Chapter 67: Ecological Restoration
As the smoke of battle cleared, nineteen colossal crocodile corpses lay piled every which way on the road near the reservoir.
The dense flower buds covering those crocodiles were still pulsing slowly even in death; from a distance, they looked like a patch of red coral reef growing on a mountain of flesh.
“Phew!” leapt down from atop the armored vehicle, raising a hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead. “Finally gone! Was this reservoir a crocodile farm before, or what?”
[I’d say those water ghosts have more than a little to do with it,] analyzed seriously. [They must have transported them here by some means.]
These thick-skinned, tough-hided crocodiles weren’t entirely useless, after all — at least they’d let him fight to his heart’s content, and even the reactor felt a good deal more at ease.
Just then, engines roared in the distance as several infantry fighting vehicles laden with ammunition and personnel came racing over — it was ’s group, arriving to provide support.
The moment the vehicles came to a halt, jumped out. As he took in the chaotic battlefield before him and the water surface trembling faintly not far off, the corner of his mouth twitched involuntarily.
“You just fought them head-on like this?” He walked quickly over to and asked in a lowered voice. “Weren’t you afraid of blowing the reservoir dam to pieces?”
[It’s still a long way from the dam! Relax, I’ve calculated the safety margins.] ’s projection screen lit up on the side of one of the vehicles, displaying a three-dimensional structural diagram of the entire dam.
[The firepower just now wouldn’t have been enough to cause any major damage to the main structure anyway. Besides, the biggest threat to the dam right now isn’t us.]
The moment he finished speaking, the three-dimensional structural diagram rapidly switched to a real-time scan of the underwater section.
In the image, the dam’s underwater section was clearly visible.
The once-smooth concrete surface was now wrapped in dense, dark-red filamentary structures.
Like vines, those red fibers had driven deep into the concrete crevices of the dam body, and had even eroded into the drainage galleries inside the dam.
They pulsed faintly with the current like living blood vessels, and their coverage was so extensive that nearly the entire underwater dam body had been wrapped into a giant red cocoon of flesh.
“This is…” ’s pupils contracted.
“If these things keep growing,” , who had come along with , said, his face darkening as well, “they’ll disintegrate the dam’s structure from within.”
[Exactly. The is the most important drinking-water source and flood-control hub for and even several counties and cities downstream.]
[If that dam ever breaks — even though it’s not the wet season right now — the hundreds of millions of cubic meters of water it holds would be enough to form a devastating flood surge downstream, inundating a huge area that includes our within a few hours.]
[So abandoning this water-control project would be almost an unacceptable loss for us. We have to deal with it.]
’s words sent a chill through everyone present.
“Understood.” nodded. “What do you plan to do?”
[I’ll leave three Sentinels and one on the dam crest to monitor for anomalies in real time. , you lead a squad and temporarily fall back to town to establish a forward base, ready to provide rapid reinforcement toward the reservoir at any moment.]
[Everyone else, clear out the mutants, then go rendezvous with .]
“Copy!”
***
, underground conference center.
stood before the main screen, projecting freshly completed experiment reports onto the large display.
At the same time, her image was being synced to the feeds in front of and , who were both out in the field.
“I’ll state the conclusion first,” began, speaking quickly. “This red microbial aggregate is, in essence, a highly specialized symbiotic bacterial community with three troublesome characteristics.”
“First, a peculiar photosynthetic autotrophic mechanism. Its photosynthetic capacity completely surpasses the underlying mechanisms of all existing plants. The upgraded chloroplasts can not only utilize the entire visible-light spectrum but also react with far higher efficiency than ordinary chloroplasts.”
“Second, it possesses extremely strong invasiveness and assimilative capacity. It can parasitize the bodies of the vast majority of organisms and induce rapid mutation in them. Based on preliminary inference, the ‘water ghosts’ and ‘flower crocodiles’ should both be products of its ‘modification.’”
“Third, networked communication. Individual bacterial cells form a signal network through filamentary connections. The larger the scale, the stronger their coordination — they even exhibit intelligence-like behavior. The coordinated behavior of those ‘water ghosts’ and ‘flower crocodiles’ may also be achieved through this network.”
“It’s almost as if they’re purpose-built biological weapons,” said as he drove.
“Exactly.” nodded in approval. “Their intranuclear structure appears to share the same origin as those ‘ ,’ and ’s encounter further proves that those things are behind it all.”
“Then what are we supposed to do?” was somewhat anxious. He didn’t quite understand what the “ ” and the others were discussing actually were, but that didn’t stop him from knowing exactly how dangerous the term “biological weapon” was.
It couldn’t be that they’d finally, after so much trouble, found a reliable , only to have it gone the very next moment, could it?
And if even fell into trouble, then the days ahead would truly be unlivable.
“It’s simple — we just clean up the environment!” ’s tone suddenly became light and cheerful. “Let them see just how much technology we humans have accumulated when it comes to reshaping the environment.”
“My plan is divided into three steps.”
“First, ‘Mainstream Purification.’ Using the ‘high-power, high-frequency cavitation sewage treatment system’ and ‘modular air-flotation algae collection platforms’ that brought back, we’ll establish several mobile treatment stations along the ’s main course. Combined with the water-purification facilities the already has, this will form multi-stage interception and cut off its routes of spread.”
“Second, ‘Source Blockade.’ We restart the modular emergency water-treatment plant downstream of the ’s outlet. It has industrial-grade reverse-osmosis membrane filtration assemblies and high-speed centrifugal sedimenters. For this reservoir, we actually made quite a lot of preparations back then.”
“Third, ‘Underwater Eradication.’ This is also the hardest step. We need to find a way to eliminate that unknown organism located at the bottom of the water, but we lack effective underwater combat and engineering equipment.”
[No problem. We can take our time figuring out the third step. For now, we can go ahead and start preparing the water treatment.] ’s voice sounded right on cue.
“Copy!” nodded. “We’ll go restart the water-treatment equipment along the river right now. will be in charge of continuing to search for new equipment.”
With the order issued, the entire once again spun up to high speed. Everyone understood just how dangerous it would be if anything went wrong with the water source.
Three days later, downstream of the .
A massive convoy made up of dozens of heavy trucks and engineering vehicles lined up in a single row along the riverbank.
Under ’s direction, enormous metal modules were hoisted off the trucks and rapidly assembled.
In just a few short hours, a mobile water-treatment platform that could be called large-scale even by pre-disaster standards was declared complete.
Giant pipes, like steel pythons, reached into the dark-red river water, drawing up the turbid current.
The water flowed through several enormous cylindrical tanks, a high-frequency hum emanating from within — it was the ultrasonic generators, vibrating at a rate of tens of thousands of times per second, furiously tearing apart the cellular structure of this “ algae.”
After treatment, clear water flowed out from the pipes at the other end and rejoined the .
On the other side of the platform, the collected dark-red bacterial sludge was fed directly into the incinerator, reduced to ashes.
One, two, three…
Along the riverbank, drawing on past stockpiles and improvised fabrication, mobile purification stations were rapidly put into operation one after another, with a single objective — algae removal.
On the fifth day, in ’s monitoring, the index for “abnormal algae” in the finally stopped growing.
The control rod in his heart, which had been weighing somewhat heavy all along, finally eased up a little.
At least, the momentum of its growth had been checked.
In the days that followed, everything proceeded according to plan.
More water-treatment equipment was “forcibly” relocated out of abandoned factories and municipal facilities.
Thanks to the large stockpile of “single-use Universal Repair Tools” that had fortunately discovered, the field teams had no need to be the least bit careful while hauling equipment.
Whether they roughly cut through mounting bases or savagely dismantled piping, it made no difference.
Once everything was at the site, a flash of light from the repair tools could restore any non-core physical damage in an instant.
After all, these devices weren’t especially high-tech, so the repair tools were extremely effective on them, lending astonishing efficiency to the advance of the entire “water purification project.”
Before long, several dozen treatment facilities of varying sizes had been added along the . They were spread across the river surface and the banks — pipes crisscrossing, pumps roaring without end, intakes swallowing the dark-red turbid currents, outlets discharging clear, limpid water.
On the riverbank, and stood side by side, gazing at the facilities not far away.
“With all these things running together like this, it’s quite a spectacle.” couldn’t help but remark.
By now, he had fully integrated into the ’s operational system, having been appointed captain of Team Seven of , responsible for leading the elite members selected from his convoy.
“Yeah!” nodded in agreement, equally moved.
A that had once had only a few people could now, however barely, carry out an engineering program of this scale.
was well aware that on this stretch of river, another war was underway.
An unknown biological weapon was spreading silently along the river, attempting to strangle the vitality of civilization at its very root.
But the industrial legacy of the old era was still fulfilling its function in the apocalypse.
Even caught flat-footed by disaster, humanity would never just stand idly by and wait for death.
[This is a protracted war, but the good news is that the scales of victory are tipping in our favor.] ’s voice sounded by both their ears through their identity cards.
[The latest water-quality testing indices have already begun to decline. This organism’s preference for clustering together ultimately proved to be its own undoing.]
Hearing this news, the two men’s long-taut nerves finally relaxed a little.
As long as the method worked, they would have room to maneuver from there — whether opening the sluice gates to release water and dilute, or trying out several other chemical methods.
The ’s rhythm once again returned to a kind of “routine.”
Gathering supplies, searching for survivors, training newcomers… it was just that everyone’s task list now bore an additional long-term mission — purifying the .
Until the morning of the tenth day.
A familiar system notification chime suddenly rang out in ’s consciousness.
[Ding! 3 triggered: !]
[Mission Description: The master of the contamination source will not sit idly by while you nibble away at its territory. Are you ready? They’re coming.]
[Mission Objective: Under the enemy’s assault, protect the purification facilities and completely destroy the ‘ ’ located at the bottom of the reservoir.]
[Mission Rewards: 12,000 , unlock ‘ ’ x1, full-series blueprints x1.]
[Mission Countdown: 23:59:47]
It had finally come!
’s consciousness instantly focused at full intensity. He knew those damn things would never just let it go so easily.
Almost at the same moment, an anxious communication request from cut in.
“ ! In the B-3 to B-7 purification platform area along the riverbank, a large number of ‘water ghosts’ have appeared! They’re climbing up out of the river!”
[Copy! Engage them according to the predetermined plan! will lead a team to support you!]
“Roger!”
The instant the communication cut off, activated a full-spectrum alarm.
[Attention, everyone. The riverbank defense line is under attack. Level One combat readiness!]