Chapter 279: Blood Crystal Road p1
“What if the evolution is successful? What will happen?”
Lin Jiayao was certain the system had heard her question.
But the system remained silent, not responding immediately.
Seeing the system prompt box remain open but unchanging, Lin Jiayao rephrased her question.
“So far, no creature has reached the so-called S-rank, right?”
After Lin Jiayao changed her question, the system finally responded.
“[Yes]”
“Judging from the evolution speed and degree of A-ranks on land and in the ocean, there shouldn’t be any blood crystal that’s strong enough to attempt an S-rank evolution.”
Lin Jiayao looked up at the gloomy sky above New Delhi and continued asking mentally:
“Those numerous failed evolution cases you mentioned, did you see them on other planets?”
“[Yes]”
“What happened to those planets in the end?”
“[If the host upgrades the Control Center, they might get the answer they seek.]”
The system still gave the same response about upgrading the Control Center. No matter how Lin Jiayao rephrased her questions, she couldn’t get any more information from the system.
It seemed the system had entered its default, uncooperative state. Whenever she asked any core questions, the system would repeat the same line about upgrading the Control Center.
It seemed she couldn’t avoid upgrading the Control Center. She had to quickly gather five hundred Blood Crystals, before things got worse.
The information she had now was enough to convince Lin Jiayao that she had to upgrade the Control Center, and quickly.
Actually, the Flesh and Blood Iron Maiden—no, she should give it a new name now. Flesh and Blood Iron Maiden was just one of its forms.
Given that most of its abilities came from breeding and fusing various zombie corpses, Lin Jiayao decided to give it a simple, memorable name: Worm Ancestor.
It was also a homophone for “worm clan” and “recombination,” which fit its abilities.
In Lin Jiayao’s view, the Worm Ancestor was more like a “tool” than a zombie. If there was a Hive Zombie like Goldie as the core, controlling it and connecting the entire Zerg network, their combined destructive power would be more than the sum of their parts.
She would try their fusion later, but not now.
Lin Jiayao stopped her train of thought and returned to the initial problem.
In fact, the Worm Ancestor currently controlled a massive amount of Blood Crystals, definitely exceeding five hundred.
Because it had spread its sticky blanket across almost half of India, and these blankets were all using Blood Crystals to create eggs.
But because Lin Jiayao forcibly logged in and took control of its body, almost all the eggs had died and burst.
The areas in India that were originally affected by the super infection had now become a “sea of blood crystals,” with ownerless Blood Crystals everywhere, lying on the sticky blanket, waiting to be harvested.
Of course, Lin Jiayao could also use the sticky blanket and the Blood Crystals on it to create more insect eggs, using the Blood Crystals to hatch new insects.
But doing so would consume too much—Lin Jiayao had seen this consumption rate before, it was even more outrageous than burning money.
Therefore, Lin Jiayao definitely couldn’t convert all the Blood Crystals on the sticky blanket into insect eggs, but she had to find a way to collect all the Blood Crystals and bring them back to her main body.
Lin Jiayao planned to have her flapping-wing insect clone stationed in Rajshahi City, Bangladesh, which bordered India, and wait for the Worm Ancestor to transport all the Blood Crystals to the border before finding a way to bring them back.
After all, even if it was controlled by her, the super infection still existed, and her flapping-wing insect couldn’t rashly touch these sources of infection.
She would first plant the Black Stem Fungus at the Indian border, then have it harvest the Blood Crystals in Rajshahi City, and have the Black Stem Fungus mass-produce giant insects or other genetically fused creatures for transportation, waiting at the border.
At the same time, she would have the Awakened team assembled by her sister prepare a reception team after completing this mission, clearing the road while waiting for the arrival of the Blood Crystal transport team, and escorting these Blood Crystals back to Kun City.
As for how the Worm Ancestor would collect these Blood Crystals scattered across India…
Lin Jiayao had already found a way, and it was even more efficient than Goldie.
When she saw the login interface before, Lin Jiayao specifically paid attention to the areas previously dyed with purple blood, and the blood crystal reserves in various places after the purple-red marks disappeared.
Besides New Delhi, which had the most, there were four places with the highest blood crystal concentrations.
Islamabad in Pakistan, Mumbai, Bangalore in India, and Kathmandu in Nepal.
Fortunately, because of the Himalayas, the super infection hadn’t crossed the mountains and spread to China.
Including New Delhi, Lin Jiayao only needed to establish five blood crystal collection points and didn’t need to fill all the areas with insect eggs.
After glancing at the Extraction Points, perhaps because of its extremely low mobility, the Extraction Points set by the system this time were all within ten kilometers in four directions.
In the Worm Ancestor’s current state, she could reach them within an hour.
And the extraction time was a full eight hours. Lin Jiayao could take advantage of this ample time to set up the “Blood Crystal Collection Station” here first.
Under Lin Jiayao’s control, three pairs of gray bone legs slowly emerged from the Worm Ancestor’s neck, gently gripping its purple, spherical, crystal-like head.
“Crack—”
The crystal-like head slowly shattered, emitting a fluorescent purple light.
At the same time, in Mumbai, 1100 kilometers away from the capital New Delhi, a drastic change occurred.
This city, known as India’s Little Donghai, was shrouded in the darkness before dawn.
Originally, Mumbai was a station for Awakened, and it also attracted a large number of ordinary people to seek refuge, establishing a large survivor fortress here.
But now, this city fortress was filled with only the silence of tall buildings and residential areas, without a single light, and there were traces of seawater erosion everywhere, and many corpses of marine creatures on the ground, but not a single human in sight…
No, there were still humans.
In a modified building, almost every floor was packed with countless people.
From hundreds of people on the first to tenth floors, to more than a hundred people on the eleventh to twentieth floors, and then to a dozen people on each floor of the top floor, the higher up, the more ammunition, furniture, food, and other items there were, and the safer it was. The hierarchy was very clear.
But now, from the first to about the fifteenth floor, it was almost completely filled with turbid, purple-red pus. This pus seemed to have a life of its own, clinging to the walls and corpses. Most of the bodies had their bellies burst open, leaving only pus and blood and blood-stained bones.
The insect eggs in their abdomens had exploded.
And from the fifteenth floor up, the purple-red sticky blanket was still there, but there were no people on the ground. Almost all of them had hanged themselves in various postures between the floors.
Their abdomens had also burst open, some even only had their limbs and heads hanging there.
The higher up, the more female figures there were, but they hadn’t escaped the fate of being infected. Some of them were even engaged in sexual acts before they died, their bodies still connected, forming grotesque conjoined corpses through the fusion of the mucus.
Although she didn’t know what exactly happened, judging from the distorted and strange expressions on their faces, she could tell what they had experienced.
Whether it was the “poor” who awakened after the apocalypse or the “rich” who became ordinary people after the apocalypse, they were all crammed into this building and died tragically, seemingly without any ability to resist.
These were the organization members who didn’t choose to evacuate from Mumbai. This largest Awakened settlement in India, which had lost contact with New Delhi about three weeks ago, didn’t fall to the invasion of the seabed zombies, but died from the super infection that swept in from inland.
Under the moonlight, this area was filled with Blood Crystals reflecting the moonlight, with a strange blood-red color, piled on the sticky blanket, like some kind of mineable ore.
Some of these Blood Crystals and fragments came from human Awakened, but most came from seabed zombies.
She didn’t know how long Mumbai had been in this deadly silence, but suddenly, a strange purple light shone from the bottom of the building filled with Awakened corpses.
In the center of the building, a purple-red sticky blanket was emitting a strange light and continuously expanding, forming a purple-red sarcoma on the ground.
The originally translucent sticky blanket seemed to be absorbing the rotting flesh and blood from the corpses through the sticky blanket covering this area, condensing into this nearly ten-meter-sized tumor in the center.
“Thump—”
“Thump—”
“Thump—”
The body kept pulsing, the sound getting louder and louder, gradually becoming like a heartbeat. This tumor became the only solo in this silent city, like the heart of this building.
Soon, the flesh and blood in the building had almost been completely dissolved, and even some of the seabed zombie corpses near the sea had nothing left, not even their bones.
All the nutrients were concentrated at the bottom of this building, nurturing a huge tumor that almost burst the first floor of the building.
“Pfft—”
Suddenly, the huge purple-red tumor burst open.
From different directions of the tumor, several gray bone legs covered with purplish blood extended. These huge legs, one meter in diameter, slowly extended, sticking out of the building and inserting themselves into the ground.
After fixing its body, the outer skin of the tumor began to slowly crack, revealing the terrifying flesh and blood fusion inside.
It was like a fleshy wall pieced together from different skins, eyeballs, and organs. These outer walls almost burst the first floor of the building, making it impossible to see the true appearance of this huge creature through this fleshy outer wall.
But soon, this huge creature opened four “giant mouths” in different directions.
The scarlet cracks opened, and the flesh and blood caves inside seemed bottomless. The fleshy outer wall also accelerated its contraction and expansion, as if it was desperately gestating something.
Soon, with a “pop”, a lump of flesh and blood covered in mucus was spit out.
It was a huge “leather bag” sewn together from flesh and blood organs, but it had two pairs of slender bone legs and a thick pincer growing in front of its face. In the center of the pincer was a rotting eyeball, its dark purple pupil slightly rotating, adjusting its direction.
This strange stitched-together creature didn’t seem very strong, almost to the point of being crushed by a C-rank with a single touch, but its flesh and blood sewn leather bag was somewhat deflated, as if it could hold a lot of things inside.
It was like a low-level product produced after extremely compressing the cost, only able to support movement.
“Tap, tap…”
Slowly, it began to move its two pairs of slender bone legs and crawled in the sticky blanket.
Soon, its pupil locked onto a half-covered Blood Crystal emitting a bright light, and then it quickly crawled towards the Blood Crystal.
“Crack—”
The bone pincer in front of its face, like a robotic arm, grabbed the Blood Crystal covered by the sticky blanket, then opened its huge, toothless mouth, and put the Blood Crystal inside.
“Pop—”
“Thud—”
More and more stitched-together corpses of various shapes were thrown out of the fleshy building. They waved their pincers, rotated their bone arms, and searched for Blood Crystals in this city with their dim pupils.
Soon, the first stitched-together “leather bag” that was released had slowly climbed back, its bulging abdomen indicating that its stomach was full of Blood Crystals.
It stood motionless in front of the building, as if waiting for something.
While it was waiting, the fleshy building devoured more corpses and spat out countless stitched-together corpse monsters. Some looked more agile, and some could even spread the flesh and blood wings on their backs and fly after shaking off the mucus on their bodies.
Finally, as more and more stitched-together corpses gathered in front of the building, a huge crack opened in the center of the building.
This huge tumor pulsed and squeezed, like an animal giving birth, and “spit out” a huge lump of flesh and blood.
This huge lump of flesh and blood, with a depression in the center, stayed in place for a while, and then bones and tentacles began to extend from around it.
These bones from different people were condensed together, and the tentacles and muscles of seabed creatures were attached to them. This five-meter-long, mouthless behemoth opened its huge eyeball in front and slowly lowered its body.
Those flesh and blood “bags” that were originally staying in place climbed onto the behemoth’s body and poured the collected Blood Crystal fragments onto it.
After about an hour, after the Blood Crystals inside had accumulated to more than half, a layer of blood membrane slowly covered these Blood Crystals.
This behemoth slowly propped up its short but muscular bone legs and walked towards the border of India along the path paved by the sticky blanket with heavy steps.
Like a hollowed-out, one-eyed, stitched-together Kodo beast, it had no combat ability, and its only purpose was transportation. (TN: Referring to the Kodo beast unit in Warcraft)
At the same time, besides Mumbai, Islamabad, Bangalore, Kathmandu, New Delhi, and the Indian Ocean were all forming the same blood crystal collection and transportation units.
A “Blood Crystal Road” spanning several countries was slowly taking shape, continuously transporting Blood Crystals from India and the surrounding countries affected by the super infection to Kun City, China.
The consumption of building such a huge transportation network was undoubtedly huge, but compared to the harm caused by the Worm Ancestor itself, this consumption was nothing.
