Chapter 102: Cunning
Second-level divine power.
After confirming that the monster before him was at this level, 's first reaction was not fear but confusion.
Wait — what was with everything having second-level divine power these days?
Based on his examination of this heart, its energy intensity was far inferior even to that " " monster from before.
At best, it was at the level of a in its incomplete form.
That was a bit strange.
But it didn't matter — he had a contingency plan.
Even though he hadn't believed this monster would have , given the eerie blood mist here, had prepared a sufficient quantity of Divinity Shields before entering the city as redundant insurance.
Along with the mutation of the heart in the inner city, the jellyfish-like monsters floating above the city became active as well, their tentacles frantically shooting threads in every direction.
But against a full-scale swarm of laser drones, they were nothing more than speed bumps on the road.
Hundreds of green lasers fired at once, precisely slicing through those translucent umbrellas.
The jellyfish let out shrill quivering cries, their umbrellas shattering like jelly, then dissolving into part of the mist as they fell toward the ground.
Meanwhile, at the city's outskirts, nearly five thousand survivors were pouring out of the city gates with remarkable efficiency.
Say what you will — people who'd survived this long in the apocalypse might not have other skills, but that talent for running away was definitely maxed out.
The moment they sensed things going south, they sprinted out the outer gates before the situation could blow up any further.
Outside the city, before the temporary defensive line.
, along with and the others who'd rushed over with supplies and equipment to provide support, had already begun gathering up the first convoy of survivors to arrive.
"Line up! One at a time! Watch on first, then the shot!" stood on top of an armored assault vehicle, shouting at the top of his lungs through a loudspeaker.
Along both sides of the makeshift passage, members of and Squad One formed two defensive lines, handing out monitors to the streaming survivors while injecting them with inhibitors.
Though they weren't yet sure what was going on with these survivors who couldn't see the fog, going by experience, a shot of first couldn't go wrong!
And so, relying on the 's ample firepower, plenty of manpower, and the drones hovering at everyone's foreheads, these survivors barely managed to maintain order.
Until the monitors on everyone's wrists let out shrill alarms almost simultaneously.
The readings jumped from Level 1 to Level 2, and the intensity index kept climbing frantically.
Those who'd received the shots cried out first, because now they could see it — a sky-covering tide of dark-red fog was surging toward them from the direction of the city, like a wall of blood.
And those who hadn't gotten the shots couldn't see the fog, but they could see that heart in the city center swelling to an absurd size, hanging in midair like a dark-red sun.
The crowd immediately began to stir.
"Wha... what is that thing?!"
"Fog! Red fog! It's coming!"
Panic spread like plague, eventually evolving into despair.
The crowd began shoving backward uncontrollably. Several armored vehicles tasked with maintaining order were rocked and swayed by the press.
"Everyone, stop!" stood on the vehicle roof, shouting with all his might, but his voice was quickly drowned out by the seething roar of the crowd.
Just then, a voice as steady as a mountain rang out through every operations member's .
"Fire!"
It was . Seeing signs that the situation was about to spiral out of control, he immediately ordered the artillery to open fire.
The instant the command was given, the five PHL-191 box-type rocket launchers deployed on the high ground were the first to roar.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Several 300mm rockets shot straight toward the monster in the city.
A continuous roll of explosions, like the wrath of heaven itself, shook the ground.
The chaotic crowd fell silent in an instant.
Everyone stared blankly at the several huge mushroom clouds rising in the distance, their minds completely blank.
"Speed it up!" seized this window of opportunity. "Shields first! Anyone who's had their shot, get the hell to the back! Don't crowd, dammit! Whoever acts up, I'll shoot them dead!"
The deterrence of the artillery was effective.
Though the crowd was still panicked, order was at least somewhat restored.
Under the drones circling overhead and the dark muzzles of the surrounding soldiers' guns, the survivors began completing fitting and injection at maximum speed.
In the final thirty seconds before the red fog reached the temporary line, the silver-gray wristbands on the last batch of survivors lit up with blue light.
The fog washed over them, but the monitor readings held steady at Level 2-95, never breaking through the cap.
***
, inner city plaza.
While the heart was frantically pumping out red fog, the core believers of the left stationed around the city underwent a synchronized mutation as well.
Their bodies began to soften, skin dripping downward like melting wax. Flesh swelled and twisted, until finally, amid shrill screams, more than two thousand "people" merged into a single enormous, writhing mass of flesh and mud.
Immediately after, the surrounding red fog seemed to answer a summons, pouring madly into that mass of mud.
Gurgle, gurgle—
The mud swelled like a balloon being inflated, turning in the blink of an eye into a giant over thirty meters tall, its entire body formed of twisted limbs and howling faces.
[A bit creative, but not much.]
didn't give it a chance to keep growing. The next second, a thousand suicide drones arrived.
"BOOM—!!"
A white orb of light detonated in the inner city, and the shockwave blew half a story off the surrounding buildings.
That flesh giant that had just finished "inflating" was blown to smithereens without even letting out a proper roar.
Meanwhile, high in the sky, the had already locked onto that heart, which was still swelling to an inconceivably enormous size.
Two air-to-surface missiles dropped off their pylons, trailing flames as they screamed downward.
Along with the missiles came a high-energy laser beam.
Contrary to 's expectations, that heart, which looked so tough, was as flimsy as paper in the face of the high-energy laser — easily pierced clean through.
A violet beam shot in through the top of the heart and out through the bottom, leaving a huge, charred hole behind.
Then the two missiles detonated with a thunderous roar.
"BOOM—!"
The violent explosion tore nearly half the heart into countless burning fragments.
Then, almost at the same moment, dozens of 300mm long-range rockets from and 's position outside the city tore across the sky, blanketing the entire plaza area.
A relentless chain of explosions turned the area into a complete sea of fire.
The violent shockwave blasted outward, forcibly blowing away a good half of the thick red fog.
And when the smoke and dust cleared, the epicenter of the blast was nothing but scorched earth.
No monster. No heart. Nothing left at all.
The red fog shrouding the city, with the heart's destruction, also began to dissipate rapidly, like water without a source.
However, did not feel relieved.
Won?
A sense of wrongness flickered through 's core. This was too easy, wasn't it?
Wait — why hadn't the system popped up a kill notification?
A flash of insight shot through 's mind. The rapidly descended and activated the ground-penetrating radar module mounted beneath its belly.
The acoustic scan results came back 0.3 seconds later — a fast-moving heat source was fleeing at tremendous speed deep underground, already tens of meters beneath the rock layer.
Damn! I was careless!
If only I'd brought some bunker-busting bombs.
For a moment, the control rod in 's core nearly flew out.
Seriously — this sneaky old bastard had stood there blabbing for ages, looking like he was about to pop his ultimate and fight to the death, and in the end it was all just to run away?
In all his time since being reborn, this was the first time he'd seen such a cowardly monster.
Even that " " back then had at least died fighting with some backbone.
This , who called himself a " ," had said all those impassioned things — all that "the gods setting things right" and "humanity's future" — and in the end, all he could do was run?
Honestly, was genuinely disgusted this time.
" , the fog's gone. How are things on your end?" 's voice came through, tinged with uncertainty.
[Won, but the thing's main body got away. It went underground.] 's electronic voice carried a trace of helplessness. [If I'd known, I would've brought some bunker-busters.]
"What? That thing got away?" 's incredulous voice cut in as well. "So cowardly? With that big a show earlier, all that fog, I thought we were in for another boss fight!"
"Forget it — what's gone is gone." 's voice sounded again, with a measure of composure. "At least counts as taken back for now. But... , there's something off about these survivors. Do you have a plan?"
Just as said, in the temporary outpost outside the city, with the red fog completely dispersed, those several thousand survivors suddenly fell, all at once, into a strange silence.
They no longer made noise, no longer panicked. They just stood blankly in place, eyes vacant, as if their souls had been ripped out.
Someone tried to talk to them, and all they got in return were rambling, dreamlike answers.
"What's your name?"
"...So bright."
"I asked what your name is!"
"I... already ate."
Everyone's intellect seemed to have regressed to that of an infant in just a few short minutes.
had anticipated this, so he said immediately: [ said that if the brain erosion isn't severe, there's still hope of recovery using the .]
[Give some to all of them. The rest will be up to fate.]
"Understood."
With the command given, the temporary outpost immediately became busy.
Vial after vial of pale green medication was handed out, and team members patiently poured it into the mouths of those vacant-eyed survivors.
Watching this, felt somewhat heavy in his core.
As early as the first day he'd arrived here, he'd used the 's high-speed nature to send many fog samples back to the research center, handing them to for analysis.
She threw herself into the research immediately and reached conclusions quickly.
"The situation is worse than I imagined," said rapidly.
"This fog contains a special neuroactive substance. It induces an overclocking effect in the human brain — simply put, it makes the brain operate at a rate far beyond its normal load."
"But this overclocking comes at the cost of burning up brain cells."
"According to the results of animal experiments, organisms that remain in this fog environment long-term will develop organic atrophy of the brain due to excessive consumption.
But interestingly, although the brain activity of individuals becomes extremely weak, their behavior within a group spontaneously forms an efficient, self-sustaining network, as if... they're sharing a single consciousness."
"As for humans, because the structure of the prefrontal cortex is more complex, this erosion process is relatively slower.
But my guess is that the reason these people can't see the red fog, and subconsciously prefer to stay in rather than migrate, is probably still the long-term influence of the fog — their thinking and perception have been subtly altered."
[That doesn't sound like good news.]
"Exactly!" said gravely. " , I think you need to find a way to speed things up."
[I know. I'll figure something out.]
That conversation with was the key reason had abandoned a slow investigation and instead opted for a thunderbolt strike.
He wasn't sure that after too long, these people in would still be able to leave the red fog.
He'd finally found such a large population package — if it got ruined on him again, he'd really throw a fit.
While mulling over these thoughts, also directed the drones in the city to conduct a comprehensive sweep of , on guard against that " " circling back for a surprise attack.
But no matter how thoroughly he searched the entire city, apart from wreckage and ruins everywhere, there was nothing.
The zombies that and his people had tirelessly delivered into the inner city seemed to have vanished into thin air.
All eaten by that thing? Taken away? Or transformed into something else?
didn't know the answer, but he knew that this thing that had escaped underground probably hadn't suffered serious damage, which made him involuntarily raise his guard even further.
***
City, District.
The city here had long since become a breeding ground of flesh. The high-rises of the past were now completely covered in twisted sinews, as if the city had grown a layer of bright red skin.
Huge lotus-shaped fleshy petals bloomed atop the rooftops, their pistils swaying gently, every sway releasing great clouds of dark-red fog.
In the city center, a patch of ground suddenly bulged, soil and asphalt splitting apart.
Then, an enormous flesh brain, nearly twenty meters in diameter and covered in tentacles and folds, "squeezed" its way out from underground with difficulty.
Its brain tissue trembled slightly, transmitting thoughts both furious and unwilling.
That machine's power... was too terrifying. It had almost died just now in that sea of steel and fire.
The thing it had feared most had still come to pass.
Humanity, once again repeating the same mistake, had taken up power their fragile minds did not deserve, slaughtering wantonly, leading themselves to their own ruin.
No — it had to think of a new way, a gentler and more effective way, to guide these lost lambs, to let them know what was truly worth pursuing.
It needed more time, more believers, more—
However, just as 's consciousness was immersed in grand plans for the future, a thick, massive flesh tentacle, without the slightest warning, shot out from the densest fog at the center of District and wrapped around it like lightning.
"No—! My plan hasn't—"
But the brain's train of thought was abruptly severed.
An indescribable, ultimate peace and bliss made it obediently grow calm.
"It doesn't matter... no matter who eats whom... the result is the same..."
"Only the bliss of this present moment is real."
The tentacle slowly withdrew into the depths of the .
"Crunch... crunch..."
Several crisp sounds, like chewing on hard candy, rang out.
Then... 's mind gained hundreds of millions of years' worth of "rich memories"...
...Or rather, its thoughts gained many new landscapes and experiences. The two were no different, for all beings were one.
What it was more interested in right now, at this very moment, were those "memories" outside — those buildings, those metal creations.
It seemed there were memories in that metal too? A special "memory," a special "self," that had never been fused before!
It was curious.
It knew that the other side must have long been frantically craving to merge with it — probably already growing impatient from waiting!
It too was somewhat eager.
It knew that was where it had to go next.
But it had to be patient — once the "flower" beneath its feet had fully bloomed, it could come forth to sow more [ ] upon this barren and desolate world.
And then harvest more, even more special "memories."