Chapter 632 Assimilation of fighters?

  Chapter 632 Assimilated fighters?

  A dark underground tunnel.

  After being knocked unconscious, the three newbies were dragged here by a group of slime mold fruiting bodies, and then they were taken to a claustrophobic room.

  This seems to be a place in the underground transportation network of Qingquan City, but it has been transformed beyond recognition by the bacteria plaque, and it is impossible to tell where it is.

  The first player to wake up shook his head, put his hands on the ground, felt his hands were sticky, and opened his eyes and was immediately shocked.

  The surroundings were scarlet, and the surging fungal carpet was like a piece of fresh meat, emitting an unsettling odor.

  The big pig’s hoof looked around blankly, and it took a long time to utter a word.

  ”What the hell? What the hell is this place?”

  How come they were offline for a while, and even moved their positions when they returned to the line?

  At this time, another abducted man and woman also woke up, and they were also trembling with fear when they saw the situation around them.

  Hungry Force: “Oh my god… Were we swallowed by the slime mold?”

  He bowed his head to Hungry Force: “Wake up, you are so big, how can you swallow it without chewing it up?”

  Hungry Force: “……?”

  He bowed his head to Hungry Force: “I was wrong.”

  At this moment, a strange figure appeared in the dark entrance in front.

  It was as tall as two people, and its burly body almost filled the entire passage. There were only abstract facial features on its face. Its upper body was sturdy and strong, and its lower body was a stretched skirt with cilia like octopus tentacles rolling on the edge.

  It was somewhat similar to Xiaoyu when she was still a mother, but it was obviously a circle bigger, and there were fewer human elements.

  The three of them were frightened by the abstract appearance of this guy, and they retreated with a look of seeing a ghost.

  Unfortunately, this was a dead end. There was a wall behind them, and there was no room to move.

  Watching the guy slowly move his tentacles in front of him, cold sweat oozed from Hungry Force’s forehead. He swallowed his saliva, stuck out his neck and said stiffly.

  ”Gu… Kill me, I won’t say anything!”

  She had wanted to try this line for a long time, and the key point was that these newbies didn’t know anything.

  Whether it understood her words or just heard the sound, the alien turned its abstract facial features towards her, and the skirt that was close to the ground suddenly opened a slit.

  Just when everyone was wondering what it was going to do, countless tentacles rushed out from the slit and instantly pulled her into the open bloody mouth. She

  didn’t even have time to scream “Woo Ka”, and the hungry force that was still stubborn a second ago disappeared in the closed “mouth”.

  The stretched skirt fluttered up and down, as if chewing carefully. Seeing that

  his partner was eaten by the monster in front of him, he bowed to the hungry force and let out a hoarse cry after a brief daze.

  ”Wife! I’ll fight you!”

  After saying that, he struggled to stand up and rushed towards the monster that was as tall as two people with his fists.

  However, his fate was no different from that of the previous players.

  Before he could run two steps, he was tripped by a tentacle that slipped out from under his skirt. Like a mosquito that landed in front of a frog, he was licked into the gaping bloody mouth without any suspense.

  The couple died.

  After a full meal, Xia shook the tentacles under her body and slapped the ground happily, as if she was chewing a steak that had been swallowed into her mouth.

  However, the abstract facial features still had a hint of confusion, as if they were wondering about something.

  Looking at the constantly fluttering scarlet skirt, the big pig’s hoof turned pale with nervousness, and his eyes turned in a hurry.

  ”Brother! Don’t eat me, I’m not delicious… I, I surrender! Do you need a translator? I’ll be a traitor for you!”

  I heard that this game has a high degree of freedom.

  What if it works?

  Xia faced his abstract facial features at him, and after some thought, she suddenly opened the skirt that was close to the ground again without any warning.

  Looking at the clothes falling out and the tentacles rolling like a meat grinder, the big pig’s hoof had already foreseen his own end, and his face suddenly changed.

  This is going to be death anyway!

  ”Fuck–”

  Before he could even curse the dog planner, the bloody mouth opened and swallowed him in. Without even a chance to resist, his remaining consciousness merged into the scarlet sea of ​​blood.

  Feeling the breath of life melting into her body, Xia chewed quietly for a while, and the confusion on her face gradually turned into incomprehensible distress.

  ”Strange…”

  As if she had noticed the child’s confusion, the mother’s voice quietly appeared in its hazy sea of ​​consciousness.

  ”What’s wrong? My child.”

  Facing the empty scarlet wall and the indigestible impurities left under her feet, Xia murmured silently.

  ”They are empty.”

  Those guys are empty shells.

  And they are purer empty shells than simple organisms such as cockroaches and mice, like a blank piece of paper without any information. It

  was the first time since it was born that it had seen such a strange creature.

  This kind of thing cannot be assimilated, or even if it is assimilated, it is meaningless, they are just a walking corpse.

  It cannot understand what kind of existence they are.

  Are they, like the “fruiting bodies” of the mother, puppets controlled by a consciousness outside the body?

  But they show a strong autonomy.

  Xia’s face can’t help but be confused.

  Could it be that…

  these humans also have a mother nest?

  …

  ”They are assimilated aliens.”

  Shelter No. 404, B4 floor browsing room.

  Sitting on the sofa, Heya briefly explained to Chu Guang and Yin Fang the preliminary test results of the Alliance Biological Research Institute on the two fruiting body samples.

  Hearing the unexpectedly interesting statement, Yin Fang put down the coffee cup in his hand and raised his eyebrows with interest.

  ”Assimilation?”

  Heya nodded seriously and continued.

  ”That’s right… the slime mold collected their DNA data, and while absorbing their organic matter, it retained a part of the neural tissue that originally belonged to those creatures.”

  After a pause, she continued.

  ”You still remember Bachi, right? He’s the guy parasitized by the slime mold. His situation is similar to those special fruiting bodies, but the slime mold in Qingquan City is obviously more aggressive than that in Yongdong City. The slime mold here is more thorough in assimilation, turning most of the captured organisms into part of its own body, and only retaining a small part of the host’s brain tissue.”

  In a sense, this is actually an improvement for the mutant slime mold in Qingquan City.

  It’s like going from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age.

  In addition to making weapons out of the bones of their prey, they also learned to domesticate them on this basis – that is, to train their prey into “combat servitors” that obey them.

  Yin Fang pinched his chin and fell into deep thought.

  Chu Guang, who had been silent, coughed lightly.

  ”Can you change the way I understand it?”

  Heya explained patiently.

  ”In simple terms, they have made improvements based on unified consciousness. In the past, both the gnawers and crawlers hunted under the guidance of the mother nest, but now some special fruiting bodies have retained their combat experience before assimilation, and can use the stronger flesh given to them by the slime mold to hunt in the original way.”

  Yin Fang interrupted.

  ”It is equivalent to a combat robot with an intellectual plug-in installed and not controlled by the cloud server.”

  Heya snapped her fingers.

  ”That’s right!”

  Chu Guang touched his chin and thought.

  ”What’s the point?”

  Yin Fang analyzed according to his own understanding.

  ”The meaning is that the mother nest can allocate more of the hive’s ‘computing resources’ to strategic-level command, while some higher-level fruiting entities and evolved bodies can make tactical decisions based on experience. Even if their tactics may not be brilliant, they will be more flexible and changeable than before… Am I right?”

  Heya smiled and nodded.

  ”Yes, that’s it!”

  Yin Fang sighed and said, picking up the coffee cup and taking a sip.

  ”It has evolved to this point in just one year… The evolution speed of this thing is too exaggerated.”

  Heya shook her head.

  ”It’s not a year. Evolution is a long process. They have been learning from us, whether it’s our tools or our society… I tend to think that the emergence of the Alliance has accelerated their evolution to a certain extent, but the factor that really prompted them to achieve a qualitative change from quantitative change is their long-term observation of us.” The spore

  cloud is spread all over Qingquan City. In theory, the mother body in the city center can indeed see them.

  Just like the Alliance’s Biological Research Institute has been looking for a way to solve the mother nest, that guy must also be tirelessly looking for a way to solve the disintegration of human society.

  Perhaps it would be a better way to eradicate them in the early days of the Wasteland Era. The slime mold at that time would not be as difficult to deal with as it is now.

  But these are all later stories.

  People at that time also had their own troubles. It was not easy to survive in the severe cold of dozens of degrees below zero, let alone fighting an unprepared battle against an unknown enemy.

  ”Actually… compared to what you said, I am more worried about another thing.”

  Seeing the two looking at him, Chu Guang paused and slowly opened his mouth to continue.

  ”They gradually learned to hide themselves in the process of evolution, and while testing us, they consciously prevented us from obtaining their remains.”

  ”They seem to understand us more and more.”

  … ”

  Wasteland OL” official website.

  Unlike the solemn atmosphere in the browsing room, the forum is bustling at this moment.

  Since the release of the new expansion pack, players have been looking forward to what new work the dog planner will come up with, and this time it really did not disappoint. The

  original wave was a group of fruiting bodies rushing up, but now this group of fruiting bodies not only know how to move, but also played a wave of jaw-dropping cooperation, and even kidnapped three little newbies under the nose of the fountain brother.

  This is something no one expected.

  Quit Smoking: “Awesome!”

  Battlefield Atmosphere Group: “Even the dog fountain was defeated, that’s unscientific! (Funny)”

  Fountain Commander: “Get lost, how could I be defeated? Picking up a corpse is already a great achievement, okay!”

  Irene: “Speaking of which, what about the remaining corpses? Isn’t there a monster? (Curious)”

  Fountain Commander: “After the fog dissipated, they were gone. I guess they were either dragged away for recycling, or eaten on the spot.”

  Fang Chang: “It’s okay if they were eaten…”

  Ye Shi: “Hiss… This new mother body feels a bit special.”

  Makabazi: “Speaking of which, what about the brothers who were abducted by that group of fruiting entities? Haven’t they come down yet?”

  Big Pig’s Hoof: “That’s me… By the way, I may have seen the mother body!”

  Upon hearing this, the players squatting in the post instantly became excited.

  Quit smoking: “Fuck! Is it true?”

  Elf King Fugui: “Tell me what that thing looks like, brother. (Funny)”

  Pig Hoof: “I don’t know how to describe it, it’s a bit like Xiaoyu’s previous appearance… a circle bigger than it, and uglier.”

  Although he has never seen Xiaoyu in the game, there have been photos of Xiaoyu posted by other players on the forum.

  Compared with those photos, Xiaoyu is still similar to it, but the contours of the facial features and body are smoother, and the color is more pink.

  To make an inappropriate but vivid metaphor, the mother body called Xia is more like a shark with a bloody mouth, the kind that can scare children to tears. Xiaoyu is more like a dolphin. Although it also has a ferocious side, it is closer to human aesthetics.

  Fountain Commander: “Do you remember where you saw that guy?”

  Big Pig’s Hoof: “This, I don’t know… but I feel it should be somewhere underground, which is very similar to a subway station.”

  Edge Paddling: “Subway station… this target is too broad.”

  Fountain Commander: “But no matter what, it is certain that the mother nest and hatching room are hidden underground this time… Damn, no wonder they are things we have never seen before.”

  Fang Chang: “@Big Pig’s Hoof, did the mother eat you all in the end?”

  Like a Hungry Force bowed his head: “Yes, it swallowed my wife in one bite… In front of me, woo woo woo.”

  Hungry Force: “Tsk, you guy, don’t talk so weird, okay! (Angry)”

  Like a Hungry Force bowed his head: “I was wrong.”

  Big Pig’s Hoof: “…”

  Commander of the Fountain: “And then? Didn’t you find anything else? Anything is fine.”

  Hungry Force: “Well, I feel… it seems to react to our voices.”

  Commander of the Fountain: “Sounds?”

  Hungry Force: “It seemed to plan to eat my partner first, but as soon as I opened my mouth to speak, it swallowed me first… I always feel that it didn’t understand what I said at all, after all, I can’t speak human language.”

  The Hungry Force lowered its head: “Hiss… Now that you mention it, I remember that I was the second one to speak, and then I was eaten right after you.”

  Hungry Force: “So this alien species hunts by sound?”

  Commander of the Fountain: “Unlikely, I think there is another possibility. It mistook you for a human giving orders… like the alpha wolf in a wolf pack.”

  Hungry Force: “Ah? I have this ability?”

  The Hungry Force lowered its head: “What the hell? My partner has this ability?”

  Commander of the Fountain: “Then I don’t know, but from its perspective it might be like this. After all, most mammals rely on vocal cords to transmit information. Maybe in the mother nest’s cognition, it will understand the sound as Maybe a biological pheromone. ”

  Big Pig’s Hoof: “Speaking of which, I also found an unusual place. I don’t know if it can be regarded as a clue… The guy who is suspected to be the mother seemed very surprised after eating the two people. “Quit

  Smoking: “Surprised?” ”

  Big Pig’s Hoof: “Yes, it feels like eating the wrong thing… I watched it savor it for a long time before spitting out their clothes and shoes. ”

  Fang Chang: “Interesting.” ”

  Quit Smoking: “Uh, what do you mean?” ”

  Fang Chang: “…Do you think there is a possibility that in the cognition of slime mold, other organisms are “mushrooms” with independent consciousness, and the clones we use just don’t have independent consciousness, so it is confused about where our independent consciousness comes from. ”

  Quit Smoking: “It seems that we have the same idea. ”

  Fang Chang: “However, if my inference is correct, the mother this time may be different from all the mothers we have encountered before. It does not simply eat the prey, but selects a part of it and assimilates them into “its own people.” ”

  Just when everyone was discussing, an announcement suddenly jumped out from the official website.

  【”The Tide Returns” expansion pack update: added the concept of “assimilate”】

  【According to the results of the Alliance Research Institute, “Xia” will consciously capture the organisms that invade the territory, assimilate them into part of the tribe, retain their aggressiveness and part of their self-awareness, and forcibly implant biological prostheses to transform them. 】

  【Currently known “assimilates”:

  1. Fungus-eating monsters: Possessing power similar to that of monsters, the resilience and defense are enhanced by the biological prostheses constructed by slime molds, and the individual combat power is stronger than that of monsters.

  2. Fungus-eating death claws: Possessing the speed and agility of death claws, and on this basis, strengthening the resilience and damage resistance. At present, no samples have been collected, and qualitative biological analysis cannot be done. It can only be inferred based on the battle images that it has combat power comparable to that of evolved bodies.

  3. Fungus-eating martyr: Suspected to be a second-assimilated slime mold fruiting body, no biological prototype has been found in the ecological environment around Qingquan City. The ability is speculated to be to actively detonate itself and release corrosive poisonous fog. Other fruiting bodies will throw it out as a projectile.

  ……

  】

  Quit Smoking: “Fuck!”

  Debt Eyes: “6666! Just when we talked about assimilation, the settings of the assimilated body were updated!”

  Night Ten: “Brother Guang plagiarized the forum, it’s confirmed! (Funny)”

  Fang Chang: “But this server announcement proves that our thinking is correct. There are two pieces of information that can be extracted. First, Xia has the characteristics of an ‘assimilated fighter’, which will convert some of her prey to use their combat experience, and is better at micro-manipulation than the mother body in the previous wave. Second, it has set its sights on our uniqueness and is consciously studying us and learning from us…but due to limited knowledge, its understanding of us may have some deviations.”

  Fountain Commander: “These two clues are crucial! Since I Our opponents are no longer the same group of fools as in the last wave. The form of the wave may have changed fundamentally. It is very dangerous to formulate tactics with the original ideas. ”

  Edge paddling: “You mean, they may not play by the rules? Bypass our defense line in the northern suburbs?” ”

  Spring Commander: “This possibility is very high. The experience of calculating the attack direction of slime mold by the concentration of spore cloud is very likely to be invalid in this battle!” ”

  Spring Commander: “I even feel that the wave has already begun, but they are taking advantage of our inertia of cognition of them and staying put, deliberately following our expected schedule. Two weeks later, they only need to send a large number of cannon fodder to fight against the last wave. They will charge towards our front, and then send a small group of elite troops to go around to the flank where our defense is the least, and then they will eat up our entire defense line in one bite!”

  Luo Yu: “I Zhuo?! Slime molds are so smart?”

  Construction Site Boy and Brick: “Well, you are not overthinking it…”

  Fountain Commander: “I heard that slime molds can plan the shortest path to food based on the location of the food. The mutant slime molds we are facing are obviously much smarter than the slime molds in reality. I have reason to believe that these guys will do this.”

  Fang Chang: “I agree. Anything can happen on the battlefield. I have the same opinion as you. Underestimating the enemy will lead to great losses.”

  Midnight Killer Chicken: “It’s too troublesome, What plans do you two have?”

  Fang Chang: “After listening to the experiences of those two newbies, I have an idea.”

  Edge Swinging: “What idea?”

  Fang Chang: “As we all know, guys who are a little smart but not smart enough are easier to fool than idiots who know nothing. This time the mother body is smarter and more difficult to deal with than before, but we can also take advantage of this.”

  Edge Swinging: “How to use this?”

  Fang Chang: “It’s very simple. The idea is the same as the intelligence war during World War II. Since they understand us as ‘a group of organisms that rely on sound waves as pheromones to transmit information’, then we only need to forge a ‘mother nest that gives orders’ and show it our ‘flaws’!”

  (End of this chapter)