This Game Is Too Real
Chapter 453: The Uncontrollable Evolution

Chapter 453: Chapter 453: The Uncontrollable Evolution

"Wasteland OL" Official Website.

[Beta0.4 Update!]

[Update contents:

1. Implementation of the deep-sea trade system: the trade route to Luo Xia Province has been opened; players can now trade with NPCs in the Lion Kingdom and invest in local farms or other industries. In addition, more tradable areas have been unlocked; players are encouraged to explore them in the Game.

2. A new "Cloud Dragonfly" flapping machine training point has been added to the Northern Corporate Aviation Base in West State City. Players can learn on their own expense by paying a fee of 500k silver coins through VM, and those with a proficiency level above 7 in flying skills and who have reached the status of a senior citizen with Contribution Points can apply for work-study learning.

3. The Iron Heart as an Alliance mobile base can provide saving services but does not guarantee it will anchor at the player’s desired location.

4. Shelter No. 404’s floors unlocked up to Floor B6; Floor B5 is still under maintenance, please stay tuned.

5. The upper limit of player accounts for Closed Beta has been raised from 8000 to 12000!

6. Fixed a small number of bugs.

7. ...

]

Falling Feather: "Fuck?!"

Thunder Mage Professor Yang: "What’s wrong with you now?"

Falling Feather: "I’m going!!!"

Feng Qing: "0.0?"

Gui Gui: "What?"

Falling Feather: "The respawn countdown has started again! Hahaha! Thanks, Brother Guang! Love ya!"

Grandpa Ao: "Haha, you guys keep acting; it looks pretty real. I’ll just quietly watch you show off."

Elena: "Jealousy really leads to splitting one’s personality. (Funny)"

Gnome King Riches: "+1 (Funny)"

...

At the same time.

Shelter No. 404.

A group of fully-armed players stood at the entrance to Floor B6 of the shelter.

What could be confirmed now was that the entire Floor B6 seemed to be a laboratory and a biological lab engaged in mutant slime fungus research at that.

Various signs indicated that the research samples here most likely came from the Early Wasteland Era, or even from the still more distant period of the Three-Year War.

From that fragmented recording, it was clear enough that the escaped experimental subject was not easy to mess with, even dangerously so!

Otherwise, it wouldn’t have wiped out all the guards on this floor, forcing the First Generation Manager to execute a "shock therapy" on the entire floor.

Chu Guang, of course, wasn’t the type to stick his face in the bushes, especially when he knew for sure that there was a landmine hidden inside.

Moreover, he indeed had a bunch of fearless little players at his disposal, so why should he do such hazardous work himself?

At the exact time the Beta0.4 version was officially updated, a quest popup simultaneously appeared on the VMs of the players Chu Guang had chosen to come here.

[Quest: Retake Floor B6 of Shelter No. 404]

[Description: The experimental bodies stored on Floor B6 of Shelter No. 404 have lost control, leading to the infestation of the floor by slime fungus.]

[Objectives:

1. Search for possible sources/origins.

2. Head to the lab to recover experimental logs.

3. Head to the computer room to search for un-uploaded data.

]

The blinking pale blue icon on the VM screen confirmed the quest just received from the Manager. Night Ten’s eyes sparkled with excitement.

"Fucking awesome! I didn’t expect to get such big work while chilling in the rear!"

Luo Xia Province was the home ground for both the Storm Corps and the Skeleton Corps.

The Burning Corps, having fewer people and their main turf in the city rather than the open plains, land, barely felt involved in the war at all, and were merely onlookers most of the time.

After being an observer (OB) on the official Forum for so long, this was finally his chance to show off.

Quit smoking, following behind Wild Wind and watching the VM screen, suddenly came up with a wild idea, "Do you think the out-of-control experimental subject could be Falling Feather?"

With an expressionless face barely concealing a grin, Wild Wind touched his nose bridge and said,

"...It’s possible, unless there’s a time machine here that can send it back 100 years."

Quit smoking: "Fuck! There’s a time machine?!"

Wild Wind: "...Can’t you listen to the end when someone talks?"

Looking at the fungal blotches climbing the walls, Night Ten couldn’t help but click his tongue.

"Damn... This thing has been cut off from water, electricity, and air for so long, and it can still fucking move!"

Wild Wind looked around cautiously and after a moment of thought said,

"Yep, and it’s even paralyzed most of the cameras in the area, along with 85% of the electronic equipment... The situation here might be even more complicated than we anticipated."

"Who cares how complicated it is, let’s just do it!"

Old White, equipped with the OD-10 "Dragon Cavalry" power armor grinned, lifting his index finger to lock the helmet of his face mask, and cocked his assault rifle.

Then, over the communications channel, he loudly declared,

"The mission has been updated on VM; our target is to retake the overrun area of Floor B6!"

"Team A with me, search for the enemy ’crystals,’ inject suppressants to contain them. Team B with Night Ten, go to the Sample Library to search for experimental logs. Team C with Wild Wind, head to the computer room, and following the mission cues, take the hard drives storing the experiment data and materials."

"After completing the mission, we’ll gather at the entrance of the buffer workshop; make sure to keep communication clear at all times. The Manager is watching us!"

"Move out!"

The players tacitly split into three teams and cautiously began their search forward.

As an elite squad ranked high in combat power server-wide, the Burning Corps naturally excelled in executing special ops like this, and no one was better than them at close-quarters indoor combat.

At the same time, Chu Guang, who was in the Viewing Room on Floor B4, watched through the cameras carried by his players as they ventured deeper into the out-of-control biological lab.

Besides him, Yin Fang and Heya were also invited here, as "technical advisors" for the military operation, to provide professional advice to the players at critical moments.

However, since the operation began, Heya’s attention was completely captivated by this vast and well-equipped laboratory.

Her gaze was more than just excited.

It was even envious – to the point of jealousy.

"I don’t understand! Just how much is your budget?! Clearly ranked behind us, why... do you have so many good things?"

Facing that sour look, Chu Guang didn’t know how to respond and decided to ignore it.

What was the point in asking him about things before the Wasteland Era?

If you want to know, ask the First Generation Manager!

Staring at the computer screen and focusing on other matters, Yin Fang stroked his chin and offered the first immature suggestion for the operation.

"...Actually, I’d suggest deploying the bionic man team. That way, even if there’s a problem, it won’t provide the organic entity over there with more organic matter."

Chu Guang replied offhandedly.

"I trust my soldiers; they’re much more reliable than bionic men."

Heya and Yin Fang both looked at Chu Guang in surprise, especially upon hearing the word "use." However, he appeared indifferent, eyes glued to the video on the screen.

During the brief chat, "Team A" led by Old White had already engaged with the enemy.

Interestingly, the myxomycete entities they encountered were completely different from those in Qingquan City.

The slender humanoid entities looked just like the walking corpses from zombie flicks.

But unlike those "zombies."

These eater-like entities would not appear in swarms but would silently hide in corner hallways and behind overturned display cabinets.

They would even lie on the ground and play dead.

Only when someone approached would they be awakened and then suddenly attack, turning this upbeat RPG into a horror game.

Team A and Team C’s advancement noticeably slowed down,

whereas Team B, led by Night Ten, used their strong perception to anticipate hidden dangers time and again, quickly advancing to the area where the experimental logs were stored.

However, despite the myxomycete entities’ surprise attacks coming in waves, the players did not suffer any casualties or injuries.

The slender walking corpses could only give the players a scare.

Even if Light Cavalry Exoskeleton armor had weak protection, it wasn’t frail enough to be shattered by those reed-like thin arms or to be pierced by a few rotten teeth.

Not to mention the power armors.

In front of warship-grade alloy steel, weak flesh was like paper mache.

Old White didn’t even fire his gun, but simply pulled out the nail hammer hanging on the armor, crushing the charging corpses into pulp with a few bangs.

In such close-quarters combat, firing carelessly could cause ricochets, and a reflexive trigger pull could easily lead to friendly fire; cold weapons were therefore more convenient.

"Probably the lack of nutrients during the long period of isolation prevented the myxomycetes in this area from developing stronger entities and, without the need to hunt... these entities were purely produced for scavenging and energy conservation," Heya mused, stroking her chin in contemplation.

After receiving Chu Guang’s promise "to give her use of Floor B6," she finally concentrated on the myxomycetes inside the floor.

Chu Guang pondered for a moment and then spoke.

"The lack of organic matter means these myxomycetes can’t secrete spores in large quantities... Hiss, why do I feel like this is exactly like Myxomycete No. 7 from the Lost Valley?"

Yin Fang nodded.

"The only difference is the degree of scarcity... The Lost Valley is a desert, while this place is like a space station cut off from supplies."

Chu Guang suddenly turned towards Heya.

"Wait, you said before... myxomycetes born in different evolutionary environments can’t coexist and won’t exchange genetic information with each other, but what about myxomycetes born in environments scarce in resources? In other words, can myxomycetes from similar evolutionary environments be compatible with each other?"

He knew the problem he was describing was somewhat tongue-twisting; after all, he wasn’t a professional biologist, and his choice of words might come across as amateurish. And the thought that had just popped into his head was also quite abstract in his mind.

Elena pondered seriously for a while before she replied,

"In the scenario you’re describing, interspecies competition and genetic information exchange would probably happen simultaneously... or to put it more directly, it would be assimilation through consumption."

Chu Guang, "Consumption?"

"Yep," Elena nodded, "this is just my speculation, but if both a and b are different varieties that evolved in an environment with scarce resources, then between a and b, there would always be some genetic material that the other would find particularly interesting. At that point, that portion of the genetic material would be actively or passively inherited after one side had consumed the other."

"The genetic information of slime fungus is not a simple line of code but more like a ’library’ composed of countless lines of code."

"When nurturing progeny, the lair or the maternal body selects a segment of genetic code needed from this library to create the offspring it requires. Even if Eaters and Tyrants have different numbers of chromosomes, the fact that they are born from the same lair still ties them to the same collective. In such circumstances, they are not completely independent individuals; they resemble organs on a vast individual... this is what I mean by a beehive society."

"To truly understand these creatures, we must get our hands on their maternal bodies, collect the original gene library used to synthesize progeny. That is the source of all offspring and the template for all evolutionary bodies."

While Elena was enlightening Chu Guang on the subject, the players who had ventured deep into Floor B6 finally ran into real trouble.

A piercing roar suddenly swept down from the end of the corridor.

A gray-black power armor stood at the end of the corridor.

Its figure was bulky, in no way inferior to the "Dragon Cavalry" power armor, and its body was even more imposing in stature. From its faded paint, it appeared to be a police version.

The instant Old White saw that armor, a warning twisted in his heart.

His nail hammer, held in his hand, was hurled out fiercely like a meteor smashing toward the power armor’s visor.

With the dual enhancement of the Strength Attribute and armor engine, even a tank would get a dent in it.

However, the power armor merely shook its arm, swatting the hammer flying.

Without a moment’s pause, the power armor crouched slightly and then charged like a cannonball.

Old White raised his rifle and emptied a clip, but he didn’t leave a scratch on that armor.

Seeing that 7mm bullets couldn’t breach its defense, Old White simply tossed aside his rifle and drew the thermal cutting axe from his waist.

Yet—

The evolutionary body was one step ahead of him.

Before he could raise his axe, the evolutionary body’s shoulder plate made intimate contact with his breastplate.

"Duang——!"

The collision of the two metal behemoths echoed down the corridor, too close for support, leaving the three teammates behind only to watch the titans clash.

Old White’s right hand, pinned by the evolutionary body’s left arm, nearly collapsed, but he managed to steady himself and aimed for the slit of the helmet with his left hand that was wielding the battle knife in a reverse grip and plunged it forward!

The air current raised by the arm had already blown into the helmet, but the arm striking down was blocked by another arm of the evolutionary body.

The gleaming blade and axe hung over the helmet, not advancing a single millimeter.

Terrifying chunks of flesh wriggled under the tattered armor, the not-yet-exhausted nuclear energy being transformed by the slime fungus into the most primitive and direct force.

From the gaps in the damaged armor, Old White could faintly make out a crimson light.

That was the gaze of a predator.

Behind the instincts for slaughter and bloodlust burned an appetite more chilling than hatred.

It was ravenously hungry...

With his arms restrained, Old White felt the strain and pushed down with all his might while also secretly marveling in his mind.

This guy—

is even trickier to handle than a Decaying Knight!

"Damn!"

His chest heaved with anger and blood!

Old White roared and activated his Strength Type Talent, his hands doubling in strength instantly, pushing the axe blade and dagger down a full inch.

The mechanical components of the power armors on both sides creaked under the strain.

The Evolutionary body occupying the power armor was forced back half a step, its impatient and piercing screech leaking from the armor gaps.

Seizing the moment it staggered backward, Old White burst into action with a kick to its knee.

Under that tremendous boost of strength, the outward-bending knee was forcibly folded backward.

As the Evolutionary body lost balance and fell to the side, Old White followed up with a dagger thrust into its skull, stirring violently with force.

However, unexpectedly, the guy who had its brain stabbed acted as if nothing had happened.

Old White instantly realized.

This creature’s nerve center is not in its head!

Maybe it doesn’t even have one!

"Keep your distance!"

Night Ten’s voice suddenly broke in over the comm channel.

Old White rejoiced, and while the Evolutionary body was still unsteady, he kicked once more, hitting its chest and sending it staggering backward.

The decaying, muscular arms of the alloy grabbed onto a side wall, and the stiff fingers scraped it, eliciting a grating, teeth-clenching sound.

In the instant when the two power armors widened their distance, Night Ten, who was prone at the end of the corridor with a "Viper" Gauss Rifle poised, had finished aiming and pulled the trigger.

"Bang—!"

In a flash of an electric arc, the mass bomb was accelerated to 4.5 Mach, with the sonic boom resonating throughout the corridor.

The attack came from behind!

The target was the most vulnerable area of the power armor.

The Evolutionary body had no time to react, its poorly-maintained armor was already low on durability, and facing the terrifying penetrating power of the railgun, it was shot clean through in an instant.

At the same time, the Evolutionary body staggered forward from the kinetic energy of the mass bomb, Old White seized the opportunity and swung his Thermal Cutting Axe with all his might, chopping down.

A hot red light flickered.

The lavic-hot air current instantly sliced through the Evolutionary body’s left shoulder armor, pouring into the gap and turning the soft tissue inside to charcoal.

The crimson light finally faded, and the Evolutionary body collapsed to the ground, motionless.

Night Ten, who had stowed his rifle, approached and looked down at the fallen Evolutionary body, clicking his tongue.

"Man oh man... Even the slime fungus knows how to operate a power armor!"

Unlike the "Decaying Knights," the core battery of this power armor was clearly still operational, but most of the electronic components within the armor were damaged.

"They can operate Titans, let alone power armors..." Old White walked over, patted his shoulder, and said with a smile, "Nicely done! Are you guys done over there?"

Night Ten chuckled.

"We’re done... The mother isn’t in the lab, empty as it could be. We followed the Manager’s orders to take the experimental logs from there, and then he commanded us to circle around to this corridor to support you... What about you?"

Old White shook his head.

"We didn’t find it... We’ve searched most of the area and haven’t even seen a shadow of the mother."

Night Ten was taken aback.

"Could it be with Wild Wind?"

Almost as soon as he finished speaking, a popup flashed across all the players’ VMs.

Seeing the text in the popup, Night Ten’s face changed abruptly.

"Shit... I’ve jinxed it with my damn mouth!"

Old White wasted no words, reached down to pick up the rifle on the ground and the Nail Hammer he’d thrown earlier.

"Let’s go! Let’s help him!"

...

Floor B6.

Biological Laboratory Computer Room.

You could see rows of computer cases on metal shelves, now entirely engulfed by dark red slime fungus.

The room, covering hundreds of square meters, was filled with wriggling mucosal masses as far as the eye could see— the entire computer room had turned into a sea of slime fungus, with no place to even stand by the steps of the main entrance!

Several semi-transparent, meat-red membranous ovoids floated on this sea, like silken cocoons, pulsating restlessly.

"It" seemed to have just woken up.

Thrilled at the sudden revival of "climate" and the sight of long-missed prey!

Staring at the scene before them, Wild Wind and his teammates behind him wore an expression of blank uncertainty.

Swallowing hard, Quit smoking looked to the smartest person in the squad.

"How do we reclaim this?"

Wild Wind shook his head gravely.

"I don’t know..."

The computer cases were completely submerged by the sea of slime fungus; the cases were thoroughly stuck together. Not to mention finding the hard drive in one of the cases, even approaching the rows of cases was a problem.

Trying to walk over these slime fungus...

It felt like a disaster was imminent.

After a moment of thought, Wild Wind analyzed calmly.

"Anyway, we need to clear the slime fungus to here first... This isn’t an ordinary slime nest; it might be a downscaled Lair."

Including Quit smoking, the three players behind Wild Wind whispered.

"If I’m not wrong, the task requires us to reclaim this thing..."

"Reclaim? This has turned into a swimming pool... Not to mention how much inhibitor we’d need to take it down, how are we supposed to move it out of this room?"

"I’m tired, let’s just blow it up."

"That’s not possible... The experimental data we need to reclaim is in the hard drive of one of those cases."

The players on the mission found themselves caught between a rock and a hard place.

Chu Guang, watching the battle from the viewing room, was no different.

Getting rid of that lair was easy; just authorize the players to carry heavy weapons into Floor B6. Stuff a 155 in there, set it off manually, and that’d be enough.

If one wasn’t enough, then use two.

Detonating heavy artillery in a sealed environment, even the shockwaves from the explosion would be enough to kill the organic beings in the room several times over.

But the trouble was, the data stored in those computer cases...

Since the transmission lines had been destroyed, it was impossible to remotely upload that data to the servers in the shelter. The only way was to manually remove the hard drives from the servers.

Let’s not even talk about using powerful weapons.

Methods like pouring gasoline or sulfuric acid were probably ineffective too.

It was at this moment that Yin Fang suddenly had an idea.

"What if we fight poison with poison?"

Chu Guang was taken aback.

"Fight poison with poison?"

Yin Fang nodded excitedly, gesturing with his index finger as he described the ingenious idea he had just come up with.

"Like... introducing another mother organism from the outside, using the feature of incompatibility between different slime mold populations, to let the mother fight the mother!"

Chu Guang was startled, then his eyes lit up.

My goodness, driving out wolves only to be devoured by tigers!

This idea...

Unexpectedly good.

Just as he was about to speak in approval, Heya, who was standing nearby with her arms crossed, sighed,

"Where do you plan to get a mother organism? The closest one is in the city center."

Yin Fang was taken aback.

"Aren’t those nests that produce Eaters mother organisms?"

"That thing is called an incubation chamber!" Heya retorted, "They don’t store the entire genetic storages of the species, at best you could consider them production organs and signal relays capable of producing certain products! Without the spore coverage from the mother or the lair, they’ll shrivel up before long. If you put that in there, at most, it’ll serve as fertilizer for the slime mold inside."

Having said this, Heya, who still hadn’t gotten over her memories of Oasis No.7, quickly followed up with another point.

"However, this idea is not entirely bad. I’ve heard that somewhere like Lost Valley might actually have relatively benign mutated slime molds... If we could get a mother organism from there, we might not only solve the slime mold problem on Floor B6 but also acquire a batch of benign mold species!"

The idea really wasn’t bad.

If only there wasn’t that Titan around.

A monster that nuclear bombs couldn’t kill, he’d be hitting it with his head!

Pretending not to notice that enthusiastic look, Chu Guang coughed lightly, turning to look at Yin Fang standing to the side.

"What Heya said is true... This method still needs further deliberation."

Heya: "Uh, what I actually wanted to say was—"

Chu Guang cut her off, continuing to speak.

"In any case, before deciding on what measures to take to resolve the issue with the slime fungus there, we should first look into the experiment log to see if the research results are truly worth the risks we’re taking," he said.

Chu Guang looked towards Xiao Qi, sitting at the desk, and gave his command.

"Xiao Qi, I need the team on Floor B6 to retrieve the experiment log and pull out."

Xiao Qi brought her right fist to her chest and cheekily replied.

"Received!"

...

Half the mission had been completed.

The rewards for the players from Chu Guang were also honestly distributed in half.

He inserted the storage card that held the experiment log into the holographic computer pen, and a pale blue holographic image was quickly projected into the center of the viewing room.

The first thing to be played was a section of a holographic image.

In the image, a strange man stood, conversing with someone off-camera.

He wore the uniform of the shelter, and a tag on his chest bore the characters "T-13," which was likely his identification number.

From the angle of the filming, neither he nor the person he was talking to seemed to be aware that they were being recorded secretly.

"... This planet has been contaminated, that is to say, it’s beyond saving."

"This is a more cruel method of extermination than neutron annihilation; these slime fungi, designed to destroy us, adapt better to our home than we do. They will not directly kill us but will instead grow wildly where we live, pursue our tracks, and squeeze our living space. Our descendants will have to give up cities, migrate to the outskirts, or remain behind to become fertilizer for them!"

"The heritage we leave for our children will one day be exhausted, and as the level of production continues to fall, there will no longer be the soil for advanced social relations on this planet. Our civilization will grow in reverse: first regressing to feudal societies, then to slave societies, and finally to tribes... until we completely become beasts, eventually replaced by more barbaric beings."

"Yes, our Black Box is still working, but what about in a thousand years? In ten thousand years? Once a trend forms, it will be very hard to reverse. If these issues aren’t resolved now, the future will only get worse... By then, let alone professional biological laboratories, our descendants probably won’t be able to build a microscope, so how could they research those things?"

"This is not alarmism; in fact, the decline of civilization had already begun before this winter had even ended. Look at the community we’ve been monitoring, now what’s it called, ’Blood Hand’ or some nonsense... I bet, even if they survive this winter, those people won’t be any smarter than monkeys!"

"The seeds of savagery have already invaded their brains, they will become the source of chaos, like the ancient nomads, plundering the wealth of civilized people by the most primitive means, and at least the survivors in this suburb cannot escape their tyranny."

"I don’t understand why the professor allowed that guard to risk exposing the shelter’s location, using the precious radio to help that hopeless bunch of idiots... Regardless of his motives, the guard has committed suicide, and his plan has undoubtedly failed, but I can’t bet on a loser!"

"But he is the Manager, or do you have a better idea?" the person speaking to the T-13 researcher finally spoke up, making the whole image no longer a monologue of the T-13 researcher.

Perhaps seeing something stirring on the person’s face, the T-13 researcher continued excitedly.

"Of course!"

"The adaptability of the slime fungus is strong, but we’ll be stronger, it won’t be us who’ll be devoured, but them!"

The person hesitantly asked.

"And how do you plan to achieve that?"

"Synthetic mother cell!"

The T-13 researcher answered resolutely, his ideas coincidentally aligning with the immature idea previously proposed by Yin Fang.

"We can cultivate mature somatic cells into embryonic stem cells, and we can certainly reverse mature spore bodies back into the lair!"

"We will recompile the gene repository of the lair, making them take our form under our intervention!"

Those pupils, they were glimmering with ambition.

The T-13 researcher said, each word deliberately distinct.

"They will replace the slime fungus on the surface!"

"And we, we will control evolution!"