MASG chapter 108

 

The entire road changed from a straight line to a wavy one.

Sometimes the waves were horizontal, and sometimes they were vertical. No matter how they undulated, however, they never affected the buildings beside them. This showed that, as a parasitic host, it was separate from the buildings.

Parasitic humans who had just crossed the road rushed over after hearing the sound, as if relying entirely on sound to locate them. Mo An immediately aimed his gun at one of them, but Silver Fang pushed his gun downward with his hand.

Silver Fang shook his head. Don’t shoot.

Trusting his teammate, Mo An released the trigger. But how could the surrounding environment be explained? What exactly were these parasitic humans trying to do? From such a close distance, he could clearly see that their eyes had undergone degeneration, but not biological degeneration—it was caused by artificial interference!

Their eyes looked as if they had been sealed over with cement.

Their overly developed ears had cement exoskeletons forming a circle of abnormally developed auricles. Mo An had initially thought their skin was covered in acid rain scars, but upon closer inspection, he saw that the blotches were not scars but freshly emerged cement.

It was as if they had grown a layer of fleshy pink moss that lived in mutualistic symbiosis with them.

Mo An was not the only strange one. None of the other teammates had ever seen anything like this before. It was very different from the infection in Qingyao City. It was full of indeterminacy and randomness, as if any object in Yukun City could combine with anything else. Here, the world was a melting pot of plants, animals, organic matter, inorganic matter, bacteria, fungi, and so on. As long as you wanted to combine something, you could.

Talos was still holding a pipe in his mouth. Now, he understood why ecological energy and systems could be detected here yet no living organisms could be. The life here had already exceeded the instruments’ scope of understanding. To the detection devices, these were not living beings, but buildings.

They stood in place for half an hour without making a sound. When the road surface returned to normal and those parasitic humans left the street, the five of them seemed to come back to life, gasping for air.

“What the hell were those things?” Lao Gui rubbed his chest and spoke to Yan Xia over the communicator. “Good thing you weren’t here—you have no idea what we just saw!”

“What do you mean, ‘good thing I wasn’t there’? Think carefully. How many times have I vomited during missions? Basically never, okay?” Yan Xia was always the most stable one in the team. On the contrary, these men, one by one, had poor shock resistance. “What did you see?”

“A fusion of organic and inorganic matter. Have you seen that?” Silver Fang looked down at his feet.

They didn’t dare move around for the time being. Every step might wake the road up again. Yan Xia froze for a moment, then said, “Aren’t you a fusion of organic and inorganic matter yourself?”

“Don’t joke around!” Silver Fang laughed bitterly. At a time like this, this girl was still holding a grudge. He had only said that she wasn’t as good as boys before, and she had been competing with him for more than ten years. “At least I’m high-tech. They’re natural fusion.”

“Oh, then I really haven’t seen it.” Yan Xia wrote this down in her notebook. “How did you escape?

“We still haven’t escaped.” Mo An suddenly said. “This road discovered us a long time ago, but it isn’t very hostile toward us. Among the parasitic hosts, quite a few maintain a neutral attitude. They don’t kill everyone they see. According to the data I saw at the control center, 80% of parasitic hosts have neutral attitudes. The remaining 18% are aggressive and 2% are friendly to humans. Their first priority is survival and reproduction, not occupying Earth.”

Mi Dou then looked at Silver Fang. “What was that can you opened just now?”

“Biological interference aerosol,” Silver Fang replied. “It lowers the surrounding temperature and hides our body heat. At first, I was worried that the invisible parasitized people were hunting us using thermal imaging. After opening the aerosol, the surrounding water molecules hide our thermal imaging, making our heat and breath invisible. There’s also a trace hallucinogen in that mist. It only affects parasitic humans and parasitic hosts and is harmless to humans. This is also a recently developed weapon.”

“Then what do we do now?” Talos put down his pipe. “Negotiate with the road and ask it to let us pass? Water the road and let it cool down?”

The road remained silent. As a living road, its silence was akin to an animal’s stillness. Mo An thought for a moment and pointed to the side of the road. “Go that way.”

“But the side road is too close to the buildings. It’s more dangerous than walking in the middle of the main road.” Silver Fang was well aware of the varying danger levels of different areas.

“The road surface conducts natural observation. This kind of emotion is very similar to most fish in the sea,” Mo An said, still relying on his intuition. “If it wanted to attack us, it wouldn’t have left us alone just now. It might just be venting its anger.” Usually, it’s humans who observe road conditions. It has long been dissatisfied with humans. After gaining self-awareness, the tables turned. It doesn’t want us walking on it, yet it also wants to observe us. That’s all.

There were many loose stones on the side of the road, and there was also the danger of objects falling from the upper floors of buildings. A gust of wind blew by, and the natural conditions of Yukun City made them realize that their rich combat experience might not be of much use here.

“Let’s go. Trust Mo An,” Talos finally said. “I’ve dealt with mermaids for almost a hundred years. They really are more sensitive to danger. They mostly survive in the sea by relying on intuition.”

Since he put it that way, the others also agreed. They moved from the relatively safe middle of the main road to the side road. Silver Fang controlled the mechanical dog to scout ahead, and they pushed forward once more.

Where were they going? They didn’t know. They only knew they were headed in the right direction because Little Blue had been glowing the whole time.

When it shone, it meant they could continue forward. Once it sensed the direction was wrong, the light would go out. After a long trek, when they reached a crossroads, Mo An raised the glass bottle once again. “Little Blue, is this direction correct?”

Little Blue, which couldn’t speak, went out.

“Then what about this side?” Mo An asked again, patiently.

Little Blue still didn’t light up.

“This side?” Mo An changed directions again.

This time, Little Blue lit up. However, after it lit up, everyone’s expression turned somewhat heavy. Because at this fork in the road, Little Blue pointed to the hardest path… The other two sides were straight roads. At least you could see where to step, and the view was relatively open. But the most dangerous path was completely different—collapsed buildings were piled up like endless mountains.

These parasitic buildings had taken on the form of mountain ranges because their backdrop was the most famous mountain range—also the place where Xia Yu suspected the Jingwei mainframe was hidden. The buildings leaned over one by one, stacking on top of each other. Some were already hollow on top, exposing the main structure, and they were unable to provide a passageway. Some still had an entrance at the bottom, but the inside was like an abyss. Terrifying roars could occasionally be heard.

They had been walking for so long that it was now close to evening. Like their footsteps, time could not move backward.

“I suggest we rest here,” Silver Fang said, activating the night vision on his eyes. “The road ahead is unclear. We can’t travel recklessly at night. Especially if we have to pass through a building cluster—the danger level doubles.”

“I agree,” said Yan Xia, who had been in contact with them this whole time.

Lao Gui had already put down his backpack. “Our physical strength is already exhausted. We need to rest well tonight.”

“Then we’ll rest here,” said Mo An, who stood on a rock and watched the sunset sink inch by inch. He had a feeling that he was getting closer and closer to Xia Yu. Wait for me. You must wait for me! Wait for everyone!

Once the order to rest in place was given, Silver Fang took out several rod-shaped light-emitting objects first. He inserted them into the nearby soil in a specific order. After waiting for the lights to go out, he connected them to the computer, fully activating the nighttime alarm system. Mi Dou was responsible for distributing food to everyone—the same three items as before: energy bars, canned food, and drinking water. Talos and Lao Gui were originally in charge of lighting a fire, but with night approaching, they couldn’t risk producing light.

What if there were nocturnal monsters around? Wouldn’t that make them living targets?

Mo An drank water while tapping on the glass bottle. “All right, it’s about to get completely dark. You can rest for a bit. You don’t need to keep glowing.”

Little Blue, which had been shining all day, fully understood Mo An. Its pale blue light gradually dimmed, and it finally fell silent. It floated up for a moment. When Mo An reached out his finger, Little Blue immediately wrapped around it tightly.

“Trust us. We’ll be able to rescue him very soon. Xia Yu has the strongest vitality. He’s exactly like you—he looks fragile, but no one can knock him down,” said Mo An as he fed it a bit of canned meat. After that, they leaned together in the dark like unlucky campers. They had no tents or campfire and could only gaze at the stars.

“You know, the stars in Yukun City are really beautiful,” Talos said suddenly after watching for a while. “Almost the same as what I see at sea.”

“I don’t even know if these are real stars or hallucinations. Yukun City is too eerie,” said Lao Gui, an energy bar in his mouth. “What exactly is going on?”

Yan Xia’s voice came from the intercom. “Doesn’t it feel like ‘Nuwa creating humans’?

“What?” Lao Gui asked.

“Nuwa wants to become the real Nuwa[mfn]Nuwa (女娲) is a primordial goddess in Chinese mythology, best known as the creator of humanity and a restorer of cosmic order. According to legend, she molded humans from yellow clay, giving them life, and later repaired the broken sky after a great catastrophe by melting five-colored stones to seal the 裂缝 (crack), saving the world from destruction. Nuwa is often depicted with a human upper body and a serpent’s lower body, symbolizing the unity of heaven, earth, and living beings. Beyond creation, she represents balance, compassion, and responsibility[/mfn], and Yukun City is its testing ground. According to mythology, it created humans. But in reality, humans created it. So, it must become a creator god and create more advanced life forms. However, this round of creation completely violates ecological science—it’s being done recklessly.”

“Shh, lower your voice,” Mi Dou reminded her. “Your situation isn’t good either, Yan Xia. You need to protect yourself.”

“I will. Don’t worry, Xiao Doudou,” Yan Xia said.

Mo An was also worried about her. “Try not to contact us too frequently. You need to reduce your presence in the middle layer. Also, try to reduce your hostility toward Nuwa. Don’t make her angry.”

“Of course I will. I have plenty of methods and means,” Yan Xia said, nodding at the communication device. After saying this, she secretly aimed a makeup mirror on the table at herself…

The camera behind her.

This movement was extremely subtle. If you weren’t paying attention, you would think she was just looking in the mirror. Yan Xia also glanced at herself and tidied her bangs. However, all her attention was on the surveillance camera behind her. She was silently observing it, as if to confirm her suspicions.

Sure enough, the camera that had originally been looking elsewhere quietly turned in her direction.

Very good. Yan Xia smiled in satisfaction and said to the communicator, “You should rest quickly. I’ll wait for the good news about your departure tomorrow morning.”

That night, Mo An got up many times.

They took turns keeping watch. They went to sleep at 9 p.m. and slept until 6 a.m., with Ling Shi periodically checking the time to help them better sense the passage of time. When the first ray of sunlight touched their skin, they finally believed that the first night had passed without incident.

“Ha…” Talos stretched lazily. “Nothing actually came to trouble us?”

“Just lucky.” Silver Fang began making preparations to depart. “We’ll set off in fifteen minutes. Eat breakfast first.”

Mi Dou slept the longest. Because of the nighttime temperature drop, he, who was used to hibernating, couldn’t get up very often. Now, facing the sunlight, he ate an energy bar while staring at the emergency exit of a building several hundred meters away.

“Are we going to pass through there later?” Mi Dou pointed and asked.

“If we can go from the rooftop, we should stay in open areas,” Lao Gui replied. “Who knows what’s inside.”

This time, Mi Dou was about to reach out and cover Lao Gui’s mouth when there was a sound from the emergency exit, followed by a few familiar cries.

Mo An immediately raised his gun, his nerves tightening at once. “Everyone, fall back!”

After the cries, a white kitten ran out from the shadows.