beast from their own angle.

Unity! Cooperation was a powerful weapon in human evolutionary history. When this skill evolved to be coordinated by language tools, all large creatures on Earth, despite having superior raw stats, would be at a disadvantage in mutual hunting and combat. Cooperation allowed humans to exploit the momentary weaknesses exposed by their opponents.

For example, this Swift Leopard, when pouncing on the first Wei Keng, had immense frontal power but was extremely vulnerable on its flanks.

Now, those in the Wei Keng formation with loaded rifles in the rear moved to the front in tacit understanding, while those who had fired used their bayonets to stab the back of the leopard's skull again, completely severing its nerve chain. They then began reloading in the center of the formation.

After hunting three ambushing leopards, the Wei Keng had etched crosses onto all their homemade bullets to enhance their stopping power.

The current war against the Gene Colony was vastly different from the war against Human City-States.

Against Human City-States, it involved judging and sequencing firepower within a visible range of one hundred meters, competing to see whose unit could make faster judgments and suppress the enemy's counter-fire.

Currently, the combat took place within five to ten meters, at most twenty meters, emphasizing close-quarters combat, calmness, speed, and mutual understanding.

Wei Keng had no claws or fangs, nor had they evolved more muscle! But they were absolutely formidable.

The twelve forward units plunged into the jungle like ten fingers kneading dough, no, they waded into it!

On the larger map, within the entire Yue Region, the Wei Keng were only encountering a portion of it. Outside the Zhushui Jiao where the Wei Keng were located, in hundreds of kilometers of jungle and mountains, within the resonance of the Gene Colony, at least sixty Node Creatures with Life Radiation exceeding 30000 BMR were scattered throughout Northern Yue. These were now leading their Gene Colonies and slowly advancing towards the Wei Keng's operational area in the south.

Among the core Node Creatures of these colonies were Four-legged Six-limbed Tyrant Dragons weighing over sixty tons. There were also mammoths, clad in tile-like heavy armor like ancient War Elephants but possessing four Elephant Trunks. The Liquid Spider that had captured the Wei Keng just now was a smaller specimen. Of course, precisely because of its smaller size, it was at the forefront, having captured the Wei Keng squad.

BMR stands for Basal Metabolic Rate. The normal value for a healthy adult male is two thousand. Due to the Pandora Era, the traditional genes within various species are unstable, and genes alone cannot determine a creature's strength classification. Perhaps two similar gene sequences could belong to a cat and a tiger. Therefore, metabolic rate is used as a unit scalar to quantify the Life Radiation intensity of a creature.

Currently, anything exceeding thirty thousand is definitely a Node Creature within the Gene Colony. Such creatures, if not further destroyed after injury, have their cells rapidly fuse into the wound. Their vitality is extremely tenacious.

[Evaluated by Wei Keng's records: Their Health Bars are extremely thick. Even if a fatal wound is inflicted, a bomb must be placed in the wound to cause a critical hit and finish them off.]

However, these radiation nodes of the Gene Colony felt the oppressive Life Radiation emanating from the Wei Keng.

And as the Wei Keng collective drew closer, the detained Wei Keng also emitted strong enough Life Radiation! Now, when the Thought-Stealing Spider used its neural threads, some of those threads were being seized by the Remnant Wei Keng.

The Gene Colonies within the region were sentient.

The Node Creatures, which carried partial consciousness of their respective Gene Colonies by integrating human genes, could express their colonies' perceptions of certain things using language similar to humans.

For example, if the Fused Humans were to express the impact of Wei Keng on the Gene Colonies, it would be like this: "In the spring of this year, when the ocean's monsoon began to strengthen, World Evil suddenly arrived in this world. First, it drove away the leaders of the Gene Colony at the river mouth, and then—it trampled the life order of the entire region. They are more resistant to nature than the humans currently occupying the city, and they are tirelessly on the path of blasphemy."

Now, as Wei Keng arrived, these concepts in the Node Creatures' minds became even clearer.

All the Fused Humans felt the destructive advance ahead, the dull gunshots, and the merciless slaughter behind each thrust against the swift creatures weighing around fifty kilograms.

Even the flying insects released were slowed by Wei Keng's strong Life Radiation, and were directly strangled by Wei Keng, who wore grass gloves.

Speaking of the poisonous insects in this jungle, Wei Keng had not yet realized that this was an attack launched by hostile Gene Colonies against him. Not to mention that these poisonous insects were already quite slow when flying towards Wei Keng under his strong Life Radiation. After they arrived, Wei Keng, holding a torch, simply scorched them. A large number of flying insects fell to the ground. The few that bit Wei Keng did not produce any adverse effects.

Oh, first of all, Wei Keng had to admit that being bitten by these Poison Mosquitoes and Poison Bees was extremely painful. However, after being here for more than half a year, the individuals of the Wei Keng Collective had learned to analyze the medicinal properties of various plants by chewing small amounts of them, which the system could then analyze.

The system had also compiled a complete set of Alkaloid data for this purpose. Now, when the skin felt the stinging pain of a bite, he would immediately take a little from the bottle, mix it with saliva, and apply it to his skin. Originally, Wei Keng's self-healing ability under the Life Radiation of his own collective was very fast. With the help of the ointment, the toxins quickly flowed out of the skin through the pores. What would have itched for seven or eight minutes now left him unharmed in one minute.

At this moment, bound into a cocoon by Spider Silk and almost reduced to a Remnant, Wei Keng was still alive and well.

The self in his consciousness also began to sense more clearly everything that was happening within a thousand meters.

And at this time, this Wei Keng individual felt no relief at being about to be rescued, but rather worried about the hidden danger his current state posed to the group!

Would the Liquid Spider, upon implanting itself into his nerves next time, be able to see the images flashing in his mind? And thus threaten more lives of his collective! The Remnant Wei Keng murmured, "It's time to end this."

Having a strong will was one thing, but from a materialistic perspective, a strong consciousness was merely a phenomenon residing in a material state. The subjective initiative of consciousness could greatly contend for matter! But it could not change the phenomenon of matter being contended for. Now, the Wei Keng in the Remnant felt the information of his collective approaching. Objectively, he believed that he could not absolutely control the information in his mind and prevent it from being seized by the nerves implanted by the Thought-Stealing Spider.

This had happened to him, and he should be responsible for it. This was what the Remnant Wei Keng was currently thinking.

After being captured and enduring various tortures, the Remnant Wei Keng went from despair to struggling for survival, and then a few hours ago, to a final unwillingness to see his tormentor show fear, until now, this Wei Keng had become detached.

In the midst of immense torture, he seemed to have let go of the existence of self and matter, the various pains and vanities of his body. Because, after enduring the torture, he found that as time passed, these pains and humiliations would fade. Similarly, the joys and honors corresponding to pain would also pass.

So, what would be difficult to fade for him? In the midst of torture, Wei Keng began to ponder his essence!

When his individual suffered, another group of his self-individuals continuously surpassed their limits to rescue him. Applying ordinary wisdom and perseverance to the extreme, this was the progress of his essence! Now, he had to cast aside other things and continue to advance his essence.

The detached state of the Remnant Wei Keng now might be similar to that of Ji Chang, who was imprisoned in Youli.

As a Zhou Person, he had come to the Shang Civilization region, which was still in the era of divine authority and sacrifice. The cruelty of human sacrifice and the punishment of imprisonment were also immense spiritual and physical torments. From the perspective of a modern person, there was no reason not to Collapse or go mad in such an environment. However, going mad would not lead to the perfection of the I Ching. Therefore, King Wen of Zhou should, no, must have forgotten the self and matter, and begun to think based on his essence.

At this moment, the Remnant Wei Keng's thoughts were: "I should leave when the time is right. The death of an individual is not important! What is important is that those of us who are alive must continue to face this bloody world with our essence."

Through the mutual Life Radiation, the thoughts of the Remnant Wei Keng traversed the hundreds of meters between two mountain tops and reached the consciousness group of Wei Keng, who was preparing for battle.

After receiving the essence-following statement from itself within the wreckage, the Wei Keng Collective fell silent for a minute. Hundreds of individual consciousnesses exchanged information on this question in no more than five sentences. This could entirely be described as silent contemplation!

Finally, the Collective issued a command from its willpower to the Remnant Individual: "Observe discipline, you must hold on, do not give up. Perseverance itself is the greatest meaning for you."

The Wei Keng consciousness cluster did not deny that the Remnant Wei Keng falling into enemy hands would objectively lead to the risk of information leakage during combat, but~~~~

The Remnant Individual could choose to die for a righteous cause, but the Wei Keng Collective, with a current total of only one thousand five hundred, absolutely could not accept this as the norm.

Looking throughout history, when a human society acknowledges the tragedy of its internal individuals with "This is just life," then the days of its future lingering on are not far off.

Currently situated in this wild nature of a beast horde, as humans, we must uphold brilliance.