Third-Stage Conflict

In summer, the cicadas' cries could make the surroundings feel so irritating that you grew restless. But after autumn began and everything fell quiet, you started feeling that some things could no longer wait.

The individuals in the Wei Keng Collective responsible for strategic planning were drawing with rulers as they rambled on, summarizing things for themselves: "I'm not so special in this world. Just because I focus on certain things doesn't mean other things won't come looking for me. Likewise, just because I gradually gain experience with something doesn't mean it'll keep chasing after me and arranging everything around me."

Bai Linglu's records: Transmigration isn't a movie plot. The Transmigrator (Wei Keng) doesn't get to avoid disasters just by trying hard, and disasters won't spare all the onlookers (the natives of this plane) just because they want to remain on the sidelines.

The conflict between human urban activity and natural ecological gene colonies could now be clearly divided into several stages based on how they affected each other at different times. Looking back at the journey so far:

Stage One: Wei Keng had just descended upon the ruins of Zhushui Jiao. In this area of barely fifty square kilometers, the newly arrived, reckless Wei Keng had clashed head-on with the world's various bizarre gene colonies.

Stage Two: Wei Keng had established a foothold in Zhushui Jiao, and his reach had extended four or five hundred kilometers around it. By this world's standards, the Wei Keng Collective still considered itself an ordinary group of people. It had tried to rally the human survivors in the area and "settle the score" with Pandora's gene colonies. Nature had retaliated fiercely. After a dozen or so individuals died, the collective had begun to turn savage, issuing a one-sided ultimatum to all life in the region: "Submit and prosper; resist and perish."

Since Wei Keng had just won during this stage, his rise accelerated once again, completely disrupting the ecological balance in the region. The fighting among colonies across a much wider area began, and more powerful gene-colony forces entered the scene.

Only this time, Wei Keng was no longer the first to bear the brunt of it. Instead, it was the human city-states in the region that had cooperated with him?

Several city-states in the north were surrounded by creatures moving south. Jian City, which had dealt most with Wei Keng in late summer, had also fallen into crisis.

Jian City was enveloped by the threat of life colonies, and dense fog had appeared all around it. The thick fog reduced the machine guns and cannons on the walls to "close-range firepower" that could only shoot effectively within forty or fifty meters. The small species killed by bullets would be dragged away by vines reaching out from behind the fog, then devoured by giant beasts farther back. The people of Jian City felt as if they were facing bizarre unknown creatures with infinite health.

The details of the siege of these city-states had been brought to the Wei Keng Settlement in the Zhujiang Region by Jian City's messenger, Zeng Jiakan, after he risked his life to break through the encirclement.

When Wei Keng saw the brave man who had broken through, his whole body was covered in grape-like tumors. Sea-anemone-like tendrils writhed inside some of them, while others were beginning to keratinize.

Faced with this, the other natives of this plane at the outpost avoided him at all costs.

Of course, someone still managed to shakily suggest a solution: a blood transfusion! A transfusion using a great deal of blood from many people.

But any experienced physician from a traditional city-state would have judged that Zeng Jiakan's current mutations had already passed the point at which a blood transfusion could save him!

After a thorough discussion within the Wei Keng Collective, Wei Keng, standing by Zeng Jiakan's sickbed, asked, "Do you trust me?"

Lying sick in bed, Zeng Jiakan's cheek was covered in a mess of gelatinous flesh. In a breathy, strained voice, he said, "I do. That's why I came to you. Please, save Jian City."

Wei Keng calmly shook his head. "No. You came to me to lift the siege on Jian City. It's surrounded by bizarre creatures, and you think you can find another bizarre creature to counter them."

A stiffness appeared in Zeng Jiakan's gaze.

Wei Keng stared at him and said in a low voice, "You're not even willing to admit that I'm human!"

Zeng Jiakan said nothing!

But Wei Keng didn't press him further. Instead, six Wei Kengs responsible for medical care took out their instruments and drew two hundred milliliters of blood from their own veins.

Zeng Jiakan watched. He wanted to say something, but when he thought of how mutated his whole body had become, he kept quiet. He truly looked like an alien now, someone no one would want to touch.

Wei Keng said, "My blood won't turn you into someone like me. You're an adult; your growth and development are complete, and your bones and muscles have settled. Your mind has even developed independently. Your living tissues have now mutated because their biological activity was disrupted by an outside organism. Of all the powerful external sources of interference you can come into contact with, my genes are the closest to yours. Do you understand?"

Zeng Jiakan forced a smile. "Thank you for being willing to save me."

"You don't need to thank me. As one of your kind, I should do this." Wei Keng finished speaking and put a stick by his mouth for him to bite down on.

Wei Keng inserted a tube into his vein and injected the blood into his body. Then he began removing the severely mutated tumors on him. At the same time, another Wei Keng used a scalpel to cut open the webbing between his fingers and bandaged it. Throughout the entire procedure, Wei Keng gave him no anesthetic, but one of them kept a close eye on his condition.

An hour later, the operation was over. Zeng Jiakan, drenched in sweat, spat out the wooden stick he had been biting. Strings of saliva dripped with it onto the blanket beside him. He looked in the mirror at the wounds slowly healing on his body, then struggled to look at Wei Keng. "Thank you. Can I sleep now?" When he saw Wei Keng nod, he immediately passed out.

Watching Zeng Jiakan's breathing gradually settle, Wei Keng couldn't help exclaiming, "What a tough bastard."

While Zeng Jiakan was undergoing surgery, the Wei Keng Group's staff officers were analyzing the latest intelligence. With Jian City under siege, there were many details they needed to understand.

First, Wei Keng was puzzled by the fog now appearing around the city. He hadn't encountered anything like this before. If there had been fog earlier, he might have suffered heavy casualties too.

In response, Bai Jiancha pulled up the Pioneer Archives and offered a clue: "You did encounter fog. When you first descended, the forest's evaporative layer increased sharply."

Wei Keng couldn't help pulling up the summary of the information from when he had first descended. He had launched his attack in the afternoon. There had been no heavy fog under the direct sunlight, and the battle had ended before dusk. After the battle, he'd felt that things were a little damp. Right, at the end of the battle, when the flanking force had set the fires, there had been a lot of smoke! That might have been because the woods held too much moisture. But he hadn't paid attention at the time. Now that he thought back on it, could that have been...?

Bai Linglu explained: the gene colonies that dominated a region controlled the flow of ecological energy there. Their radiation affected plants and animals alike, so during a large-scale battle, trees released large amounts of water vapor, forming a mist at night to conceal and cover their movements.

Why hadn't Wei Keng encountered it later?

During the second-stage conflict, the scale of Wei Keng's genetic radiation had become so vast that the producers across the entire mountain forest could no longer effectively connect with the local gene colonies. You could say that the pores of the mountains, rivers, grass, and trees had all been scared shut by Wei Keng. How could they dare to cooperate with the colonies and produce fog?

So Bai Linglu concluded that if the Wei Keng Collective reached the area around Jian City, the fog effect there would weaken as well.

Setting aside Bai Linglu's bold prediction, Wei Keng prepared for every risk as much as he could, adding every safeguard possible.

The Wei Keng Collective's response was: "We should prepare some incendiary shells!"

Wei Keng was cautious about preparing dangerous materials. Generally, he avoided using them whenever possible, especially something like white phosphorus. But if he was dealing with a war, he would still prepare them. In Wei Keng's eyes, war was the riskiest thing of all.

In the third stage, although he wasn't the first to bear the brunt, Wei Keng planned to respond proactively—to go out and fight instead of sitting at home and waiting.

Inside the Dimensional Space Bubble, Bai Linglu said, "Objective complete! Yeah!"

Every plan on her list had been exceeded. When she had first arrived in this plane, she had suggested that Wei Keng "clear the threat across fifty thousand square kilometers in this region if conditions allow." At the time, she had only been sounding him out; she hadn't really thought they could pull it off. Wei Keng had rejected the idea without hesitation. And now! In this third conflict, all the targets in Wei Keng's plans had surpassed the goals of the initial exploration plan.

Bai Linglu opened a Dimensional Distance Broadcast channel.

An Exploration Channel was approaching her current coordinates. Bai Linglu began speaking to it: "Our descent went smoothly. Everything is clear. Clear all the way."

Let's return our attention to the Transmigrator, who was handling matters on the front lines of the Pandora Plane!

On September 29, supplies had already been piled up at the outpost's dock. Wei Keng, at the outpost, handed his work over to the recruits, then waited with his personal equipment.

Red flags flew over every outpost, and banners hung with the words "Stand Together Against Disaster, Defend Our Home." In the past, the Wei Keng Collective had used telepathy, so it hadn't needed anything like this. But now there were outsiders who had become part of a shared interest with them, and who had to become part of a shared fate in the face of this disaster. The propaganda effort had to be done well.

Wei Keng's Combat Team, a six-hundred-man formation consisting of two battalions, traveled north by steamboat to the upper reaches of the river. Then, with transport support from their self-assembled Crawler Tractors, they spent thirty hours heading north into the mountain forest, first making a detour toward the east.

Although Wei Keng's force hadn't grown in numbers since the last operation, its baggage train and heavy firepower had undergone a qualitative change. They could now fight with plenty to spare.

Unlike last time, when Wei Keng alone had been trapped in enemy territory and the mission had to be completed within a set time limit, he now had more control over the situation. So the guiding principle for the march was "caution."

To put it plainly, whether Jian City suffered a few hundred more or a few hundred fewer casualties had little to do with him for now. At most, the two sides had a commercial relationship. And that alliance Zeng Jiakan had pleaded for? When all was said and done, Wei Keng was still the only one making sacrifices.

As an ordinary person, Wei Keng could only accept commands from the group to a limited extent.

As an individual, when your society interacted and communicated with another society, if your side was effectively the only one making sacrifices, then!—all that talk of "being one family" and "blood being thicker than water" was merely the goal that the collective will of your group's leadership hoped to achieve. It was absolutely not a reality that an ordinary person like you could rely on. Often, the upper ranks of your group could tolerate more sacrifice on its behalf, but ordinary people couldn't afford to believe in "propaganda that wasn't reality." If they really believed they were one family and were deceived by the other side, all they could do was hang themselves. The person representing the collective in negotiations might still do what was needed for "the greater good," but they wouldn't lift a finger to win you compensation.

So, only when the other side was willing to face common disasters together on principle—for example, fighting floods together or facing foreign enemies together—in short, when they had fulfilled obligations under the rules of "shared survival and development," could this idea of being one family, of blood being thicker than water, become a reality worth relying on. Only then could ordinary people be expected to "fulfill their obligations."

Every individual in the Wei Keng Collective was one of these ordinary people, guided by the interests described above. This directly affected the collective's decisions.

So Wei Keng was now rescuing Jian City because doing so served the interests of all the humans in the region. Uniting the region's humans would help him survive and develop there, so he was willing to fight for it.

Thus, strategically, he would keep Jian City from being destroyed. But at the tactical level, he wouldn't willingly take excessive losses just to reduce Jian City's casualties.

So, in every plan and arrangement, as long as Jian City wasn't wiped out, everything else was fine.

Only when more than thirty percent of Jian City's population had died would Wei Keng make a slight tactical adjustment.

After thirty hours of marching,

Wei Keng's forward reconnaissance quickly discovered tracks on the eastern side of Jian City, where large numbers of creatures had gathered in one area. The signs indicated that numerous herbivores and carnivores were present.

Based on the herbivores' stride length, Wei Keng determined that they weren't fleeing from predators. Even an antelope could leap several meters in a single bound. These herbivores were migrating at an unhurried pace, while the carnivores' tracks lay around their perimeter, much like sheepdogs guarding a flock.

After the Wei Keng Collective discovered this, the forward scouts further estimated the numbers and ratios of the creatures by examining the freshness and moisture of their droppings.

Their firepower and perception had both advanced by a major tier since the second stage, but the Wei Kengs' tactics and strategy remained cautious and serious.

When the Wei Keng Collective rapidly cut into the battlefield, the life colonies moving south sensed them too. The impression Wei Keng gave them was this: the total amount of Life Radiation wasn't strong, but its concentration was extraordinarily high. The threat level was extremely high.

Wei Keng's marching speed was like a swift swallow chasing a swarm of flies.

Although Wei Keng wasn't aiming for a maximum-effort Forced March and deliberately controlled his own speed, the tractors now equipped with Gas Generators, along with the specially packed supply crates, made the march highly efficient. Compared to the Wei Keng Collective's unified, group-wide operation, the colonies' gathering of herbivores for supplies looked a bit like running a farm resort!

The life colonies moving south threatened only human city-state outposts like Jian City, which lacked large-scale mobile warfare capabilities!

[All contemporary city-states relied on small teams of beast tamers for development. Since city-states lacked groups capable of withstanding Life Radiation from the outside world, they had no choice—unless they could be like Yu City in the north and not care about mutations.]

Against a field force like Wei Keng's, which also possessed Life Radiation, they seemed far too immature.

The gene colonies from the Dongting Lake Colony showed their aggression as soon as they discovered the Wei Keng Group. But because they didn't launch a collective charge, Wei Keng didn't even record it as an engagement, only as contact. He didn't give it much of his attention.

For example, over the course of five hours, a total of sixteen ferocious creatures appeared in the Wei Keng Collective's field of view. Their main form was that of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, but their forelimbs were long enough to reach the ground. This creature might have been an ideal form, combining speed, mass, and bite force.

Yet as soon as they approached the Wei Keng Collective, they collapsed to the ground amid a succession of gunshots!

The ones who killed these Long-Armed Tyrannosaurus Rexes used anti-tank rifles with two-meter-long barrels, bipods, and a caliber of thirteen millimeters.

They set the rifles up on a hillside, loaded a K-Type Bullet into the chamber, looked through an Eight Times Scope, and fired straight at the Tyrannosaurus Rexes' heads. The recoil shook dust from the ground as the rifle stand trembled, and the remaining force, after passing through the spring system, gave Wei Keng's shoulder a powerful shove.

This kind of rifle could pierce a fifteen-millimeter Steel Plate, so it could crack open these giant beasts' skulls too.

Mm, most importantly, Wei Keng had made this thing himself. Whenever the system delivered a High-Precision Sniper Rifle, Wei Keng calculated the barrel's lifespan for every shot he fired. Sometimes, when facing a large target within three hundred meters, his frugal nature made him feel that he wasn't getting the best value out of it.

After the shot rang out, the Tyrannosaurus Rex's skull resembled the chocolate shell of an ice cream bar crushed under a finger.

Feeling the slightly hot steel sleeve, Wei Keng, who was clearing the way, held the still-smoking muzzle and licked it (this was an extremely stupid move). After burning his tongue, he said smugly, "Now this is a man's gun."