Mountains and Rivers in Hand

Chapter 41: 1.41 Mountains and Rivers in Hand

October 3rd, 8 AM. The annihilation battle against the Fake Human Gene Colony began.

Although the enemy had not unlocked the Metal Gunpowder Tech Tree, they possessed the ability to throw Explosive Incendiaries using Flying Birds. Wei Keng defaulted them as having ranged projection capabilities, so machine gun emplacements were still necessary. This allowed for rapid relocation of firearms if enemy fire threatened. In hindsight, this was an overestimation.

Across the engagement map, Wei Keng could see the enemy occupied six high grounds. The flat lowlands between these high grounds allowed for rapid troop movement, with two exits, north and south. Three of the high grounds had extremely weak defenses. Thus, during the assault, Squad Platoon Tactics were used to feint an attack on two of them.

The feint required artillery support. As the Wei Keng Collective shared their senses, the forward observation team on the frontline observed the enemy positions two hundred meters ahead. They then used Telepathic Language to relay the distance and firing angle to the Artillery Group. What was sent to the artillery was not just enemy Coordinate Data, but also trajectories calculated from their own positions. The Artillery Group also calculated trajectories based on their own observation angles. The two sides quickly cross-verified, and after identifying the cause of a slight error, they made a final Correction based on observations from a third vantage point, and opened fire!

Three cannons, in their second round of bombardment, achieved precision-guided effects. The Giant Beasts that had been lurking on the mountaintops rolled down, mixed with Stone Fragments.

After the artillery strike, Wei Keng lowered his assessment of this Fake Human Colony again. They had been entrenched here for three hours without digging any tunnels. The enemy commander, no, the sentient Node Life, truly had a brain full of mush.

A feint was, after all, a feint. They only shelled and appeared to be charging at the foot of the mountain, but ultimately did not charge up to take the mountaintops. It wasn't that they couldn't, but rather that after charging up, they lacked Reserve Forces for other tactical objectives.

Wei Keng: Climbing mountains is tiring. Once one or two high grounds are occupied, it's enough to establish Fire Suppression. The main force should conserve energy and be ready to infiltrate along the roads, securing important Transportation routes.

Twenty minutes after initiating the feint, the Wei Keng Collective truly began their main assault on two high grounds.

These two high grounds also did not have many gene colonies. Under the cover of machine gun fire, Wei Keng, hunched over, charged up the Gentle Slope. There were no obstacles! Yes, no obstacles. As Wei Keng charged up the mountainside, wherever his gaze fell, the machine guns swept the area into clouds of flesh and dust.

On these two mountaintops, the less than six hundred Ape Form garrisoned colonies were essentially thrown into Chaos after the trees were ignited by artillery fire.

One hour later, Wei Keng occupied these two high grounds. Three hours later, the cannons, disassembled into three parts, were transported to the mountaintop and reassembled. From this excellent vantage point, the entire clustered area of the gene colony in the valley within the entire region was laid bare.

The battle had reached a stage of absolute control!

The northern and southern mountain path channels were sealed off by machine gun fire from the Wei Keng Collective's dispatched squads. The artillery provided overwhelming firepower from above, compressing the entire Humanoid gene colony within this ten square kilometers area.

They had not broken through three hours ago, and an hour ago, they had failed to defend the high grounds. Now, locked down by Wei Keng from above, their situation was like a Stone Stool entering a Nine Dragon Cover!

Wei Keng's artillery fired repeatedly from the mountaintop. Within this area of tens of square kilometers, there was nowhere to hide. Large numbers of beasts in the valley were harvested in swathes by Shrapnel. The gene colonies on the high grounds, unable to move and lacking significant defensive systems, were like a pile of Ants. A single Cannonball landing was equivalent to pouring a cup of boiling water on them.

At this moment, this mountainous region had become a Purgatory of gunpowder smoke for the gene colony.

By 4 PM, Wei Keng's artillery on the mountaintop had annihilated four large groups of beasts. Two hours later, over two thousand corpses littered the various valleys. This was a true scene of corpses strewn everywhere, with no possibility of life recovery. In this large-scale slaughter, the entire group was on the brink of extinction.

The current highest-ranking Snake Woman Priestess of this colony perhaps only realized the dire situation at this moment. In their final moments before annihilation, she ordered the remaining colony members to charge towards the mountaintop where the artillery was located, attempting to perish together with a portion of the Wei Keng Collective. However, this mountainside became their final Graveyard.

When the sun had only half set on the Horizon, the mountainside was filled with Brown Blood Stains, and scattered corpses, like so many Mosquitoes swatted on the wall of a university dormitory. This colony had completely disappeared. At least, in Wei Keng's perception, there was no trace of them.

This Military Mission was complete. The next step was to transfer.

That evening, Wei Keng and Zeng Jiakan discussed on the map again, pushing their Corps' Chess Pieces to weave back through the various colonies.

Wei Keng pointed to a colony on the map and said, "This one is relatively weak. We'll fight our way back."

October 5th, the Corps returned from the west side of the enemy colony's occupied area in Northern Guangdong, a route that bypassed the most powerful radiation zones within these gene colonies.

Bai Linglu's comment: Oh, actually, those colonies aren't that powerful. It's purely a conservative tactical decision, not wanting to get too entangled during the withdrawal. After all, he (Wei Keng) still has 18 wounded (not killed in action).

The weak gene colony Wei Keng chose wasn't weak in terms of numbers either, with a scale of over four thousand individuals, but they were currently undergoing metamorphosis.

Here, "metamorphosis" is a biological concept, like tadpoles and caterpillars, which completely transform into a different life structure after growth, such as frogs and moths.

This gene colony had just emerged from the damp reservoir area, with most of its forms still being amphibians, specifically giant salamanders.

These ferocious giant salamanders were five meters long, with the canine teeth of sabertooth tigers and the grinding teeth of sharks in their mouths. They were wet and pure black, their ferocious appearance like a crawling alien.

Of course, these creatures were most suited for water areas. They moved extremely fast on tidal flats, but in mountainous terrain, this primitive form was not suitable. They were now in the process of transforming their life forms. To adapt to the new environment, their legs needed to grow longer, and their skin needed to retain moisture like a snake's.

Precisely because they were in this special gene switching state, a large number of individuals were in a dormant development state, and their life radiation appeared somewhat weak. Therefore, Wei Keng came knocking.

Starting on the morning of the 6th, the Wei Keng Group passed through the area of this colony.

The Wei Keng Collective's original words in the combat record were simply "passed through!" The word "engagement" did not appear.

Only when both sides form a collective and charge at each other can it be called an engagement. Without even a collective organization, Wei Keng felt it was difficult to call it a battle he had fought.

Of course, this did not mean Wei Keng did not open fire while passing through.

Mortars were set up directly, targeting several areas with strong life radiation, and a round of firepower coverage was unleashed. This was like spraying insecticide at a swarm of mosquitoes outside the window at night.

Wei Keng's grenade launchers fired incendiary bombs. Within five minutes of the flames landing in the jungle, open fires appeared. The large fires caused the species in the area to scatter and flee. Of course, when the node creatures retreated, they were still in a large cluster, and Wei Keng carried out a second bombardment.

In Wei Keng's perception, the life radiation source where the node creature was located stopped moving and began to enter the jungle. What then met his eyes were trees burned down to bare poles.

When Wei Keng entered the jungle, from the perception of this world's colony, Wei Keng's life radiation approached the node creature. Therefore, the remaining creatures within the colony, two or three individuals, sprang from the ashes and attempted to attack Wei Keng. However, these two or three charging to their deaths were useless, only stirring up clouds of plant ash. The jungle was burned bare, offering no obstruction. It was like puffed teddy bear biscuits trying to block the wheels, being crushed one by one.

The idiom "soldiers pass like a comb" seemed to describe Wei Keng's passage through this burned jungle today, poking through all the scattered individuals of the colony.

However, even at the end, Wei Keng did not approach the node after passing through the jungle.

Old Master Wei Keng was not interested in curiosity. The priority mission was to return. As long as the node creature didn't move, he would go around it by five hundred meters.

But after going around, Wei Keng's artillerymen estimated the situation and decided to reduce their load by tossing dozens of satchel charges towards the node creature.

With a rumbling flame burst, Wei Keng bid a warm farewell to this gene colony blocking his path.

After the 8th, Wei Keng returned to the supply point, swapped out the wounded, and replaced weapon parts. A complete infiltration attack followed by an infiltration return was completed.

This was one instance! With a first, there could be a second, a third. Wei Keng's 600-man Corps, facing an area occupied by at least 30,000 large individuals from over twenty-five colonies, never expected to resolve everything in a single battle.

Wei Keng: "There are many enemies, and the winter is long. I am not in a hurry."

After returning to the city, the health bar was refilled (wounded self-healing), and the mana bar was refilled (ammunition, fuel, food, medicine), and they could go for another round.

October 15th, Wei Keng launched another assault, this time targeting a stronger collective.

On the 18th, they infiltrated the rear. On the 19th, an offensive was launched. Under artillery bombardment, Wei Keng's infantry corps reached the location of the Node Creature, an old factory covered in thick silk. With twenty kilograms of satchel charges detonated simultaneously, the eighteen-meter-long stick insect-shaped Node Creature was severed into dozens of segments by the shock wave and then struggled in the flames for dozens of seconds. The collective lost its unified command and control, pouring out through the escape route Wei Keng strategically left open, heading towards a pre-set kill zone outside the encirclement.

Finally, in the burning flames, perhaps only one-twentieth of the species from this collective managed to escape. In this chaotic natural world, small numbers of individuals are quickly consumed by other Gene Colonies.

On the 20th, Wei Keng's combat camp withdrew. While marching sixty kilometers south, they overwhelmed a small cluster.

On the 21st, they successfully shook off the northern Gene Colony and returned to their stationed place.

The third wave of infiltration began on October 25th and returned on November 2nd.

The fourth wave of infiltration began on November 8th and ended on November 15th.

Then came the fifth and sixth waves.

On average, two waves per month. They would jump into the Gene Colony's territory, strike hard, wreak havoc, then jump out, then jump back in, then jump out again. Each infiltration and withdrawal took about a week!

By mid-November, the southward-moving Gene Colony lost its momentum to advance further south. Like a piece of meat "electrically shocked into a conditioned reflex," under Wei Keng's constant and rapid stimulation, its limited adaptive capacity was exhausted. It grew fatigued and even developed fear!

This was because Wei Keng's collective suffered no substantial damage, maintaining a constant state, giving the northern colonies a distinct feeling of encountering a natural predator.

On December 4th, as the sixth infiltration concluded, the rumbling of tractors caused all the small animals near the formation to huddle in their tunnels.

After traversing the mountains and forests, the Wei Keng Collective sensed something and increasingly scanned their surroundings, observing the flowers, grass, and trees.

Zeng Jiakan followed Wei Keng's gaze. At first, he didn't notice anything, but then he carefully examined the surrounding grass, wood, and mountain forest. It seemed as if the leaves of these trees were turning, as if avoiding something.

Zeng Jiakan caught Wei Keng and asked, "Is there danger here?"

Wei Keng shook his head. "No danger. It's just that war is too cruel."

A part of Wei Keng's current life perception had begun to extend into the grass and wood forest. These fundamental producers within the ecosystem had now captured Wei Keng's attention.

In the third phase of the conflict, Wei Keng's assaults were extremely swift. After artillery strikes, large areas of the battlefield were reduced to scorched earth. While fighting the Gene Colonies, Wei Keng casually destroyed far more plant life!

Throughout the battles, Wei Keng had always focused on eliminating the enemy's mobile forces, never paying attention to the plants. However, in reality, every animal Gene Colony that occupied an area maintained a symbiotic relationship with the local plant community! Now, this symbiotic relationship had been repeatedly broken by Wei Keng. The plant Gene Colonies of the entire region were sending synchronization messages to Wei Keng.

This synchronization was the plants accepting Wei Keng's gene radiation.

In a tiny fraction, one in ten thousand, of the chlorophyll in some organisms, proteins similar to Wei Keng's Visual Photoreceptor Cells appeared. Furthermore, in the plants' electrolyte control, bio-current frequencies corresponding to Wei Keng's Nerve Cells emerged.

Currently, these subtle changes had no significant impact. However, according to the system's predictions, once all hostile Gene Colonies departed and Wei Keng became the sole collective in the area, the development trend would be the ability to gain faint perception through the jungle.

Faint! Extremely faint! The perception provided by any single plant to Wei Keng was negligible.

This perception could absolutely not rise to the level of pain! Plants could not support Complex Sensory Organs to transmit signals to Gene Node Species. Plants merely used this synchronization method to inform the top layer of the Gene Colony about the total energy of the ecosystem in the area, thereby regulating the numbers of herbivore and carnivore populations for sustainable utilization and development.

Originally, these plants had always favored species with powerful Life Radiation, and Wei Keng was not their first choice. But now, after the war, the Life Radiation of these powerful species was constantly being shaken by Wei Keng, while Wei Keng's Life Radiation remained constant.

If described using the Anthropomorphic Method: "The trees in this forest are starting to submit to Wei Keng," then the Thought Comprehension would be led astray.

Anthropomorphic thinking is an auxiliary function of the human Cerebral Cortex attempting to understand its own kind. Plants do not have emotional organs; they merely possess Stress Instincts like a Paramecium, seeking advantage and avoiding harm!

As the Life Radiation of other animal communities in this region mutated and became unstable due to constant defeats, Wei Keng's genes remained largely unchanged. Thus, in the process of plants receiving Life Radiation information from the top of the Food Chain, the Wei Keng Collective accumulated the most information.

This is a very objective phenomenon.

Standing on the tractor, Wei Keng, in a rather chuunibyou manner, extended his palm towards the vast Mountains and Rivers. This action seemed as if he were trying to control large swathes of the jungle, but under Zeng Jiakan's gaze, attempting to record something, nothing happened! Oh, perhaps something did happen, but it wasn't important.

Wei Keng merely caused the plants' Root System to spread out just a tiny bit, that was all, only able to do that much.

The ability of Wei Keng to do only a tiny bit and then forget about it would be constantly tested by others in the Time-Space Administration Bureau, but these seemingly valuable attempts might not necessarily be correct.