Assimilation Fighter?

A pitch-black underground tunnel. After being knocked unconscious, the three rookies had been dragged here by a pack of slime mold fruiting bodies, then hauled into a claustrophobic chamber. This seemed to be somewhere in Qingquan City's subterranean transit network, but fungal plaques had deformed it beyond recognition, making it impossible to tell their exact location. The first player to wake shook his head. He pushed off the ground with both hands, felt a slimy film against his palms, and opened his eyes, jumping in fright. All around him was scarlet. The pulsating creep resembled living chunks of meat, giving off an unsettling stench. Big Trotter stared blankly around him, taking a long while before wheezing out a single sentence. "What the hell? What kind of ghost place is this?" How had his location shifted after being offline for just a little while? Right then, the couple who had been abducted alongside him woke up as well, trembling with fright at their surroundings. Hungry Forces: "Holy crap... Did the slime mold swallow us into its stomach?" Bow to Hungry Forces: "Get real. You're such a big lump—how could it swallow you without chewing you up first?" Hungry Forces: "...?" Bow to Hungry Forces: "My bad." Just then, an eerie silhouette emerged from the pitch-black opening ahead. It stood as tall as two men, its burly frame practically filling the passage. Its face bore only abstract, indistinct features. While its upper body was massive and robust, its lower half flared outward like a wide skirt, its edges rolling with octopus-like tentacles and cilia. It bore some resemblance to Yu back when she was still a broodmother, but it was visibly a size larger and retained even fewer human traits. All three were startled by the creature's grotesque, abstract appearance, scrambling backward with expressions like they had seen a ghost. Unfortunately, this was a dead end. With a wall immediately behind them, there was no room to maneuver. Watching the thing slowly ripple its tentacles and glide right in front of her, cold sweat beaded on Hungry Forces' forehead. She swallowed hard, craned her neck, and blustered toughly: "Kuh... Kill me, then! I won't say a word!" She had wanted to try out that line for ages, and more importantly, rookies like them didn't know anything anyway. Whether it understood her words or merely reacted to the noise, the mutant turned its abstract facial features toward her. The skirt hugging the floor suddenly parted a crack. Just as they wondered what it was doing, countless tentacles lunged from the gap, instantly dragging her into a gaping bloody maw. Before she could even let out a choking cry, Hungry Forces—who had been acting tough just a second ago—vanished into the snapping "mouth." The flared skirt undulated up and down, seemingly chewing thoroughly. Seeing his girlfriend eaten right before his eyes, Bow to Hungry Forces stared blankly for a split second before letting out a hysterical wail. "Babe!! I'll kill you!" Scrambling to his feet, he swung his fists and charged at the two-man-tall monster. Yet his fate was no different from the player before him. Before he could take two steps, a tentacle sliding from beneath the skirt tripped him up. Like a mosquito landing right before a frog, he was swept without suspense into the slit of that bloody maw. The shameless couple both met their ends. Having finished its meal, Thea swayed the tentacles beneath its body, pleasantly slapping the floor as if savoring a swallowed steak. Yet those abstract facial features still carried a trace of puzzlement, as though questioning something. Watching the undulating scarlet skirt, Big Trotter paled with fright. In desperation, his eyes darted. "Big bro! Don't eat me, I taste terrible... I-I-I surrender! Do you need a translator? I'll be your mole!" He had heard this game offered a high degree of freedom. What if it actually worked? Thea turned its abstract features toward him. After a moment's thought, it parted the skirt hugging the ground once more without warning. Seeing the clothes tumbling out from within and the tentacles churning like a meat grinder, Big Trotter anticipated his fate, his expression changing instantly. Either way, he was dead meat! "Fuck—" Before he could even curse the damn devs, the gaping maw swallowed him whole. Without even a chance to resist, his remaining consciousness merged into that sea of scarlet blood. Feeling the aura of life dissolve within its body, Thea chewed quietly for a moment, the confusion on its face morphing into an incomprehensible distress. "Strange..." As if sensing its child's confusion, the mother's voice quietly surfaced in its hazy sea of consciousness. "What is it, my child?" Facing the bare scarlet wall and the indigestible debris left at its feet, Thea murmured silently: "They... are empty." Those creatures were empty husks. And far purer husks than simple organisms like roaches or rats—like blank sheets of paper devoid of any information. Never since its birth had it encountered such strange creatures. Creatures like this could not be assimilated, or rather, assimilating them held no meaning; they were merely walking corpses. It could not comprehend what sort of beings they were. Could they be like the mother's "fruiting bodies," puppets controlled by a consciousness outside their bodies? Yet they displayed such strong autonomy. Puzzlement crept across Thea's face. Could it be... Do these humans also have a broodmother? ... "They are assimilated mutants." Shelter 404, Floor B4 reading room. Sitting on the sofa, Heya gave Chu Guang and Yin Fang a brief summary of the preliminary test results from the Alliance Biological Research Institute regarding the two fruiting body specimens. Hearing this unexpected and intriguing explanation, Yin Fang set down his coffee cup and raised an eyebrow with interest. "Assimilated?" Heya nodded with a serious look and continued. "Correct... The slime mold collected their DNA data, absorbing their organic matter while preserving part of the neural tissue originally belonging to those organisms." Pausing briefly, she went on. "You remember Bucky, right? The guy parasitized by the slime mold. His case shares similarities with these special fruiting bodies, except the slime mold in Qingquan City is clearly far more aggressive than in Yongdong City. Here, the slime mold assimilates more thoroughly, turning the vast majority of the captured organism into part of its own body and retaining only a tiny portion of the host's brain tissue." In a sense, for Qingquan City's mutant slime mold, this was practically an advancement. Similar to advancing from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age. Beyond turning prey bones into weapons, they had learned domestication on top of it—namely, cultivating prey into "combat servitors" obedient to them. Yin Fang rubbed his chin, lost in thought. Chu Guang, who had remained quiet until now, cleared his throat softly. "Could you put that in terms I can understand?" Heya explained patiently: "Simply put, they made improvements on top of their unified consciousness. Previously, whether gnawers or crawlers, they hunted under the guidance of the broodmother. Now, certain special fruiting bodies retain the combat experience they possessed before assimilation, allowing them to hunt in their original style using the stronger physical bodies granted by the slime mold." Yin Fang chimed in: "Equivalent to combat robots installed with sentient plug-ins that aren't controlled by a cloud server." Heya snapped her fingers. "Exactly!" Chu Guang rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "What's the significance of that?" Yin Fang analyzed it according to his own understanding: "The significance is that the broodmother can allocate more of the hive's 'computing power' to strategic command, while certain higher fruiting bodies and evolved organisms can make tactical decisions on their own based on experience. Even if their tactics aren't necessarily brilliant, they'll be far more flexible and varied than before... Is my understanding correct?" Heya smiled and nodded. "Yes, precisely that!" Taking a sip from his coffee cup, Yin Fang sighed and said: "Evolving to this degree in just one year... The evolutionary speed of this thing is absurd." Heya shook her head. "It wasn't just a year. Evolution is a long-term process. They have always been learning from us, whether our tools or our society... I'm more inclined to believe the Alliance's emergence accelerated their evolution to a degree, but the factor truly prompting their transition from quantitative to qualitative change is their long-term observation of us." Spore clouds blanketed every corner of Qingquan City; theoretically, the broodmother downtown could indeed see them. Just as the Alliance Biological Research Institute constantly sought a way to eliminate the broodmother, that entity was surely searching tirelessly for a way to dismantle human society. Perhaps eradicating them in the early Wasteland Era would have been the better option; back then, the slime mold certainly wouldn't have been this difficult to deal with. But that was all hindsight. The people back then had their own troubles. Merely surviving in dozens of degrees below zero was hard enough, let alone waging an unprepared campaign against an unknown foe. "Actually... compared to what you two mentioned, I'm more worried about something else." Seeing both of them look toward him, Chu Guang paused, then spoke slowly: "Through evolution, they've gradually learned to conceal themselves. While probing us, they consciously prevent us from acquiring their remains." "They seem to understand us better and better." ... The official Wasteland OL website. Unlike the somber atmosphere in the reading room, the forums were bustling with excitement. Ever since the new expansion dropped, the players had eagerly anticipated what new stunts the damn devs would pull, and sure enough, they hadn't disappointed. In previous Tides, the fruiting bodies simply swarmed forward in an A-move rush. Now, not only were they dodging and positioning, they had pulled off a jaw-dropping coordinated strike, even abducting three rookies right under Brother Spring's nose. No one had seen that coming. Jieyan: "Awesome!" Battlefield Atmosphere Group: "Even dog Spring ate dirt. Unscientific! (Funny)" Commander Spring: "Piss off, who ate dirt? Bringing back a corpse already counts as a massive achievement, all right!" Elaina: "Speaking of which, what about the rest of the corpses? Wasn't there another yaoguai? (Curious)" Commander Spring: "By the time the fog cleared, it was gone. Probably either dragged away for recycling or eaten on the spot." Fang Chang: "Eaten on the spot, of course..." Ye Shi: "Hiss... this new broodmother feels like it's got some tricks up its sleeve." Makabazi: "Speaking of which, what about the brothers abducted by those fruiting bodies? Haven't logged off yet?" Big Trotter: "That's me... By the way, I think I might have seen the broodmother!" Hearing this, the players lurking in the thread instantly perked up. Jieyan: "Holy crap! For real?" Elven King Fugui: "Tell us what it looked like, bro. (Funny)" Big Trotter: "I don't really know how to describe it. Kinda like Yu's old form... a size bigger, and uglier." Although he hadn't seen Yu in the game, other players had frequently posted photos of her on the forum. Compared to those photos, there were definite similarities, except Yu's facial features and body contours were smoother and rounder, with a softer pinkish hue. An imperfect yet vivid analogy would be that the broodmother dubbed Thea was like a shark with a gaping maw, the sort that made children cry. Yu, on the other hand, was more like a dolphin: while capable of ferocity, she was far closer to human aesthetics. Commander Spring: "Do you remember where you saw that thing?" Big Trotter: "Well, I'm not sure... But I felt it was somewhere underground. It looked a lot like a subway station." Brother Edge: "Subway station... That's way too broad of a target." Commander Spring: "Regardless, it confirms that this time the broodmother and incubation chambers are hidden underground... Damn it, no wonder they're all things we've never seen before." Fang Chang: "@Big Trotter, did the broodmother end up eating all of you?" Bow to Hungry Forces: "Yeah, it swallowed my wife in one bite... right in front of me, waah." Hungry Forces: "Tsk, you bastard, stop making it sound weird, will you! (Angry)" Bow to Hungry Forces: "My bad." Big Trotter: "..." Commander Spring: "And then? Did you notice anything else? Anything at all." Hungry Forces: "Well, I felt... like it reacted to our voices." Commander Spring: "Voices?" Hungry Forces: "At first, it looked like it was going to eat my boyfriend first, but as soon as I spoke up, it swallowed me instead... I felt like it didn't understand what I was saying at all. After all, I don't know the Human Alliance language either." Bow to Hungry Forces: "Hiss... now that you mention it, I remember too. I was the second to make a sound, and got eaten right after you." Hungry Forces: "So this mutant preys by sound?" Commander Spring: "Doesn't seem like it. I think there's another possibility: it mistook you for the human giving orders... like the alpha wolf in a pack." Hungry Forces: "Huh? I have that kind of talent?" Bow to Hungry Forces: "Holy crap? My girl has that kind of talent?" Commander Spring: "That I don't know, but from its perspective, that might well be the case. After all, most mammals rely on vocal cords to convey information. Perhaps in the broodmother's cognition, sound is understood as a biological pheromone." Big Trotter: "Speaking of which, I also noticed something unusual. I don't know if it counts as a clue... that creature suspected to be the broodmother seemed very surprised after eating those two." Commander Spring: "Surprised?" Big Trotter: "Yeah, like the feeling of eating the wrong thing... I watched it savor them for quite a while before spitting out their clothes and shoes." Fang Chang: "Interesting." Jieyan: "Uh, what does that mean?" Fang Chang: "...Do you think it's possible that, in the slime mold's cognition, other organisms are 'mushrooms' with autonomous consciousness, whereas the clones we use happen to lack autonomous consciousness, so it's puzzled about where our autonomous consciousness comes from?" Commander Spring: "Looks like we're on the same page." Fang Chang: "However, if my deduction is correct, this broodmother is probably different from all the ones we've encountered before. It doesn't simply consume prey; it selects some to assimilate into 'its own kind.'" Just as everyone was discussing it, an announcement suddenly popped up on the official website. ["The Tide Returns" Expansion Update: New Concept - "Assimilated Variants"] [According to findings from the Alliance Research Institute, "Thea" consciously captures organisms encroaching on its territory, assimilating them into its swarm. It preserves their aggression and part of their self-awareness while forcibly implanting biological prosthetics to modify them.] [Currently Known "Assimilated Variants": 1. Fungus-Devoured Yaoguai: Possesses strength akin to a yaoguai, with regeneration and defense enhanced by biological prosthetics constructed from slime mold. Individual combat capability is even greater than that of an ordinary yaoguai. 2. Fungus-Devoured Deathclaw: Possesses the speed and agility of a deathclaw, with enhanced regeneration and damage resistance. Samples have not yet been collected, preventing definitive biological analysis; combat footage suggests combat capability rivaling an evolved organism. 3. Fungus-Devoured Detonator: Suspected to be a secondary-assimilated slime mold fruiting body with no biological prototype found in Qingquan City's surrounding ecosystem. Inferred ability is self-detonation to release corrosive toxic mist; other fruiting bodies throw them as projectiles. ...] Jieyan: "Holy crap!" In Debt God: "6666! Just talked about assimilation and they update the Assimilated Variant lore!" Ye Shi: "Hammered proof that Brother Guang plagiarizes the forum! (Funny)" Fang Chang: "Regardless, this server announcement proves our line of thinking was right. Two pieces of information can be extracted. First, Thea has the trait of an 'Assimilation Fighter,' converting certain prey to utilize their combat experience, making it far better at micromanagement than the broodmothers from previous Tides. Second, it has targeted our uniqueness, consciously studying and learning from us... though hindered by limited knowledge, its understanding of us might have developed some deviations." Commander Spring: "These two clues are crucial! Since our opponents are no longer the blockheads from the last Tide, the Tide's format has very likely undergone a fundamental change. Devising tactics with our old mindset would be dangerous." Brother Edge: "You mean they might not play by the book? Bypass the defensive line we set up in the northern suburbs?" Commander Spring: "There's a very high probability of that. The old experience of calculating the slime mold's attack direction via spore cloud concentration is extremely likely to fail in this battle!" Commander Spring: "I even suspect the Tide has already begun. They're just holding their forces back by exploiting our cognitive inertia, deliberately playing along with our expected timeline. In two weeks, they just need to send out hordes of cannon fodder to charge head-on at our positions like last time, then dispatch an elite strike force around our weakest flank, and they could swallow our entire defensive line in one bite!" Luo Yu: "Holy shit?! Slime mold is that calculating?" Construction Site Youth and Brick: "Uh, aren't you overthinking this..." Commander Spring: "I've heard slime mold can plan the shortest path to food based on its location. The mutant slime mold we're dealing with is clearly far smarter than real-world slime mold. I have every reason to believe these things could pull off a maneuver like that." Fang Chang: "Agreed. Anything can happen on the battlefield. I share your view; underestimating the enemy will cost us dearly." Midnight Chicken Slayer: "Too troublesome. Do you two have a plan?" Fang Chang: "After hearing about what those two rookies went through, I actually have an idea." Brother Edge: "What idea?" Fang Chang: "As everyone knows, creatures that are a little clever but not quite smart enough are easier to trick than total fools who know nothing. This broodmother is smarter and tougher to deal with than before, but conversely, we can exploit that." Brother Edge: "How do we exploit that?" Fang Chang: "Simple. It follows the same logic as World War II intelligence warfare. Since their understanding of us is 'a swarm of organisms relying on sound waves as pheromones to convey information,' all we need to do is forge an 'order-issuing broodmother' and stage a 'weakness' for it to see!"