Di Mo Hui Bei

Di Mo Hui Bei

Beside the campfire in the dead of night, watching flesh twitch, Wei Keng felt a rush of vengeful pleasure.

Logically, he knew it wasn't healthy. It was taboo. But right now?

"Just this once. Uh, this is a special case," Wei Keng said in his own defense.

Flames leapt higher. One by one, red-hot stones were pushed into the wounds cut into the Node Creature's body. Wei Keng found its cries too noisy, so he used a wooden frame to prop its mouth open and kept smashing its healing vocal organs.

Once he'd removed all those tissues, each one more aesthetically displeasing than the last, Wei Keng felt the rancor inside him drain away. Yes, after witnessing so much cruelty inflicted on him, he felt that if he didn't strike back somehow, he'd be left with psychological scars.

Wei Keng said, "How should I put it? I needed to get this out of my system."

As he came up with all kinds of 'reasonable' excuses, he put chopped-up fungi and other plant life into the Node Creature's entrails. Watching its carbon-based matter continually regenerate and reject these structures, every Wei Keng smiled.

From an outside perspective, seeing more than a thousand people with identical faces grinning as they worked together to cut into living flesh, not a hint of pity in their expressions—and speeding up their work as they communicated—would have been chilling.

As the starry sky slowly revolved overhead,

the Life Radiation of the Gene Colony Node Creature Wei Keng had captured gradually weakened. But that wasn't all: abnormal organs were also continuously growing inside it. Its central nervous system was especially affected. Wei Keng's genetic radiation altered its tissues, forcing its brain structure to mutate. Then, it seemed to develop an understanding of emotions—or rather, a channel appeared through which Wei Keng could pour in a flood of emotions.

The negative, dark thoughts in Wei Keng's consciousness were forced into the Gene Colony once his Life Radiation forcibly opened part of the Node Creature's capacity for understanding. They also spilled out into the Natural World around it.

Negative Thinking meant an attitude toward a certain existence that called for its end, its destruction, even its hatred. It was an absolutely malign thing.

What Wei Keng's captured individuals had endured at the hands of the Node Creature would have been nothing but pain before death for ordinary organisms, without giving rise to anything else. But in Higher Conscious Life like humans, the more complex the death and torment, the more complex the darkness that could take shape in thought and consciousness.

After its birth, this Node Creature had continually devoured humans, even absorbing their heads into its own body as organs. Human Genes were already present inside it; it had simply managed to control them and seize people's memories and thoughts.

Now, under the force of Wei Keng's Life Radiation, those Human Genes began to fight back. The Gene Colony was then forced to accept the depression, darkness, and terror that only humans could understand. It began to learn what it meant to say, "To be born human, I'm sorry!"

In the past, when the Complex Emotional Consciousness of humans as Higher Conscious Life collapsed and twisted, it couldn't spread.

But now, the simultaneous, dark tremors of more than a thousand genetically identical human minds would spread outward with their Life Radiation.

Wei Keng could make things dark.

Now it wasn't only this Gene Colony that Wei Keng had affected. The entire area was changing. In the forest, countless leaves fell from the trees without a breeze, their stems snapping on their own.

It had all started when the small creatures in the soil first began to behave abnormally.

These tiny creatures had originally been Marginal Life on the outskirts of the area influenced by the Gene Colony's Life Radiation. They were therefore the individuals around the Colony's periphery least able to withstand Wei Keng's influence.

The soil-dwelling insects and geckos rapidly mutated. The nuclei of their internal cells began to shed abnormally. Then the genes that had been shed changed structure, returned to the nuclei, and began dismantling, proliferating, and replicating them!

Viruses—something rarely seen in this era—had appeared! But now, as Wei Keng's Negative Thinking darkened everything, they once again bared their claws, becoming the cracks left by the defeated.

In less than ten minutes, the viruses spread from small creatures to plants. The channels beneath the plants' bark began to die, and their insides lost water in great quantities. That was when the abnormal leaf fall began. Next, larger and more complex animals started losing their fur and convulsing as if stricken with plague.

The Gene Colony was bearing a vast quantity of Abnormal Information. Even if the Node Creature in Wei Keng's hands escaped death and returned to the Natural World, the countless Erroneous Fragments now accumulated in its genes would cause organisms in its Colony to die off periodically.

These changes spread in every direction, provoking panic among countless Natural Life Consciousnesses.

Before, the Gene Colonies had felt nothing but unparalleled loathing toward the Wei Keng Collective, which had suddenly appeared in the south to compete for territory. Now, they had truly ignited a far more terrible situation.

From this moment on, the Wei Keng Collective had become poisonous to every Gene Colony in the Pandora World!

The wave had spread two thousand kilometers. No, three thousand. All of Southeast Asia, half of southern China, and even the great Colonies on the ocean could feel this Shocking Change.

And this kind of upheaval wasn't unprecedented in the Pandora Era.

In the Upper Reaches of the Yangtze, the region known in the Civilization Era as Yu Land, there were mountains and water.

It was still a Mountain City. Across its steep, uneven slopes, towering plants fused with fragments of Old Era buildings stood along both banks of the Yangtze, forming a Biopunk city.

The Gene Colony here wasn't the strongest in East Asia, but it had evolved further toward Human Society than any other Colony. This was entirely because, before the Great Cataclysm, this place had been the final remnant of humanity's Shelter Plan. Since its Colony had the highest concentration of Human Genes, it felt the changes happening a thousand miles south more keenly than anywhere else. Wei Keng's Negative Thinking at this moment, to some extent, mirrored the circumstances in which this Colony itself had been born.

Shelter Plan:

In 2365, as the Pandora Field approached the Upper Reaches of the Yangtze, the strongest technical forces in East Asia gathered here and built a nanonetwork capable of covering the entire city. The network had six thousand layers, and used a massive volume of Light Quantum Signals to sever the Propagation Phenomenon of life information in the Pandora World.

With the activation of forty large Nuclear Power Plants in the surrounding area, the plan was partly successful. The nanonetwork successfully cut off the Life Radiation of Natural Carbon-Based Life.

When the Shelter Plan had succeeded in its initial stage, the humans who had fled there breathed a sigh of relief. But more problems soon arose.

Meanwhile, behind the city, countless other humans were doing everything they could to get a Ship Ticket and squeeze inside.

But after three months, the shelter suddenly collapsed. The more than ten million people gathered there were exposed to the Pandora Field in an instant. After that, the place became the largest Killing Field for humanity at the end of the Old Era.

The final words left by people in despair were recorded on the rocks beside the great river, explaining how the shelter's facilities had failed.

On a certain red rock, someone had hastily scratched down this conclusion: This is humanity's Deep-Seated Flaws. As society grows ever more complex, some social thought will always stop focusing on survival and Social development, and instead pursue strange theories and hopes that run counter to civilization.

The details of Yu City's collapse were then recorded at length on the rock.

A city clerk conscientiously recorded the final account: In the end, the shelter admitted too many people, and extreme Nature Terrorist Organizations slipped in as well. Their slogan was Love the Earth. When the Pandora Field spread, they believed humanity should submit to nature. In their eyes, all human efforts at Self-Rescue were unjustified and should be abandoned. In the end, this organization sabotaged the shelter's facilities from within.

But another person wrote down a different view: Of course, it's also possible that the Shelter Plan was doomed to fail from the beginning. The barrier it created only blocked the most obvious manifestations of Life Radiation, while human consciousness had already been contaminated by Life Radiation. You couldn't see it in any one person; perhaps they just seemed a little depressed. But across society, the pervasive decline, despair, madness, and helplessness were signs that human consciousness was perishing in thought under Life Radiation.

And the Green Terrorist Organization's Unconditional Compromise was, in fact, the Pandora Field's Collective Consciousness conquering humanity.

Yu City was completely exposed to the Life Radiation of nature. The millions of people there waited in despair for death. After the first few days of wanton destruction and killing, more and more people grew calm. When humans couldn't defeat something, they gave rise to religion. And this time, their idealism in the face of despair seemed to have worked.

Over the following months, more and more people found peace. One by one, they leaned against trees, indifferent as nature consumed them. They faced their approaching fate in a nonviolent way.

Because tens of millions of people had met their end here, the human genes in the Colony were exceptionally abundant. Almost every blade of grass and every tree contained Human Genes.

The flowers on the trees resembled human lips, and the fish in the water had human teeth.

Now, seventy percent of the Fused Humans here had retained an appearance that didn't stray from human standards of beauty, though they were a little strange.

For instance, some Fused Humans lived symbiotically with plants. Vines protruded from their tailbones; during the day, the vines inserted themselves into the Mother Tree to absorb nutrients, and at night, they went out to move around. Others had Palm Leaves growing out of their hair. When the sunlight was strong, their hair could spread out like an umbrella and carry out photosynthesis.

This Gene Colony expressed a great many Human Genes and had countless humanoid individuals. As a result, it was one of the very few Gene Colonies in the world capable of making tools. They hollowed out large organisms and, like assembling parts, inserted tree structures inside them to make transport ships. These traveled down the Yangtze and spread to the surrounding regions to collect minerals. The Colony even had the ability to smelt metal.

The Collective Consciousness linked to these Fused Humans also carried on some social customs from the human Old Era. For example, they were a Matriarchal Society, and had a social hierarchy. The term "priest" was what the highest Node Creatures among the Fused Humans called themselves.

Even so, they were still a Colony. The human city-states along the Yangtze and the Lower Reaches of the Yellow River didn't consider them human.

That was because even though Higher Fused Humans were difficult to distinguish from Old Era humans by appearance, they didn't have the concept of kinship shared by Higher Life in the Old Era. Like the brains of an ant colony, they could seize Life Radiation from any Fused Human of a lower rank. In other words, the priests weren't simply above society in status and power, as human rulers had been; they sat at the top of the Colony's food chain.

When the strong held absolute power and obligations over the weak, that wasn't a society. It was an ant-nest order of survival of the fittest.

And now, the upper ranks of Yu City's Colony sensed that their "kin" in the south had developed a "will to take revenge" against the entire world.

The Metal Copper Bells hanging from its Skyscraper Giant Trees began to ring. From the Tree Hollows within the giant trees, hundreds of strange creatures flew out into the upper reaches of the largest Giant Tree Buildings in each area. They had dragonfly bodies, but human eyes growing on their heads.

Back in the forest, after receiving Bai Linglu's warning and a research report on the captured Node Creature's condition, Wei Keng recovered from his negative state and returned to work.

Wei Keng said through the system, "Sorry, I lost control of myself for a moment."

Bai Linglu replied, "Your outburst was normal. As long as it doesn't exceed a certain threshold, an appropriate release can help clear the confusion from your thoughts. Of course, reminding you is part of my job. The memories of all your individuals lost in this battle have been preserved. There won't be any gaps. Please rest assured."

Wei Keng said, "Thanks. Next, um, could you help me work out a plan for dealing with this thing?"

Bai Linglu had already pulled up the Node Creature's information and come up with a plan that Wei Keng found very appealing.

Wei Keng began reviewing the battle situation again, continuing to think in an orderly way.

Although the Gene Colonies in the more distant Northern Yue region were still hostile to him, there was no compelling reason to deal with them at this stage. He had already rescued people and gotten his revenge. Now he needed to take his time. Once he had the initiative, he had to control the pace.

In other words, he could prepare more for industrial production, communicate more with the other Human Forces in the region, and continue gathering intelligence on the world's various Colonies.

Wei Keng's group withdrew along the Mountain Path. Most were hurrying along, striding forward with Weapons and Ammunition on their backs.

Some Wei Kengs were led along by those in front or gently pushed forward by those behind. They carried Paper and Pen, recording and sketching as they walked. After five minutes, they handed their paper and pen to the Wei Keng behind them, shouldered their luggage, and switched to physical labor.

Wei Keng now wielded his Life Radiation with great flexibility. The brain, his most energy-intensive organ, could receive seventy percent of the energy transmitted by the group, sustaining powerful Mental Calculation as it estimated the situations unfolding from every angle. For instance, the Thinking Array formed by the Wei Kengs could accurately predict within a tenth of a second which patch of earth a leaf falling from a branch ahead would land on two seconds later.

Wei Keng could think at high speed. At that moment, supporting the thoughts of each brain with Life Radiation consumed twenty-seven thousand kilocalories per hour—the energy in three kilograms of fat, or forty-eight Big Mac Burgers.

Of course, the brain could process that much information, but if he wanted to form useful memories, it would still overheat. So every ten minutes, Wei Keng switched to another brain to record things. As for the Wei Keng who had already recorded the information, he switched over and let the muscles in his body become the main energy consumers—for example, by carrying a pack and marching briskly.

On the way back, Wei Keng continued to rapidly burn the fat in his thighs and internal organs. The fat that had once bounced around beneath his skin now flowed rapidly under the control of his own Life Radiation. He kept his body temperature at 37.5 degrees Celsius.

"I'll keep fighting the Colonies here," Wei Keng said, reaffirming his Strategic Goal as he recorded information about the terrain.

"But I'll do my best to show that my kind of life is better suited to this place than yours." Carrying his own remains on his back, Wei Keng did not waver in his Core Objective.

"There are still plenty of ways I need to improve." At the head of the line, Wei Keng wielded his Path Clearing Knife, cutting through weeds that had only begun to grow a few hours ago. Breathing in the sweet scent of Grass Juice, he felt secure about the future.

The greatest advantage of his Collective was its strength in Communication and Coordination. Through Mental Perception, he transmitted countless images and signals of smell and sound, allowing every individual to act with "foresight." Wei Keng felt that this could still be improved.

Mental perception worked better than language. But language was an advanced form of Voice Transmission.

In ancient times, humans' "strong Mental Perception" compared with animals took the form of making sounds to confirm one another's state. Gradually, they needed this way of shouting to convey information more quickly, building on simple syllables.

After language was born, people no longer had to shout for half a day to explain, "I saw a deer, I didn't squat down to shit and run into a hyena." Once language appeared, just a few syllables were enough.

Language was a standardized, coded Roaring Pronunciation Tone. So now, could he standardize the expression of different meanings through Mental Perception?

Looking back on the battle, Wei Keng realized that some of the images his individual selves had shared through Mental Perception didn't need to be so clear.

The events of battle and their possible outcomes could be expressed much more simply. The images only needed to focus on a few points, such as hands and feet. Sounds only needed to convey changes. Most of the time, smells, tastes, and sensations of heat and cold didn't need to be shared. Even many of his own bodies didn't constantly notice every scent around them. The important details—and even familiar impressions—could stand in for much of the information from the six senses. In other words, it was a kind of "Mutual Understanding."

Wei Keng felt there was still plenty of room to improve his coordination.

The Holy Grail could only be forged by a Pure Soul, ...