Chapter 454 Runaway Evolution

   "Wasteland OL" official website.

  【Beta0.4 version update! 】

【update content:

  1. Ocean trade system implementation: The trade route to Luoxia Province has been opened, and now players can 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 invited to explore by themselves in the game.

  2. A new "Yunting" orthopter training point has been added in the northern enterprise aviation base of Xizhou City. You can learn at your own expense by paying 50W silver coins through VM. Citizens with a proficiency of aircraft piloting skills of 7 or above and a contribution point of up to senior citizens can apply for learning at public expense.

  3. As an alliance mobile stronghold, the Heart of Iron can provide archive services, but there is no guarantee that it will be anchored at the desired location of the player.

  4.404 Shelter floor unlocked to B6 floor, currently B5 floor is still under repair, so stay tuned.

  5. The upper limit of closed beta player accounts has been increased from 8000 to 12000!

  6. Fix a few bugs.

  7.…

  ]

  Luo Yu: "Damn it?!"

  Professor Yang of Thunder Dharma King: "What's wrong with you?"

  Luo Yu: "Let's go!!"

  Feng Qing: "0.0?"

  Ghost: "What?"

  Luo Yu: "The countdown to resurrection has restarted! Hahahaha! Thank you Brother Guang! Wood!"

  Grand Ao Nai I He: "Laugh, you continue to act, the acting is quite similar, I will just quietly watch you pretend to be aggressive."

  Irena: "Jealousy really will make the hostage wall separate. (funny

  Elf King Fugui: "+1 (funny

  …

at the same time.

  Vault 404.

  A line of heavily armed players is standing at the entrance of the B6 floor of the shelter.

   What can be confirmed now is that the entire B6 floor should be a laboratory, and it is a biological laboratory engaged in the research of mutated slime mold.

  There are indications that 80% of the research samples here come from the early Wasteland Era, or even the three-year war earlier.

   From the incomplete recording, it can be clearly heard that the escaped experimental subject should be easy to mess with, and even extremely dangerous!

   Otherwise, all the guards on the floor would not be wiped out, forcing the first-generation managers to perform "shock therapy" on the entire floor.

  Of course Chu Guang would not do the thing of looking into the grass with his face, especially when he knew that there were landmines hidden in the grass.

   What's more, he obviously has a group of small players who are not afraid of death, why does he have to do such a dangerous thing by himself?

   At the same time when the Beta 0.4 version was officially updated, the players who were selected by Chu Guang to come here, the VM on their arms coincidentally had a line of task pop-up windows.

  【Mission: Recover B6 Floor of Shelter 404】

  【Explanation: The experimental subjects stored on the B6 floor of Shelter 404 lost control, causing the floor to be infected with slime mold. 】

【Target:

  1. Search for possible mothers/brood nests.

  2. Go to the laboratory to recover the experiment log.

  3. Go to the computer room to search for unuploaded data.

  ]

  The flashing light blue icon on the VM screen confirmed the task just received from the manager, and Ye Shi's eyes shone with excitement.

   "Awesome! I didn't expect to receive such a big job in the rear!"

  Luoxia Province is the home of the Storm Corps and Skeleton Corps.

  The Burning Corps has a small number of people, and their home field is in the city instead of the open plains, so the whole war is almost soy sauce, and there is no sense of participation at all.

   Having been OB on the official website forum for so long, it can be regarded as a chance for him to pretend to be aggressive.

  Jie Yan, who was following the wind, stared at the VM screen, and suddenly had a whim: "You said that the experimental experience out of control is Luo Yu?"

  A smile that couldn't help but squeezed out of the expressionless face, Kuang Feng touched the bridge of his nose and said.

   "…possibly, unless there's a time machine to travel back 100 years."

   Quit smoking: "Damn! There's a time machine here?!"

  Guangfeng: "...can you listen carefully to what the person has to say."

  Looking at the plaques all over the wall, Ye Shi couldn't help but smacked his tongue.

   "Oh my god... This thing has been without water, electricity and air for so long, and it's still moving!"

  Guang Feng glanced around and thought for a moment.

   "Well, it also disabled most of the cameras and 85% of the electronic equipment in the area... The situation here may be more complicated than we thought."

   "Whether it is complicated or not, just do it!"

  Equipped with OD-10 "Dragoon" power armor, Lao Bai grinned, raised his index finger to lock the visor of the helmet, and loaded the assault rifle in his hand.

   Then, he said loudly in the communication channel.

   "The task has been updated in vm, our goal is to regain the fallen B6 floor area!"

"Squad A followed me to search for the enemy's 'crystal' and inject inhibitors to contain it. Team B followed Ye Shi and went to the sample library to search for the experiment log. Team C followed the wind to the computer room and took away the experimental data and data hard drive."

   "After the task is completed, we will gather at the entrance of the buffer workshop, pay attention to ensure that the signal is unblocked at all times, and the manager is watching us!"

   "Action!"

  A group of players tacitly divided into three teams, and cautiously moved forward to search.

  As an elite squad with the highest combat power in the entire server, the Burning Corps is naturally handy when performing such special operations missions. No one is better at indoor close-range combat than them.

  At the same time, Chu Guang, sitting in the browsing room on the B4 floor, followed his players into this out-of-control biological laboratory through the camera equipment carried by the players.

  In addition to him, Yin Fang and He Ya were also invited here as the "technical advisors" for this military operation, providing players with professional advice when necessary.

  However, from the beginning of the operation, Heya's attention was completely fascinated by this large-scale and well-equipped laboratory.

   Those eyes are more than just heartbeat.

   Even to the point of envy—even jealousy.

   "I don't understand! How much is your budget?! Obviously the sequence is behind us, why... there are so many good things?"

   Facing the sour eyes, Chu Guang didn't know how to answer, so he just pretended not to see it.

   Things before the wasteland era asked him to have a hammer.

  If you want to know, ask the first generation manager!

   Staring at the computer screen, Yin Fang, who was focusing on other things, touched his chin and gave the first immature suggestion for this operation.

  “…Actually, I’d rather recommend sending an android troop, so that even if something goes wrong, it won’t provide more organic matter to the organisms there.”

  Chu Guang replied casually.

   "I trust my soldiers, they are much easier to use than androids."

  He Ya and Yin Fang both looked at Chu Guang in surprise, especially when they heard the word "use". However, the latter had an indifferent expression on his face, staring intently at the video on the screen.

   During the chat just now, the "Squad A" led by Lao Bai had already approached the enemy.

  And what's interesting is that the slime mold fruiting bodies they encountered were completely different from the group of fruiting bodies in Qingquan City.

  A skinny humanoid fruiting body, like the walking dead in a zombie movie.

   But it's different from those "zombies".

  These fruiting bodies that look like nibblers don't appear densely, but hide silently in the corner of the corridor, behind the overturned display cabinet.

   Even lying on the ground and pretending to be dead.

  It will not be awakened until someone approaches, and then attack suddenly, turning this joyful RPG game into a horror game.

   The advancement speed of players A and C teams has slowed down significantly.

   On the contrary, the B team led by Ye Shi relied on its powerful perception to predict the hidden danger again and again, and quickly advanced to the area where the experiment log was stored.

  However, although the fruiting entities attacked wave after wave of unexpected attacks, the players did not suffer any battle damage, and no one was injured.

  Those skinny walking corpses are at best to scare players.

  No matter how weak the protection of the light cavalry exoskeleton is, it will not be crushed by the thin arm like a reed stick, or bitten through by a few rotten teeth.

   Not to mention power armor.

   In front of the battleship-grade alloy steel, weak flesh and blood are like paper.

  Lao Bai didn't even shoot, he directly pulled out the mace hanging on the armor, and smashed the walking corpse that rushed up with two bangs.

  In a battle at such an extreme distance, rash firing is likely to cause ricochets, and reflexively pulling the trigger is even more likely to accidentally injure teammates. In contrast, cold weapons are more convenient.

"It is estimated that the long closed period caused the slime molds in this area to not have enough nutrients to develop more powerful fruiting bodies, and there is no need for hunting... These fruiting bodies are produced entirely for scavenging and energy saving." Hya Rubbing his chin in thought.

  After getting a promise from Chu Guang to "give floor B6 to her", she finally focused on the slime mold on the floor.

  Chu Guang thought for a moment before speaking.

   "The lack of organic matter prevents the slime mold here from secreting a large number of spores... Hey, how do I feel that this is the same as the No. 7 slime mold in Lost Valley?"

  Yin Fang also nodded.

   "The difference is only in the degree of scarcity... Lost Valley is a desert, but here is equivalent to a space station that cuts off supplies."

  Chu Guang suddenly looked at Heya.

"Wait, you said before... slime molds born in different evolutionary environments are incompatible with each other, and will not exchange genetic information with each other, but what about slime molds born in the same resource-poor environment? Or in other words, Are slime molds with similar evolutionary environments compatible with each other?"

  He knew that the problem he described was a bit of a mouthful. After all, he was not a professional biologist, and his wording would be relatively layman, and this idea that just popped up was also very abstract in his mind.

  Heya thought for a while and replied.

   "In the situation you mentioned, interspecies competition and genetic information exchange should be carried out at the same time... Or to put it more directly, it is phagocytosis."

  Chu Guang: "Swallow?"

"Well," Heya nodded, "It's just my guess. If a and b are different species that evolved in a resource-scarce environment, then a and b always have a part of the genetic material between each other. Interest... And at this time, that part of the genetic material will be actively or passively inherited after one party swallows the other."

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

"When cultivating fruiting bodies, the mother's nest or the mother will select a piece of genetic code from this library to make the fruiting bodies that they need. Even if the number of chromosomes between the nibbler and the tyrant are different, but those born in the same mother's nest They still belong to the same group. In this case, they are not fully individuals, but more like organs in a huge individual... This is what I call a hive society."

   "If you want to fully understand this kind of creature, you must get their mother body and collect the original gene pool used to synthesize fruiting bodies. That is the root of all fruiting bodies and the template for all evolutionary bodies."

   Just when He Ya was popularizing science like Chu Guang, the players who went deep into the B6 floor finally encountered real trouble.

  A mournful roar suddenly swept from the end of the corridor.

  I saw a gray-black power armor standing at the end of the corridor.

  It has a burly figure, not inferior to the "Dragon Cavalry" power armor, and even surpasses it in terms of physique. Judging from the faded paint, it should be a police model.

  The moment he saw that armor, Lao Bai's heart wrinkled with warning signs.

  The mace in his hand was thrown violently, like a meteor hitting the front door of the power armor.

  Under the double bonus of the strength attribute and the armored engine, even if a tank blocks there, it will have to be smashed into a pit.

  However, the power armor just swung its arm, and smashed the flying hammer away.

  The movement did not stop at all, the legs of the powered medium armor slightly bent forward, and then it rushed towards it like a cannonball.

  Old Bai raised the rifle in his hand and emptied a round of bullet clips, but did not leave a single dent on the armor.

   Seeing that the 7mm bullet could not penetrate its defense, Lao Bai simply threw away the rifle in his hand and pulled out the fusion cutting ax hanging on his waist.

However-

  The evolved body was still one step ahead of him.

   Before the ax was raised, the evolution body's shoulder armor came into close contact with his breastplate.

   "Duang—!"

  The two iron bumps collided together, and the sound of metal collisions echoed in the corridor. The distance was too close to support, and the three teammates behind could only watch the two gods fight.

   His right hand was held tightly by the evolutionary body's left arm, and Lao Bai, who was about to fall, managed to stabilize his figure, looked at the gap on the side of the helmet, pulled out the combat knife with his left hand, and stabbed it!

  The airflow brought up by the arm has almost blown into the helmet, but the arm that fell down was caught by the other arm of the evolutionary body.

  The shining blades and ax blades hung on the helmet, but they couldn't move forward at all.

  The shocking chunks of flesh squirmed under the broken armor, and the unexhausted nuclear energy was transformed by the slime mold into the most primitive and direct power.

  From the gap in the broken armor, Lao Bai faintly saw a scarlet light.

   That is the sight of the predator.

   Behind the instinct to kill and bloodthirsty burns an appetite more chilling than hatred.

   It's starving...

   Lao Bai, whose arms were restrained, felt a little bit of difficulty, and at the same time pressed down with all his strength, he couldn't help being secretly surprised.

This guy-

   Tougher than a decayed knight!

"Grass!"

  The blood in the chest is surging!

   With a roar, Lao Bai activated the talent of the strength department, the strength of his hands doubled instantly, and the sharpness of the ax blade and dagger was forced down an inch.

  The mechanical parts of the power armor on both sides creaked under the load.

  The evolutionary body occupying the power armor was forced back half a step abruptly, and let out an impatient and piercing scream from the gap in the armor.

   Taking advantage of the gap when it backed up, Lao Bai kicked it on the knee violently.

  Under that terrifying strength addition, the outwardly bent knees were stepped on and folded back.

   The evolutionary body that lost its balance fell short and fell to the side. Lao Bai immediately poked a dagger into its skull, and violently stirred it.

  Unexpectedly, the guy whose brain was pierced seemed to be fine.

  Old Bai suddenly understood.

   This guy's nerve center is not in the head!

   Maybe there is no such thing at all!

   "Extend the distance!"

  Suddenly Ye Shi's voice came from the communication channel.

  Old Bai was overjoyed, and before the evolved body stabilized his body, he kicked on its chest again, kicking it to the ground and staggering backwards for a while.

  The decayed and thick alloy arm clasped the wall on one side, and the stiff five fingers scraped against the wall with a tooth-piercing friction sound.

  The moment the two power armors separated, Ye Shi, who was lying at the end of the corridor and set up the "Viper" Gauss rifle, had finished aiming and pulled the trigger.

"boom-!"

  The light of the electric arc flickered for a moment, and the mass bomb released from the chamber was instantly accelerated to Mach 4.5, and the roar of the sonic boom echoed throughout the corridor.

   The attack comes from behind!

  Target is the most vulnerable area of ​​the Power Armor.

  The evolved body didn't have time to react, and the durability of the neglected armor was already stretched. Facing the terrifying armor-piercing ability of the electromagnetic gun, it was instantly pierced.

   And at the same time that the evolved body was staggered forward by the kinetic energy of the mass bomb, Lao Bai, who seized the opportunity, swung the melting cutting ax violently, and slashed across with it.

  A fiery red light flickered.

  The magma-like hot airflow instantly cut through the armor of the evolved body's left shoulder, poured in from the crack in the armor, and instantly burned the soft tissue inside into coke.

  The scarlet light finally faded, and the evolved body knelt heavily on the ground, no longer moving.

  Ye Shi, who put away his rifle, stepped forward, glanced at the evolutionary body that fell on the ground, and said in amazement.

   "Good guy... Slime mold can even activate power armor!"

  Different from the "Corrupted Knight", the nuclear battery of this power armor is obviously still working, but most of the electronic components inside the armor have been damaged.

   "They can even drive Titans, not to mention power armor..." Lao Bai walked over and patted him on the shoulder, and said with a smile, "Nice job! Have you done it?"

  Ye Shi said with a smile.

   "It's done... The mother body is not in the laboratory, there is nothing there, we took away the experiment log there under the instructions of the administrator, and then he ordered us to go around this corridor to support you... What about you?"

  Old Bai shook his head.

   "Not found... We have searched most of the area, and we haven't even seen the shadow of the mother body."

  Ye Shi was taken aback.

   "Could it be in the wind?"

   Almost as soon as the voice fell, a line of pop-up windows flashed on the VMs of the players.

  Seeing the text in the pop-up window clearly, Ye Shi's expression changed suddenly.

   "Fuck...my crow's mouth is opened!"

  Lao Bai didn't talk nonsense, he reached out to pick up the rifle on the ground and the mace he threw out earlier.

   "Go! Help him go!"

  …

  B6 layer.

  Biological laboratory computer room.

   I saw rows of chassis displayed on metal shelves, which had been completely swallowed by dark red slime mold.

  In the room covering an area of ​​hundreds of square meters, there are wriggling bacteria clumps as far as the eye can see. The entire computer room seems to have become a sea of ​​slime molds, and there is no place to stay under the steps of the main entrance!

  Translucent, egg-shaped flesh-red films floated on the ocean, like cocoons made of silk, beating restlessly.

   "It" seems to have just woken up.

  I am excited about the sudden recovery of the "climate" and the long-lost prey!

   Looking at the scene in front of him, Gu Feng and the teammates behind him had a dazed expression on their faces.

   Swallowed, quit smoking and looked at the smartest guy in the team.

   "This... how to recycle?"

  Guang Feng shook his head solemnly.

"have no idea…"

  The case has been completely submerged by the ocean of slime mold, each case is completely stuck, not to mention finding the hard disk hidden in a certain case, even how to get close to the rows of cases is a problem.

  Treading over these slime molds...

  It always feels like something big will go wrong.

  Guang Feng calmly analyzed after thinking for a moment.

   "In short, we have to clean up the slime mold here... I'm afraid this is not an ordinary slime mold nest, maybe it's a shrunken mother nest."

  Including smoking cessation, the three players standing behind the wind talked in low voices.

   "If I'm not mistaken, the mission requires us to recover this guy..."

   "Recycling? It's turned into a swimming pool... No matter how many inhibitors are used to numb it, how do we get it out of this room?"

   "I'm tired, let's blow it up."

   "It's impossible to blow up... The experimental data we need to recover is still in the hard disk of one of the chassis."

   The player who performs the task is caught in a dilemma.

  The same goes for Chu Guang, who was sitting in the reading room watching the battle.

   It is very easy to get rid of the brood there. Players are allowed to enter the B6 floor with heavy weapons, and it is enough to insert a 155 into it and detonate it manually.

   If one shot is not enough, then two shots.

  Detonating a heavy grenade in a closed environment, the shock wave generated by the explosion alone is enough to kill the organisms in the room several times.

   But the trouble is, the data stored in those boxes...

  Due to the damage of the transmission line, it is impossible to remotely control and upload those data to the server of the shelter. The hard disk in the server can only be removed manually.

   Don't say that powerful weapons can't be used.

  Pouring gasoline, pouring sulfuric acid, etc. may not work well.

   At this moment, Yin Fang's heart suddenly moved.

   "What if you fight fire with fire?"

  Chu Guang froze for a moment.

   "Fire against fire?"

  Yin Fang nodded excitedly, while gesturing with his index finger, he described the genius idea he just came up with.

   "For example...introduce another mother from the outside, use the incompatibility of different slime mold populations, and let the mother deal with the mother!"

   Chu Guang froze for a moment, his eyes lit up immediately.

  Good guy, drive away the wolf!

  The idea...

   Surprisingly good.

   Then just when he was about to say affirmation, Heya, who was standing aside with her arms folded, sighed,

   "Where are you going to get the matrix? The matrix closest to us is also in the city center."

  Yin Fang froze for a moment.

   "Isn't the nest that can produce nibblers a mother?"

"That thing is called an incubator!" Heya complained, "They don't store the complete gene pool of the entire population, at most they can be regarded as production organs and signal repeaters that produce certain products! They have separated from the mother's body or brood Covered with spores, they will shrink in a short time, get that thing in, and at most it will be used as fertilizer for the slime mold inside."

   Speaking of this, Heya, who still has no memory of the No. 7 oasis site, added a sentence immediately afterwards.

"However, this idea is not entirely a bad idea. I heard that there seems to be a relatively benign mutant slime mold in that Lost Valley... If you can get the mother body there, maybe you can not only get rid of the slime mold on the B6 layer, but also get A group of benign bacteria!"

  That's a really good idea.

   It would be better without that titan.

   A monster that can't be killed by a nuclear bomb, he hits it with his head!

  Pretending not to see the radiant eyes, Chu Guang coughed lightly, and looked at Yin Fang who was standing aside.

   "Heya is right... this method is still open to discussion."

  Heya: "Uh, what I want to express is actually—"

   Chu Guang interrupted her and continued.

   "In short, before deciding to take any measures to solve the slime mold there, we should first investigate the experiment log to see if the research results there are worth our risk."

   As he spoke, Chu Guang looked at Xiao Qi who was sitting on the desk, and ordered.

   "Xiao Qi, ask the team on the B6 floor to withdraw with the experiment log."

  Holding her right fist to her chest, Xiao Qi replied playfully.

"receive!"

  …

  Mission half done.

  Chu Guang gave players only half of the rewards.

   Insert the memory card that saves the experiment log into the holographic computer pen, and a light blue holographic image is quickly projected in the center of the browsing room.

  The first thing to play is a holographic image.

  In the video, a strange man is standing, talking with someone outside the camera.

  He was wearing a refuge uniform, and the characters [G-13] were printed on the chest label, which should be his serial number.

  From the point of view of the filming, neither he nor the person he was talking to realized that he was being secretly filmed.

  “…this planet has been polluted, in other words it is beyond salvation.”

"This is a crueler method of extermination than neutron killing. These slime molds, which are designed to destroy us, are more adapted to our homes than we are. They will not kill us directly, but will kill us directly. Places are growing wildly, chasing our footprints, and squeezing our living space. Our descendants can only abandon the city, migrate to the suburbs, or stay and become their fertilizer!"

"The legacy we leave to our children will eventually dry up. As the level of production continues to decline, this planet will no longer have the soil to accommodate advanced production relations. Our civilization will grow in the opposite direction, first declining to Feudalism, then slavery, and finally tribes...until we became beasts and were eventually replaced by something more savage."

"Yes, our black box is still working, but what about 1,000 years from now? 10,000 years from now? Once the trend is established, it will be difficult to reverse it. If these problems cannot be solved now, the future will only be worse...to the end At that time, let alone a professional biological laboratory, our descendants may not even be able to make a microscope, so what can we use to study those things?"

"This is not alarmist, the fact is that the retreat of civilization has begun before the winter is over. Look at the community we are monitoring, it is now called 'Blood Hand' or something... I bet, even if it survives After this winter, those people will not be smarter than monkeys!"

   "The seeds of barbarism have invaded their brains, and they will become the source of chaos. Like the ancient nomads, they will use the most primitive methods to plunder the wealth of civilized people. At least the survivors in this suburb cannot escape their claws."

"I don't understand why the professor would acquiesce to that guard, risk revealing the location of the shelter, and use his precious radio to help a bunch of hopeless idiots... Whatever his motives, the guard committed suicide, his plan Definitely a failure, but I can't bet on a loser!"

   "But he is the manager, or do you have any better ideas?" The person standing opposite researcher G-13 finally made a sound, and the whole video is no longer a one-man show by researcher G-13 alone.

  Maybe seeing the heartbeat on the man's face, researcher G-13 continued to talk happily.

"certainly!"

  "Slime molds are very adaptable, we will be stronger than them, and it will not be us, but them that will be swallowed!"

  The man continued to ask hesitantly.

   "How are you going to do it?"

   "Synthetic Matrix!"

  Researcher G-13 responded in a decisive voice, and his idea unexpectedly coincided with the immature brain hole Yin Fang had proposed before.

   "We can cultivate mature somatic cells into embryonic stem cells, and we can also reverse-reduce mature fruiting bodies into broods!"

   "We will recompile the gene pool of the hive, allowing them to become our shape under our intervention!"

  Those pupils shone with the light of ambition.

  Researcher G-13 continued speaking in a voice that paused every word.

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

   "And we will control the evolution!"

  (end of this chapter)