Gaia

To the north of River Valley Province lay Origin City of the Great Rift Valley. Inside the spacious conference room, an elderly man with graying temples and a dignified demeanor sat before an empty long conference table. He was the Chief of the Great Rift Valley, and also the final remaining member of the Post-War Reconstruction Committee. No one knew how old he was, not even himself. His distant memories of the old era had long since been left in the past. Gazing fixedly toward the south, a trace of astonishment gradually surfaced on the old man's face. After a moment, he lowered his gaze, muttering incredulously to himself. "...It actually worked?" *** The Chief of the Great Rift Valley was not the only one shocked. Yang Kai, the researcher dispatched by the Academy to the Alliance, wore an equally astounded expression. The spore cloud blanketing the sky over Qingquan City was slowly collapsing! They had observed this broodmother for two centuries, and this was a miracle that had not occurred once in two hundred years! Not only that. Through the analysis of pheromones in the spore cloud, he could clearly hear the broodmother letting out agonizing wails. "...How did they do it?" Was it some specialized virus? Or did they introduce some organism capable of suppressing the mutant slime mold...? Yet the genetic information contained within that entity's gene pool practically exceeded the sum total of genetic information of all living creatures on Earth; she had practically become an existence akin to a deity from ancient religious beliefs! They had not even fully mapped out that creature's gene pool, so where could anyone possibly find an organism capable of countering her? Yang Kai muttered to himself, his face full of disbelief and perplexity, utterly unable to fathom it. He could not understand. How on earth did this survivor faction, founded less than two years ago, manage to eradicate a chronic blight that even the Post-War Reconstruction Committee had failed to cure! *** The spores amassed within Qingquan City were seething, just like a pot of boiling water. The broodmother in the city center was not the only one roaring—so was young Thea. She felt her mother's agony. A terrifying force had invaded her mother's body and was devouring her bit by bit! Alongside her rage, Thea could not help feeling a surge of dread. What on earth was that thing? Even her mother couldn't handle it! The spores floating around her rippled with waves of furious energy. The grayish-green smog surged like a rushing torrent, centered on the edge of the North Second Ring Road and spreading along the streets, engulfing every fruiting body and evolved organism. A silent cry resonated in the consciousness of every fruiting body. "Kill them!" "Tear them all to shreds!" Resonating with that furious emotion, whether gnawers or crawlers, they all let out hoarse, screeching howls, like echoes stirred by that roar. "Roar—!!" On the defensive line less than a kilometer from the giant wall, seeing the wave assault grow fiercer and fiercer, panic involuntarily crept across the faces of the Disciplinary Battalion soldiers. Less than an hour after the gunfire and artillery started, their force of five thousand had taken twenty percent casualties. Two full hundred-man companies had been wiped out! They had watched with their own eyes as comrades on the same line were swarmed by gnawers. In merely a few breaths, a man would be torn to shreds by countless claws, without a single intact bone left. Those fruiting bodies were like demons. And now they were completely crazed, charging forward recklessly at them! When it came down to it, they had only received three months of military training, and unlike the players, they couldn't die and respawn over and over. Unable to contain the terror in their hearts, some soldiers subconsciously began stepping backward. As if sensing the wavering morale, the discipline enforcement unit's roars echoed from behind them. "Hold the line! No retreating!" At the same time, two machine guns in the rear spewed fierce firepower. Amidst the rat-tat-tat of strafing fire, glowing tracer rounds sprayed like concentrated sheets of rain in front of the troops. Bite gritted his teeth, seized his rifle, and forced himself to yell and lead the charge forward. After cutting down several gnawers that had pounced onto the frontline machine gunner, he yanked the mangled corpse aside and crouched into the machine gun bunker himself. He knew very well. If they retreated even a single step, not only would the barrage laid down before them follow them back, but the artillery fire from behind would also rain down right on their heads. Falling back was certain death. But if they held on, they might just survive! "Aaargh!" Grabbing the machine gun, Bite clamped down on the trigger. Rattling off bursts at the endless waves of gnawers surging toward him, he bellowed at the top of his lungs to drive away his fear. Right then, thumping cannon fire suddenly sounded from the other side of the street. He knew that sound all too well—it was the Alliance's 37mm cannon! As if confirming his suspicion, armored vehicles crashed into the battlefield from the flank, their wide front bumpers and steel anti-collision grilles bowling over swarms of mutants. Mounted atop those armored vehicles, the 37mm autocannons raked the area, their python-thick tracer streams weaving a web of death across the shattered streets. A string of black blood mists instantly erupted from the middle of the swarm. Charging, roaring fruiting bodies fell like scythed wheat, and many gnawers were gruesomely blown in half. The pressure on the precarious defensive line instantly dropped by half, and the Disciplinary Battalion's morale rebounded from rock bottom back halfway up the mountain. Seeing those armored vehicles and the pitch-black skull insignias, many let out joyful shouts, and some even whistled. "It's the Skeleton Corps!" "Reinforcements! Our reinforcements are here!" "They haven't abandoned us!" It wasn't just the Skeleton Corps! There was Boulder City's militia as well! Militiamen wearing exoskeletons, led by suits of power armor, advanced closely behind the armored vehicles, launching a counterattack against the surging tide. The artillery barrages launched from the giant wall and the bullets fired by the Disciplinary Battalion had already eliminated plenty of fruiting bodies. Some sated gnawers were attempting to carry nutrients back to incubation chambers as resources to spawn more troops. Naturally, the Alliance wouldn't let them have their way. They had no intention of giving Thea any breathing room. Taking advantage of the swarm's weakening, the Skeleton Corps, which had been waiting for its opportunity on the flank, immediately coordinated with Boulder City's militia to launch a counterattack. Watching the thunderous guns and cannons blazing across the street, Bite's pupils dilated before filling with incredulous euphoria. The soldiers behind him felt the exact same way. A few months ago, they had harbored bitter hatred toward the Alliance's tanks and armored vehicles—after all, it was those machines that had blocked off the slums beneath the giant wall, sweeping them all up without mercy. Especially after being drafted into the Disciplinary Battalion, almost everyone had despairingly believed they were doomed, certain that the Alliance would use them as cannon fodder until they were all dead. Yet to their surprise, the Alliance hadn't done that. Instead, it fulfilled its agreement with them: once they had completed their role as cannon fodder by withstanding the Tide's assault, the Alliance and the militia would take over the offensive. Only what was lost and regained taught the true value of life. At this moment, having survived disaster, they were so grateful they almost wanted to drop to their knees. Even the most vicious criminals offered praise from the depths of their hearts. "Praise the Alliance! Praise the great Administrator!" After escorting the militia infantry near the incubation chamber and dispatching dozens of troublesome evolved organisms, the Skeleton Corps left behind only a hundred or so Awakened players to help. The rest followed the armored units advancing along the main thoroughfare, rushing toward the Death Corps positioned at the edge of the North Second Ring Road. According to messages relayed from the front line via human radios, the Death Corps had run into the slime-mold-corrupted remnants of the former 111th Orbital Airborne Division. Among them were not only dozens of Corrupted Knights, but also a six-story-tall Titan! Poking half his head out of the top of an armored vehicle, Brother Mole picked up a megaphone and shouted at the top of his lungs. "Full speed ahead!" "Our boy Brother Edge ran into a Titan! We can't let him hog all the loot for himself!" Resounding roars echoed through the comms channel. "Awoooo!" With the counteroffensive underway, the situation in the theater near Boulder City had been completely turned around. The incubation chambers scattered along the Tide's route acted as the slime mold's "barracks." Once the structures producing troops were dismantled, the corpses carpeting the ground could only serve as raw material for nutrient paste. Fighting on the western front was essentially wrapped up, but on the northern front, combat was still raging. Sector 06 of the defense line was in particularly dire straits. All ten defensive positions across the front, middle, and rear sections had been thoroughly submerged beneath the Tide's ferocious onslaught. The Burning Corps' airdrop into the city center had practically kicked a hornet's nest—Thea was like a madwoman, recklessly assaulting the Alliance's positions. The Alliance refused to yield an inch. The Goblin Corps' planes buzzed and circled between the ruined skyscrapers, raining down death onto the ground from time to time. Rear artillery fired relentlessly as well, lobbing shells one after another into positions already overrun with fruiting bodies. Though those outposts were virtually drowned under an endless sea of mutants, no matter how Thea urged her fruiting bodies to attack, she was never able to completely overrun the combat positions. The gunfire of resistance never ceased for a single moment. Even when casualties reached fifty percent, the players did not retreat a single step; instead, a steady stream pushed forward to hold the line. Inspired by the vault dwellers leading from the front, the Alliance's NPCs erupted with astonishing fighting spirit, charging wave after wave onto the battleground. The battle entered a stalemate. Every street turned into a meat grinder. Both sides brought every conceivable tactic to bear, contesting every inch of ground before the final defense line. And right at that moment, a scene no one anticipated occurred. The slime mold fruiting bodies surging toward the positions like a tidal wave suddenly withdrew! Whether cannon-fodder gnawers or Corrupted Knights wielding heavy weaponry, they all turned around simultaneously like a receding tide, hurrying away along the paths they had come. Standing at Position 4 in the middle section of the defensive zone, a heavily panting Kakarot swapped out his rifle's magazine and glanced hastily out the building's window at the street below. Seeing the gnawers turning tail and retreating, astonishment surfaced on his face. "What's going on?" The Tide was actually retreating?! During last year's Tide, they had fought a grueling war of attrition for days, pushing all the way back to the spawner mother that kept churning out offspring and killing it before the Tide finally ended. He was just getting into the groove of killing. Why were these fruiting bodies suddenly running back? Broken Leg Kevin, standing beside him, wore the same look, as though the sun had risen in the west. "Did that Thea chick wimp out?" Watching the slime mold fruiting bodies continuously pulling out of the buildings, Kakarot shook his head with a subtle expression. Just then, Brother Spring's voice came over the comms channel. "...Brother Mosquito's side spotted the fruiting bodies falling back to defend the North Second Ring Road. My guess is the boys in the Burning Corps... Unbelievable. Did they actually pull it off?" As he spoke, Commander Spring's voice couldn't help carrying a tinge of awe. To be honest, although he had agreed with Brother Fang Chang's "Bodyguard Plan," he had harbored doubts about the guy's surprise raid on the city center. Perhaps his understanding of the game wasn't deep enough. In his view, for a game still in closed beta, the damn dev had zero reason to let them take down the big boss in the city center. Shouldn't they have given it god mode or an HP lock? Yet the dev had surprisingly turned out to be generous; true to the grand promises they had spun, anything really was possible. If they took down Thea too, the Tide would probably become history from now on. At least in Qingquan City. "What do we do now?" Kakarot tapped his helmet and asked over the comms. After only a moment's thought, Spring answered without hesitation. "Pursue them!" Beside him, Broken Leg Kevin froze. "Pursue them? Right now?" "That's right!" Spring said decisively. "Now is our best chance. The Death Corps has reached the edge of the North Second Ring Road, and the Skeleton Corps is heading there too. As long as we bog down the little ones' retreat, we can take out both young and old in one clean sweep!" "Heheh, I like that idea!" Grinning, Kakarot racked a round into his rifle, switched to all-team voice chat, and hollered at the top of his lungs. "Brothers! The Tide is retreating! It's time to counterattack!" "Time to switch our BGM!" As if answering his call to charge, the broadcast speakers that had been blaring white noise suddenly sounded that familiar tune—the blast of the charge bugle! When that resounding melody cut through the smoke-filled battlefield, players whose stamina had been nearly depleted experienced an instant surge of adrenaline, their morale soaring through the roof! Those earth-shaking battle cries even scattered the gray smog clinging to the streets. Pumped full of adrenaline, every player charged forward after the retreating slime mold. "Charge!!!" "Awoooo!!" The soldiers of the First Corps standing on the defensive line were completely dumbfounded, staring slack-jawed at those frenzied vault dwellers chasing down the slime mold fruiting bodies. Li Shudong swallowed hard, his eyes wide with astonishment and shock, which gradually gave way to boundless reverence. They were true warriors! Knowing no fear of death, and knowing no fatigue! Inspired by that overwhelming battle lust, he felt the blood in his chest boil as well, and he couldn't help crying out that battle chant—even though he had no idea what it actually meant: "Charge!!!" *** As the Storm Corps and the various units of the First Corps launched their pursuit, the counteroffensive in the northern suburbs of Qingquan City was in full swing. While Thea was struggling to handle pressure converging from two directions at once, scrambling desperately to recall fruiting bodies for defense, Luo Yu and Yu's consumption of the broodmother was steadily drawing to a close. The weakening consciousness no longer pleaded, plunging into a pitch-black abyss amidst venomous curses. Luo Yu felt his consciousness merging into her body, coursing through her blood vessels into every corner of her form. Gradually, what he sensed was no longer just her body, but also the world beyond it. The hundreds of millions of spores drifting in the air felt like his antennae. Through those floating neurons, he could vaguely perceive every single fruiting body. They were all her children. Including Thea. And including the creep crawling across the walls. He saw clearly that Thea—her most beloved child in life—was looking up at him with terror in her eyes. As if he were a terrifying monster. At that moment, a term he had only ever seen in novels popped into his mind. *Could this be... body possession?* That seemed to be the most fitting description. The realization quickly plunged Luo Yu into euphoria. Ignoring Thea, who cowered before him, he tried to focus all his concentration on sinking his mind into that vast sea of consciousness. Right then, a streak of bright white light suddenly burst into his awareness. Accompanied by a deafening roar, he felt as if his body were being vacuumed away, forcefully pulled into a boundless void of darkness. Suddenly losing all perception of his physical form, a surge of panic seized Luo Yu. He thought he had flexed too hard and suffered a backlash from the broodmother. Fortunately, a soft murmur drifted into his ears, immediately calming his restless mind. "Eewoo!" *(Don't be afraid, I'm here too!)* Luo Yu took a deep breath and looked toward the bright white light floating beside his consciousness. "Yu?" "Eewoo!" *(Yes!)* "Where am I?" "Eewoo." *(This is her memory.)* "Her memory..." Repeating those words, Luo Yu came to the sudden realization that what they had devoured was not merely her body, but also her memories. At that thought, a prickle of curiosity stirred within him. He wanted to see what was buried deep within the broodmother's memories. Just then, tiny specks of light emerged in the darkness around him. Soon after, the boundless void transformed into a vast, sprawling sea of stars. Floating amidst the multicolored starlight, Luo Yu's eyes widened—though, existing here only as an abstract consciousness, he didn't actually possess real eyes. Gradually, a brilliant star emerged from the starfield. And beside that star hung a magnificent planet. It looked like an exquisitely carved piece of art. The land was a dusky red, and the oceans were a vibrant, verdant green. Endless rainforests blanketed the world, where flourishing species lived and multiplied. Even more incredible was what lay within. The endless rainforests were not composed of trees, but of colossal "mushrooms." The "animals" roaming the planet were fundamentally different from animals on Earth. They were born from the soil beneath their feet and returned to dust upon death, only to begin a new cycle. All living things fed upon her hair, free from fighting and slaughter, playing and frolicking day in and day out. There was no concept of a food chain here—only an almost flawless circle. In a sense, whether roaming the land, soaring in the sky, or sprouting from the earth, everything on this planet was her fruiting body. Over the long river of time, they had achieved eternal harmony. All things were nurtured by her, and all things nurtured her in return. Gazing at the beautiful planet, Luo Yu was captivated for a time—mostly because he had never seen anything like it. Was this the "Hive"? It seemed... not quite as terrifying as he had imagined? "Who is she?" A distant voice echoed from the depths of his sea of consciousness. "She has no name." "After you arrived, you called her Gaia."