The Brutal Collective

The final stage of the third phase of the conflict was extremely boring.

Because the Southern Gene Colonies were at their wits' end.

If they gathered together, the lack of modern logistical support meant that the scarce food and water where they were would slow down the Gene Colonies even more. But if they spread out farther, Wei Keng would destroy them one by one even faster.

Hold their ground? These Gene Colony groups were already in a full-scale retreat.

It was so boring, like the self-rescue of the Human City-States that Transmigrators in the Main World had witnessed across timeline after timeline.

On those timelines, after Pandora covered the globe, humans resisted. Every time, it was one or two people, or a small group, who used all their heart and skill to take the surviving patterns of the past to their limits, even surpassing those limits, and offer others a faint hope. But in the end, faced with a future that could never be stopped, they fell into helplessness! Repeated over and over, life's flavor grew ever blander, while the stench of decay grew ever stronger.

Life demanded a breakthrough! A desperate struggle meant trying every possibility with all one's might, not the helpless "giving it everything you've got" of dark manga from the 21st Century.

When Wei Keng finished his seventh raid and returned with all his equipment and supplies intact, "just happened" to pass Jian City, Wei Kengs looked at the fog spreading beyond the city walls and at the bleak Life Radiation of the city dwellers, who were still barely surviving, lifelessly.

Wei Keng: "Death? It seems that might be acceptable. The key is having hope. Some people die lighter than a feather; others, heavier than Mount Tai."

Three days after Wei Keng's army returned, a tractor convoy from the Zhujiang River Basin arrived at Jian City to conduct a trade.

By the end of the war, the number of locals from This Plane who had fought alongside Wei Keng and taken on support duties had reached 347. To resist possible Gene Pollution, almost all of them had been injected with Wei Keng's blood. There were none of the imagined side effects, such as everyone becoming like Wei Keng or having their minds controlled by him.

As more and more locals gathered at the settlement, they began to be influenced by the herd-following effect.

These bold young people, who wanted to carry guns and roam freely across this land, chose to try an injection. As for Wei Keng, with his own supply insufficient, he began rationing the available doses.

When Wei Keng tightened the supply of his blood, it unexpectedly set off a craze to get it, leaving him speechless with amusement.

On the morning of December 11, 134 of the Pandora Era, the sunlight made the dew on the wooden barricades atop the city walls glisten.

The tractor convoy from the south stopped outside the city walls. The goods began to be hoisted inside, but not all members of the Zhujiang Trade Team were allowed through the gates.

The trade mission was led by Zeng Jiakan, the chief negotiator. He had once returned to his homeland full of enthusiasm, expecting to be welcomed as a hero.

But just a few hours after entering through the iron gate, he walked out of the dark gray city. The excitement he had arrived with was gone, replaced by dejection.

Inside the city, he had felt one gaze after another treating him like an outsider.

The once-fiery young man couldn't understand it. He had risked being absorbed by the Gene Colonies to save this city. And what about the city? Those who had once given him orders, those colleagues who had praised his courage in leaving the city—now they whispered behind his back, one after another: this man had become a slave under the mind control of the Southern Same-faced People.

Zeng Jiakan wanted to shout at them, "Have you forgotten the deathly pressure you felt when the Gene Colonies were bearing down on you?!"

The people of Jian City didn't hear that cry from his heart.

But Wei Keng did! This was the first abnormal phenomenon he had been able to confirm after the blood injections.

The Wei Keng Collective took it very seriously: it proved that other individuals and Wei Keng himself still had a special influence on one another within the same Life Field.

Zeng Jiakan might not have been the first. Before this, Wei Keng had occasionally heard the Inner Voices created by people's intense thoughts, but at the time he couldn't tell whether he was imagining things. Now he could be sure.

Of course, Wei Keng couldn't hear everything.

He had never heard instinctive, meaningless thoughts, such as the low-level desires of wondering whether to eat fish or eggs today.

It wasn't even an active skill. Only when certain individuals were especially emotionally agitated and couldn't control themselves could Wei Keng hear them. This phenomenon might be the result of a biological colony's nodes converging.

What Wei Keng didn't know was that in the High Dimension Space Bubble, Bai Linglu had already recorded this phenomenon as "the formation of a human Gene Colony" and compared Wei Keng with the various traits of the world's traditional Node Creatures.

After this happened, Wei Keng paid close attention to it while carrying out his planar mission.

Afraid of "social death," Wei Keng started paying attention to whether others could hear his inner monologue.

Of course, they couldn't. Bai Linglu had explained as much in her report: Node Creatures had greater information-processing ability than other individuals. Although the information connections within the Wei Keng Collective were divided into regional blocks, to individuals newly brought in from outside, the Collective functioned as a center.

These peripheral individuals like Zeng Jiakan didn't have the central information-processing ability of the Wei Keng Collective, so they couldn't receive the Collective's complex thoughts.

As for Wei Keng, he acted as if nothing was wrong, but secretly tested this on the locals from This Plane and confirmed the same result. The "group information" among his individual selves wouldn't leak out. So he quietly concealed from others that he could read their minds.

Even though he kept it hidden, Wei Keng still gave serious thought to what he heard.

At that moment, Wei Keng felt a deep empathy for Zeng Jiakan's bitter question about Jian City and formed a reply in his mind.

Wei Keng: The people in the city who now stand high above the rest and use literature to express how the city feels really haven't felt this war deeply. In the war against the Colonies, those in leadership could repeatedly push unimportant people out as sacrificial shells. And you, Zeng Jiakan, chose to face the Waves yourself. They feel they can never repay your kindness, but they don't want to feel guilty about being vile, so they deliberately treat you as a tool without pain or feelings, as an outer shell of society.

But though Wei Keng had worked out what he could say, he didn't utter a word to Zeng Jiakan.

Wei Keng wasn't used to preaching. Preaching was tantamount to making a promise. So his answer was really a reminder to himself, a reminder of how to respond to questions like Zeng Jiakan's through practical actions.

As it happened, some people from Jian City were brought out by negotiators from the Zhujiang Gathering Place: a group of injured people. These numb, bewildered evacuees had been expendable in the battle to defend the city.

Their bodies had been damaged by intense Gene Radiation. Animal fur covered parts of their skin, and some had even lost part of the function of the nerves in their hands, which had turned into claws. As a result, everyone inside the city despised them. They hated the abnormal signs of life on their bodies, which might interfere with their own.

To be honest, they were very ugly! Without any context, if Wei Keng encountered them, he would definitely walk around them, as if they were beggars on the street giving off a foul smell.

But after quietly answering Zeng Jiakan in his heart, Wei Keng pinched his nose and decided that they deserved to live, and that he ought to give them a hand.

After the upper echelons of Jian City stood atop a tower and confirmed that the fog in the surrounding forest had dispersed, the beasts had disappeared, and the safety crisis was over, they hurried to the city's Ancestral Hall to thank their ancestors for their protection.

When the Zhujiang trade mission proposed transferring laborers to offset the cost of the rescue—and made clear in the detailed plan that they didn't mind taking in some of the injured people who had been exposed to Gene Colony radiation—the Ruling Council of Jian City hurriedly drove more than four thousand Mutants out of the city.

When these people, suffering from severe mutations, were driven out of the city and heard that they were to be handed over to a demon like Wei Keng, they were terrified. In their despair, some of the microbial colonies that had once lived symbiotically in their bodies broke away from their cell nuclei and turned into viruses, causing widespread coughing, vomiting, and diarrhea.

Wei Keng sighed over the matter. Whenever this kind of psychosis appeared in Human Society, people often needed religion as a placebo to fill the emptiness in their hearts. Now a chance to become a god lay before Wei Keng! But he wanted no part of it.

The Wei Keng Collective assigned a work group to help settle them, and they began talking with the people.

They told the ten-year-old children stories, including traditional idiom stories and tales of human life before the Great Cataclysm.

They chatted with the women, asking how they threaded needles to mend clothes and whether they needed sewing machines.

They talked with the men about farming: food could grow in soil, houses could be built from fired bricks, and illnesses could all be treated.

Before they returned to the temporary settlement near the Zhujiang River, the four thousand people had almost all calmed down. They also had no objections to receiving treatment for their Life Radiation by having Wei Keng's blood injected. The wariness toward Wei Keng as a different species, which Jian City had once fostered through its propaganda, gradually faded.

Blood injections were perfectly normal in the city-states! They were a routine way of resisting Life Radiation from the outside world. In Jian City, if someone suffered an invasion of Demonic Aura (Gene Pollution), they could actually be treated as well. These people who had been cast out also longed for such treatment.

After chatting with them for so many days, Wei Keng gradually dispelled their resistance and began guiding them toward accepting his treatment. When Wei Keng proposed the treatment plan, he could see a trace of hesitation on their faces. But in the end, one after another, they seemed to fill in the forms unwillingly.

How did Jian City treat the mild effects of the Gene Radiation that caused species to become jumbled? By injecting the blood of a hundred normal people! But at the market price, each normal person's blood cost a hundred coins! Yes, one Steel Cent made of the same Nickel-Iron used in the Civilization Era. When capital helped feudalism rule, there was no possibility of public services looking after the lower and middle classes' right to survive.

They were poor but wanted to live, so in the end they had no choice but to accept a solution they wouldn't have chosen before. It was like choosing to eat kaolin during a famine.

On December 31, 134 of the Pandora Era, one week after these people who had migrated south from Jian City were settled,

Wei Keng drew out tube after tube of blood and injected it into the four thousand people. His Life Radiation fell by one percent in a short time, but recovered a few days later.

For Wei Keng, having a tube of blood drawn meant feeling unwell for about five days. But for those four thousand people, it was as good as being reborn. These Mutants discovered that the effects of Wei Keng's blood injections were almost visible to the naked eye: the animal fur on their skin fell out, some people's tails shrank back in, and the sharp teeth that had grown through their lips left them severely disfigured. After the teeth were pulled, normal teeth began growing in again a few days later.

Of course, even after a month, no one's appearance had become like Wei Keng's.

Still, this Gene Injection made Wei Keng take certain changes very seriously.

Wei Keng: If things develop into something like a Gene Colony, then there'll be an Inner Circle and an Outer Circle here. The Inner Circle will be my own group, while the Outer Circle will be the human groups whose genes have begun communicating with mine.

This kind of assimilation might have a lot of benefits, but Wei Keng was wary of its potential downsides! Humanity, as a species, ought to have a certain degree of diversity. Now Wei Keng himself didn't want everyone to become like him.

Wei Keng: "System, is this possible?"

System: "Your Gene Colony effect is already in its radiation stage. You've cleared out large numbers of other species nearby. As the Apex Predator at the top of the food chain, you've brought Ecological Resources under the control of a single species. Under that species' Gene Activity, resonance will form. You should naturally be at the core. Your blood injections have merely accelerated the process."

Wei Keng: "Is that so? Then what are the downsides?"

System: "There are no downsides. As long as the population spreads far enough, mutations will always exist. You don't need to worry about human genetic diversity. Apart from you, humanity's cohesion will never be enough for its genes to converge toward something like a Clone Cluster."

But Wei Keng asked an even more piercing question: "Then could my Life Radiation Field evolve to a higher level and affect the human groups around me?"

The question Wei Keng found deeply troubling was this: today, he could already hear the Inner Voices of certain people. Could there come a day when he could send information to others one-way? And further in the future, could he directly use Remote Control of Thought and Will on them?

After the System ran for several seconds, its answer was "insufficient data."

The data was indeed insufficient, but there was a point of reference in this world. Bai Linglu simply wouldn't point out this disastrous example to Wei Keng.

In Northern Yu City, the surging Yangtze River still battered the River-blocking Vine Cluster.

Between the city's dramatically contoured mountains, the enormous head suspended from the eye-catching Skyscraper Tree Tower turned once more.

Now the giant head atop the brightly lit tower connected to all the priests.

The top of the skyscraper still had a tiled floor, but vein-like Green Network spread across every tile. Every inch had been scrubbed clean, making one wonder whether the place's master suffered from Germophobia.

Every priest here had a Vine-constructed Seat, but no one dared sit down. Prime Spirit wasn't in a good enough mood to allow them to.

Prime Spirit: "The battle in the south is over. Qi Shengxun is dead!"

From a human perspective, Qi Shengxun had already died after being devoured and having his brain and mind reshuffled. But in a Gene Colony, there was no such thing as an emotional or mental self. Everything belonged to the Matriarch. Only genes represented the self.

Qi Shengxun's Gene Influence had disappeared. His death meant that one of Prime Spirit's branches had been completely wiped out.

A priest at the very end of the line folded his hands and respectfully reported to Prime Spirit, "Dongting Lake Dragon Blood suffered a heavy defeat in the southward advance. Prime Spirit, do you wish to act on your will and unite this useless failure?"

Gene Colonies had always fought one another. For instance, the Colony Wei Keng had driven north from the Yue Region in the second phase had been entirely devoured by the Dongting Collective after reaching the Xiang Region. Now the Dongting Collective's southern advance had been nearly wiped out by Wei Keng. Only one-fifth of its total population had returned, but its Node Creatures had been destroyed again and again, leaving its Life Radiation at less than a tenth of its former scale. It had truly suffered a heavy defeat. So for the Yu City Collective, this was indeed a good opportunity to annex it.

But Prime Spirit had no intention of discussing that first. Instead, she continued her unanswered inquiry.

Prime Spirit: "What exactly is that place in the south, by the sea!" she asked the priests nearest to her again. Some of the anxiety of this Super Giant Head passed to those priests closest to her.

The conversation continued, but a few vines appeared in the hall almost casually and dragged several priests into a hollow inside the tree. Prime Spirit devoured their thoughts and consciousness.

Prime Spirit acted as if nothing had happened, as though she had simply eaten a few rolls. It was like an idle human chatting with her rolls as she ate them.

And the priests, those "Little Breads," weren't afraid in the least. They all felt quite calm. If they were bread and had no other purpose, then being eaten was perfectly normal.

[Such a scene, so matter-of-fact! Such acceptance! It was enough to horrify people from the Civilization Era! These were not people, and they had never considered the humans of the city-states their kind.]

Long Ximin: "Matriarch, I still want to go there."

Prime Spirit: "You? Do you think you can still communicate with him? Mm, he's very cruel!"

Long Ximin: "He inherited the most violent male genes in humanity and has a Destructive Tendency, but perhaps there are things he longs for."

Prime Spirit considered this for a while. A flower bud five meters in diameter extended down from the giant tree and enveloped Long Ximin. As its petals closed together, fleshy spines sprang from the inner petals, piercing into Long Ximin inch by inch. There was no blood spraying everywhere, but her flesh merged with them as the flower bud closed completely. Prime Spirit placed the flower back on a branch fifty meters away, where it curled around the trunk of the giant tree.

Prime Spirit: "She'll come out in fifty days. Now, let's discuss the Dongting Collective. I don't want to drink from the same river as those furred, scaled, and horned creatures anymore."