Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 638
"Both Cultivators and the experts of demons try to tear apart the genetic locks when they are training, but such attempts can be highly dangerous. Once the genetic locks are wrecked, the victims will certainly be mentally deranged. They will either turn into foam because of cellular collapse or spontaneously combust and turn to ash.
"As for ordinary people and low-level demons, they can stand the consequences of bombarding the genetic locks even less.
"However, the 'Demon God Virus' will completely wreck the genetic lock and awaken the gene segments deep inside the gene strands that are in charge of 'evolution'. As a result, the creature will go through evolution that should've happened in a span of tens of thousands of years in only a few days, if not a few hours.
"Evolution. What is evolution?
"It is a common misunderstanding that evolution means 'higher, faster, and stronger'. No. That's not true.
"Evolution means the adaption to the environment for the purpose of survival. It does not necessarily mean 'higher, faster, and stronger'. It is also possible to be smaller, slower, and weaker.
"A smaller size reduces the odds of being discovered by the natural enemy. Slower and weaker means a lower consumption rate of energy and demand on food.
"Mammals that evolved from dinosaurs lost their magnificent bodies and sharp claws.
"If a mammal on the land 'evolves' into the whale in the ocean, it will lose the ability to move on the land. In fact, it will be suffocated because it cannot endure its own weight when it is brought to the beach by a tide.
"In fact, such evolutions are the more successful and fortunate ones.
"The truth is, evolution has no direction. It is just a series of random choices that are screened by the cruelty of nature.
"99% of evolutions fail, and only 1% of them adapt to the new environment. When the new environment stabilizes, the genetic lock will shackle the new evolution and maintain the new form and functions.
"It has always been so for living creatures over the past billions of years.
"However, the Demon God Virus created a hole in the solid genetic change, thereby allowing human beings and demons to evolve at a crazy speed!
"Therefore, no matter how hard Elder Nether Spring tried, the success rate of his evolutions was still below 5%. The remaining 95% were either killed on the spot or turned into 'uncontrollable mutants'!
"That is the truth of the Demon God Virus!"
The muscles on Suo Chaolong's face were twitching violently, as if he were back to the days and nights that he would rather not recall. He gnashed his teeth. "Why was Elder Nether Spring doing that?"
"First of all," the Fire Ant King said coldly, "he wanted to find the right direction of evolution.
"95% of the evolutions failed, and 5% did not. Then, what determined the success or failure of the evolutions? If he figured out the answer, Elder Nether Spring would be able to make himself evolve incessantly into what he claimed to be the perfect third life form that was above mankind and the demon race!
"Also, the by-products of the experiments, namely the uncontrollable mutants, were powerful weapons under certain circumstances!
"Thirdly, we have discovered that the Demon God Virus of the latest generation could edit the gene segments inside our body.
"Genes are the most mysterious things of all. Our ancestors billions of years ago can pass on certain information to us through genes.
"Many people feel scared and disgusted beyond their control when they see snakes and spiders, even though the snakes and spiders are utterly harmless.
"Experiments have also shown that even the children of snake demons are scared of snakes, too. Their fear will not go until after they slowly grow up.
"The fear beyond reason is a warning that our ancestors passed on to us through genes. It is our natural instinct.
"However, from Elder Nether Spring's memory unit, we have discovered a group of extremely weird gene segments that can be divided into two forms. Let's call them 'master gene segments' and 'slave gene segments' for the convenience of communication.
"Judging from the experiment data, people who had 'slave gene segments' would unconditionally have emotions such as fear, admiration, and subjugation toward those who had 'master gene segments'. The emotions are beyond all reason and willpower. They are a 'natural instinct'.
"You may understand it as a mark that is stamped to the deepest part of the cell. It is an ineffaceable curse. Whoever gets stamped with the 'slave gene segments' will be the peons of the owners of the 'master gene segments' forever!"
Han Tuhu narrowed his eyes. "So, as long as Elder Nether Spring plants the 'master gene segments' into his body and figures out a way to spread out the 'slave gene segments', everybody whose 'slave gene segments' are activated will become his slave and follow his commands as unconditionally as a mouse is scared of a cat?"
"Correct." The Fire Ant King nodded. "Although we have destroyed a lot of research facilities in the 'Nether World', judging from the research records, the sixth generation of the Demon God Virus, which was already completed, has perfectly combined the two functions, namely the crack of genetic lock and the activation of master and slave gene segments.
"It means that, once 'Demon God VI' is spread out on a large scale in the Heaven's Origin Sector and the Blood Demon Sector, many creatures will die, many will lose their mind and become 'uncontrollable mutants' who know nothing but killing, and the few lucky dogs who evolve successfully and receive enormous strength will become the most loyal soldiers of Elder Nether Spring!
"That is the future that Elder Nether Spring looks forward to."
There was nothing but silence.
The only sound was the bubbling memory unit inside the biochemical slot.
"Since the sixth generation of the Demon God VI is already so powerful," Li Yao asked, "why hasn't Elder Nether Spring released the virus and started a large-scale infection?"
The Fire Ant King managed a smile and replied, "I know that the Heaven's Origin Sector has an uncanny fear about the biochemical technology of the Blood Demon Sector. A lot of fantasies are actually about a mysterious virus from the Blood Demon Sector spreading on a large scale in the Heaven's Origin Sector and turning everybody into the walking dead.
"To be honest, the Blood Demon Sector has indeed done similar studies in the past, but all the projects were abandoned in the end.
"It is because the large-scale transmission of a virus is not as simple as you imagine, and the strength of the infected might not be as high as you feared them to be.
"It's very simple. If a virus is powerful enough to kill someone very quickly, it is very likely that the patient will die before they have a chance to spread the virus!
"If a virus has a long incubation period and spreads in a mysterious way, it often infects the victim at a very low speed, and the symptoms that it can bring will not be severe, either.
"It seems to be an unresolvable contradiction.
"Faced with a highly-efficient government and army, the so-called walking dead are nothing but moving targets.
"Take the extraterrestrial devils for example. They have been old nemeses of human beings for a long time. The 'devilized people' who are possessed by the extraterrestrial devils are millions of time stronger than the walking dead, but haven't they been blown to smithereens every time?
"If there is absolutely no choice, it is always possible to impose a perimeter around the infected area and blow everything inside to the ground. Any government will not hesitate to do that when they must.
"The Demon God Virus has obvious shortcomings. It is vulnerable under high and low temperature. Furthermore, the longevity of the cells of the 'controllable mutants' is too short. Even if no measures are taken to deal with them, a few days of hunger is more than enough to starve the ravenous cells that have just finished the evolution.
"Also, do not overestimate the power of 'evolution'. Such evolutions are based on the body of every individual after all. An ordinary person cannot be stronger than a Cultivator even if they contract the Demon God Virus and successfully evolve. They can only cause some trouble to society. Nothing more. Only the Cultivators who are infected with the Demon God Virus and evolve successfully are the perfect warriors in Elder Nether Spring's mind, I think.
"More importantly, any virus will be cracked very soon, with vaccines and antidotes, when it breaks out on a large scale.
"It's true that Elder Nether Spring can throw out the virus on a large scale right now, but the best outcome he can expect is to infect a few cities of the Heaven's Origin Sector or the Blood Demon Sector and to create an epidemic area. A large batch of ordinary people or low-level demons might become three to five times, or maybe even ten times, stronger than before. But then what? Is it really meaningful for Elder Nether Spring's cause?"
Chapter 964: Spore Stratagem! |
Li Yao fell into deep thought. "That is why Elder Nether Spring went through all the trouble of exploring the Mausoleum of Chaos. He wanted to get new insights from the Mausoleum of Chaos to make the Demon God Virus more powerful and perfect!
"Right now, it is the sixth generation of the Demon God Virus, which means he has already developed five generations. But the five generations must've been too flawed to be put into practice.
"That is why he set you up and looted the Mausoleum of Chaos!
"After analyzing the relics from the Mausoleum of Chaos, perhaps he would have been able to develop the seventh generation, the eighth, or even the ultimate version of the Demon God Virus, one that is unafraid of coldness or heat, easy to spread, and has a perfect balance between conspicuousness and destructiveness!"
The Fire Ant King took a long, slow breath. "That's what I speculated, too. He almost succeeded, but he neglected to account for you. As a result, he went for wool and came home shorn. Not only did he fail to retrieve anything from the Mausoleum of Chaos, even his own nest had been overturned, and his most important secrets have been found by us!"
"Then, what is our problem now?" Han Tuhu asked. "The 'Nether World' at the North Pole is certainly Elder Nether Spring's most important research center. We have crippled it. The research will not begin for another one to two years.
"It's quite unlikely that Elder Nether Spring has a second research center that is of such a high level. He cannot find a second 'Flying Tigers Legion' or 'Blood Lion Battalion' for his experiments, either.
"Therefore, whatever schemes he had, they are all ruined now. The best he can do right now is stir some trouble, but it will definitely be suppressed very quickly."
The Fire Ant King managed a smiled and replied, "I wish it were as simple as that.
"My brother is truly ten times more terrifying than I imagined.
"He learned my identity as the leader of the Blade of Chaos decades ago, and yet he kept it a secret to this day. He even manipulated me in secret so that every action I took was an implementation of his will.
"Do you think that his scheme will be disrupted so easily and that he does not have a backup plan?
"The development of a virus is similar to training. Even if you have enough money and time, success is not guaranteed. Most of the time, luck plays a vital role. If you are lucky, you might make a breakthrough in a year and a half. If you are not, you might make zero progress despite the resources and specialists you dedicate to the project and the decades you spend on it, which is nothing unusual.
"For Elder Nether Spring, even if everything went well and he had truly retrieved the knowledge of Chaos from the legacies, would it have been guaranteed that the sixth generation of the Demon God Virus could be upgraded to the seventh generation quickly?
"It was impossible. No specialists would've dared to make such a promise.
"Assuming that the development of the Demon God Virus doesn't make any progress in ten years, will Elder Nether Spring simply wait ten years?
"If it were I, you, or any ambitious schemer, would we wait for such a long time?
"Absolutely not!
"He will certainly have come up with a plan with the current sixth generation of the Demon God Virus as the core while overcoming its flaws as best as he can so that the virus will spread most efficiently!
"Right now, the 'Nether World' has been seriously damaged. More importantly, it is no longer a secret. With Elder Nether Spring's cautiousness, he must've already abandoned the 'Nether World' and activated the backup plan.
"The very backup plan is exactly the topic of our discussion today, which has just been parsed from the memory unit. The name of the backup plan is the Spore Stratagem!"
Li Yao and the two captains chewed on the name slowly. Perhaps because of their bias, 'Spore Stratagem' gave them a rather chilly feeling.
The image and shadow behind the Fire Ant King changed, and rows of additional information and data popped up, including the forms of several mutated cells and the pictures of several edited gene strands.
He pointed at the data and said, "While we were analyzing the memory unit, we occasionally ran into a code name 'spore'. At first, we did not understand what it was exactly. Was it a drug, a cell, or a new living creature?
"But this morning, our specialists finally recovered a shattered document from the deepest part of the memory unit. The document was about a top-secret transportation plan, and the goods to be transported were 'spores'.
"Then, it finally occurred to us that the code name 'spore' did not represent cells or demon beasts—spores are people who stored the Demon God Virus inside their body."
Li Yao frowned. "Stored?"
"You may consider the 'spores' as the carriers of the Demon God Virus," the Fire Ant King said. "The Demon God Virus will not show any symptoms or reactions when it is incubating inside their body. They will not look unusual from their fellows. Therefore, it is extremely difficult to find them.
"It goes without saying that the 'awakening' and 'outbreak' of the Demon God Virus are under Elder Nether Spring's command."
Li Yao's eyelids twitched. "Can I understand the 'spores' as walking genetic bombs?"
The Fire Ant King nodded. "You can."
There was a long silence.
Suo Chaolong was sweating hard. "How many spores are there in total? Where are they now?"
"Not a clue." The Fire Ant King shook his head. "It is a pity that most of the transportation plan was already deleted, including the number, identity files, and destinations of the 'spores'.
"Judging from the experiment data in the past, there should be at least a hundred 'spores'. Before we were sent to the 'Nether World', they had already been shipped out. As to where they went and how they will be 'detonated', no records have been left.
"You see. The 'Nether World' is Elder Nether Spring's secret weapon research center. The files are all about the weapons that are being developed. But there are certainly no traces as to the usage of the hundreds of kinds of weapons that have already been developed and shipped out!"
Li Yao rubbed his face until it was as burningly hot as his high-functioning brain. "Therefore, although we've destroyed Elder Nether Spring's ability to develop a new generation of the Demon God Virus, he still has at least a hundred 'genetic bombs' in his hands, doesn't he? Once he confirms that it is impossible to upgrade the Demon God Virus, he will activate the 'Spore Stratagem' and detonate the 'genetic bombs' at a certain critical point, right?"
The Fire Ant King's voice was particularly cold. "Not 'will' but 'has'. It's been more than half a month since we escaped from the 'Nether World', The 'Spore Stratagem' must've already been activated during the time!"
Suo Chaolong gasped. "Although the sixth generation of the Demon God Virus is flawed, it might have unexpected effects if it is released to certain targets.
"For example, with Elder Nether Spring's identity and position, he can certainly convene a meeting where all the demon emperors of the Blood Demon Sector will be gathered. By then, he will only need to ask the 'genetic bombs' to be his guards or servants and then detonate around the meeting room. If so, all the demon emperors will be fished up and become his slaves. He will seize the supreme power of the Blood Demon Sector!"
"It is not very likely." Han Tuhu shook his head hard and said calmly, "The survival rate after contracting the sixth generation of the Demon God Virus is no higher than 5%. Even if dozens of demon emperors are gathered, the best outcome he can expect is that two to three live on while all the others are killed.
"Without the support of dozens of demon emperors, how can the Blood Demon Sector fight against the Heaven's Origin Sector? Elder Nether Spring is not an idiot. He would certainly not commit such a folly."
Suo Chaolong was dazed and deep in thought. "Fair enough. Then I really cannot figure out the answer now. Even though Elder Nether Spring has a hundred genetic bombs, where exactly is he going to plant them? How can he infect all the experts of the Heaven's Origin Sector and the Blood Demon Sector at the same time?"
They were seriously lacking the relevant information. It was impossible for them to get a general picture of the Spore Stratagem.
Li Yao calculated for a moment and then abandoned the futile attempt. He changed his way of thinking and said, "In fact, we don't have to waste our time figuring out Elder Nether Spring's next move. The Spore Stratagem will be a catastrophe for both the Heaven's Origin Sector and the Blood Demon Sector, and the Blood Demon Sector will suffer first! As long as we inform the Pantheon of Demons of the scheme, the Pantheon of Demons will certainly be wary of Elder Nether Spring!
"Even though the Mausoleum of Chaos has been completely ruined by Elder Nether Spring, it is unlikely that he can wipe out the 'Nether World' in the North Pole entirely. Besides, the Fire Ant King and Suo Chaolong are also the best eyewitnesses!
"Just tell them everything and the key files that we have already parsed. That will do!"
With a bitter smile, the Fire Ant King shook his head. "I had the same idea, but it doesn't seem to be a possible approach."
