Chapter 87: Rot-Beast Ecology
Rot-Beasts.
In the monster archive had compiled, these were a rather special type of .
They possessed attack power and physical toughness that ranked high within their class, and they came in multiple forms.
There were bird types that could emit high-frequency sonic waves, canine types that could spew plasma jets, and, according to intelligence from the garrison, giant python types that sprayed highly corrosive liquid from their mouths.
The greatest commonality shared by this class of was that their bodies were all covered in a layer of dark red tissue resembling rotting flesh.
Aside from that, under normal circumstances, they also appeared to possess strong territorial instincts, and within their territory there would inevitably be a small patch of mudflat formed from the same flesh-like substance.
According to the research findings from 's laboratory, these second-stage mutants weren't so much wearing a layer of rotting flesh as they were constructed entirely from that "rotten flesh."
That flesh-like substance was actually composed of numerous microorganisms, with the main body consisting of a kind of fungus-like cell.
Or, to put it another way, by pre-disaster taxonomic standards, these monsters shouldn't have been classified as animals at all, but rather as an entirely new type of giant fungal aggregate.
Previously, however, although this type of had been numerous, they hadn't seemed overly dangerous, so this discovery had been shelved for the time being.
After all, in an era when monsters kept emerging without end, having one more animal that looked like a fungus, or a fungus that looked like an animal, wasn't anything particularly astonishing.
It wasn't until reported that the anomaly at 's city center was a colossal, mushroom-like fruiting body seemingly made of rotten flesh that felt something was about to go very wrong.
And indeed, that was exactly the case.
***
hadn't had a particularly large population before the disaster, but its level of urban development was by no means low.
At this moment, four hundred drones silently entered the boundaries of this fog-sealed city at an altitude of three thousand meters.
divided them into eight groups, advancing toward the city center in a fan formation.
The fog was cold and viscous, and visibility was extremely poor.
Viewed from high above, the entire city of looked as though it had been soaked in a pot of boiling milk. The milky-white fog spread outward from the city centerāthin at the edges, growing denser the deeper it went.
When the first group of drones descended to an altitude of one thousand five hundred meters, their optical lenses began to experience interference and the imagery grew blurry, so switched to thermal imaging mode.
Around the city's outskirts, the imagery was still fairly normal.
Sparse heat signatures drifted through the streets, but their numbers were far lower than expected.
The closer to the city center, however, the more pronounced certain changes in the fog became.
Tiny dark red particles, almost invisible to the naked eye, began to appear in the air. They didn't look like ordinary dust.
They floated suspended in the fog, drifting slowly with the air currents, looking for all the world like some kind of dispersed spores.
carefully recorded the spore density distribution in the atmosphere. Even his control rod felt a few degrees heavier.
At the same time, the drone group that had dropped close to the ground made a new discovery.
On the streets, the ordinary zombies had undergone bizarre changes in form.
Large patches of gray-white blotches had appeared on their skin, as though they'd been covered in a layer of mold.
Some zombies had stopped wandering, standing stiffly in place, heads tilted back, mouths gaping, completely motionless.
zoomed in on the image.
Dense, dark red filamentous growths were sprouting from those zombies' oral and nasal cavities, as if they had been parasitized by fungus.
These transformed zombies moved with exceptional sluggishness and showed no reaction at all to the drones approaching.
Untilā
A canine-type burst out from the shadow of a street corner. It ignored the drones overhead and instead clamped its jaws around the necks of several parasitized zombies, then immediately began gorging itself.
This scene played out continuously all over the city. Rot-Beasts appearing from nowhere were hunting and devouring the spore-parasitized zombies in large numbers.
And as the drone swarm pressed deeper, the number of these monsters skyrocketed, reaching a level that even found difficult to handle.
Soon, the colossal "mushroom" squatting at the city center appeared in 's "field of vision."
It was even larger and more alive-looking than it had appeared in the photographs.
The enormous cap, over forty meters in diameter, expanded and contracted faintly as though it were breathing, cycling endlessly.
With each rise and fall, denser fog and dark red spores sprayed out from the countless pores densely covering its surface.
Countless tendrils hanging from the cap's rim cascaded down like a waterfall, dripping viscous liquid and turning the ground below into a dark red swamp.
And all around that colossal cap, a bloody, brutal "gladiator arena" was unfolding.
Nearly a hundred Rot-Beasts of every shape and form were madly slaughtering and devouring one another.
A bird-type dove from the sky, its sharp talons aimed at the head of a giant python-type , but the latter dodged nimbly and spat a stream of dark green acid back at it.
Half of the bird-type's wing was instantly corroded away. It fell with a mournful cry and was immediately torn apart and devoured by several canine-type Rot-Beasts.
The closer the fighting got to the central fungal cap, the denser the Rot-Beasts became, and entirely new types began to appear.
There was a wolf-like monster nearly three meters in size, but its forelimbs were two enormous, razor-sharp bone scythes, like a mantis's raptorial arms.
On its back grew a pair of translucent membrane wings threaded with dark red hyphae. Each flap could briefly lift its massive body off the ground.
It looked like a hybrid monster that had clumsily stitched a wolf, a mantis, and a bat together.
In addition, there were Rot-Beasts covered in thick bone armor that resembled giant turtles but bristling with countless long spines, and six-legged Rot-Beasts that looked like enormous lizards.
They fought endlessly, evolving, eliminating, devouring, evolving again... Such a drama played out here without cease.
piloted a squad of drones, attempting to circle around the peripheral battlefield and fly toward the slightly sunken area at the very center of the cap for a more complete view.
But just as the drone squad passed over a that was feeding, something changed abruptly!
The "bone-scythe wolf-bat" that had just finished feeding snapped its head up.
Its hollow eyes seemed to "look" toward the drones. Then it let out a silent roar, and the membrane wings on its back exploded open!
Whoosh!
In an instant, it became a bolt of lightning, its speed approaching the level of a " "!
The first drone was smashed to pieces by its forelimb before it could even make an evasive maneuver.
immediately pulled the remaining drones into a steep climb while activating their laser modules.
But the brief skirmish had alarmed every in the vicinity, and they all swarmed forward at once.
Left with no choice, detonated the drone squad, setting off a firework show to "entertain" them.
***
, , Meeting Room No. 1.
On the screen, played back all the reconnaissance footage in order from the outside in.
The footage went from the "normal" zombies at the city's outskirts, to the "petri dish" zombies overtaken by hyphae, to the evolutionary progression of Rot-Beasts of different types and generations, and finally froze on that brutal contest of devouring atop the fungal cap.
The meeting room fell into dead silence. Everyone presentāwhether battle-hardened veterans or newcomers like āwore expressions of gravity and horror.
Especially those from ā , , and āchills ran down their backs at the thought of having been neighbors with something so terrifying for so long.
"There are too many Rot-Beasts," said, his voice steady but noticeably faster than usual. "Even if the threat each one poses individually is relatively limited, at this scale...
Throw in their ranged attack capabilities and aerial combat power, and they can be fully regarded as a large-scale combined force."
[Exactly. So we must come up with a countermeasure before they expand outward.] affirmed 's assessment.
"Targeted rapid evolutionary iteration measured by combat performance?" suddenly spoke. She had been staring at the projection frozen on the image of a hybrid devouring another, her brow furrowed tightly.
"Wolves' pack coordination, insects' predatory performance, bats' flight capability?" She then asked herself, somewhat dazedly. "Could it be that it's been learning all along?"
[What do you mean?] asked curiously.
"I have a bold hypothesis," said after taking a deep breath and organizing her thoughts. "These fungi might be a unified collective with highly advanced intelligence."
"And it's been constantly analyzing and learning from every life form it comes into contact with. Those Rot-Beasts are the products of its learning and mimicry!"
"And now it's grown smart enough that it's no longer satisfied with simply copying one animal.
Instead, it's begun actively designing and fusing the advantageous traits of different species toward specific objectives, then imitating and accelerating natural selection to rapidly iterate out more perfect biological structures."
The sound of sharp intakes of breath filled the meeting room. A fungal monster that could learn, could think, and could even design its own "unit types."
Everyone understood exactly what a terrifying future this meant.
"If it's imitation..." suddenly looked up. "Then could it be that the 'fungus' itself is also just a form it imitated? The first thing it learned from?"
The question made pause for a moment. Then her eyes lit up, and she spoke at breakneck speed: "Right! Very likely!
That explains why there are so many aspects of its cellular structure that contradict the fundamental logic of fungi.
I had my research direction wrong from the start. It isn't a fungusāit just 'learned' to look like one.
So the nucleus isn't the key. The key is that special organelle-like structure!"
"I need to go back right now and study those samples again!"
Before she even finished speaking, had already turned and rushed out of the meeting room, leaving a room full of people exchanging stunned, grave looks.
"Th-those spores it spreads... they aren't toxic, are they?" After a long pause, finally spoke with difficulty, voicing the question on everyone's mind.
[Uncertain. The samples we brought back are still being analyzed.
But you don't need to worry too much. These spores should be a structure that evolved very recently. My drones had never detected this substance in 's atmosphere before.] 's voice brought a measure of comfort to everyone.
[And up to now, the spores' area of dispersal has essentially remained confined to the city center.]
Hearing this, everyone relaxed a little.
's expression remained stern. He said in a low voice, "But regardless, we must act immediately. We absolutely cannot sit back and watch it evolve and expand without limit."
"I agree," nodded forcefully. "If we let its spores spread, the consequences would be unimaginable."
"But the question is, how do we fight it?" frowned. "That thing is too huge, and conventional firepower has already been proven to have limited effect.
Not to mention the countless Rot-Beasts surrounding it, especially those flying onesāthey look hard to deal with at a glance."
[That's not all. Based on fungal habits, if its fruiting body can grow this large, then its mycelial structure underground could also pose a serious threat.]
's voice rang out again, further illustrating the severity of the problem.
"Would a large-yield thermobaric bomb work?" asked .
"We tried it, but a single bomb's effect wasn't all that good. The structural strength of that thing is almost unnervingly high."
shook his head and continued, "And at the time, our ammunition couldn't be replenished. We couldn't waste it all attacking a mutated structure that showed no aggression."
"Understood." nodded, keenly seizing the key point. "So you're saying saturation bombardment was never tried, right? Then it's worth a shot."
"In addition to conventional firepower, I think we could also consider plasma cannons," added. "As long as they're deployed outside , their range can fully cover the city center."
"The only issues are the quantity and the power supply network."
[No need to worry about quantityāI've made quite a few new discoveries recently. But you'll really need to figure something out for the power supply network.]
At these words, the veteran members in the meeting room all exchanged knowing smiles. Only the few newcomers from looked at a loss, not understanding what had just happened.
"Then that's settled!" beamed, her eyes bright, looking as if she was about to jump out of her seat and cheer. "For the power supply network, I'll have the electrical team come up with something. If worst comes to worst, we'll make do with one-time repair tools."
"Then there's no problem leftāwe have our suppression method," nodded, his steady tone carrying a trace of excitement. "The new question is: how do we keep those spores from spreading?"
[I can try to solve that. The spores' distribution is still fairly concentrated for now. I can try mounting collection tools on self-destruct drones, gather them centrally, and then dispose of them uniformly and efficiently.]
[As of now, the drone fleet has recovered quite a bit in numbers. It should be up to the job.]
"Then only one problem remains," summarized. "The mycelial structure that may be buried deep underground."
At that, the meeting room once again fell into silence. Buried deep underground, and spanning an extremely wide areaāthis was definitely not an easy problem to handle.
[As for that, is still researching it. She seems to have some clues about how to achieve complete eradication, but she needs more time.]
relayed 's reply.
"But we have to start moving now," shook her head. "If we keep dragging our feet, something bad is bound to happen."
"As for the mycelium, once we've dealt with the problems on the surface, worst case we can dig it up inch by inch. There will always be a way."
"Right. I'll put out an operation plan right away to curb the Rot-Beasts' expansion as a first step. We move today." stood up, his tone decisive.